CloudFactory Blog

Google Loon + CloudFactory = Global Impact

2014-01-13T16:06:00.000+05:45

Google recently piloted in New Zealand an experimental technology that, when scaled, could provide the opportunity for Internet access for anyone in the world. By connecting a network of solar-powered balloons floating in the literal stratosphere to homes on the ground, individuals in hard-to-connect places can access the Internet. From a marketing and PR standpoint, it’s a win for a company like Google to set themselves up as helping people around the world by connecting them to the Internet.

Though as a business it’s reasonable to expect that Google is looking for a positive return on their investment as much as they’re looking to help the world.

Bill Gates rightly pointed out that while such efforts are great for technology, there are more rudimentary human needs that should be addressed before we jump to “helping” people by giving them the ability to surf YouTube and check their Gmail, especially when they’re dying from malnutrition. Such human needs are many - but to name a few examples: cleaning diseased water supplies, eradicating malaria, and initiating sustainable agriculture systems.

However, Bill Gates underestimates the potential impact. Imagine the beauty of remote-village residents using technology to enable communication with family members abroad. Due to a 45% unemployment rate, Nepal is exporting males in their 20’s at alarming rates who have little ability to communicate with their families back home in the many rural Himalayan villages that dot the Nepal-Tibet border. (Many of these young men are never heard from again.) The simple ability to communicate with family can be a life-giving source of encouragement. But what’s more, with a more ubiquitous presence of technology comes the ability to set-up simpler financial distribution systems to literally help their families at home with the money they earn abroad. With more capital infusion to rural poor areas comes an increased possibility to start and grow small businesses, which in-turn grows the potential for people to take control of their basic human needs in healthier and more robust ways.

Even more exciting are opportunities that can be envisioned when you combine a technology like Google Loon with the impact CloudFactory has to offer. Now not only is communication and financial distribution enabled, but actual participation in a global marketplace becomes a real possibility for one of the ninety or so ethno-linguistic people groups scattered among remote mountain villages. This pervasive access to the Internet could bring digital jobs and inject earned and much needed money into rural communities.

Imagine an Earthquake in the low-population remote Himalayas: Any existing communication infrastructure is severely hampered by an Earthquake. In the past it would be a blurb at the bottom of a news report. But with Google Loon + CloudFactory, increased visibility into needed emergency response to remote areas also becomes plausible.

Image Courtesy: Project Loon

CloudFactory’s model to this point has focused on primary and secondary cities. CloudFactory has proven its worker model in Kathmandu and Pokhara (a beautiful, but accessible city attractive as a get-away from Kathmandu, and launching point for the Annapurna trekking circuit), and is replicating itself at this moment in Nairobi and expanding soon in Nakuru. Part of CloudFactory’s future road map includes rural, less accessible villages, and the less-English-speaking areas vastly underserved by the urban migrations of the last century and more.

In combining Google Loon and CloudFactory, one could imagine an opportunity for a rural mountain-top farmer to supplement his income by logging into the web-based CloudFactory Worker Platform a few hours a week, getting paid for as many tasks as he wishes (and also using Google Loon to check the weather and increase his crop output). With localized economic growth among otherwise impoverished rural populations, one can then envision less need for young Nepalis to go abroad, families staying together more, and less pressure to undergo even domestic urban migration. With this then comes the availability of information and capital to see a scalable self-initiated, self-maintained effort to improve rudimentary human conditions like healthy water supply, disease reduction, and (through newly enabled communication channels) to engineer supply-lines of raw materials to make poverty alleviation of all sorts possible.

Due to its topography and economy, Nepal may be the most strategically difficult country to connect to the Internet. As perhaps the largest technology company in Nepal, CloudFactory would be very open to work with Google to pilot and test the true economic impact of internet access to the otherwise inaccessible.

Posted by John Snowden, VP of Solutions

Capitalize on Culture

2013-11-29T11:44:00.000+05:45

As CloudFactory expands operations into Kenya I was reminded of the concept of DNA and how it plays such an important role in the formation of life. The challenge of transferring DNA is that outside the species you lose the ability to create. Napoleon Dynamite was a fan of Ligers for their skills and magic. Fortunately we need not worry about the world being overrun with Ligers thanks to the DNA transfer problem. Even if DNA were transferred easily, it takes a lion and a tiger to tango and they are not on the same continents. Tigers dig Asia and Lions roll in Africa.

In some odd way or another this is the challenge that we are excited to undertake. How can we transfer the DNA of CloudFactory, an award winning impact sourcing company, from Asia to Africa. CloudFactory was born and raised in Nepal. Like many Asian countries the culture that permeates the land is one of honor. I’m not an anthropologist, but the role of group identity is seen very well in Nepal and it gives our teams of data entry workers a great bond and ability to reach goals together. As we move into Kenya we are bringing many lessons learned in building a scalable workforce that not only excels in data entry but is growing every week in leadership skills and giving back to their communities in unique ways.

However, Africa is not Asia. Many African nations operate on a culture that seeks to maximize power rather than honor. The bigger ones get their way and the littles ones stay out of the way. Take a trip around the Nairobi’s infamous traffic jams and you’ll experience this reality for yourself. Even in a new culture, the way that we work is challenging and brings out the best in people. A recent post on our community blog shows that early teams in Kenya are giving their time and treasures back to others and learning as they serve.

Despite the cultural differences between Kenya and Nepal, there are exciting new opportunities to explore. Some of the powerful things that make Kenya an ideal market to power our Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) offerings are the penetration of internet, english fluency, and available talent in the labor force.

We believe that a commitment to excellence in data related work coupled with the opportunity to grow in leadership and community service is both honoring and powerful. Watch out world! The CloudFactory Liger is getting bigger everyday and ready to take on the jungles of data that are quickly growing in organizations everywhere.

Posted by Evan Kubicek, VP Workforce

CloudFactory Honored for Leadership in Impact Sourcing

2013-10-30T14:49:00.000+05:45

Global Sourcing Council Award Recognizes Data Services BPO for Commitment to Socially Responsible Sourcing Practices in Nepal

NEW YORK, N.Y. (October 29, 2013) – CloudFactory, a data services BPO provider and impact sourcing leader, was presented with a 3S Award from the Global Sourcing Council for the positive impact that the company has made on the lives of thousands of skilled workers in Nepal. In a country where unemployment has consistently exceeded 40%, CloudFactory hired, trained and connected more than three thousand hard-working and educated Nepalese to meaningful data-oriented jobs that deliver value to hundreds of organizations around the globe.

CloudFactory delivers significant efficiency improvements for data-intensive processes by combining exceptional business process outsourcing management experience, innovative quality control tools and procedures and a highly advanced cloud workforce management platform. CloudFactory’s platform enables discrete work tasks to be matched to the best possible worker for that given task at any minute of any day. The on-demand aspect of the technology enables CloudFactory to bypass inefficiencies common to traditional business process outsourcers. The result is better quality output, faster delivery times and lower overall costs for data-intensive projects such as transcriptions, audio and video tagging, social media analysis and many other data entry or data processing tasks.

CloudFactory combines this innovative technology approach to business process outsourcing with a deep passion for making the world a better place. The company was founded with the goal of connecting trained and motivated people in developing nations to the larger global economy. “The saddest thing about poverty is wasted talent,” said Mark Sears, Founder and CEO of CloudFactory. “When we started CloudFactory five years ago, we wanted to not only bring opportunity to thousands of deserving people in Nepal and elsewhere, we wanted to create a ripple effect that could potentially improve the lives of millions of people. Today, every employee is a part of a team that meets weekly to learn about leadership, competency, character and accountability and they act upon what they have learned in their own communities. That is what impact sourcing is all about.” To date, CloudFactory teams have completed over 1500 community projects and committed to over 58,000 personal action steps. For more information, visit http://community.cloudfactory.com

About the Global Sourcing Council 3S Awards

The 3S Awards are a tangible, effective and efficient vehicle for promoting the value of Impact Sourcing. The 3S Awards recognize and showcase the exceptional achievements of individuals and organizations in the global sourcing sector that show commitment to sustainability and socially-responsible sourcing practices. For more information on the Global Sourcing Council 3S Awards, visit http://gsc3sawards.com/global-sourcing-council

About CloudFactory

CloudFactory is a distributed workforce company specializing in delivering significant efficiencies and cost savings for data-intensive business processes. Typical clients have large volumes of data entry, data collection or data processing work where quality is the critical component. The work is broken down into microtasks that are completed along "virtual assembly lines" by CloudFactory's global, on-demand, managed workforce. As a social enterprise, CloudFactory exists to connect 1 million people in developing countries to meaningful IT work while raising them up as leaders to address poverty in their own communities. For more information on CloudFactory, visit www.cloudfactory.com

Doing What's Needed

2013-09-26T15:59:00.000+05:45

Doing what needs to get done rarely leads to immediate reward. Ask any mother on this planet about this idea you will get a variety of responses. They might range from penetrating stares that say, “you have NO idea what I do for my kids”. You might get an emotional outburst of crying, laughing generally followed by a string of stories that would make a young bachelor blush. Commonly you will find a simple and humble acknowledgement that important things are rarely acknowledged and their fruit is seen in the future not the present.

Pick any industry, any field or discipline and you’ll find this to be case. What leads to success is not what gets your name in lights today but a dedication to the craft or a love for something greater than instant and quarterly results. I’ve heard it said that maturity is consistent application of basic concepts. Simple, direct and easy to understand. There is no end to ideas that will make the world a better place. I have a few of my own for sure. Yet I will only propose one more for this article, vision or perspective.

Recently, around 30 people came to the office two to three hours earlier than usual and got to work. This time we weren’t staring at our laptops and iMacs but carrying brooms, shovels, and bags. We were tackling a stretch of road that we traverse daily to and from homes and other appointments. After 2 hours of sweeping, shoveling, picking, and pulling trash and overgrown vegetation we had quite a collection of piles to conquer. It was fun to work together. Seeing engineers that usually have eyes glued to screens with handfuls of trash and shovels was a reminder of the fact that we all have an obligation to make the world better in simple ways regardless of our titles and roles.

One moment struck me with an appreciation for the complexity of the challenges that we face. The streets have gutters or trenches about half a meter deep that usually flow with water and waste of varying and questionable nature. After our efforts they were running clean, no trash in sight….for a few mins there was a picture of what life could be without this blight on the community. Then the trash returned. We had worked hard and certainly broken a sweat. Some soft hands were hardened with baby callouses after today. Yet these simple actions alone are not enough to solve a much larger issue. It will take vision and perspective of the challenge at hand to make these efforts lead to lasting fruit.

Was it a waste of time, certainly not. These activities will certainly be needed again and again regardless of how clean we live. Yet none of us should stop here. We must enjoy the moments and successes that come along the way, but not lose sight of the big picture. Learning to walk today must turn into leaping tall buildings in a single bound...next week. What the world needs are super men and women that have the fortitude to carry out their work with excellence while keeping an eye on the horizon.

Pretty big talk for a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company based in Nepal. Nevertheless that’s who we are. We believe that we can employ 1 million leaders that will be transforming everything in and around them for the better. We are constantly looking upstream to ensure that our success today will last and inspire others to do the same. So here’s my challenge to you.

Put your work gloves on, get busy, and keep your head up. We’ll be looking for you.

Evan Kubicek, VP Workforce

Image credit: Kxhitiz, Header image via threesistersbake.co.uk

Revolt by Innovating

2013-09-17T16:40:00.001+05:45

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

World Players

Being a significant player on the global stage is no longer simply an idea for places like Nepal. Nationals all over the world (including Nepal) are taking the initiative and not waiting around for the next NGO/Non-profit/government handout. They are rising up and in the spirit of unity and peace they seek to make their world a better place.

The revolt has already begun and it is branded by innovation. It’s participants are in every facet of daily life. They come from within the highest government offices to the pressured college/university students to the most humble of artisans. They criticize, not through online insults, not through libel, not by mocking and jeering, not by brandishing their weapons and taunting the “powers that be”. No, instead they criticize by creating. Their extravagance is simplicity. They imagine a beautiful world and do their part to create beauty: businesses, art, music, technology, literature, etc.

We recognize people like Anil Chitrakar, a social entrepreneur from Nepal, as an example of what it looks like for a citizen who believes in his country and finds ways to empower society to help themselves and each other. He’s not satisfied with the status quo. He has learned from the past and is determined to not repeat it.

“Young people [...] need to grow up feeling they can give themselves permission to solve social challenges.” - Anil Chitrakar

Social Innovation

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. We admire young innovators like the South African student Ludwick Marishane who invented the brilliant DryBath® using his mobile phone. (You can watch his inspirational TED Talk Here). He didn’t wait around expecting someone else to do the work. "I came up with this idea all because I didn’t feel like taking a bath," said Marishane.

Innovators are unsatisfied with the status quo. The world is waiting for people to take their dreams of a better world, infuse a good amount of hard work and focus, and make those dreams a reality.

Revolution Is Here

It is like a storm. It’s inevitable. It’s unstoppable. Except, it knows that violence is not the way; love is. It seeks not for a hand out but looks for opportunities to extend a hand of compassion to those in need. It is moving with people like you - people who are not afraid to take a stand and who are willing to humble themselves and help those who may have stumbled to stand once again.

Revolutions start with one person. We don’t have to try change the world. We first change ourselves. This will inspire those around us. That will impact society and that can create a positive revolution of social change.

Be the change.

What signs of peaceful revolution have you personally witnessed? What have you improved in your personal life to “be the change” you’ve wanted to see?

Posted by Zebulun Mattos
Image via Ford.ie

Establishing Market Value for Workers in Developing Nations

2013-09-10T12:17:00.001+05:45

CloudFactory is working to connect a million persons in developing nations to basic computer work, while raising them up as leaders to address poverty in their own communities. This is our mission statement. At the heart of what we do is our social mission. We’ve never hidden it and we love to talk about it.

In order to accomplish our mission, we have to establish a marketplace value to potential customers by setting up viable and helpful business processes. Therefore, we are a for-profit business that is married to an imperative of providing value to our customers. We pitch ourselves to potential customers by saying we can help them scale by improving their business processes. As it stands now, we don’t pitch ourselves to potential customers as “help us help people.”

When telling a friend about CloudFactory, she asked why we didn’t position ourselves in the marketplace with our social mission. “Companies (and consumers) in America eat that stuff up”, she argued. Everyone seems to tout how “green” they are in their marketing now. Some companies give away a fractional percent of their revenue, produce a commercial about kids in Africa, and their entire marketing basis becomes about their social impact. Walk into a socially hip coffee shop on Melrose and you are barraged with various beans, gadgets, and impulse-buy items that are tied to messages of global mission.

On one hand, this excites me. Citizens of one country are often aware of and desiring to help those who are struggling in another less developed nation. At first glance, I resonate with this.

I asked my friend a question. I said, if I were selling water, and marketing that water with my social mission, how do you determine the value of the water itself? The value of any product is whatever people will pay for it. But the value of the water in this hypothetical case can’t be decoupled from the value of a PR channel that tries to capitalize on a good human instinct. The water itself is actually de-valued or perhaps un-valuation-able.

A person can likewise be valued in a marketplace. We could ask every person what their marketplace value is. What is your marketplace value? It’s the currency value of any service you’re able to sell to someone for that price. Maybe you’re a programmer. Your market value is whatever you’re able to earn. Are you a filmmaker? The value of your film is the total of what a distributor or end customers are willing to pay. Entrepreneur? The value of your company is based on what price someone is willing to risk for your company’s stock.

Let’s back up. Market value and human worth are not the same thing. I value humans more than I value a human’s market value. I know many people who offer zero to the marketplace but bring incredible worth to families and to fellow humans in their neighborhoods and to the world. But since a human’s physical situation, ability to contribute to family finances, buy bread, and self-worth are related to their offering to a marketplace, a family’s marketplace value is worthwhile. Because we value humans, we want to help those humans engage with opportunities to contribute economic value around their strengths.

Aid is helpful. It helps hurting people. Sometimes it brings clean water, warm clothes, baby-care supplies, and more. It is dignifying to a human in need. Aid does not, however, increase a person’s dignity in the marketplace. It usually does not bring long-term sustainability to a person. The only long-term sustainable economic provision for a family comes through one or more of its members having a measurable marketplace offering.

Because we earn business solely on the merits of our business, CloudFactory is directly helping people realize a marketplace value within a global marketplace so that they can support themselves and their families. We’re exporting labor from Nepal and Kenya without a worker having to leave his home . Each of those workers has a demonstrable contribution to a very real business process. Each also has the opportunity to put that on a resume toward future growth in their ability to provide for themselves and their families.

And while establishing marketplace value, we’re also calling our workers to leadership in order to address poverty around them. Did you catch that? We’re also offering aid through marketplace contribution. As a worker establishes his or her marketplace value, they’ll have free time and disposable money to offer aid to those around them. Aid organizations go around and raise money to give away, which is great. CloudFactory raises people to work and give away their time and treasure, sustainably.

Some assume that profit undermines aid and polarizes resource distribution. But profit can actively provide marketplace value for the disenfranchised, while integrating poverty alleviation and social mission right into their core business. Aid no longer needs to be seen as foreign, external, or paternalistic. It can simply be a neighbor loving a neighbor. And that is one thing that that CloudFactory wants to be all about.

Posted by John Snowden, Director of Solutions

Being Third Culture in the Workplace

2013-08-30T15:48:00.000+05:45

What is happening?

There is no denying it: The world has gone global.

A colossal shift is taking place. The news is bursting with reports of migrations the world over. Famines are resulting in mass IDP’s (Internally Displaced People) forcing them relocate. Students are moving to the big cities, technology is growing smaller, cheaper and faster. Did you know that more than 75% of South Africans lack access to even suitable drinking water but carry mobile phones?

Technology has made the world more accessible. We are more connected than ever before; but you already know that.

We are curious to not just know what and where but also why and how the world going global will affect us.

Why does it matter?

Because of this global shift, it is improbable that you will work exclusively with fellow citizens of your homeland – even if you work in your own country. Indeed, many of you have already made the move and no longer work (at least full time) in your birth country. So many of us have become global citizens and interaction with “foreign” co-workers is inevitable. We are no longer a complete part of our birth culture but neither are we ever fully integrated with the new culture. We, in effect, become something more: third culture.

Here at the CloudFactory office there is a constant blend of multicultural relationships being built. On any given day of the week you can find visitors and guests from all around the world. This doesn’t even include the plethora of employees from here in Nepal, a country which has been blessed with a rich and diverse cultural heritage. Intentional or not, we are learning to be third culture in the workplace.

CAART

A useful acronym for embracing being third culture when working in a multicultural environment is CAART.

Communicate – There is nothing more awkward than two people being in the same room ignoring each other. We’ve all been in that situation. It is up to you to take the initiative and “break the ice”. Start by asking a simple question like where are they from and see where the conversation takes you.

Associate – Find commonalities between you and the other person. Have you been to their country? Do you know any of their native language? Has something happened in their country that has made international headlines? Sometimes there will seem to be nothing you have in common with them. If this is the case, you can always relate on a more personal level. Are they married? Do they have any children? How many members are there in their family?

Adapt – Being adaptable means being flexible. If you know you will be working with a certain new culture then you should learn about it. Even learn some basic phrases of their language. Watch a movie or documentary about their culture. Be sensitive to their customs. For example, if smoking is considered taboo then try to avoid doing so in their presence.

Respect – Respect the person and their culture. For example, some cultures require the women to wear a head covering in public. Don’t stare or make gestures. It’s a fact of life that not everyone does or understands things the way you do. That’s okay. Respect will go a long way in relationships.

Tolerate – Because people do things differently, you may be tempted to get irritated by the way they might do some things. Maybe their culture is okay standing in close proximity to each other, or maybe they prefer more distance. Tolerate the differences and even embrace and celebrate them.

Life is beautiful because of the rich diversity of languages, music, customs, food, clothing, etc. The days of exploration and discoveries of diverse cultures are no longer limited to Magellan, Cook, Polo, Livingstone or Columbus.

You have an opportunity (and I daresay an obligation) to explore the globe and expand your understanding of the world at large. Embrace being third culture. Next time you are in Kathmandu or Nairobi, feel free to stop by, say hi and see the third culture work environment in action!

Start small with the people you work with and just see how much your world opens up! And when you do, know you are making the world a better and more peaceful place to live. It’s about learning to see your own self through the eyes of another person.

What other tips would you share to relate with people of different cultures, especially in the workplace?

Posted by Zebulun Mattos

A view through the eyes of a recruiter

2013-08-26T17:18:00.000+05:45

Last year, a very good friend of mine took a trip to the Chitwan National Park. A few days later when he returned, I asked him about the trip. He said, “It was alright, but I was hoping to see at least one tiger. I did the safari two times, but no tiger. You know they are there, but you also have this lingering feeling that you won’t spot them that easily. So in that sense it was very disappointing”. What has my buddy’s trip got anything to do with what I am writing about? There is a correlation I will get to later on, but before that let me share a little bit about my previous life!

In my previous life, before joining CloudFactory, I used to be a professional recruiter. The nature of my job was such that I would connect with a lot of jobseekers, and a question I always asked each of the candidates I interviewed was, “Why are you looking to switch from your current job?” At times the reason would be money, but most of the time, it would turn out that people were simply unhappy at their current workplace. Upon asking a few more questions, they would often reveal that the lack of trust between them and their supervisors or employers was the main source of unhappiness.

It is consistent with the results of hundreds of research projects carried out. Money motivates us to a certain extent, but the effect of money as an incentive does not last too long. It is like a caffeine high – it hits you like a ton of bricks when you get it, but wears out about as quickly. What keeps people sticking to a job goes well beyond money, and trust certainly makes it to the top of that list.

Most of the unhappy employees I talked to certainly did not feel trusted. The top management would not share any strategic plans with most of its employees. As a result, the employee is not clear about what she/he is working towards. This lack of the bigger context hurts the sense of purpose one has in their work. It also breeds mistrust that slowly disengages the employee, making them question whether their career will advance in that organization. My sad observation has been that a great many organizations fall victim to this practice, including some well-known ones.

The very first time I came to CloudFactory, I was surprised to see there were no cubicles. I could just see a big, open room with three corner offices. The open workspace certainly did look better and to me as an outsider at the time, it also exuded a feeling of unity and equality. I liked what I saw that day at CF, and left for home with a positive impression. I was asked to come in for a second interview about a week later. That is when I found out that everybody at CloudFactory shared an open office space including the executive management of the company. I had automatically assumed that the offices at the corner of the rooms were private offices for executives, and was pleasantly surprised when I found out that they were actually meeting rooms for everyone to use.

My first day of work at CF happened to be on a Monday, which meant that the first thing I experienced was the All Hands Meeting. Of course I did not understand the details of all that was being shared, but it was clear that different departments were sharing updates with each other so that everyone gets an idea of where things are at for the company as a whole. After the meeting, I asked again if this was something that was done every week. I had heard of management meetings, department meetings, team meetings, and so on, but it was my first time seeing a companywide meeting where so real details of the company were shared. As time passed, the content of our All Hands Meeting got richer, and the information that was shared at times involved strategic directions and sensitive issues, something most companies don’t share to its entire team members.

The other thing that was unique about CF was that there was no attendance system. The practice in most companies is that if you arrive later than the start time or leave early, your half day’s pay could be deducted from the paycheck. But at CF, we were not keeping track of who arrived at what time and when they left for the day. [Note: Soon after I joined the company, a door access system was put into place, but that was for the purpose of security to ensure only people who had genuine business were coming in.] The approach CF has taken is that it trusts all of its team members to carry themselves professionally and responsibly. This again was a unique approach compared to the practices of a great many organizations that I knew about.

As a recruiter, I have had the invaluable opportunity to work with and learn about a lot of organizations. It is my observation that CF is one of the few organizations that puts immense trust on its team members so as to engage everyone in the quest to make a great impact on the world. From a recruiter’s perspective, a company like CF is comparable to a tiger in Chitwan National Park – you know they are there, but when you go looking for them, it won’t be easy to find one.

Posted by Kabin Pandey, Human Resources Manager

First Image via Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

Better BPO vs More of the Same - Rethink Outsourcing Your Data

2013-08-21T17:41:00.000+05:45

At CloudFactory we are exploring what it looks like to bring humanity back to the BPO world. Inherent to the BPO industry are people, nearly 5 million of them. Yet simply adding lots of people to the equation doesn’t imply success. Like Grandaddy might say, “Just cause you’re in the garage doesn’t make you a car”.

BPO work is not glamorous and doing it well isn’t easy. That’s why it’s being outsourced by the hundreds of billions of US dollars every year. The demand for the work is high on both sides of the equation. This is one reason why every day millions of people will shuffle into rooms lined with computers and work regardless of how fulfilling the experience may be. Sounds fun right?

We’re finicky creatures, us humans. We do what we want to when we want to do it and we do what we don’t want to do when we don’t want to do it. What’s the solution? I know ROBOTS! That’s it. With ever advancing technology we are able to process data and develop solutions that people may never have been able to do or least not without a big cost.

In fact we have our own robots at CloudFactory and we know how to use them for good. Digital slicing, Machine Learning, Virtual Workflows, Auto Population, you name it and we’re using digital robots to do it or building them anew each week. Just like your own home where technology is embedded in appliances and corners never dreamed of before. Here’s the problem though. Could you buy or build a robot to make your coffee, fry some eggs, and walk your dog? Of course, but are you willing to pay for the research and development of that custom robot, probably not. One day fluffy may go for walkies with your robot but is that living?

There’s always more to the story. We’re all guilty of reducing life to simple scenarios that fit into the world we live in. The world’s a complex place and the decisions we have to make are equally complex. Even the process of how we decide and learn has its pitfalls. Not taking the time to understand is a mistake many make. Taking too long to decide because we don’t have enough information is itself a choice to not choose.

Use common sense solutions. When you can put the incomparable human brain to work do it. When you can automate a solution in a cost effective way do it. In a nutshell that’s what we are doing here at CloudFactory. Billed as “the new face of BPO”, CloudFactory acquired key Google Ventures-backed technology in 2012 that allows us to break up the pieces of any large data workflow into very small micro-units and distribute them out to a highly trained, on-demand workforce. It is this combination of big data, cloud computing, and a distributed workforce that makes CloudFactory so unique. You can think of it as a virtual ‘assembly line’ where humans and technology interact seamlessly, 24/7, to complete the digitization work of the world much faster and with higher accuracy than previous models.

Everyday instead of shuffling into offices and taking their place at an open workspace our Cloudworkers are working from home, cyber cafes, under trees, anywhere they please. That’s freeing. They are part of a team of 5 friends that meet every week to talk about the work and learn leadership principles that impact their work and personal habits for the better. That’s learning mastery of one's destiny. Every 6 weeks Cloudworkers accept the challenge to take their talent, time, and personal treasure and put into action by serving their local communities. That’s a step into a greater purpose. When you put it all together it’s data entry work being done by humans in a super human way and its’ way better than the status quo BPO model.

How do we do all of that, well that’s another blog post my friend. Until then, here’s my toast to the world. Here’s to the people who are not afraid to work with all of their being. Here’s to the companies that choose to employ the whole person and not just their brains or brawn.

Evan Kubicek

VP Workforce

The last mile problem with Big Data processing and how to make the most out of it

2013-08-15T15:50:00.000+05:45

Big Data is all the rage these days.

We all - businesses, government entities, and each of us, in every sphere of our lives are generating “data exhaust” that is being increasingly used to weigh, measure and categorize us. Think about our minute-to-seconds interactions with mobile phones and “All things Internet”, organizations moving their infrastructure to the cloud, the rise of multimedia and social media fueling the exponential growth in the amount of data being captured today -- the result is, Big Data!

It is estimated that by 2014, the amount of data a company handles will double every 1.2 years. While the scale and complexity will continue to increase daily. “If US health care alone were to use big data creatively and effectively to drive efficiency and quality, the sector could create more than $300 billion in value every year.” says a research report by McKinsey Global Institute.

While Big Data is quickly becoming the new competitive advantage, bad data or poor data quality costs US businesses $600 billion annually.

A few weeks ago I ran into an excellent New York Times piece by Steve Lohr about Big Data sizing up and broadening beyond the Internet. In a nutshell, the piece outlines the need to make a shift from computer processing and storage advancement to the fundamentally important question -- How to make better decisions out of all that data?

Data-driven insights, experts say, will fuel a shift in the center of gravity in decision-making. Decisions of all kinds, they say, will increasingly be made on the basis of data and analysis rather than experience and intuition — more science and less gut feel.

Even in the earliest days of Big Data -- when it was synonymous to only pioneering Internet companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook -- I remember lively discussions among data mining experts about the need to engage people and human insights to generate valuable insights from Big Data.

As technology continues to undermine use of traditional labor, the the roles of human insights for better decision-making in Big Data is being replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Fast forward it to the present day -- we have more than a dozen of “Big Data” companies offering better ways to help enterprises to collect this data, process it, analyze it and visualize it.

Splunk helps enterprises to monitor, analyze and visualize machine data. Think customer clickstreams and transactions to network activity and call records.

Quid funnels information from patent applications, research papers, news articles, funding, and others, to create interactive visual maps of current happenings in technology sectors.

DataSift platform allows organizations to improve their understanding and use of Social Media by filtering deductive social data.

Cloudera is the market leader in Apache Hadoop software - the most powerful technology today in Big data storage and processing - both structured and unstructured.

Palantir founded by PayPal alumni and Stanford computer scientists in 2004, they offer software applications for integrating, visualizing and analyzing the world's information.

Strikeiron is the first to deliver data-driven API solutions in the cloud and offers a broad range of products that includes email verification, address verification, reverse phone and address append.

GoodData offers SaaS business intelligence and custom reporting to help companies monetize their Big Data.

The new power accessible via these “Big Data” companies (greater speed and better throughput etc.) is tantalizing -- but the question is, who is solving the “bad data” problem?

Certainly tools taken from the steadily evolving world of AI, like machine learning automatically discover and surface poor data quality. But for businesses where data is absolutely mission critical -- and as the patterns that drive business decisions are increasingly being discovered by machines -- how can we be assured that these non-human judges are emitting valuable insights and not noisy mediocrity?

Either way, if we want to make better decisions out of Big Data, this signal to noise problem badly needs to be solved.

What is left to do in Big Data processing?

Sixty years ago, around the same time when artificial intelligence was born, J. C. R. Licklider, a computer and Internet pioneer proposed an alternative to AI -- Man-Computer Symbiosis, better known as Intelligence Augmentation (IA). Licklider envisioned that tightly-coupled human brains and computing machines, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today.

Licklider's vision of “man-computer symbiosis” proved many of the pure AI systems envisioned at the time by over-optimistic computer scientists as unnecessary -- marking the genesis of ideas about computer networks which later blossomed into the Internet.

[side note: Shyam Sankar, a Data mining innovator also reiterate this early vision of Licklider in his 2012 TED talk - The Rise of Human Computer Cooperation ]

As the other essential technology [beyond computer processing and storage] required in Big Data processing is a “clever software” to make better decision of all the data, this insight -- humans and machines working together as partners not adversaries -- feels more valid than ever. The only part of the Big Data processing that AI will never replace is the intuitive ability of a human mind.

To cut to the point, there will always be a "last mile" problem and opportunity -- In Big Data processing, it is not about humans versus machines or finding the right algorithm -- but it is about the right symbiotic relationship between humans and machines.

------------------------------------------------

Lately I’ve found myself talking with a lot of data intensive companies grappling with this implication of Big Data’s “last mile” problem. Case in point: I recently spoke to a senior executive of a company that specializes in building animatics -- they collect, analyze over a million images/day to build animatic storyboards. Their software scrapes the web for images and an algorithm generates a short description for each image. Their main challenge was that they knew the type of results they would want from the data ( ≥ 98% accurate) but it was computationally difficult to obtain. Their algorithms were highly accurate with tagging images when repeatable patterns were found, but a vast majority of the time image patterns were not ascertainable. Therefore their algorithms were tagging the images inaccurately. To give you an idea, one example was an image of a football displayed with a mis-tag of “Cinderella went to the ball”.

How CloudFactory handles the “last mile” problem of Big Data?

At CloudFactory, our ability to manage the tradeoffs between “accuracy and scale” that is inherent in nature with Big Data processing -- relies on the right mix of human and machine intelligence.

Our machine learning algorithms manage workflows, monitor the reputation of workers and perform quality assurance on each task. While our on-demand and highly scalable workforce can be used to audit or complete specific tasks, verify those done by algorithms or handle the tasks that are difficult for machines alone to accomplish. This combination of effort is the key. Here’s a quick snapshot of a sample CloudFactory 2.0 workflow:

CloudFactory 2.0 Workflow

Because Big Data can be so diverse, our platform uses a combination of super cool cognitive science tricks, game theory, data science and human-computer interaction best practices. These give us a greater ability to solve the unique, large-scale challenges associated with Big Data.

To share your insights or to learn more about how CloudFactory can help solve your “last mile” challenges with Big Data processing, send me an email at ashish@cloudfactory.com. You can also download our fact sheet.

What Makes a Good Microtask?

2013-07-03T16:27:00.001+05:45

A “microtask” is a single task that goes to a single worker that can be done in a short amount of time. It has an input (or set of inputs), and an output (or set of outputs). The worker is paid for completing that task. The client is typically billed based on the amount of time the worker took to do it, or sometimes a flat rate for the task. Microtasks in our system can go as quickly as a few seconds to even as long as five or ten minutes in some cases.

A microtask is also a repeatable task. Each instance of that task has unique input values which directly affect the output. It will be done hundreds of thousands times (or millions of times!) each month by workers for our customers. In our system right now we have one type of task that we’ll repeat more than 229 million times. Each microtask contributes toward the improvement of a business process. Its value is determined by the business need it fills for that company. Business needs range from medical assessment evaluations, to simple transcription, to human judgments.

Whatever that business, it will ultimately succeed or fail based on the accuracy of the microtask’s results en masse. That accuracy is directly dependent on how well that task is set up. In order to maintain accuracy, the task must be:

Simple
Clear
Intuitive

A simple task can happen in as few decision-steps as possible. A clear task should have no ambiguity in its direction. An intuitive task will be obvious to the human eye as quickly as possible - even if some up-front training is required.

Additionally, a task that has a black-and-white answer versus several shades of gray will likely come back with better results. Often times when we’ve added the third “yellow flag” option to a task, workers tend to reach for that option - and that costs a client money. But without the middle option, the chips are down and the worker is going to have to say “yes” or say “no” - or simply skip it and let another worker do it.

(When our data science algorithms deem it necessary - multiple workers review the answer and our system wrangles them toward consensus with each worker being totally blind to the others’ answers.)

One might ask about what type of task makes a good microtask, and that’s also a fair question which you might have expected to find an answer to in this blog. But I see it as a slightly different question - so I’ll be looking to blog on that question soon. Because the truth is there are several types such as data gathering, data moderation, data transcription, data digitization, and more.

A microtask is only the tip of the crowdsourcing iceberg. In most cases, a microtask will be part of a larger workflow of several microtasks. In this case, each microtask has its inputs and outputs while the workflow itself has its own inputs and outputs. One microtask in a workflow informs the next microtask. Algorithms interact with them, and a business process is enhanced. This is a much bigger topic though, so look for some coming-soon blog posts on “What Makes a Good Microtask Workflow” and “What Makes a Good Custom Solution.”

Posted by John Snowden, Director of Solutions

3 Reasons why you should join CloudFactory

2013-06-24T12:34:00.000+05:45

Our workplace is where we spend a significant portion of our life. It’s our second home. Where we work and what we do there have a substantial influence on our identity as well as the quality of our lives.

In this blog post, I’ll talk about 3 reasons why CloudFactory is a great company to work for. If you are a programmer, designer, or a professional with management background, please take time to read this post. It could very well be one of the best decisions you ever made in your career.

Great Mission

I spent a long time as a freelance programmer before I joined CloudFactory. One of the reasons I made the ‘jump’ was I had grown sick of developing CMS, social networking apps, shopping carts, and other ‘quickly put together’ clones of successful Internet companies for clueless, starry-eyed clients over and over again. Yes, I was making quite a bit of money in my ‘thriving’ business but I was sorely missing a job that was more meaningful and impactful.

I couldn’t have made a better decision when I jumped ship almost 2 years ago.

CloudFactory offers you the opportunity to be part of something very big. Our mission is to offer employment to 1 million people in developing countries by offering them online computer jobs. Once they start working, we also equip them with necessary leadership skills so that they can go back to their communities and tackle the scourge of poverty that’s so rife in developing nations.

Admittedly, it’s a tough mission. But it is also a very honorable goal that is worth shooting for.

As an employee of CloudFactory, you will see thousands of online workers logging into our online platform, completing millions of tasks every day, and earning money for themselves and their families. Additionally, you'll see them come to our leadership development programs, learn leadership skills, and apply these skills in their communities. The CloudFactory movement has already transformed lives of 2500+ men and women in Nepal and other countries. And this number only continues to grow every day.

Having witnessed this firsthand, you'll begin to realize that every line of code you write, every feature you design, every decision you make directly impacts the lives of these people. You begin to see that your work is helping these people become and happier, healthier, and richer.

The idea that every single day you are inching closer towards making the world a better place is an extremely powerful and rewarding feeling. You’ll find your job much more fulfilling compared to working in a company where your work doesn’t mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. It’s much more satisfying than working in a place where you are handed over random assignments every day and your efforts get lost in sea of other things happening around you. You just toil from one day to the next without any sense of direction or purpose.

Once at CloudFactory, you’ll finally realize your true worth and be proud of what you are doing.

Great People

In order to execute a great mission, we need a team of equally great people. CloudFactory has a boatload of smart and talented folks and this is a very good news for you.

One of the best learning experiences in life is to work alongside smarter people. No college education or books can beat that. At CloudFactory, you'll find yourself in company of some of the smartest programmers, designers, managers, and other professionals in the world. You’ll be working with people who have previously worked for companies such as Adobe, Sun Microsystems, Disney, Google, eBay, Motorola, Wipro and others. You’ll work with people who have worked in more than a dozen different countries.

We also have people with interesting background and hobbies. For instance, one american is so passionate about movies and acting that his knowledge has led a big hollywood movie (starring Russel Crowe) to sign him up as a consultant. Another Canadian, is obsessed about learning Nepali dance as well as as many new languages as he can. We also have tonnes of Nepali professionals who worked in the US for over a decade before realizing that bigger opportunities are waiting in Nepal. Plenty of stories to hear!

Given the diverse culture and experience that these people come from, you’ll get an unparalleled opportunity to learn and grow yourself. You’ll be surrounded with them throughout your work day. As you talk with them over lunch, hear them give our weekly 'lunch-and-learn' sessions, or work alongside them in different projects, you'll notice that you are discovering new things every day and becoming smarter yourself.

Great Challenges

Running a company of our scale and scope requires us to solve really difficult problems in technology, business, management, and social development. A few samples:

How to write optimized code and build a platform that can support hundreds of thousands of people using it simultaneously.
How to leverage machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science to ensure quality of work and catch bad workers
How to design a user interface that's as easy to use as Facebook.
How to replicate our operation and workforce model in 10+ other developing countries.
How to build a replicable sales model to drive work for 1,000,000 cloud workers
How to grow the company (we are already 110+ employees strong) but continue to stay as agile as a startup.
How to give back to the community. How to make the world a better place.

Yes, these are very knotty and convoluted challenges with no easy answers. What we are trying to pull off is something that has never been done before by any other organization in the world. But this is exactly what excites us every day as we walk into our offices.

If you are talented, ambitious, and hate routine, mundane jobs as much as we do, then please join us in our effort to solve these great challenges. We need the best and brightest from around the world to fulfill our purpose as a company. If you want easy stuff, go elsewhere :)

Always remember that life is very short and and you should spend it doing things that matter.

Posted by Kailash Badu, Product Manager, Client Platform

Flight Log: Kathmandu to Kuala Lumpur

2013-06-14T15:59:00.000+05:45

I am an American living in Kathmandu. My family and I moved here last September to run the Solutions department at CloudFactory.

I flew recently from our new home city, Kathmandu, to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a crowdsourcing conference. As one might guess from my profile, I am a fairly seasoned traveller. I booked a left window seat so I could catch a glimpse of Everest on my way. So I was a little perturbed when the guy who boarded ahead of me sat in my window seat and refused to change. I didn’t fight too hard, but I was grumpy to say the least.

My passive stewing took a backseat to joy when I saw his utter excitement - along with the 40 Nepalis around him - when he got to see Everest. It was far more wonderful seeing him see Everest for the first time, than seeing it again myself for the third or fourth time. I realized my “seasoned traveller” status was being humbled by a plane of Nepalis - literally flying for the first time in their lives. When the flight attendants did the seat belt demonstration, a chorus of seatbelts buckling and unbuckling filled the cabin. When the airplane hit a small patch of turbulence, I heard fearful laughter as if it were a ride at Six Flags: Magic Mountain.

Let me back up to share a quick description of airport security: The Kathmandu airport has two (and only two) metal detectors at the security checkpoint. One is for men, one is for women. The line for men was about 200 people long and slow going. The line for women had a low enough volume that a queue never really amassed. I had noticed this, but hadn’t understood. I had run through all sorts of scenarios - why would women here fly less? Are men here just slow at metal detectors?

The truth was, on that airplane and in that metal detector queue I was unknowingly embedded in what is normal for Nepal right now. It was a context I had heard of but hadn’t immediately felt until that flight. I slowly realized that these Nepali men, flying for the first time, were doing what millions of Nepalese men are doing right now - leaving their country and families for work. Each had signed up with a manpower agency. Those agencies export “cheap labor” from Nepal to other countries. These manpower agencies are, in one strange sense, in the same business as CloudFactory. We both want to employ Nepalis.

What is of course different between any such agency and CloudFactory is that their workforce, these 18-24 year old men, will not see their families for the next three years. They have chosen a notable sacrifice to go work in Malaysia on three-year contracts. Along the way, they hope to send some money home to their families. Nepal owns a spot on an unfortunate “top 5” list - that of countries who export labor at alarming rates. This means families are split, tears are shed, money is remitted, but toil is reality. A shocking percentage of the entire Nepali GDP is foreign-earned money remitted home.

It doesn’t need to be this way. And let’s be clear: this is not immigration. Immigration is good and healthy. To them, this is short-term necessity.

I started to chat with one young man who had excellent English. He asked if he could friend me on Facebook (sure, I guess). He’s from the birthplace of Buddha, but until this particular day he had lived in Kathmandu with his family. His older brothers have worked in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Malaysia ahead of him.

He is really excited for this work opportunity. Will he come home to visit? No. If he stops working, in his words, he’d break his contract and become a slave of the company for whom he’s working. (There are stories of companies literally holding the migrant workers’ passports, and other stories of workers simply never returning without word of how or why.) Common or not, he lives with this perceived fear.

I asked him how much money he’d be making in Malaysia. His answer (after doing some foreign currency exchange rate math) came out to be just a tiny bit more than what our top earning cloud workers make right now.

Could one quantify the cost of living and working abroad in terms of family time lost? For me, I work abroad, but I have the luxury of bringing my family along for this incredible journey.

Perhaps someday, my new Facebook friend will be able to join our workforce - and come home to his family.

Posted by John Snowden, Director of Solutions

Leveraging the Crowd for Disaster Management

2013-05-28T17:18:00.000+05:45

A Hypothetical Humanitarian Use of CloudFactory

Kathmandu is in a convergence zone of political turmoil and economic opportunity. 45% unemployment and rampant corruption are a bear on this economy. Yet to date, more than 2,250 workers around Nepal (primarily in the Kathmandu valley) have jumped at the opportunity to start microtasking for CloudFactory, all the while growing in character and learning leadership principles.

Kathmandu is also in a convergence zone of tectonic plates. We are ripe for an Earthquake on a Himalayan scale. The tallest mountains in the world are thrust upward by the Indian plate colliding with the Eurasian plate. The civic infrastructure’s resilience is an unknown were there to be a major shake-up here. NGOs, INGOs, and the UN are all working up action plans for what to do if a major tremor were to jolt the valley, bracing for the worst.

Imagine that terrible moment: Confusion; Chaos; Fear. What is needed? Leadership on the ground. Laity willing to lead. At CloudFactory, we are proud to know that our workers are among the people of this city, ready to help.

While microtasking, competency thrives. In a catastrophe, character drives. Our workers are weekly forced to consider principles that unite them with hard work, humility, and service. They have individual accountability and corporate responsibility as teams doing microwork. 2,000+ character-developed young workers are ready to hop to service in the event of a major earthquake.

Of course character is great, but we also have a technological framework that can help. As soon as the internet regains connectivity following a disaster, with the right partnerships in place ahead of time, our microtasking platform could be leveraged to assist aid groups, NGOs, and emergency services. We could instantly poll workers in disaster areas where we have a presence and assess real-time emergency needs.

For example: Imagine a CloudWorker who is unscathed, and can get online. As soon as this worker gets into her CloudFactory workspace she would see a question: “Does anyone near you need emergency assistance?” We could provide a Google Map widget for the worker to drop pins in specific locations where buildings have collapsed, neighbors are trapped, roads are blocked, gas lines are broken, or any way that people need immediate relief. She could upload geotagged photos that could be shared with first responders and help the triage process even before an already-thinly-spread medic is dispatched. We could make public those maps. We could use our technology to send workers to areas that need help or need emergency scouting.

Aid groups will have blood banks and refugee camps up and running quickly. That is what they do well. With planned cooperations, we can not only help disseminate those locations to our workforce (and to the public), not only encourage our workers to head toward those locations to help, but we could also do the work of transcribing sign-in sheets at shelters as well as compile and centralize names of people who may be searching for loved ones.

CloudFactory is a transformation company. We transform your business processes to help you scale. We transform communities and individuals by equipping them with character values and competency. We want to to play our part in positive transformation among developing nations. To do these things, we are charged with building a million-person workforce in developing nations.

A million people in developing nations is also a great opportunity to set up disaster relief management assistance when the unexpected occurs.

Posted by John Snowden, Director of Solutions

How will Entrepreneurs transform Nepal?

2013-04-08T14:00:00.000+05:45

An Entrepreneur creates opportunities not just for himself but more importantly for others. In Nepal, this is even more important as we have a high number of unemployed Nepalis and opportunities are limited to a privileged few.

There is an ongoing joke in Nepal, that if we produce a politician, we destroy 100 jobs. But if we create an entrepreneur, we create 100 jobs. On a serious note, this is why many youths should turn to entrepreneurship as the engine of their personal, professional and soulful growth. We need not look far to realize how entrepreneurship has transformed our neighbors, China and India. A responsible government would bet on producing and helping more entrepreneurs than on anything else.

Here are few ways Entrepreneurs will transform Nepal…

Entrepreneurs solve problems in Nepal

We hear of so many problems in Nepal. Listen to news, and you will hear problems left and right. Entrepreneurs view these problems as opportunities and solve problems for all of us to have a nicer life in Nepal. In the process of solving problems, they create jobs and positivism and efficiency in the economy. Today, many have become dependent on foreign aid and the government to solve our problems. Entrepreneurs don’t wait and will not wait for others to solve problems. They grab the opportunity, try to solve it and find a sustainable way to do this (business). Imagine a future in which each Nepali is hungry for problems and jumps to solve every problem in our society and makes a business out of it. We could become a very different society.

Entrepreneurs create jobs that benefit low-income families in Nepal

As an entrepreneur, you may help a struggling Nepali family directly, lifting them from poverty simply by creating ‘jobs’. The employment you generate and the salary you pay, helps towards improving the local economy, i.e small shops, farmers, schools, groceries and local towns. You help the local eco-system by the wealth you generate for others. This in turn helps generate a positive cycle of employment. You help continue this positive cycle of growth even as a small entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs create platforms/ecosystems in Nepal

As an entrepreneur, you will be creating not just one small business but over the course of time build it into a platform, an eco-system so that others can build their own businesses around yours. Thamel became Thamel when businesses started to bloom, servicing around one Hotel, Kathmandu Guest house.

So you will be helping create opportunities for others too, by creating this as a by-product of building their ventures. As a result of an entrepreneur, an industry of like-minded entrepreneurs came into being. Do not under-estimate the power of entrepreneurship to change the world.

Entrepreneurs raise dignity of Nepalis

When we get the opportunity to work in our own country, utilizing materials and human power here and export them, not having to leave our place to work in far away lands, it makes us dignified. It raises our family’s self-esteem, our children’s self-esteem. Entrepreneurs create dignified jobs and dignified professionals as their employees. Entrepreneurship is not about exploiting people. It is about empowering people so that they help run their business better. Hari Bhakta Sharma has scaled his pharmaceuticals company – Deurali Janata – by successfully providing dignified employment and opportunity to work in a place which makes life-saving medicines at affordable prices for the poor.

Entrepreneurs remove the gap between rich and poor in Nepal

A strange statement? Well many confuse entrepreneurs with traditional traders, monopolistic business houses or even evil rich people. Till now in Nepal, the power and wealth has been restricted to a few traditional elites. They earn their wealth, not by competing fairly but rather by abusing their power, access, status and restricting other Nepalis wish to becoming an entrepreneur. They stifle innovation, growth and encourage practices that benefit just themselves. So they are not entrepreneurs. In-fact, when entrepreneurs come into the equation, they in-fact break monopolies and barriers created by these traditional power elites. The fact that entrepreneurs can come from any background, ethnic groups, age, status is powerful way to transform society from status-quo to progress.

For economic equality and prosperity in Nepal, we need not more politicians or job seekers but more entrepreneurs who rise from obscurity, cutting across ethnic groups, economic past, castes and age. In other words, that entrepreneur could be you. If we are looking for the profound changes we want to see here, help yourself become an Entrepreneur. Take the example of Rudra Pandey, the founder of D2Hawkeye. He comes from a simple humble background in remote Nepal, rose through sheer hard work and ambition, started and grew D2Hawkeye into a powerhouse. He grew the firm to a global healthcare analytics firm and helped put Nepal on the map of world-class companies. Many Nepalese have taken inspiration from him and are trying entrepreneurship in Nepal and outside in their own ways.

Entrepreneurs create positive cultures

“Yes we can”- This is the feeling that prosperity brought by Entrepreneurship evokes. It improves the self-confidence of all Nepalis. With this positive attitude, it helps replace the current “blame-game” culture of “yestai ho”, “ke garne” attitude in which we are stuck and can no longer create a win-win situation in villages and towns across Nepal. It helps usher us towards a fair meritocratic culture in which every Nepali, irrespective of background, gains the attitude – ‘yes, I can meet my dreams.’

Positive culture in Nepal is essential if we want to create an economically equal, fair, accountable, responsible society. And as an entrepreneur, you will be helping us make this faster than any other professional. Prithivi Pande, current CEO of Nepal Investment Bank, was responsible for creating a positive culture trend in the Banking sector. Many of the current heads of Financial institutions in Nepal have worked with him and followed his lead to be successful bankers themselves.

So how will YOU benefit as an entrepreneur in Nepal?

1) A dignified status

Nepal has changed. Now your peers, your followers and many Nepalis will regard an entrepreneur as a leader. And some will even think of you as a visionary. They will read about you, hear about you and follow your steps. You will be inspiring the next generation of Nepalis to become creative entrepreneurs and help create great entrepreneurial centers right here in Nepal like the Silicon Valley in the United States. Entrepreneurs like Anil Chitrakar, Karna Shakya, Ambika Shrestha, Min Bahadur Gurung are respected, admired and thanked for the opportunities they have created in Nepal.

2) A comfortable life

In Nepal, an entrepreneur’s life is much more comfortable as your ability to succeed is higher because there is less competition here. Once you are successful, you carry great leverage. As an entrepreneur, you can leverage your success to have access to more opportunities to work on a bigger level, may it be with the government or on bigger lucrative projects.

3) A satisfying life

The satisfaction of having helped many will be extremely gratifying for your soul. In Nepal, you can actually see your effects directly. Leading an honest life as an entrepreneur and providing for others – what a satisfying way to live here than in the already developed country where your impact may be minimal compared to here. How best to help others – by innovating a fishing industry, not just teaching how to fish, or worse just giving them fish.

4) Live your life

As an entrepreneur, you can live your life passionately, not your parent’s life, or your friend’s or your spouse’s, but yours. I believe this is one of the best ways to live where you decide on your path. In other words, you lead a passionate life. As an entrepreneur, I have enough time and energy to follow my different passions in life, to experiment on projects and to mentor others. It allows me to make time for myself and my family while finding ways to serve the society better.

(This post originally appeared on whynepal.com)

Leaving Poverty

2013-04-01T11:18:00.000+05:45

I am a dreamer myself. A future where the only thing we lack is lack itself sounds absolutely amazing to me.

Yet, I am also a realist and think that a future 100% free of poverty isn’t likely without some drastic changes. When our resident social media genius asked my opinion of a recent article saying that, “New study shows world poverty could be eradicated in 20 years” I was left with no recourse but to write my own post on the matter.

First of all, bravo to the the men and women that have spent the time & energy working on this research. They were willing to take a deeper look at the multiple factors that lead or lag impoverished communities. A view of multidimensional poverty measures is a huge leap in the right direction. For this you have my gratitude. I just want to push the envelope a bit further with a simple question. What is poverty?

At CloudFactory, addressing poverty in the communities where we work is an essential reason for our very existence. Nepal is our home. Coincidentally it was named as a potential place that could be free of poverty in 20 years. As things stand now, I would venture to say that is unrealistic. Power outages that last 20 hours a day, a government without formal documents to legitimize its existence, ethnic feuds that boil under the surface, and countless other factors can be cited for this claim. Yet we are bold enough to say that if we have our way, the factors mentioned in this article can and will be addressed in less than 20 years.

Most would define poverty in terms of a lack of financial or material resources. Formal definitions

would call it a deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired. This is an error similar to defining an elephant as a creature with large ears. It only captures one component of all that we need to know to fully understand what an elephant is like. Any complex topic must be examined in its entirety before one can fully understand how it may affect them or they may affect it. It is true that those that help others are more fulfilled and see good things happen. Showing kindness to the poor is important but how we show kindness can greatly impact the results of our kindness.

Relationships play a vital role in how poverty is manifested in the world around us. In order to help people in poverty we need to have a framework which understands that poverty is rooted in the effects of brokenness in four foundational areas: relationship with self, others, creation, and the creator. When defined in this way, we are all poor. No one experiences the fullness that is possible for each of these relationships.

For the economically poor, these broken relationships often include shame, a false identity, social isolation, and a lack of vocation that contributes to a lack of income. For the economically rich, these broken relationships manifest themselves in pride, selfishness, workaholic tendencies, materialism, etc. that lead to its own list of individual and social ills. Unfortunately, when the economically rich interact with the economically poor, they tend to do so in such a way that exacerbates the shame of the economically poor feel and deepen the relational poverty of the economically rich.

It's been said that poverty is the result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that rob us of life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable. Poverty is the absence of peace in all its meanings. Central to poverty alleviation is embracing our own mutual brokenness so that we can truly help others without hurting them and ourselves. Can THAT poverty be wiped out in 20 years, 10 years, 1 year? Yes. The problem I see is not everyone wants to walk that road.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference.

Evan Kubicek, VP Workforce

@EvanKubicek

CloudFactory Acquires Key Crowdsourcing Competitor and Launches Next Generation Platform

2013-02-27T19:00:00.000+05:45

Enterprise clients benefit with even greater accuracy and faster turnaround times

NEW YORK, NY, February 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ - CloudFactory, a distributed workforce company for business automation, today announced the launch of the CloudFactory 2.0 Platform at Crowdopolis in downtown Manhattan. The new platform comes after CloudFactory acquired SpeakerText and Humanoid in October of 2012. Both were backed by investors such as Google Ventures, Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, Mitch Kapor and CrowdFlower CEO Lukas Biewald.

“They had the most advanced machine learning technology in the world for distributed workforces”, says CloudFactory CEO Mark Sears. “We took the best from both platforms in designing CloudFactory 2.0. We can now provide our clients with even better accuracy, faster turnaround times and more advanced workflows to automate their business processes.”

CloudFactory’s growing base of enterprise clients are all companies that were looking for ways to automate core aspects of their business. Many had outsourced their work to India and the Philippines. Others were doing the data entry in-house. Initial results from CloudFactory 2.0 have seen dramatic increases compared to what clients had experienced with previous alternatives. “CloudFactory has sped up and doubled our medical form processing capacity, even identifying errors made by our seasoned internal staff!” said Kyle Powell, CEO of SureHire.

CloudFactory has seen their volume of tasks soar over the last few months. “It took us 8 months to process our first million tasks. Now we are doing 1 million tasks every week.” said Sears. The combination of CloudFactory’s new software platform along with their dedicated, highly trained workforce is unique in the industry. It provides for what they call “accuracy at scale.” Because of this, CloudFactory was recently ranked at the top of the space by industry analysts, GigaOM.

About CloudFactory

CloudFactory is a distributed workforce company for business automation. Typical clients have large volumes of data entry, data collection or data processing work where quality is the critical component. The work is broken down into microtasks that are completed along "virtual assembly lines" by CloudFactory's global, on-demand, managed workforce. As a social enterprise, CloudFactory exists to connect 1 million people in developing countries to basic computer work while raising them up as leaders to address poverty in their own communities.

About Crowdopolis

Crowdopolis is a major crowdsourcing conference taking place in New York, NY on February 27 & 28, 2013. The conference is geared towards Fortune 1000 managers & focuses on educating the attendees on the implications crowdsourcing will have on the advertising, tech, & content marketing fields in the next 3 years.

Media Contact:

Todd Chalfin

VP Business Development

+1-919-599-5244

press@cloudfactory.com

CloudFactory announces plans for 5,000 new computer jobs in Nepal this year

2013-02-14T11:31:00.000+05:45

KATHMANDU - Feb 14, 2013 - CloudFactory, a technology startup based in Kathmandu, Nepal today announced its plans to hire 5,000 part-time data entry operators in Nepal by the end of this year. The social enterprise currently has 80 fulltime staff and almost 600 part-time operators. This latest growth plan comes after securing contracts with international clients wanting to use its worldclass technology platform to deliver data entry tasks to their talented workforce in Nepal.

“We are thrilled with the growing demand for CloudFactory’s services that now enables us to provide work opportunities to 5,000 more people in Nepal by end of this year,” said Mark Sears, Chief Executive Officer at CloudFactory. “This growth is a real testimony to the level of talent in Nepal. We have an amazing world class group of software engineers that have built our software and a dedicated group of data entry operators, all in Nepal.”

“At the Nepal Investment Board, our mandate is to promote the economic development of the country by creating an investment-friendly environment. We are excited about CloudFactory because they join us in two of our major goals creating employment opportunities and offering meaningful contribution to poverty alleviation,” says Radhesh Pant, Chief Executive Officer at Nepal Investment Board. Mr. Pant addressed a crowd of 300 people from CloudFactory today at the “We LOVE Nepal” event held at Big Cinemas in City Center Mall. Valentine’s day was chosen as a way to show the company’s commitment and love for the nation it started in and where it continues to have most of its operations.

Anyone in Nepal can take the initial test found at http://cloudfactory.com/apply and then form a team of 8 people to apply at CloudFactory. Many of the current cloud workers are college students who enjoy the flexibility of working from home 5 - 20 hours per week according to their own schedule.

Letter to Cloud Workers

2013-01-14T16:47:00.000+05:45

If you ever wondered how CloudFactory is different from other crowdsourcing companies, take a read through the welcome letter that every new cloud worker receives.

Dear Cloud Worker:

At CloudFactory relationships are very important to us. If it were possible I would sit and share this message with each of you, so you could see how much we believe in you and what we are trying to accomplish. Today I want you hear from me about the purpose of our company and how you play an important role in this story. Many organizations write purpose or mission statements only to forget or stray from them later on. Everyday our actions and decisions are driven by our purpose to connect 1 million people in developing countries to basic computer work while raising them up as leaders to address poverty in their own communities.

That's a very big statement that we would love for you know by heart. But more importantly than knowing it, we want you to be a part of it. Visualizing what a million looks like can be hard, so imagine a 25 kg. bag of rice. There are nearly 1 million grains of rice in that bag. Yet each grain can grow an untold number of other rice grains. Its significance is not affected by the sheer number which surrounds it. Never should you feel like your position is unimportant or irrelevant in such a big goal. In fact you are one in a million and bring something that we cannot replace.

Why 1 million? There is that much talent in the developing world that is waiting for the opportunity to come along. Actually, there are millions of people that are able and willing to do this work. Many people and organizations choose to work in developing nations because of the needs or poverty they perceive. We are here because of the opportunity and talent that is available. We have chosen to put our offices and families in the countries where we are looking to hire our talent.

Make no mistake we are a business, not a N.G.O. We are an international corporation with some of the best technology and employees in the world. These jobs exist because we have customers that are looking for someone to add value, solve problems that they face. You have earned the right to be a part of CloudFactory by your performance on the tests that we have given you. Every day you need to earn the right to stay by doing excellent work. There is no technology or business structure that can replace you. Without workers that are committed to excellence in their work, we cannot attract customers that will provide the work for 999,999 other people that want to work as much as you do.

Basic computer work is what we are asking you to do. All that it requires is a good internet connection and a computer, no extra software, no previous training or education. Yet, it is not easy. You cannot turn your brain off. Remember this is a business that adds value and solves problems every day. Learning and applying common sense to the tasks you face are essential skills.

Application of these skills and a desire for excellence will determine whether or not you continue to get access to this work.

So far we have covered the first half of our purpose, connecting 1 million people in developing countries to basic computer work. Now I want to unpack what we envision for raising leaders to address poverty in their own communities. This is where we begin to walk down a path that most companies dare not travel. Yet, we believe that investing in you and challenging you to grow is not only good citizenship, it makes you better workers. It is the way forward for the developing nations where we work to fulfill their own destinies. We want excellent workers to stay as long as they can at CloudFactory but we also realize that you will be growing your skills and value working with us and may move on. It's healthy. A pool of water that has water flowing in but never has water flowing out becomes stagnant and begins to grow unpleasant things. We do not want you or CloudFactory to be like this pool of water.

Leadership at CloudFactory is broken into two components, competency and character. A leader must be knowledgeable in what they do and lead in such a way that people want to follow. If a leader turns around and no one is following they aren't a leader. If a leader looks for their followers and they are all under their feet, they are not a good leader. Leaders do excellent work and hold others up and push them farther than they thought possible.

Competency is measured regularly and is a black and white issue that our customers determine in advance. An excellent example of the level of competency needed is a mobile number. If you write down someone's mobile number and get 90% of the numbers correct, will you ever reach that person again? No. That is useless information. Remember you are paid to add value for others. No value added means you cannot be paid for that work. The quality of your work is evaluated every time you login and you will be asked to set goals to improve your quality every week.

Character is also measured. However, you determine what success looks like. Every week you will be presented with character values that make great leaders and asked what it would look like if you applied it to your life. Then you must create a plan of action to give it a try. Without application knowledge is useless.

Leaders of high competency and character that set their sights on addressing poverty will see results. When we think of poverty we are not focusing on the absence of money but the brokenness in our relationships. You could provide someone who is financially poor with a large sum of money and in a matter of time they will be in the same state they were before. The money didn't solve the problems they faced because they weren't financial in nature, but brokenness in their relationships with their health, their family, their friends or community, their thinking, God, etc. As leaders we will be challenging you to take a look at the areas in your own life and those of the community around you to see how you can mend relationships that are broken.

You have come to CloudFactory with a team of friends and will remain with a team the entire time you work with us. The best way to learn how to apply leadership skills and mend the broken relationships we face is in a small group. As a team you will be working together to improve your competency, character, and communities by holding each other accountable to those goals. Even when we want to improve ourselves, the chances of us following through in competency or character improvements is low until we have someone that will ask us if we have kept our word. No one wants to admit that they failed to do what they said they would. We will also ask you to share these lessons and experiences with your family and friends so they too can reap the benefits of character principles and restored relationships. There will be days when you will want to quit but your team, your friends will be a source of encouragement and support to help you become the leader you were born to be. We are stronger together.

When I share this vision with people, I am reminded of how crazy this mission is. Yet, the most unbelievable part of it all is that it's possible. There are many others who have gone before you and proven that when people work together, set goals, and apply time tested principles in their lives, the world around them becomes a better place. So that's my challenge to you. Accept the challenge set before you and take advantage of this opportunity to work, grow, and be a part of the transformation of the world around you. Welcome to CloudFactory!

Evan Kubicek

VP Workforce

The Poverty in Silicon Valley

2013-01-03T16:22:00.000+05:45

Silicon Valley => startups => high growth => quick and relentless change => extreme stress => broken relationships => Poverty?

The real Silicon Valley will never be televised. It's way too extreme for TV. I've seen two extremes happen to friends: making a billion dollars, and committing suicide. (Both of these, more than once.) — Dustin Curtis

A TV show about this life would look more like Intervention than The Social Network, where Internet addiction and delusions of grandeur are the drugs of choice. Sacrificing your savings, health, sleep hygiene, social life, etc. do nothing but destroy you and add unnecessary pressure to those around you. The startup gods do not exist. — Jesse Fornear

At CloudFactory we talk about poverty being more about broken relationships than simply a lack of money. If you want to get at the root of the problem you can't just treat the symptoms and that is why our social mission is about more than just job creation. It is about finding the future leaders in developing nations, putting them in accountability groups where "iron sharpens iron" and friendships are formed, challenging them with 40 leadership principles to become men and women of high character and integrity, sending these teams out into their communities to discover the needs around them and discover more about themselves at the same time.

We dream of a bottom-up, grassroots movement of young leaders who are growing in competency and character while earning money and having job flexibility to get out into their communities and be change-makers. They will soon enter into positions of leadership in government, media, business, arts, education... not to mention be husbands, wives, fathers and mothers. Did I mention we may be a bit idealistic? :-)

But is the purpose of our company to just take this approach with our 500 (and growing!) cloud workers, or is it to search out and make a dent in the poverty all around us? Lately I find myself interacting with vendors, clients, competitors, investors, journalists, government leaders and many others who are the so-called "rich" in our world but I realize how broken and hurting we all are no matter how many zeros in our bank account. For the same reason I have spent my last 4 years in Nepal seeing some of the happiest people I have ever seen living in some pretty harsh physical realities (lack of food and medicine, no windows so bugs are everywhere and cold comes in, kerosene or wood burned inside the house, only one or two sets of clothes, only toys are sticks and rocks, etc, etc).

So through the many skype calls and interactions from Nepal with our industry home base of Silicon Valley I am reminded of the wear and tear of startup life can bring. Not to mention my own life! It seems the definition of a startup is rapid growth and extreme change that brings a crushing effect on many people and therefore families. Another way to say it is that startup life can eat people up and spit them out. It can be relentless.

How many founders took a week off for Christmas?
How many founders are able to unplug for even one day a week?
How many founders miss tucking their children into bed or eating meals as a family?
How many relationships are trampled by the startup train?
How many people think we'll sacrifice for a couple years and then everything will be fine?

There are so many people being consumed by the culture of Silicon Valley (or the poverty of Silicon Valley). Does it have to be this way?

Being a tech startup about 12,000kms from Silicon Valley means it is easier to create our own startup culture. Sure it is busy around here, we hired 21 full-time staff and over 200 part-time data entry operators last month alone. Thankfully I am home everyday at 6pm for dinner, see my kids and wife everyday at the office for lunch (5 minute walk away), try to tuck my kids in before hopping back on the laptop to skype during US hours, etc. Life is a moving target right now with the constant growth of our company and it means growing in capacity and adjusting priorities and schedule to find the right rhythm. I want to be aware of the poverty in my own life. I want to make the changes necessary to become rich and I sure as heck don't mean getting lots of money. I mean having my priorities right, being consistent and not flailing in the wind back and forth depending on how one day went, etc. I want to carry the appropriate authority as leader of my company while considering everyone from our top developer to our janitor as a friend and important part of our success. I want to be the best husband and father I can be. I want to learn more about and grow in love and respect for the nation of Nepal that I live in. Boy - there is a lot of work ahead in 2013.

Being aware of the poverty in our own lives is an important first step. Restoring and maximizing the relationship with ourself, families, friends and co-workers, God, our environment and community, etc is hard work. But I think it is the only way to be truly rich and "whole". Integrity is defined as being "whole" as a human. I think of integrity as living an integrated life where I am the same person with the same values no matter what situation or people I find myself with. Boy - there is a lot of work ahead in 2013.

There is a lot of people talking about what startup life looks like lately but my question is what should it look like? I'd love to hear words of advice on fighting the poverty inherent with startup life (knowing there is no silver bullet...)

Resolving to stop resolving

2012-12-27T15:42:00.000+05:45

What’s your resolution? Even the word itself speaks to nature of doing something again. What are you doing again to solve a problem you are facing? If we are really honest with ourselves we may find that the problem we want to solve is the same one we tried solving last time, last year. We probably didn’t succeed the first time so we are going to give it another try.

Many times people have a tendency to look for the perfect answer. We look for the one thing we can do that will make everything better. There’s a good chance that is the approach we took last year when developing a resolution. When the super solution doesn’t work out we walk away from the table saying, “I tried but it wasn’t working so I quit”.

Here at CloudFactory we have a “resolution”, another way to solve the problems that our clients and workers face. Our clients need accurate and scalable solutions for their data. Our workers are looking for a way to earn and a solution to the poverty in their communities. Fortunately our resolution is so audacious that no one in their right mind would even propose a one size fits all, “super solution” to these challenges.

We think that a “better than last week” approach that is driven by principle, relationship, and vision may be the only hope we have in revolutionizing the way data is processed and 1 million future leaders across developing nations gain valuable work experience. In fact, this approach may be the only hope any of us have to stop (re)solving the same problems again and again and finally solve them.

So here’s how it works. Every week our workers are looking at the quality and quantity of their work, identifying what’s working and what’s not, and then develop a plan to make themselves better than last week. This same process is applied to professional development through leadership principles. Workers compare results to previous ones and time tested principles while developing a plan to improve next week. The goal is to become a competent leader that has the character required to succeed in the future.

All of this happens in teams of friends that know whether or not people are actually doing what they said they would. It’s a resolution pressure cooker and we are making a stew that Seinfeld’s soup nazi would sell without hesitation.

So here’s a question for you:

Would you consider taking that big resolution and turn it into a small goal each week that you can share with your friends?

Add in a dash of commitment to improving each week, a desire to do what is right, and a passion to see others join you on your journey and you’ve got yourself a recipe for success.

Posted by Evan Kubicek, VP of Workforce

Productivity? What about Crowdictivity?

2012-12-19T15:04:00.000+05:45

The realization that we actually can accomplish large goals came in the mundane task of moving chairs from the 4th floor to the first. How long would it take you to move forty five chairs down 3 floors? Your mind is probably calculating and searching for the data that is missing from the problem. What about the chairs, how big, heavy, are they? etc. Is there an elevator? How long does it take to scale those stairs?

It’s amazing how many of these questions become irrelevant when you tackle it with a crowd of people. In fact having a large pool of available workers can shape the way that world develops. Take China as an example. Several inventions that shaped the modern world were actually born there. Yet, they were never utilized to their fullest extent until they reached Europe. Why? China had a huge population and seeked to maximize employment over individual productivity. Making the printing press better would have been good but when you have an army of scribes to employ why bother?

Sometimes more with less is more. Recently we faced the challenge of trying to interview over 180 people and eventually process paperwork and orient over 100 new workers to our model for crowdsourcing data entry tasks. One person, even two people alone couldn’t accomplish this task. Even if they were six sigma black belts with a burning passion for operations productivity. This wasn’t a job for superman, it was a job for our own crowd of Cloudseeders. An amazing group of men and women who interview, orient, and train teams of workers to succeed in the CloudFactory model.

So when 45 people showed up for a meeting that was originally scheduled for 30, we didn’t have time to optimize the system. It was time for the power of a crowd to show the world how it’s done. By the time I finished sharing our company vision and challenging a group of Nepal’s future leaders, we call them Cloudworkers for now, I had one floor tile to stand on. The room was packed and these new workers were ready to get to work.

This is how we plan on changing the way world gets work done, more work, broken down into more pieces, and given to more people. So how long did it take to get those 45 chairs from the 4th floor to the 1st floor? Add your guess in the comments below.

(Clues: it takes about 1 min to walk up and down the stairs and we had about 8 people involved.)

Posted by Evan Kubicek, VP of Workforce

Motivation: The Missing Element Unlocked

2012-12-14T16:26:00.000+05:45

I make a point to watch one TED talk per week and last night it was Tom Chatfield’s – 7 ways games reward our brain which served as an inspiration for this post. It’s really fascinating if we get to thinking, what really motivates people to spend staggering amounts of time (and money) playing games in search of imaginary treasures in virtual worlds. The surprising thing is that there is almost no extrinsic motivation at all. On the other hand, many organizations fail to effectively harness employees motivation despite both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational elements in check. Why?

This post may be frustrating because it won’t give you a silver bullet solution to fix motivational issues or immediately start boosting employees’ motivation. But here I’m challenging you to see the big picture, not the quick fix. Let’s dive in.

First, for the context of this post let’s cover the seven larger ideas that Chatfield has observed in many game designs which he calls an “engine for human engagement” and they are:

Use an experience system. (think bars that measures progress)
Provide multiple long and short-term aims
Reward for effort
Provide rapid, clear and frequent feedbacks
Include an element of uncertainty
Create "windows of enhanced attention"
Offer collective engagement

We will not go into details on these seven ideas from Chatfield (you can still read it here) as many workplaces are already full of these gamification techniques. Think of badges awarded for learning new skills instead of a visible pat on the back or think of sales leaderboards of the past dangling in the wall now always being accessible via an online engagement dashboard like Salesforce.com. But there’s this one key element of human motivation that games addresses so well, which unfortunately is clearly seen missing in game mechanics themes applied at workplaces.

The missing element unlocked……crafting a personalized learning experience

When I say “personalized learning experience” I do not mean that every other fun game you play (think Angry Birds) addresses this element of human motivation. It’s only those games that both psychologically and biologically capture human attention and go beyond to engage your very soul. I experience it when I was playing Frontline Commando (I'm a fan of super-heroes and war movies - so maybe I am biased). But if you haven't played that game, then think about World of Warcraft. You see, the activity/level you complete in these games aren't as important as the form of interaction that you have with the activity. What’s important is perfecting your [stealth] moves, cowering and choosing the right spot to avoid getting killed by enemy’s heavy artillery fire, selecting the right firearms, perfecting your aim (head-shots) – is so much in itself that completing the level almost becomes an afterthought.

As all of these preceding moments become very honed, the only possible outcome is level completion. But that’s not all. These types of games are so customized with “windows of enhanced attention” (as Chatfield calls them) - that they respond very fast to every minuscule activity completed by doling out rewards that are interesting enough to keep increasing the level of dopamine transmitted to the gamer's brain. And that to me is a personalized learning experience.

The truth is what really motivates and engages people in the workplace has always been far more complicated than engaging people to play games in virtual world. Perhaps because some organizations overlook the "fun first" element of games while others struggle to complement intrinsic rewards with extrinsic - which Mark covered in his post - Motivation is Complex. In the midst of all these, it has always been true and important to me that the best way to "hitting our goals" is not to just focus on the goals themselves. But to dedicate ourselves to our craft with such intensity and focus that the outcome takes care of itself. Or as we say, it is about the journey and not the destination.

Too often leaders/managers/organizations get fixated on the anticipated outcome that they often overlook what really matters to their employees: a personalized learning experience.

Entrepreneurs in a Flat World

2012-12-10T14:34:00.000+05:45

We use the term "flat world" a lot around CloudFactory and I am embarrassed to admit I haven't even read the whole book by Thomas Friedman that kicked that term off. But I have just finished a book that uses amazing stories about high-growth businesses in developing countries to reinforce just how quickly the world is flattening. Sarah Lacy, of TechCrunch and now PandoDaily fame, wrote Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit from Global Chaos last year after spending more than 40 weeks in eleven developing countries interviewing entrepreneurs. The worst part about the book is the title, I still don't get it. But I couldn't put the thing down after reading the first few pages. I honestly believe I understand the world and my business better because of it. Not bad for $14.97.

There are so many conclusions that can be drawn as one reads through the series of entrepreneurial stories from India, China, Rwanda, Brazil, Israel and Indonesia.

Silicon Valley can and will be toppled soon.
Hunger drives innovation. Literally.
China is overachieving and India is underachieving. Both will kick global ass.
Attention governments of developing countries - make it easier on entrepreneurs and they will help drive your country forward through innovation and development.

The last conclusion makes me want to call her publisher and get a bulk deal on a couple cases for the Nepal Constituent Assembly. But I won't start that rant here.

Another idea that emerged was how natural it is for social mission to be baked into global businesses, many of the entrepreneurs connected their business to the advancement and development of the country. The companies featured were far from nonprofits but it just helped confirm we live in a confused world of government, business and non-profit. Sarah noted the confusion well when she wrote:

"It's a new paradoxical colliding world where statesmen act like entrepreneurs and investors, entrepreneurs and investors act like statesmen, and nonprofit leaders act like entrepreneurs, investors and statesmen combined, laser-focused on revenues, profits, and a self-sustaining way to save the world without donors."

Read that through a couple times. It isn't anything new but seems to line up with my (small) world.

She even goes so far as to conclude with, "Foreign investment needs to take the place of Foreign Aid. The 20th century may have been difficult for these countries, but the 21st century is theirs for the taking."

CloudFactory Open House

2012-11-21T14:42:00.000+05:45

Many of us have been to a party or event that was less than what we expected. The food was bad, the people were boring, etc, etc. Our latest event was anything but that. November 9th CloudFactory invited its workforce to an Open House event at the World Trade Center in downtown Kathmandu and the seats were filled. In fact we ran out of seats to fill and brought in more seats, and filled those too. When it was all said and done there were over 700 people that came out to learn what CloudFactory is doing here in Nepal.

As demand for reliable and scalable data entry work increases, so too grows the demand for the crowd of people that can deliver those services. We are very excited that we get to hire over 500 people by the end of this year and over 2,000 people by the end of April. The Open House event was an opportunity to spend time with the incredible workers that we are employing now and meet some of their family and friends who are interested in joining us.

How did we pull off an event of this size and attract such a crowd in short period of time? The secret lies in our workers. A super committee of Cloudworkers and a small army of volunteer Cloudworkers were inviting friends, directing traffic within the convention center, and staffing the registration tables. Cloudworkers are not only capable of doing excellent data entry but they have proven that they can recruit other workers, plan large events, and demonstrate the leadership that is needed to make the world a better place.

If you haven’t noticed we are proud of our workers. We believe that our current and future workers may be the greatest game changers the developing world has ever seen. Stay tuned as we seek to raise up 1 million community leaders that do excellent data entry work along the way.

For more photos, visit CloudFactory Page on Facebook.

Posted by Evan Kubicek, VP of Workforce