If you look over to the right you'll see a caricature of me, flashing the peace sign (Hey, it's not cheesy here in Japan!) and holding a fistful of dollar bills. On a lot of websites and blogs people place their photo to build some familiarity with the visitor and personalize the experience a bit. I wanted to do that here, but I thought it would be cooler to represent myself as a character. Does it look like me? Here, you can compare. Cheesy peace sign and all.



So I wanted a caricature to use on this blog and maybe some other sites, but I'm not good at drawing. I fumbled around with Photoshop for a bit, and read some tutorial on how to make your own caricature, but I wasted an hour and failed miserably. So I decided to outsource the job. I went over to Elance.com and had a look around for freelance illustrators who could draw me. There were lots! Some are Americans who charge $35 per hour, and others are Filipinos or Romanians who charge $8 an hour or less.



I posted the details of the job I wanted so that freelancers could bid on the job and I could choose the best offer. In the end, I actually got a friend of mine to do the drawing and all I owe him is a beer, but Elance is a great resource for outsourcing jobs you don't know how to do. Because really, I could have spent all day on that illustration and it would have still been terrible and I would have lost a lot of opportunites to make money during that time. So spending a few bucks is the best decision when you're stuck. No successful business person has ever done everything by himself. These days with the internet it is incredibly easy to outsource, you don't even have to leave your desk.



Have a look at Elance and similar sites even if you don't need any work done at the moment. It will be valuable just to know what kind of resource it is and how it can help you when you need it.