So it’s Saturday night and you’re out with friend. Are they the inconsiderate jerk who can’t stop checking their smartphone? Or is that you?

Either way, here’s one way to make dinner a little more interesting.

I’ve seen/heard this described as both “The Phone Stacking Game” and “Don’t Be a Dick During Meals”. It’s been mentioned on a couple of blogs, but a quick  straw poll of my friends suggests that it hasn’t become widespread yet, at least on the West Coast. Which is a shame, because it’s perfect for folks in tech.

Here’s how it works: At the beginning of the meal, everyone puts their phone face down at the center of the table. As time goes on, you’ll hear various calls, texts, and emails, but you can’t pick up your phone. If you’re the first one to give in to temptation, you’re buying dinner for everyone else. If no one picks up, then everyone pays for themselves.

You can explain the game in a few different ways. Most obviously, it could be a protest against the incessant, unthinking use of cell phones during social gatherings. Or maybe it’s a game that acknowledges the new reality and tests your willpower accordingly. Personally, I like to think of it as a free market exercise. After all, people love to say, “Sorry, but I have to take this.” Do you have to answer it? Really? Is it that important to you? Great, then you can pay.

No matter what the explanation, it could make for a tense meal. And I look forward to defeating MG Siegler.

[image via Kempt]

The New York Times released its latest earnings report earlier this week, spurring another round of discussion about the newspaper’s paywall, which was near the beginning of this year. The consensus: Early signs are positive, but it’s not doing well enough to offset plummeting print ad revenue.

What’s the solution? Well, if you listen to a number of online media pundits, it’s all about bringing more value to the most devoted members of The Times’ readership. Over at GigaOm, Matthew Ingram suggests, “Regular readers should get more than just a sales rep hitting them up for a monthly payment — the fact that they are a devoted fan should entitle them to earn rewards, whether it’s money off their subscription for interacting with the paper, or offers that others don’t get.” It’s a point he’s made before, as has Clay Shirky, who wrote that “this may be the year where we see how papers figure out how to reward the people most committed to their long-term survival.”

I’m a happy New York Times subscriber, but I have to say: I don’t think The Times is doing a good job on this front, or much of a job at all. It’s odd, because NYTimes.com general manager Denise Warren appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation with Shirky, and she seemed largely on-board with his ideas:

I think Clay has outlined it exactly right. I mean, this model was not designed to get everybody who comes to our website to pay. Clay is absolutely right in terms of the distribution of the audience, and I think this is true for most publishers. The vast majority of people come and turn one article or two articles.

But there is a very loyal minority of folks who told us through rounds and rounds of research that they value the New York Times content, they’d be willing to pay to support the New York Times content. And so the key for us in this model was threading that needle – remaining open to the Web, enabling those who are coming to us for that one article or two article, et cetera, to still enjoy the content but at the same time enable those who are very loyal to have some kind of a different experience with us.

Warren goes on to outline some of the advantages of a Times digital subscription — not just access to unlimited articles (20 per month is the limit for non-paying readers, though there are lots of ways around it), but also to the Times smartphone and tablet apps, as well as bonus apps like Politics and Collections, and email newsletters giving behind-the-scenes portraits of the newsroom. Now, as someone who’s constantly reading The Times on both his laptop and his iPhone, I’m happy to fork over $15 a month isn’t a bad price for those features, but I also feel like they’re a missed opportunity.

As Shirky puts it, newspapers “must also appeal to its readers’ non-financial and non-transactional motivations: loyalty, gratitude, dedication to the mission, a sense of identification with the paper, an urge to preserve it as an institution rather than a business.” Those seem to be some of the main reasons people subscribed, but The Times isn’t doing much to encourage that feeling.

The closest it comes is through its newsletters, but those newsletters also have the clearest shortcomings. I’ve been a Times subscriber since the program started in March, and in that time, I’ve received a total nine newsletters. And of those, five are “Innovations” emails, which function as ads for new features on The Times website — useful, maybe, but not particularly loyalty-inspiring. Emails offering “The Story Behind The Story” are better (though a still a little impersonal for my taste), but they show up about once every two months.

Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan makes an interesting comment about this during his interview with Shirky and Warren: He notes that NPR has convinced one in six listeners to donate, while The Times has only convinced one in a hundred to subscribe. He later says, “If you get into the tote bag business, we’re going to have a problem.”

Here’s the thing about those tote bags — they’re nice, but as NPR broadcasters constantly remind listeners, they’re not the real reason to donate. To pick an example from my local NPR station, is there anyone who would pay $144 just because it’s a great deal on a KQED hoodie? (I hope not.) They make the donation because they love KQED, and the hoodie is a sign of their dedication.

Compare that to The Times digital subscription page and pricing model, which are all about functionality — there are three pricing levels, and they reflect different levels of mobile access. That approach has its limitations — from a functional equivalent, it can be hard to justify the price, especially when you take into account the easiness of circumventing the paywall and the low price of other online services. (As a friend pointed out, it’s $15 a month for the cheapest plan, which is more than a basic Netflix subscription.)

To keep The Times in business, however, I’m happy to pay $15 a month, and I’d probably be fine paying significantly more. I don’t think the basic subscription price should change (if anything, it seems a little high), but I suspect the paper could also offer higher price points without providing a dramatic improvement in the product. It just needs rewards that make subscribers feel loyal to The Times, and maybe a little special — the digital equivalent of a tote bag.

Editor’s note: Nick Cronin is a former corporate attorney and now the President and Founder of ExpertBids.com, which is based in Chicago.

For more than a decade now, the Internet has done a great job of making things in our day-to-day lives more efficient by easily connecting parties who can have a mutually beneficial personal or business relationship. This same idea is now on the verge of disrupting labor and changing the definition of employment as we know it.

The Rise of the Independent Worker.

Over the past couple of years, there has been a huge increase in the number of workers who operate as some sort of independent, free-agent contractor or consultant. Though the numbers vary greatly, the consensus seems to be around 20 percent of the U.S. workforce, and growing (with some estimates up to 50 percent by 2020). Think about that, one in every five workers are currently unattached to any one company!

Expert explanations for this rise vary as much as the number itself, but I believe the two most important factors, by far, are:

1. Technology. Never before has a physical space represented less. An office building, in and of itself, often holds no more tools necessary to perform a job than someone can carry with them. Computers, phones, the cloud, and an overall connectedness has produced an environment where location is becoming less and less relevant. Not having to rely on someone else for the tools of productivity has given substantially more people than ever before the ability to be an independent worker. (No doubt there remain exceptions).
2. The economy. The recent recession has resulted in layoffs and very high unemployment numbers. Further, there is a whole new generation coming of age believing that long-term employment at one company is a remnant of the past. Whether this is because they have read about layoffs, experienced it with their family or friends, or any other reason — many people, regardless of age, no longer feel comfortable or stable at a traditional job. So the economic conditions have forced some into an independent role by necessity, and it has motivated a countless number of others to explore work options outside of the traditional job.

Armed with the technology and connectedness, people are setting out on their own in record numbers. But where are they finding work?

Changes in How Companies ‘Hire’ Labor.

Labor efficiency is about having the right workers for the tasks which need to be accomplished. This includes tasks of all types and in all areas. More than ever, this is being accomplished by having lean, flexible workforces which come and go as projects demand. Increasingly, employers are parsing up tasks and having temporary, project-basis workers complete the tasks.

Take one gigantic U.S. company, Caterpillar Inc., who recently reported that they hired almost 30,000 flexible, contingent workers in the last quarter of 2011. By almost every study, companies of all sizes are emphasizing a lean workforce, and hiring on project-basis engagements more and more (though not all are as drastic as Caterpillar). This trend is not limited to factory workers or computer programmers or any one group — workers in every industry and profession are seeing this increase.

For a company to hire someone, there are many costs beyond a salary and benefits (which in and of themselves are substantial!). There are recruitment efforts, on-boarding costs such as supplies and training, and finally costs when the employee leaves, such as unemployment premiums, severance packages, and HR costs. Now, instead of choosing to go the route of employing someone, companies have the option of hiring some of the millions of independent workers out there for substantially less. Instead of paying all the associated costs, businesses can parse tasks up into projects and find experts to do them very efficiently – only having to pay for the work completed, not the secondary costs discussed above. Additionally, they can more easily expand and contract their workforce as supply and demand dictate.

Not only are the large businesses hiring more independents, this trend is trickling all the way down to the millions of bootstrapped startups who hire (outside of the founders) only independents for projects as they grow their company. The era of the lean, flexible workforce is here and guess where both companies and independents are increasingly locating each other. Yep: The Internet.

Time for Disruption.

There are already plenty of companies out there connecting one party who needs a service with another who can provide it. TaskRabbit and Zaarly specifically are two startups that have grown very quickly. But we are just beginning to scratch the surface of how the Internet is going to disrupt labor. The real change will come as more and more of the traditional job creators, small businesses all the way up to the Fortune 500s, realize the benefits of flexible workforces and more and more individuals take the plunge into independent, free-agent land — whether by necessity or choice.

There are many companies working to facilitate the connection between project-basis workers and companies. Marketplaces like ODesk and Elance provide a worldwide platform of freelancers in a variety of different fields. Some of these marketplaces are aimed more towards commoditized services, but increasingly they encompass services of all types. OnForce allows companies to retain the services of IT professionals for projects. WorkMarket is a labor resource platform. Crowdspring and 99Designs are creative services marketplaces. And finally (though there are countless others that could be included here), my company ExpertBids.com is a professional services marketplace for consultants, lawyers, and accountants. Every day it seems a new vertical labor marketplace launches. There are many obstacles these companies must overcome still, but change is coming.

Some have criticized this shift, saying this type of labor and employment is only increasing inequality and the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. We need to begin looking deeply into this trend and how it is affecting people, but an efficient labor system can have major advantages to both parties.

A marketplace where tasks are accomplished by the right people, at the right time, and at the right price (not lowest price, the right price) may seem to favor the employer. But think about an independent who has very little overhead, can work from anywhere, at anytime, and for anyone and whose income potential is no longer limited by a single salary. Removing wasted time and expenses is something both parties, and the economy as a whole, can gain tremendously from. That is where all of the online labor marketplaces, ExpertBids included, need to assist. We must create efficient platforms that remove the barriers for these two parties to connect in a mutually beneficial relationship.

In brief, Network Warrior, 2nd Ed is the book to read if you are a network administrator trying to get to the next level. All of my praise from the previous review apply to the new book. The book is really that good, primarily because it combines very clear explanations with healthy doses of real-world experience. Thanks to Mr Donahue for taking the time to update his book!

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Copyright 2003-2011 Richard Bejtlich and TaoSecurity (taosecurity.blogspot.com and www.taosecurity.com)