Case studies
Huddle in the real world.
Aggie-Lance
Aggie-Lance, freelance agriculture jobs site, Huddles up for personal client contact.
Iowa-based Web 2.0 business Aggie-Lance is focused on bringing an 'Elance-style' business model to the agriculture industry, where agriculture companies can meet potential employees to hire for various types of jobs. Mark Jewell, founder and president, came up with the concept and created the online community in April 2008. The unique challenge to the agriculture industry (or 'aggie') is that it's a very well connected industry reliant on word-of-mouth recommendations for employees, but farming projects often need to be started up quickly with people outside an employers' personal reach. This is where Aggie-Lance steps in to match-make freelance job seekers with employers. Already the website has a database of 500 reliable freelancers and many trusted clients. Aggie-Lance is quickly carving a position for itself as the go-to site for advice on where to begin finding the right people for a farming job.
"When clients can view work as it happens in a Huddle workspace, they are so much more confident that it's being done well and meeting their specifications. The transparency and showing accountability is a big factor for me in terms of Huddle's value to my business."
- Mark Jewel, Founder and President
Mark set about looking for a collaboration tool when he read a piece in Fast Company magazine about Huddle and several of the competitive solutions on the market. He became a customer in June 2008.
"Huddle looked like the best solution in the market so I went with them. It proved to be a sound decision. They looked after me like I was important to them, and they made sure I had absolutely everything I needed," said Mark.
Using eight Huddle workspaces for various client projects, Mark finds that Huddle helps him overcome one of the biggest challenges involved with crossing the Web 2.0 world in an industry not known for embracing internet innovation.
"In the ag business world, people like to shake hands and meet people face-to-face before committing to do business with them. So take-up of the latest web innovations can be slow. With Aggie-Lance I am bringing agricultural businesses the benefits of the web in connecting them with great people that they might not have found otherwise, but I still need to bridge that gap of having a personal connection with my clients. Huddle is a terriffic solution to meet this compromise. When they're in a Huddle workspace, my clients feel much more like they are working in the same office as me."
Accountability is also a big part of the puzzle for Aggie-Lance - the ability to show clients that the work they pay for is getting done.
"When clients can view work as it happens in a Huddle workspace, they are so much more confident that it's being done well and meeting their specifications," said Mark. "The transparency and showing accountability is a big factor for me in terms of Huddle's value to my business."
Mark uses the workspace primarily to share files with clients, such as when managing a large-scale web development project for an agriculture business that needs to review plans, templates, drafts, or see tasks and notes about the project. He uses the wikis (whiteboards) for brainstorming on occasion as well.
"Comfort and trust are huge in Huddle and partly that's down to how easy it is for clients, or anyone, to grasp it without any training," said Mark. "This is true for people without any special IT skills."
Huddle also offers business value that impacts on the bottom line. Mark said: "It means I can put off getting a large office as we grow, and all the associated overheads, until I really need it."
Mark uses one of his eight workspaces for an agricultural fraternity comprised of members from around the US. These members share files such as housing plans, designs and other work centred from an office in Nebraska. The community chairpersons are able to share budgetary information, assign tasks, host discussions, set deadlines and get things done more quickly in the workspace. They use Huddle to collaborate with people from all over, and because it is fully branded with the Aggie-Lance logo and look and feel, it brings a side-benefit of added awareness for the company. There are 16 primary users in that workspace.
"Comfort and trust are huge in Huddle and partly that's down to how easy it is for clients, or anyone, to grasp it without any training"
- Mark Jewel, Founder and President
"I opened that workspace up and just let them run with it, and it's been fantastic visibility for my company in the market, since Huddle allows full branding of its workspaces."
Mark sums up his views on Huddle: "I was breaking new ground in online collaboration in the agriculture industry but I knew it could work in our market. If we can do it, anyone can! For me the convenience, ease of use, ability to edit documents online, and not needing to worry about which computer I'm using - just being able to log on - are huge benefits in Huddle. The customer service is great. Huddle will remain central to my business practices as we expand."
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