MicrostockGroup

Do we need one?

The lack of formality is good for hobbyists, but a lot of people do this as a full time job. What if stock sites start cutting our percentages? If a site says "your cut will now be 10 percent" most contributors would grumble for a few days, and then learn to live with it. Theyre going to get bigger and bigger, and rely on individuals less and less. I dont know if we need one (actually, I have a natural revulsion to unions) But... I think itll be an interesting debate too.

I'm not so sure that we need a 'union' as such. Instead, maybe we should be thinking of a professional association that represents our voice.

Unions have a bad name in some parts of the world, due to corruption and graft, and that might put a lot of people off. Also, unions (when they do work as they should) are more suited to organised industries, mining, manufacturing, commerce, etc. with workers on the company payroll.

The microstock business is a very loose collection of individual and independent artists (in the broadest sense of the term) from hobbyists who do it to earn a little  pin money to professionals who make a living out of it.

I think that a professional association would be much more suited to our needs and, if established well, could wield as much clout, if not more, than a union. 

I'd like to see an association that publishes a monthly magazine and holds annual conferences.
Kinda like these guys: www.photoshopuser.com

Why don't we just run our own site?  If the other sites threatened to cut our commission, we could just upload to our own site.  I know it takes a lot of money to set one up but if a few thousand of us were willing to put in some money, it should be feasible.  If we joined forces with designers, we could make the ideal site for all of us.  With a lot of sites, either the photographers are receiving a poor deal or the site doesn't attract enough designers.

This makes a lot more sense to me than unions or associations that will also cost money to administer and might not have much power over the big sites.

Wouldn't this tie in with what litifeta  had suggested last week or so on another thread?   Suggesting the formation of an organization to establish group/bulk  buying power?   =tom

Aren't there already Professional Associations out there for all different types of photogs?  Why would we need another one? 

I'm happy to set up a site and pay for it....   but will everyone here really play along?  Everyone seems a bit afraid of something new..  even if they had input into the design and function.

Let me know...

Thank you!   ..but wait, we're changing and growing.  ( something you'd expect after 20years of the same thing!!)   anyhow, does anyone want us to go ahead with this or not?

Union or co-operative?

Hey,  ..I'm interested!  Need to see more details, gather more ideas, do a little brain-storming here before we jump at a domain, name and all the other goodies. Can we gain a return on our investment? What's the bottomline on this thing... will it be cost affective... what might be some of the specific bennies in this for the members.... what would be the organizational structure...  who's going to do all the grunt work......   Lots of stuff to kick around... need everyone's input and need to take advantage of all the different business talent and experience that might be amongst us.  And, naturally, the more members the better... what is the REAL interest here on the old MSG? 

  If we're going to do it, let's do it right.
   
 However, if we only see a few names in support...... .....   can 3 dudes be an organization?  LOL LOL   -tom

5

Depending on it's aims and requirements, I'd join a professional association

The concept of a 'professional association' is interesting.

Generally we would need to agree on a charter, or common set of goals, and decide what we thought the benefits could be.

Get a designer to create a purdy logo, an all members would be allowed to put the logo in their profile on microstock sites.

Have the logo link to a brief profile page on the association site, and then have general info about the in
industry and the charter etc.

Appoint a 'board' or group of trustees from our peers who have a solid interest in microstock (like Leaf, or e.g.) and give all of them the 'keys' for the website, and any other stuff that is relevant, so that if any one person looses interest the others can keep things ticking over.

Maybe have a token due ($5/year?) that goes into a paypal account maintained by the 'trustees' to pay for web hosting etc, so that the webhosting could be totally independent of any one member.

Now, to the crux of the thing... What is this association going to do for us?  And what do we do when we have 2000 members?  What is the point of the association when everything is going well, and there is no need to lobby micro sites etc...