Thomas W. Malone and Robert J. Laubacher, The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy.
Thomas W. Malone is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management
Daniel Pink, FreeAgentNation, (Washington, 2001), ex-speech writer Al Gore
Pierre M. Omidyar, founder and chairman of the online marketplace eBay Inc.
In the course of human events, it has become possible — and even necessary — for all people in countries great and small — to defy all borders and boundaries in the service of real cool projects and in the pursuit of a more dynamic and more personal global economy. It has become necessary to form a Pajama Nation.
The citizens of this Pajama Nation rise up from all countries, races, creeds, and economic conditions. Wherever any individual or small group can get their hands on a machine that is linked to the World Wide Web, there they shall find World Wide Work and World Wide Workers, and there they shall be welcomed as citizens of Pajama Nation.
No more! shall the advantages of the new globalized economy be available only to the giant corporations and their cronies in power.
No more! shall traffic jams and teeming hordes prevent us from realizing our visions... or just making some very sweet cash! Out of the streets and back into the homes!
From this day forth — armed with mighty keyboards — citizens of this Pajama Nation shall connect with their fellow citizens to create the dynamic and distributed new economy of the long tail homeworker revolution. In this Pajama Nation, homeworkers, freelancers and micro-preneurs rise up to create a new world, a world of autonomous persons and small groups working locally and connecting globally. Linked together in a Pajama Nation, this new network of millions of small projects and happily paid homeworkers will become the greatest economic force the human species has ever met!
Pajama Nation citizens! Homeworkers, freelancers, small businesses, and micropreneurs, rise up! You have nothing to lose but your dependence on the old, tired, static, office-bound businesses of the past.
The Micropreneur/Homeworker Pledge
- Homeworkers and Micropreneuers — Pajama Nation citizens all — shall treat one another in a civil, dignified manner.
- In order to make this great new nation work, Pajama Nation citizens shall always act on promises, delivering work and payment in accordance with any and all reasonable expectations.
- Pajama Nation citizens shall not agree to many deals at once, with the intention of only delivering on the best or most convenient transaction.
- Pajama Nation citizens shall be available as frequently as reasonable and possible to communicate with their fellows on any given project. Unlike some corporations we shall not name, PajamaNation citizens shall not make it difficult to speak to a real human being who is capable of answering question, when questions arise.
- Pajama Nation citizens shall maximize the autonomy, creativity and enjoyment allowed their fellow project participants to the greatest degree possible in each case.
- Pajama Nation citizens shall obey the laws of their home nation state or shall not hold the good people in the Pajama Nation responsible if they don't.
- Pajama Nation citizens shall always seek the edge. With the help of the Pajama Nation leadership, Pajama Nation citizens will be agents of change, for themselves, for their communities, and for the planet.
