So I listed two jobs on this site called Fiverr. I offered to paint a 3 x 5 index card with an abstract painting for five dollars; I also offered to write a song about the topic of a person’s choosing for five dollars. Quickly, I was inundated with jobs.

Paint me a Picture
This job was all about me. I stated simply that I would determine the composition of the paintings. I had thought about trying to keep costs down so I went with a very inexpensive medium that I had a large number of lying around from working on my thesis. Yes, I used index cards. I also then chose to only use leftovers of paint that I had from previous projects. The mistake I made was offering to send the images by mail to the people who had ordered them. This is only a net loss of 45 cents; however,  was not aware, many people in the United Kingdom were also avid users of Fiverr, and I ended up taking a hit of nearly a dollar per picture.

Cost of supplies: $0
Cost of Mailing: .40 – $1
Fiverr’s Cut: $1
Total Profit: ~3.50 per image.
Time taken: ~45 minutes per painting
Earnings: about $4.60 per hour of work

I quickly realized that despite the costs of the supplies being zero that I was making below minimum wage by doing something that I enjoyed. I had successfully monetized my hobby!  But at what cost? By doing paintings that I worked hard on, was I cheapening the work of those who do paint for a living? (See the Paintings that I made)

Sing me a Song
I also offered to write people a song about a topic of their choosing. I had done improv music with my friend over the years and it never seemed hard. Put a couple of chords together, sing some funny words and presto! song! The first job was relatively easy- it seemed- write a short song about a friend who had been betrayed by her boyfriend.

I had come up with a chorus pretty quickly; however, I remembered that songwriting is serious work. And then to be funny?! I could have written anything and maybe gotten the five dollars; however, I felt the pressure of this being my first job. I poured over the lyrics, re-wrote them.  I turned on the camera and began playing. Yes, it takes more than one take to nail a song. It took about ten takes before I came up with a version I thought was worth five dollars.

For a five dollar song, I spent nearly three and a half hours writing and trying to get it right. In the meantime I had about ten other requests for songs. I was trying to write all of these other songs and maintain some level of quality, but it was impossible. I eventually succumbed to pressure and had to cancel all of the jobs. I had about ten fragments, but nothing that I felt was worth five dollars.

So were my standards too high? Perhaps. I admit that I could have been the one holding myself back. But also, was I myself undervaluing what I had once taken so much joy in? Music was surely worth more than I was getting paid for it. After Fiverr’s $1 cut, I earned just under $1.15 an hour for my work.

Lessons Learned?
Unlike previous experience with five dollar work for hire like the short lived Brijit.com, I realized that doing this work for five four dollars was a bad deal for artists and creators. I put more work and effort into what I put out there than five dollars could buy.

But perhaps Fiverr wasn’t the right venue, two of the users I sent my work to did say I was “bargain.”

What an amazing bargain! houseofsuns created a beautiful and unique piece of abstract art and I would highly recommend this gifted and creative artist. – Petrichor

Hilarious song… it would have paid $10 for it… luckily it was a bargain at $5. Would totally recommend this guy for personalized songs! -JessicaHoek

In the end I’m not sure. Is Fiverr.com a bad deal for artists and creators? Or was it a bad deal for me because I undervalued my own work?

This is the hope of much of the innovation in energy. A discovery of something like “cold fusion” or other clean and perpetually abundant energy source would render all current energy companies obsolete and cause them to scramble. How would they stay relevant? What could they offer in a world where energy no longer requires stewardship? How could they turn a profit?

This day has not come for energy companies but it has come for higher education, who in some ways are the “Oil Companies” or information and knowledge. Higher education is no longer the gateway to all of the world’s knowledge. It is all out there and nearly all of it is free.

Yesterday I attended the Digital University conference at the CUNY Graduate Center and many of the panelists and attendees were questioning how can the role of expertise and higher education remain relevant in a world where peer reviewed journals and academic presses are no longer the only means to express scholarly research. Less mentioned was the business model of academic presses and fundraising that are in serious jeopardy as a result of the shift to digital scholarship; however, left undiscussed was the total economic model. If information is free, what is the role of the scholar in society as a whole?

Survival in a world of abundance.
I have a bias towards looking to music for answers because of the work I’ve done with record labels, band promotion and being a bit of a musician myself. Music is not about selling the art anymore; the digital revolution has made the music abundant. Musicians have adapted to a new model where the money is made by touring, by selling value adds like hand-crafted CDs, t-shirts. What can higher education learn from this?

Perhaps a shift back to the emphasis what a scholar brings to the information. No longer is there a focus on “the book” as a measure of success and worth, but instead speaking engagements and even teaching can be a more effective primary goal. The role of the scholar is shifting from a model of the learned hermit to an active, engaging and accessible personality that can share her knowledge with the world. So although academic presses are struggling and information is ultimately unable to be controlled anymore, the one way scholars (and higher education) can continue to exert their expertise is by performing. And in the world of information, that performance is called teaching.