Buying friends’ time: when should we do it?
For a long time I had no way of knowing who to ask specific technical questions of, and now – thanks to the power of social media – I suddenly know loads of people on whose expertise I can call. The trouble is, when does the relationship become professional and require a financial commitment?
This morning I needed some advice on WordPress MU, and was able to think of a number of personal contacts that I could ask. However, I would have been asking on behalf of my employer and therefore would be taking advantage of people’s goodwill by expecting free advice from people who would usually charge for it. So I emailed some of my new friends for their professional rates.
This has created a couple of dilemmas.
Firstly, there’s the question of loyalties. If each of my friends have the same skills, how do I decide which to give my money to? I guess I just have to be professional and choose against which will be best value for money for my employer. It feels a bit uncomfortable though.
Secondly, and much less easy to answer, is the question of boundaries: when are my friends my friends and when are they my consultants?
I believe that – for most office jobs – the boundaries between professional and personal lives are blurring to the point of being indistinguishable. Thanks to social media, and technology in general, we can now be available at any time for both friends and colleagues. This means that employers who refuse to accept that are missing out by not being where their market is at any point; and are probably therefore unwittingly discouraging their employees from being loyal to their jobs outside ‘office hours’.
I, and my employer, have benefited hugely from the use of social media by myself and colleagues. Those inane little messages – that take practically no time to send and respond to – help to create personal relationships which can be unimaginably valuable for support on a professional level.
But, as I’ve said, these sometimes need formalising as professional relationships. The paradox is that, by formally identifying professional connections with friends, do I thereby force them into being consultants during my work time and friends outside of it: and in turn reinforce the work-life divide and the 9-5 ethic that I believe are vanishing?
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Here’s a simple model for you, which you can reverse to give you your answer.
In my wife’s company she can advise you on your suitability to apply for some funding. She can not even look at any subsequent application that you might make: it is assessed fairly by her colleagues who do not know you.
Be the bridge, ask the questions, put names to your boss but remove yourself from the decision making process. Your friends will benefit from an open door, but have to stand on their own two feet. That’s as fair as you can get in this situation!
i’m not sure this is such a big – or new – problem as it appears, since after all people have been asking & receiving answers to technical questions on usenet for over 20 years !
where the boundary i think lies is in expectation – if you post in public a request for help, any & all may choose to answer as they see fit. or you may not receive an answer at all. if you expect an answer, then you should expect to have to pay for it.
if somebody happens to know the answer & it takes them about five minutes to post the reply (or refer you to the location on the interwebs where they know the answer is), then it’ll probably be more effort for them to raise an invoice than it was for them to answer in the first place ! but if that somebody is going to have to spend an hour or more on something unique to your query, then it’d be ace for them to say ‘put your money away, son’, but it’d probably be for the best if you considered some form of payment.
but ultimately, remember – none of us who do technical things with the internet have learned all we know solely from paying for training courses, buying books, & hiring contractors; every one of us has gained a significant amount of our own knowledge from the free advice which has been offered freely by others. it’s imcumbent on us all to pass some of that advice on for free as well.
I’d be happy to answer your question, but first I’ll need an order number…
Seriously: I’m happy to answer questions, and give advice freely, even if they draw on my expertise, provided that the person asking them does so well; doesn’t expect me to be their personal search engine, and in the hope that they will “pay it forwards”.
I ask questions of others on the same basis. Over all, things should balance out. Sure, there will be a few who leach from others, and some who put in more then they get out, but such is life, and the cost of worrying about that would be greater then the cost of answering a few additional questions.