The magazine for alumni and friends of the UB School of Management
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Dialing up While the gig economy may be hot right now, it's far from new. People in show business, for example, have been working independently for decades, typi- cally using an agent to help them get new gigs. In 1997, author Daniel Pink coined the term "free agent" to describe people who work for themselves, rather than a single employer. And as the online econ- omy has grown, so have the number of free agents, according to Isaac Ehrlich, SUNY Distinguished Professor and the Melvin H. Baker Professor of American Enterprise. "The internet and the digital economy will prove to be more important than the industrial revolution," says Ehrlich. "It has created a new labor market that continues to evolve, allowing you to work from any place at any time." In the late '90s and early 2000s, websites like eBay helped pioneer the digital gig economy by creating a marketplace where buyers could connect with sellers to find just about anything they're looking for. In an era where people hesitated to make purchases online out of a lack of trust in digital security, eBay estab- lished their reputation system, which allowed users to rate their transactions and gave consumers the confidence to buy. Today's gig economy is driven by increasingly complex digital platforms that connect a customer to someone who can provide goods or services, accord- ing to Haimonti Dutta, assistant professor of manage- ment science and systems. "With Uber, the soware is the intermediary plat- form that facilitates 14 million trips each day," says Dutta. "It needs to manage an enormous volume of data in real time to match you up with a driver who can get you to your destination in the most efficient way possible." Ian Olsen, BS '09, worked at Uber for nearly two years, as chief of staff for the business intelligence units and most recently in executive engineering operations for the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. He says trust has shied so much that we don't think twice about letting a stranger walk our dog with Rover or renting out a room in our home with Airbnb. Isaac Ehrlich Haimonti Dutta Ian Olsen, BS '09 Photo: Chao Zhang 12 Buffalo Business Spring 2020 CONTINUED, PAGE 14