I am one of the few lucky people in Manhattan who has a car.

It’s parked in a garage two short blocks from my apartment.

Actually I have about a dozen cars I drive in about as many garages.  Some are closer to Solvate’s office in Tribeca.

Sometimes I want to drive a Mini Cooper (double sunroofs!) and sometimes I need a Scion xD so I can put the back seats down and load it up with furniture.

When I was in San Francisco last week I had a red Honda out there that I picked up a few blocks from my hotel downtown to drive to meetings in the Valley.
I didn’t buy any of them.

I don’t pay for insurance, or garage space, or gas or cleaning, and I don’t have to worry about keys – I just swipe my iPhone to unlock the car.

I pay $8-12/hour.

And I have a lot of love for Zipcar for making a lifestyle available to me that was formerly reserved for Manhattanites with an extra zero or two in annual income.

It’s on demand, folks, and it’s democratizing and game-changing.

Salesforce did it by democratizing the kind of software formerly available only to the big enterprises. They give businesses like Solvate on-demand, one-user-at-a-time access to the de facto best in class CRM.

Netflix did it with movies. I suppose it’s only fair to give Blockbuster credit first, but you had to go to the rental store and they had that whole debacle in the 00s with late fees, so point goes to Netflix.

Marquis Jet did it for all those folks who can’t quite afford their own jet but would pay for a jet on demand.

What about business talent on demand?

What is the human resource equivalent of having a dozen cars in Manhattan? A dozen talented professionals, from Google alums to Fortune 500 copywriters, available on demand to work on your business.

Zipcar faced an enormous marketing challenge when they launched “wheels when you want them.”

How do you inspire people to think about how they would use a car….

If you didn’t have to buy it and store it?
If you didn’t have to drive to the rental depot to pick it up, but could pick it up around the corner?
And pay by the hour?
And didn’t have to process any paperwork and deal with the insurance upsell you’re not sure if you should buy?
And if you didn’t have to fill it up on your way back?
And it comes with an iPod adaptor,
And a Fast Pass,
And you can unlock it with your iPhone?

We have a similar challenge at Solvate:

How do we inspire people to think about what they would do if they could work with talent on demand…

If you didn’t have to spend time recruiting, interviewing, reference checking?
And didn’t have to process any contracts or NDAs?
And you didn’t have to handle payment terms?
And a third party guaranteed to match you with the right talent?
And was on hand in case you have any problems?

Our website tried to inspire people to think outside of the full-time paradigm by talking about the kinds of things you could have someone do on demand – expense report management, market research, video presentations.

But that’s like Zipcar saying you can take their cars to pick up groceries or take a trip to IKEA instead of showing you the cars.

And the cars are pretty sweet.

So we are relaunching our site on February 17 to profile the amazing talent working on demand for Solvate clients.

Talent like Jabari Bell, a graphic designer alum from Academy Award-winning agency R/GA, whodesigns for clients like at&t and who is helping Solvate with our site relaunch.

Melanie Kannokada, a McKinsey alum, Stanford Student Body President, and Miss India 2007, who does financial modeling and business development partnerships.

Trent Wolodko, a business owner, IT Recycling expert, eBay Platinum Power Seller, and and about a dozen other things.

Michele Wilcox, an Executive Assistant with years of experience at Warner Bros, who handles Google Calendar scheduling and remote office supply management.

Adam Schwartz, a social media PR consultant to established firms like GroupSJR – and administrator of Solvate’s social media strategy.

Paul Eisenberg, a freelance writer for Fox News and Shermans Travel, who does corporate blogging, moderates community forums, and writes product reviews.

We could not be more excited to put this Talent front and center.

We are also putting them in a context that should inspire you to think about what you can work with them on, one project at a time.

To that end, we’re linking their presence on our site to their established LinkedIn profiles. There are no “Julie R’s” here, there is Julie Ruvolo, and my professional reputation is on the line, and you can see how we are connected.

We are also introducing a pretty awesome way to index what roles Talent can play for you and what kinds of specific things they can do to accelerate your business.

We’ve got about 50 per month working with us on ours.