The rise of the so-called ‘gig economy’ coupled with over 2 years of pandemic economics has demonstrated that the jack of all trades is actually the King or Queen. The office employee who can handle an Excel spreadsheet, work up a decent PowerPoint/Keynote presentation, edit a simple corporate promo video set to copyright-free background music, while also being reasonably proficient at social media marketing is exceptionally more likely to find employment than the person who has a stellar resume in only social media marketing. Experts in only specific areas will always be needed, but we’re likely going to need less of them – mostly courtesy of technology. You wouldn’t want to discourage someone from getting a degree in linguistics or French literature – if that was their passion – but they would be wise to learn a few skills that have tangible elements to them, so that should life throw a curveball or two, be able to say “I can do that” rather than simply “I know about that.”
And yet even the best jack of all trades occasionally could use some master-of-one expert advice, and this is where those with higher education or decades of experience in some field can be of significant value – if the two could intersect. How this is going to happen in the future is being almost perfectly modeled by the premise of SKILLR, a learning app that pairs experts with ‘seekers.’ Now, anyone can, of course, scour the internet and find answers on virtually any topic but the SKILLR idea is different… and dare we say revolutionary. The app’s CEO, Cassel Shapiro, CEO of SKILLR laid it out this way in early 2022 by saying, “Realizing most consumers don’t learn effectively by just watching prerecorded videos, our team set out to build the SKILLR App to create a marketplace for instance, affordable one-on-one video chat access to experts for your everyday needs and wants … [you’ll be able to] get the responsive help you need to accomplish any task and to succeed when trying something new.”
What’s more, they are charging by the minute. One-on-one video chatting with an expert who’s charging by the minute. –Now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s say the aforementioned office worker who’s reasonably proficient in both Excel and Photoshop needs a little bit of assistance with either of those programs. Sure, the person could search the internet for answers, and might eventually solve their problem but time is money, right? Instead of hours of research, you could hop on SKILLR, find an expert and within 45 seconds, you could have a person who can answer your specific question. So, charging at perhaps as low as US$1 a minute, you get your answer within 5 minutes… therefore paying US$5. What would you rather do? Spend an hour online getting a migraine as you try to DIY… or spend US$5 for 5 minutes of tailored, customized, professional assistance via a one-on-one video chat?
That’s the other part that makes this almost a sure winner going forward; one-on-one video chatting. Have you ever had the experience where you’re looking something up, but you don’t have the vocabulary to describe it properly? Instead of trying 50 keywords, you could simply show the expert the problem with your phone camera and they would be able to instantly assist. Think of all the elements of finding assistance that could be put to pasture such as wasting time, embarrassment, having to read and judge opposing opinions, not being able to find exactly what you’re looking for as your question is just a little bit different than what everybody else is searching for, etc. All these issues can be things of the past when you have an app that has an expert in virtually everything
And when we say virtually everything we’re not moving that far into hyperbole as you’ve got experts across fields as varied as yoga instructors, IT tech folks, handymen, and tarot card readers! And, for places where it’s legal, there are even highly niche specialists such as a cannabis selection expert. –And hey, perhaps you are a cannabis selection expert. We jest, but the point is serious. The app is constantly welcoming new experts who can demonstrate that they have the skills necessary to assist seekers with quality knowledge – and who have, for lack of a better term – a way with people. Let’s say you’re a retired mechanic with some time on your hands, and you generally like to help people. Well, sign up as an expert and make some extra dough by helping out callers who are trying to figure out some DIY mechanical issue that you could talk them through in minutes.
There seems to be little downside to this idea as if the ‘expert’ is not in fact an expert, they will rather quickly be called out and expelled… and considering the price charge is by the minute, you could always hang up if you are not happy. We’ve given this a lot of thought and we just really can’t find any reason why this isn’t the perfect solution to so many problems. It’s for those short, direct answers that you now and then wish you could get without having to go through the hassle of googling or perhaps first even figuring out what you need to google. Hop on the app, pick an expert, and a couple of minutes and a couple of dollars later you’re good to go.
