Schumpeter: Angst for the educated. The Freelance Surge Is the Industrial Revolution of Our Time - Sara Horowitz - Business. Welcome to the Gig Life. The boom in independent work is changing the way we think about jobs and careers. Does Washington get it? It's been called the Gig Economy, Freelance Nation, the Rise of the Creative Class, and the e-conomy, with the "e" standing for electronic, entrepreneurial, or perhaps eclectic. Everywhere we look, we can see the U.S. workforce undergoing a massive change. No longer do we work at the same company for 25 years, waiting for the gold watch, expecting the benefits and security that come with full-time employment. We're no longer simply lawyers, or photographers, or writers. Instead, we're part-time lawyers-cum- amateur photographers who write on the side. Today, careers consist of piecing together various types of work, juggling multiple clients, learning to be marketing and accounting experts, and creating offices in bedrooms/coffee shops/coworking spaces.
And, perhaps most surprisingly, many of them love it. This transition is nothing less than a revolution. Could E2.0 really mean Enlightenment 2.0? This is a cross-post of my current article in CMSWire. I hope you enjoy it. “Social Business” is not about technology, or about “corporate culture”. It is a sociopolitical historical shift that is bigger, broader and much more fascinating. A new perspective is changing how we think about society, politics, interpersonal relationships, science, government and business. New approaches are emerging. Learning and self-expression are exploding. Business structures founded on command and control, automation and process are giving way to structures that are less hierarchical and more dynamic, designed to engage people’s hearts and minds to make a difference in the world.
In the past most business value was derived from controlling land, resources or intellectual property (processes, technologies and patents). There are 2 shifts in thinking that are driving the move to “Social Business” 1. Stuff is changing so fast that the rigid mechanistic structures are simply failing. 2. Like this: The Rise Of Rōnin and The Liquid Economy. Sara Horowitz, the founder of the Freelancers Union (through which I get my health insurance, by the way), makes the case that we are moving into a new US economy where rōnin (or freelancers) are becoming a significant force: Sara Horowitz, The Freelance Surge Is the Industrial Revolution of Our TimeEverywhere we look, we can see the U.S. workforce undergoing a massive change. No longer do we work at the same company for 25 years, waiting for the gold watch, expecting the benefits and security that come with full-time employment.
We’re no longer simply lawyers, or photographers, or writers. Instead, we’re part-time lawyers-cum- amateur photographers who write on the side.Today, careers consist of piecing together various types of work, juggling multiple clients, learning to be marketing and accounting experts, and creating offices in bedrooms/coffee shops/coworking spaces. Independent workers abound. As of 2005, one-third of our workforce participated in this “freelance economy.” A Liquid, Not A Solid: A City, Not A Machine. Dave Gray is onto something with his Connected Company project (with Thomas Vander Wal), which is ostensibly looking at the way companies are changing as they move away from statically designed hierarchies and processes to dynamically self-organized networks: Dave Gray, The Future Is PodularOne of the most difficult challenges companies face today is how to be more flexible and adaptive in a dynamic, volatile business environment.
How do you build a company that can identify and capitalize on opportunities, navigate around risks and other challenges, and respond quickly to changes in the environment? How do you embed that kind of agility into the DNA of your company? The answer is to distribute control in such a way that decisions can be made as quickly and as close to customers as possible. Let me rephrase: The world is increasingly more dynamic: we are inventing our ways of working in almost real time. As in an city, Register here for more information on this project.
Liquid: The Mobile, Social, Connected, Webbed World. We are clearly at the tipping point of a new era in computing, and we haven’t got a great name for it. Steve Jobs used a ‘post-’ characterization recently, saying that the iPad represented the gateway to the post-PC world. But we need a term to characterize what this is, not what it isn’t. And what is it? It’s a convergence of a number of trends, some of which are more-or-less independent, but all are coming together in a class of new devices and the tools and practices that are popping up around them. What are these trends? Social — The emergence of the social web — as typified by Facebook, Twitter, and ten thousand other tools — has led to the rewiring of our economy and probably our minds. What is over the near horizon is a liquid world, in which social nets, ubiquitous connectivity, mobility, and web are all givens, forming the cornerstones of a vastly different world of user experience, participation, and utility.
The Connected Company › The future is podular. One of the most difficult challenges companies face today is how to be more flexible and adaptive in a dynamic, volatile business environment. How do you build a company that can identify and capitalize on opportunities, navigate around risks and other challenges, and respond quickly to changes in the environment? How do you embed that kind of agility into the DNA of your company? The answer is to distribute control in such a way that decisions can be made as quickly and as close to customers as possible. There is no way for people to respond and adapt quickly if they have to get permission before they can do anything. If you want an adaptive company, you will need to unleash the creative forces in your organization, so people have the freedom to deliver value to customers and respond to their needs more dynamically. A pod is a small, autonomous unit that is enabled and empowered to deliver the things that customers value.
Process to pod Chains vs. nets A podular system is like a net. Digital Darwinism: Who's Next? Brian Solis. InShare498 This is the first part in a short series to introduce The End of Business as Usual… Change is inevitable, but it is rarely easy. Among the greatest difficulties associated with change is the ability to even recognize its need at a time when we can actually do something about it. Sometimes, when we finally realize that change is inevitable, the vision or energy needed to push forward in a new direction is elusive. If you follow technology as avidly as I do, we can agree that the volume of emerging technology is both awe-inspiring and overwhelming. The reality is that we live and compete in a perpetual era of Digital Darwinism, the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than our ability to adapt. Nothing today is too big to fail nor too small to succeed.
The means to see the need for change is only surpassed by our ability to distinguish opportunities for transformation and innovation. #AdaptorDie Tags: