I recently helped to form a co-op of freelance workers in my neighborhood. Although we don’t work together on jobs, we do work together in some ways. Mostly, we help each other gain access to the things that we’d have access to if we were working in larger companies.

For example, I’ve been wanting to work with a document imaging service for a long time. However the cost was prohibitive. The co-op has the power to join this type of service together so that we all have access to it while keeping costs low for each of us. One of the first things on our agenda is to review different document management software vendors so that we can get this going.

That process of review is something that’s great, too. I hate having to make all of the decisions myself as a freelancer. Sure I love the freedom of not having a boss tell me what to do but sometimes I want some help with choosing things. The co-op provides that help. We support each other in the way that co-workers do even though we work out of our own separate homes. I think it’s going to be a really great thing!

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