Juan Parada

Juan Parada's presentation on was very interesting; it was fascinating to hear that some of the freelancers who have worked for him for several years have never met him in person. The proliferation of telecommuting in the way businesses are run has put cracks in the widely-held image of employees gathering around a giant wooden table to do business.
The story of how the founders of LatinRed.com fabricated the existence of a president and other authority figures by creating fake e-mail addresses is a great metaphor to how a new style of running a company is rising due to the ubiquity of the internet; the fact that two ambitious people were able to start a wildly successful organization but thought they had to present themselves under the guise of what is commonly thought of as a legitimate business (i.e. having presidents, vice presidents, etc.) in order to be taken seriously is a prime example of how the internet has changed the rules of the game. Two ambitious people have as much as a chance of taking their claim of a market as does a huge corporation. This mindset was exemplified by Juan Parada's style of business. I loved the D.I.Y. ethics that he put forth and how he said that his ideals were set by his attitude in youth (his citing the punk movement as a great influence was very surprising and reminds me of how the hippies in Woodstock had to grow up someday). From his speech, I learned that one might as well apply their attitudes towards living to how they conduct business and with access to an ever-increasing global network, the future is only looking ripe for the truly ambitious.
Also, I coincidentally saw this video over the weekend that dealt with telecommuting in a pretty funny way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFWdCs1nqSk