The Future of Information Work: Workforce Evolution

Why We Shouldn't Worry About America's Brain Drain - And What We Should Worry About

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:13:34 GMT

I know it's hard to talk about a move away from nationalism during an election season, but we need to do that in order to create a reasonable dialog. I remain worried that the Obama campaign keeps talking about bringing back industrial age jobs to the America. Let's get series Barack. Most people don't want low wage jobs back in America, and many aren't willing to embrace the need for lifelong learning that will kick them into high earning brackets. It's a hard conversation to have with America, but its an honest one.

America cannot afford to become protectionist. It can only afford to become more competitive. We need to concentrate on community colleges not for two year degrees, but as the very model of lifelong learning, allowing people to entry and reenter as often as necessary. That behavior is already happening, but the perception remains that 2 year institutions are transitions to vocations or places to shore up skills before attending a four year institution. The Obama campaign needs to retreat from the promises of bringing jobs home, and protecting American industries to helping American industries become competitive by renewing pre-competitive research and fostering more associations to form that can do that work so individual companies don't reap all of the benefits.

Lawrence Krauss is worried about the brain drain taking place in America and other industrialized countries (See: Science is losing out to the allure of Wall Street in NewScientist). I'm not worried, about Wall Street or industry, because I'm a globalist. Big companies will do just fine because they can afford to tap the global talent pool. What America needs to worry about is being a talent pool worthy of being tapped. This isn't about being nationalistic it is about being perceived as a environment conducive to creativity and innovation - to execution focused individuals and productivity. It is about the character of the workforce and creating an environment in which they will invent and excel. The American work ethic, our creativity, is or was the envy of the world, which means we have exported our own challenges, and that is a good thing. We have raised the level of wealth around the world, and now we need to kick it up a notch. And that doesn't just mean American being home to all of the smart people. It also, and I think this is often overlooked, means being home to the smartest consumers on the market. Our willingness to buy and our easy boredom forces invention. Even if not all of that invention happens here, we continue to drive much of the consumer economy (though China is working on that too).

Sure, it would be great to have the best scientists in the world, but the best science is already not about nations. The International Space Station (did you catch the name) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are international by nature. We need to not only teach science, but cooperation, collaboration and negotiation. America will prosper much better as part of the great networked economy. If Obama is truly a man for this moment in history as Bill Clinton said last week, then he needs to be a man of the networked economy, not just the text message communication era. And the economy, if it is the economy stupid, is a much more complex thing that most of the American electorate wants to realize. I get politics. I've run campaigns and I know you need to get elected before you can do anything, but I just don't see this very of reality in either campaign, and any level, and that worries me that the next four years, at least as far as our leadership in the global economy goes, may well be more of the same, or something different, but no less useful or effective than current policy.

Baby Boomers and Women in the Workforce

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:45:34 GMT

The Millennials want to spend time with friends and family, and more of them are choosing to stay out of the workforce. The Boomers didn't come back after the last downturn.

Good for society or bad? Good for children, bad for taxes.

KUOW's The Conversation discussed the topic today at length. I encourage you to listen to the subtleties of the discussion.

The Work of Teachers - Pay for Performance

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:10:40 GMT

The discussion about merit pay or pay for performance for educators is circulating again, as it should. I am on both sides. Here's why.

First, I am on the side of the teachers because to have a completely subjective merits system is worse than meaningless.

I'm for merit pay, because it makes sense that better teacher's are paid more, and that others have the chance to learn by example within a system that recognizes superior performance.

What's the problem. The problem is we don't have a system that defines performance to the point it is meaningful. We measure student performance on narrow topics within narrow time frames. A teacher's performance may not even be able to be determined until the students move on to the next grade and the preparation for the future can be determined. We need to think more holistically about measurement, and we need knowledge economy level scale to bring this ancient art into the 21st century.

Hear more here on The Conversation from KUOW.org

The Work of Staying Sane - Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the Rescue of One Reporter in Baghdad

Tue, 20 May 2008 04:19:38 GMT

As it says on NPR's Morning Edition site:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer saved the world and the sanity of NPR's Jamie Tarabay while she was in Baghdad. Tarabay explores why she needed the slayer during her time in Iraq.
Hear it here

This piece is a great lesson in how pop culture really influences people's lives, even helping give them a connection to hope in the most uncomfortable of circumstances.

And over at Salon, they are reporting on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer academic, Lynne Edwards, a leading Buffy scholar. Read about it here.

We often belittle people for liking television. In the 1500s and 1600s people were belittled, or worse, if they like attending the play houses. Shakespeare and Marlowe were little more that sitcom and soap opera hacks to their academics of the time. Television was the literature of the 20th Century. The only problem I see with that statement is the 21st Century may suffer not from frivolity, but from a lack of center. Books gave way to television and television is giving way to the web - unfortunately for those 30 years from now looking for college courses to teach about their youthful influences, much of what they read will have turned into all zeros, unable to be found, perhaps even unable to be viewed if it still exists. What will the legacy of the Web really be - history written to our eyes like wisps of bitmapped skywriting slowly de-rezing, eventually irretrievable, remembered failingly and inaccurately only by those who directly experienced the moment?

Excuse me, but the Hell Mouth is calling...

Americans - If you can still read this, please do

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:49:39 GMT

US News and World Report ran a Q&A by Susan Jacoby, the author of The Age of American Unreason (read the US News article here). And we should be embarrassed. I travel all over the world, and as much as I study the world, I always feel ignorant. I am not proud of it. Many of my fellow Americans, according to Ms. Jacoby are not only nonplused by their ignorance, but they are righteously proud of it.

I do a lot of work in the area of workforce development. This analysis is disheartening. I work with very well meaning people trying to find work for Americans - it is hard to imagine a competitive workforce when the workforce goes out of its way to be non-competitive at the most highly competitive of areas: knowledge. How can we imagine (well, I guess if you don't think about your place in the world you don't need to imagine) keeping other countries at bay in any field, when you can't even point to them on a map.

We have a tendency toward magic in America. A Harris Interactive poll done in 2005 said 73 percent of Americans believed in miracles (read it here). I guess if you believe in miracles, when you really need to know where Iraq is, a supernatural being will guide you there - hopefully not in the bay of a CH-46 Sea Knight troop carrier where the manifestation of the miracle is a fellow soldier pointing down from a open door toward the waiting ground below.

Defending the Differences with Millennials

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:44:08 GMT

Today I had a meeting with a customer and was challenged several times by my finding about the Millennials that go back to the gestation of this blog. The basic challenge was that of youth. High turnover rates among young people, it was argued, was just a symptom of youth - as were observations about work/life balance and the willingness to give up pay and benefits to keep a balance.

My personal interpretation of everything I have read, and everything I have experienced and researched personally is that the Millennials are a break point in observations about generations as a result of global connectivity. This is the first generation to share a type of consciousness that goes well beyond empathy, to deep relationships among its members fostered by social networking, instant messaging, texting, shared editing, etc. Rather than read about others, the Millennials connect with the others, and in many cases, have found that the others look very similar to those they see in the mirror every morning.

Prejudices have broken down, appreciation for diversity has increased, and all of these perceptions and attitudes are leading to new work behaviors - namely, a distrust of institutions and a reliance on new structures, such as social networks, and the relationships they embody, combined with a stalwart self-reliance.

It is, indeed, too easy to generalize, and personality traits (ala Jung) play into individual behaviors, as does economic status, but by and large, I have found the Millennials to be highly unified and very different in their relationship to work when compared to the Baby Boom or Generation X.

I make no value judgement on if the Millennials are good or bad for the workforce, for innovation, for productivity, than previous generations. I do make the assertion that they are different, and that given the size of this generation, organizations need to seriously understand them, and understand how to leverage their unique technical capabilities, as well as their work ethic, however it may manifest itself in a given situation. Assumptions about the workplace, from annual reviews to the idea of entry level jobs may be on the way out as Millennials assert themselves in the workplace. I think they will bring refreshing changes - the largest of which will be an acceptance of change as a way of life.

If the workforce is not striving toward a status quo of some sort, the question is, what are they striving for? - and to me, at this point in the generation transition, that remains a profound question that has no answer. I do know it is going to be a different end state than the one expected by their predecessors.

Career Portfolio? Nurturing Multiple Careers

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:09:30 GMT

In the February 29, 2008 The Week's workplace they recapped a Wall Street Journal article about career portfolios (read it here). More people, it reports, are managing their careers in two tracks. It is hard to say which is more professional the poet/futurist - musician/accountant but suffice it to say, that people are opting to no longer be defined by their employment, their employer, or their role within an organization.

On one hand, this is very positive for the people living in Daniel Pink's future documented in A Whole New Mind. What it means, however, is thrusting even those not ready for that future, into that future, because the career profiles of people become more complicated. In Pink's world, you want to find guitar playing software engineers, or oil painting strategists. That combination of skills makes for an integrated view of the world - and a more adaptable employee. But testing for that in the recruiting process is new. It isn't just finding the hobbies section of a resume and looking for guitar player. An indicator perhaps that this recruit is interested in more than fulfilling a routine, but it doesn't suggest any particular level or deep connection to alternative models of thought. It may mean simply that mom and dad bought some lessons twenty years ago.

The multiple career thing, on the other hand, is about a deep commitment. As many of you know, this is my "professional" blog vs. my poetry blog. My poetry blog is not professional simply because I don't have a model for earning money from poetry. I spend plenty of time writing, revising, sending out poetry to magazines - etc. All very professional activity, just with a low economic turn. That thinking model, however, is critical to my paying job, because by tapping into my poetic side, I am willing, as I often say, to visit places my colleagues dare not venture - and the trip there, and the return to the business world is informative and insightful - and might just lead to innovation - and the ability to avoid risks others don't see - or to take advantage of new opportunities.

People who maintain these dual track careers create a way for organizations to see a holistic view of the person. Unfortunately, in age of scan and recruit, we may miss these extra long resumes full of irrelevancies because recruiters to look for what is relevant - and resume writers are taught to focus on the skills people are looking for, to have different resumes that market them in different ways. This argues for something different, it argues for the willingness to see the whole person, to push off efficiency in order to be effective. Not everything is about doing a job faster and cheaper - real value often comes from doing something well - and when it comes to recruiting, if we want to fight the overwhelming propensity of young people to find ways to reinforce their already very tenuous affiliation with their employers, then the employers need to think about their recruiting, and the way they on-board and later treat people. Employers need to radically engage their employees if they want them to radically engage in their work.

The millennial generation craves ways to leverage the diversity they see in the market place of ideas. They want to be challenged and they want to be appreciated. Both reasonable requests that organizations need to place at the forefront of corporate values.

It's Time to Support the Boomer Transition with Changes in Commitments and Investments in Knowledge Transfer

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:16:31 GMT

Yesterday I presented a clinic at the National Association of Workforce Board Forum on creating a more competitive workforce. Here are a few of the recommendations I made in my session:

For Baby Boomers and Early GenX we need to concentrate on

• Technology Renewal

• Finance and Healthcare Management

• Coaching., Teaching and Mentoring Skills aimed at knowledge transfer

Those who are in the swiftly aging workforce, need experience the coaching on inclusion. They need to be brought into the technology aware world in a meaningful way for them, so they can bring their business acumen and industry expertise into the digital dialog.

They need to understand that their organizations, or their peer groups (if they are a member of an association for instance) understands their needs when it comes to finance and healthcare management.

Finally, we need to work with this group on coaching, teaching and mentoring skills so they can better understand how to transfer their skills to the next generation, or perhaps even record it in a consumable way if no catcher can be immediately found.

In the 1990s, we all know that the aging Baby Boomers created a knowledge risk for many organizations, especially those with deep institutional knowledge like government, military, aerospace, etc. What we didn’t know then was that the generation that would be charged with accepting the economic mantel over the long term (The Millennials – large enough to catch vs. GenX who is too small catch effectively, even if they are willing).

Beyond the skills for transfer, organizations need to create incentives and commitments for Boomers and early Xers . Transferring knowledge cannot be a sideline any longer. It must be a very focused effort with measureable outcomes both for transmitter and receiver.

Read Generation Blend

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:30:31 GMT

Congratulations to my friend and colleague Rob Salkowitz on the publication of Generation Blend, new from Wiley. You can find the book at Amazon here. Keep up with the book's progress and Rob's latest insights at generationblend.com.

Jeff Dunham Does Seattle : The Work of Comedians

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:09:25 GMT

As a poet, I think of comedians as the real poets of today, in terms of their popular impact. Yesterday Jeff Dunham was in Seattle for a concert, and he was absolutely hilarious. What comedy and poetry have in common is that ability to make connections that other people don't make. A lot of poetry is very funny, and some comedy is more contemplative than hilarious, but in terms of how the mind works, and how comedians work on people with language, I believe them to be kindred spirits.

If you haven't seen Jeff before, then enjoy this YouTube compilation.

The most heartening moment, which came across sincere even though it has probably happened dozens of times, was when Jeff did his encore with character Bubba J, his good ol' southern boy. Jeff claimed not to remember the jokes, but since we had already seen what we paid for, he went on to apologize for his need to read the jokes (Bubba wasn't part of the regular show he claim). Well, the audience helped out on every line. It was clear that Jeff was surrounded by fans who had embraced him and is characters - and they audience started chanting every punch line - Bubba said at one point it sounded like some kind of surreal church of Bubba J.

Well, enjoy Jeff and other comedians and when you do, think about what they do to your brain, to your perception of the world, and then think about Shakespeare or Whitman or Ibsen or Tennessee Williams. When I look past the form I see the same pleasure for language, the same revelry in humankind and the same joy is stating insight in a unique and innovative way.

For more on Jeff Dunham, see www.jeffdunham.com.

Soft Skills for Engineers. Measured how?

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:25:25 GMT

I agree completely with the analysis from a recent AP story Engineers Learning People Skills, Too. It makes perfect sense that engineers, in a collaborative environment, need to understand the soft skills required to negotiate boundaries, mediate conflicts and drive consensus. My question is, are we putting the management frameworks in place so engineers, or anyone else for that matter, being told to be more people oriented, understand what they get out of it, and how success is measured?

Is the desired outcome better designs? Better communication with customers? Better integration with the call center? More equitability in the taking of credit for collaborative work? Further reach into the global talent pool? Higher retention? All of the above.

Well, for most engineers, they wouldn't know how to start measuring success along those dimensions, and have probably never had such a conversation expert perhaps at some annual ritual of management prodding to expand their intellectual horizons. Because the results of that conversation weren't really measured, the conversation proved superfluous. More products. Better products. Less recalls. Lower costs. Got it boss, I understand that stuff.

So my challenge to Berkeley and MIT is to not just help engineers how to better integrate with organizations, but to help organizations learn how to better integrate their diverse workforces. How will an engineer know he is going a good job in the future? When he gets invited out to beer night with sales or accounting, or when he had a breakthrough product that took him off the grid for a month, sustained only by Pizza and Jolt? You tell me.

Rehabilitating Dropout Factories

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:47:14 GMT

One of the top stories on msnbc today was :1 in 10 U.S. high schools is a 'dropout factory' (read it here). That is the kind of headline every PR wonk in Silicon Valley aspires to, but not one that public school should ever want run again.

But there is a problem. We haven't reinvented education. The biggest issue, and that starts, not with pedagogy, but with strategy and measurement. Are schools measured by the number of degrees the confer, or by the ability of their graduates to contribute to the workforce in an effective way, and to be an engaged and informed electorate.

No child left behind is leaving children behind because it emphasizes only certain aspects of education. We don't have a test for "well-roundedness." Until we do, then a test as a means of understand the outcome of an education process is helpful, but it is one input. And we have to be careful about systematic application of measurement in schools because we are dealing with many aspects of a student's life the defy equations. The traditional method of "preponderance of evidence" may still be the best method of student assessment, but it is not without problems, because no standard yardstick applies, and the system can easily be gamed.

But this article is about people not gaming the system. It is an article about leaving the system. And the points to more endemic flaws, flaws not just in measurement, but in engagement, in style, in approach, in environment. The UK, as I posted earlier, is replacing all secondary schools with buildings that reflect the philosophy of new education: the are designing education principles into the buildings, principles that reflect the networked, time-shifted world their students live in. If we want American schools to stop loosing students, let along become competitive at the global level, then we need to create engaging environments that are relevant at the student level, the community level and the global work level.

And we have to start with students. We have to start with environments of respect and shared learning. I am well aware of classroom control issues and discipline problems, even violence, but I am also aware that educators and educational institutions that go out of their way to engage, and distract toward learning, those students who might otherwise seem disenfranchised, do occasionally make inroads.

But to be fair, this is not just an institution or government problem, it is a citizen problem. Drop out rates come from pull on both sides. If the school can't pull toward education, and the community is pulling against it, or at least, not pushing toward it, the institutions can't succeed in a broad way, regardless of their local innovations.

If we want to stop drop outs, we need to create communities that want the same things from the institutions that I stated above: good citizens and good workers. The schools than then fight to become what they need to be, but they need the incentive from an electorate willing to prioritize, in a real way, the education of children. Unfortunately, this is a tough cycle, as a lack of education becomes the norm, the push toward education becomes secondary, even tertiary, to many other things - and the cycle continues.

One suggestion for schools: get out of the school. People learn everywhere. Don't have the community come to you, go to the community. The world is no longer place based, their is no reason for education to be place based. People will have a harder time dropping out of a system that doesn't have anyplace to drop out of. Think about it.

The Future of Pharmaceuticals is Customization

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:34:34 GMT

Slate's Dr. Sydney Spiesel was on NPR's day-to-day discussing the recent FDA recommendation (read it here in ScienceDaily) that people taking the blood thinner Coumadin (or the generic warfarin) would benefit from genetic tests, providing physicians with better insight as to dosage. This tricky drug has huge efficacy issues based on how quickly patients internal systems eliminate it.

You can hear the interview here.

The reason I am blogging about this? For the last several years I have been discussing the customization of the pharmaceutical industry, and the need to increase the information component at the point of delivery. In other words, this first step by the FDA on one drug, is the beginning of a movement that may end with the neighborhood pharmacist checking models of your genetics against models for all of the drugs you are taking (as specialization continues in medicine, he or she may be the only one with full visibility into what you are ingesting). Those models could simulate the interactions with essentially, a model of you.

The anticoagulant medication warfarin as represented by 3Dchem.com

This is very different work than the work being performed today at the local pharmacy (though, I believe, it is the aspiration of many pharmacists). The work is much more information intensive, which will mean both a need for higher math and science skills initiatively, followed by a decline in need for those skills in the field as software captures the capabilities in complex parameter driven systems that can give more traditional pharmacists these insights. Both tracks will happen in parallel, and the outcome, no matter the timing, will be new jobs in software, biochemistry and field pharmacy. And of course, probably some innovative law suits that will require new litigation specialities as well.

Project Management and the Millennials at NASA

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:40:15 GMT

If the topic of new workplace attitudes and their affect on project management is of interest, you may wat to jump over to NASA's online ASK magazine for my latest article on changes in the workplace. I'll let you read the detail there. Enjoy the ride, and try not to pull too many Gs during the read!

The Next-Generation Workforce and Project Management

Giving Employees a Great Experience Increases Retention

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:01:31 GMT

Um, I just had to post on this. From the Arizona Republic (It's true: A nicer office can boost morale). I guess it is good that research is telling us that drab, lifeless workplaces don't provide employees with a good experience, and therefore they leave. What productivity, innovation and the economy in general needs is some common sense. Don't spend more more than you have (many people are so stressed about their finances that they can't concentrate at work) and if you create a great work environment, people will do great work.

It's 11pm the night before Labor Day (well, I guess it is already Labor Day in New York, Chicago and other places east). As you barbeque your hot dogs, and grill your burgers, think about what Tuesday will be like if you manage people. Hopefully it will be a better Tuesday, than it was Friday, even if you already get it you can get it a bit more.

(BTW, the post on how to navigate the future is coming, I just saw this before that one was done)

BusinessWeek, the Future of Work: Final Thoughts

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:51:09 GMT

BusinessWeek did an expansive job on today's workplace and its workers - it is too bad it doesn't really teach people how to reason about the future of work. I'll cover some advice in my next entry. For now, let me go through the remainder of the article and capture some thoughts.

If you are interested in another take, BTW, please see Steve Barth's What is the Future of Work? entry at typepad.

Now for the final in the series of commentaries on the BusinessWeek Future of Work Series (see the articles here: The Future of Work).

No-Cubicle Culture (page 60) Its great to hear case studies for inspiration, but design facilities that meet the needs of your organization. Space is important. It reflects the culture of the organization. Kolind changed the culture at Oticon and part of that involved the space, but his radical move toward reinvention has left its mark in a physical way as office structures remain loose. Unfortunately, hierarchy has reasserted itself as Mads Kamp, their head of HR points out: "people want to be led" referring to a return to more traditional models of management. Lesson: offices reflect culture they don't make it. Comment: Leadership is about leadership, not about reporting structure. Kolind reinvention at Oticon didn't take.

The Shape of Perks of Come (page 61) Good list. Again, do what works for you. These aren't perks to come. These are perks for now. As for "The Nanny Corporation is Watching" since when is overwrought personal intrusion on eating habits and exercise a perk?

The Empire Strikes At Silos (page 62) All I can say is yes, if you are really creative, Lucasfilm would be a cool place to work. Empowered people. Great technology. The freedom to invent. Too bad they don't think holistically. All those visual artists could use some verbal and emotional assistance. The last three Star Wars movies would have been incredible had they included a good word smith and a empath on the teams.

Home, Office And Laboratory (page 66) Margaret Regan seems to have some insight. I like her top three list. Like any consultant, Regan only gave away teasers to BusinessWeek, so she is probably even more insightful than this article lets on. (Note to self: look into Regan's consulting)

The Challenging Talent Game (page 68) Offshoring is a tough call while wages are lower in developing economies. It won't always be that way. Wage parity is inevitable. The transparency of the Internet makes it clear to all parties what the wages are like in different economies. In truth, everything can be outsourced, except, perhaps, core management. If that is true, the world we live in will be very freelance oriented, so, as the next article discusses (Brand You Page 70) the best way to remain of value is to create unique value. Don't take jobs that you can't see a way to differentiate from the start. If you aren't a unique talent, then you need to recognize the risk. My POV is that everybody is a unique talent in some way, and the innovation that comes from figuring out your uniqueness will reciprocate in that unique talent being recognized in the market. If US wages and the dollar keep fallling, hold on, you may be able to pick up some work from Europe before long when they start outsourcing to the highly creative American workforce. If you want the US economy to grow, then differentiation needs to be a personal goal the second you hit the job market, and organizations need to let you do it. In the end, good talent does flow uphill.

The Heavy Duty of the Factory Man (page 74) This week Detroit (well, Michigan) is playing its cards in the primary race by trying to get politicians to pay attention to US manufacturing by moving the primary date up (see the news here). Electing protectionist officials is not the answer. Creating great products, at reasonable prices that perform (insert consumer expectations here) is the answer. It will take a lot more than policy to make old American manufacturing work - in fact, I think old American manufacturing needs to completely reinvent itself. The future of the world will be highly distributed manufacturing, with scale being made in China and India over the next several years, and custom stuff being made wherever it is best made. The later should be our target. Yes, it is not good for the workforce to have jobs go away, but let's start growing new jobs in the old industrial areas. Look at some of LA's old factories, now doing special effects or software. Instead of trying to hold on to the past or bring the glory days back, let's envision a future. This series of article is missing a vision that creates a context for forward momentum. Good reporting on today, but little to indicate that any of that reporting points toward strategies or tactics that will indeed be those things that live on into the future. The old industrial economy is certainly not destined for most of the futures I can imagine - I can imagine customized, small lot manufacturing. We can't out-scale China anymore, perhaps (or at least our political, social and financial will isn't there to do so) so let's create new micro-manufacturing opportunities or just embrace creativity and services and all enjoy our Toyotas.

The Always-On Trader (page 76) Being always on is about choices. If you work in the financial markets, then you have the choice of being always on - not the necessity. Every financial guy or gal isn't working 24/7 - but if that's your differentiation, then that's your choice. For most people, take the advice to search out that off button, silence button or whatever disconnects you from your communication stream. Human beings need downtime to retain their competitive edge.

By analog, same with travel, offices at airports and other bits covered here (Will Travel for a Job and Home is Where the Airport Is) What the interconnected, global world has given people is more choices about how and where and when they work. Take advantage of those choices to create a job that works for you. As for the future of work, if the world becomes more freelance oriented, you will find even more choices. If you want a traditional nine-to-five close to home chances are better that you will be a checker at a grocery store than a supervisor at a manufacturing plant. High pay, high prestige will probably mean spending some time away from home - and certainly a lot of time connected to far away lands.

How to Heal A Sick Office (84). Duh. Regulation probably coming to make it mandatory. If you know you have a hazardous condition in the office fix it. But if people aren't working in an office, then maybe we should clean up these old toxic offices and turn them into some kind of education facility that helps people keep their skills at the right level for global competition.

Boosting Our Gray Matter (page 86) Inevitable. Legal or illegal. If you can have an edge, some will choose to experiment. Some of this will become mainstream. Best line and most accurate in the entire series "There's no telling how today's research will change the world in 10 or 20 years." And I'm still reading why? (Hint, this stuff is better covered by New Scientist, Science and other deeper scientific publications, and in a much more meaningful way. See Radical Evolution in my book list for real mind numbing mind experiments.

Fatigue Fighters (page 88) Ah, a Disney House of Tomorrow shrunk down to the size of a chair. Just give me a nice recliner or club chair and ottoman, and MP3 player and a dog. I have posted about sustainable economies. If this is what we consider innovation, we are all destined to make things that nobody will buy or use. Let the Heavy Duty Factory men spend their time building useful things.

Brave New Rat Race (page 94) if the editors had just started with this, and not printed it, and given us something even as remotely coherent as any of these visions, perhaps I wouldn't have been so disappointed and spent so much time blogging about my misgivings about a major American business publication so missing the point about a process of creative speculation in which I spend nearly every waking minute considering from dozens and dozens of angles.

And BTW BusinessWeek, those "visions" of the future from popular media aren't speculations about the future, they are, as all good science fiction is, a commentary on the time in which they were created. The Jetson's wasn't about the buttons being pushed, it was about the relationship between the pushy boss and the wimpy employee. Metropolis was a commentary on the disenfranchised proletariat of Germany post World War II, not about the future.

So I guess my opening comments about this series of articles being more about today than tomorrow shows through the editorial bias of their final chart.

The problem it seems, was the title, perhaps, not the articles, because this was never about the future of work, it was all about a commentary on our satisfactions, frustrations and hopes for the world we live in today.

Cyberslacking: Today's Cigarette Break Without the Harmful Side Effects

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:35:56 GMT

It used to be that you would find smokers in break rooms talking. Then, in the heat or the cold, they would, in diminished numbers, huddle around the increasingly distant perimeter of the workplace, puffing away. You occasionally see them still, but most workers are eschewing smoking for other at-work vices, like gaming and chatting.

In this Reuters article (Don't Let Your Boss Catch You Reading This) we find cyberslacking taken to like the next expose. The article is typical of our industrial age bias. The crime is the intrusion into the workplace of play, mind-wandering, perhaps mind-numbing activity. Distractions.

What the article doesn't talk about is people taking their work home with them. Answer e-mail while stirring the soup. Catching up on reading or reports while commuting. Chatting about work while coaching with homework.

The model of the workplace is changing. The boundaries are moving and blurring, to the point that articles like this don't make sense without the context of time spent working. It's 10:24 and I am blogging. For me this is work. I'm thinking about the future of the workplace. I'm not writing poetry. I'm not gaming. If I occasionally check the status of an ebay auction while I'm at work, is that fair trade for time on the weekend preparing a presentation for an early Monday meeting. I think it is. What about weekend travel? Many employers are starting to recognize that the work is more fluid than it used to be in many roles.

As a pseudo-journalist, I get writing stuff that catches people's attention. Great headline Corinne! Now think beyond the low hanging fruit, beyond the 9-5 bias. People get up and call Europe from the West Coast of the United States, they sometimes go to bed after chats with India or China or go full circle with a quick midnight check-in with the UK. We need to rationalize our workplaces, and sometimes, that means letting people be irrational. If you want innovation, you need to give people some slack, and if cyberslacking is the slack of choice, then go get all World of Warcrafty and take down some demon knights or run the risk of turning out like King Arthas with constant visions of processes that don't inspire, or meetings that don't meet expectation. Sometimes you just need a break from work so you can face it all over again 30 minutes later. And if you employer is actually cool with that, then cool.

BusinessWeek and the Future of Work: Part 4 - Resistance to Change

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:04:36 GMT

Here is the fourth in the series of commentaries on the BusinessWeek Future of Work Series (see the articles here: The Future of Work).

In the rather obscurely titled article Cog or Co-worker, BusinessWeek explores rosy predictions for changes in the work place that go back to the beginning of the industrial era.

It is becoming pretty common for management consultants to get questions about how to attract Millennials, followed by requests for advice about how to get them to fit the mold of the employees they have grown accustomed to. Many predict high turnover for the Millennials in the workplace, and these kinds of attitudes won't help keep them on the job. It is true that empowerment is an old mantra and that companies continue to fight the tide - but things are different now, and here's why.

We live in a networked world. Peter Senge is quoted at the end of the article saying

" We see hierarchies in all kinds of organisms. If it occurs again and again in nature, it's not going to go away very quickly."

Well, networks occur in nature too. They are complementary, in some cases alternative models (bees and ants being network oriented, Baboons and Gorillas being hierarchical). Just because it occurs in nature doesn't mean the fit is right for today's business, not when networks are defining relationships. The hierarchy is in fact, a complete misrepresentation of all but reporting structures. It doesn't define communication, it doesn't define inbound or outbound relationships, and it doesn't define respect, or trust. It does reflect power, but if the Millennials are about communication and collaboration and not interested in building power bases like their Baby Boomer predecessors, then which model fits best? The answer is the network.

I do agree with the article that just because management gurus profess an affinity with network models doesn't mean that they will not be resisted by organizations. A fact or trend may be just the thing to solidify resistance. Organizations, not working structures, are about power. Trends toward empowerment may indeed be seen as a new enemy to be subtly undermined.

We are at least a decade away from any of this mattering in a material way to older companies. Start-ups, Internet-based firms and other entrepreneurial enterprises already work this way. In many cases, they always have. The big thing to watch is if they consolidate along power lines or if they retain their networked view of the world going forward. With all of the M&A activity out there, many small companies will be purchased into hierarchies, and go through the painful transition from start-up to "mature" company at the hands (and minds) of those who acquired them. That is a big reason so many acquisitions loose their entrepreneurial talent: it's just damn hard to be entrepreneurial inside of an old established organization that has very different values when it comes to power and empowerment.

Later in the issue, a pull quote says:

"Google and Wikipedia are just scratching the surface of new economic organisms"

And they are right (see The End of Work As You Know It). The organizational models evolving today are primitive reworkings of entrenched industrial systems. Until the network generation takes over and creates a workplace that reflects the way they see the world, we'll keep reading about the inevitability of new models - and the big question, when we look back, will be: could we really tell when and where and how the transition happened, or did the network just create an emergent behavior that finally overwhelmed the old models in a viral way so that the resistance to change ended without the holders of power ever knowing they were being attacked?

It Pays to be An Older Worker

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 19:18:52 GMT

A July 2 article in BusinessWeek (Golden Paychecks) reports that workers over 55 are reaping higher rewards in terms of pay increases. Why?

While a lot of commentary has focused on the Millennial generation and their high turnover potential, not as much as been spent thinking about the Baby Boom, outside of the inevitability of their departure. Here are a few points I have discovered in my research that will help explain why the Boomers are hanging around and why you might want to keep them handy:

They know business, and most importantly, your business. Ramp up time is shorter, if at all. In fact, they might be good and ramping up organizations that have lost their way.
They value relationships. As customer relationships and loyalty prove a differentiate in the market, people who are skilled at building and maintaining relationships are a must (GenX and Millennials aren't known for the broad interpersonal skills, but this can be learned so another reason to keep Boomer around is:
Mentoring. Create innovative learning programs where Boomers mentor younger employees. They are healthy and striving now, but the reality is, no matter how long science and society prolongs their lives, eventually, the Boomer will leave the workforce. Pay them now as an investment in educating their successors (this is advice that should have been heeded earlier, but wasn't. Organizations need to start knowledge transfer programs now. Right now. As you are reading this. Do you hear me. Right now. Now.)
They need to work. Many older workers like being healthy and want to stay healthy, but they may not be able to afford heath insurance on their own so they are dedicated to keeping their jobs and their benefits. Sure, they probably use the benefits more than younger workers, but this is an investment, not a burden, if you look at it as part of a knowledge transfer program (now, right now.)

Is this going to continue. Well, for some time, but time is the issue. Even if Boomers work into their 80s, eventually they will all turn 80. My guess is the companies that look at this as a strategic opportunity and take the leap to not just hire and take advantage of the skills of their older workers, but who also turn the older workers into innovation engines for the business (internal: teaching the business, external: learning from customers) then the investment will be well worth it.

Look beyond the stats to what this can mean to your organization, and look beyond, as it appears many are, the simple cost and efficiency issues. As your younger workers get it and show dedication, you'll have to go back to that Millennial literature to figure out how to keep them around to, and those strategies probably won't show up on a chart about wages.

(see my entry at the Institute for Innovation and Information Productivity for comments about the measurement of dollars paid in isolation)

Getting Over Being Overworked and Tired

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:04:45 GMT

Ezra Klein's LA Times article Land of the overworked and tired explores the issue of vacation and the fact that American workers have vacation as a benefit from the organizations they work for, not from the government.

And though most workers have vacation time, they fail to take it, working now 100 a year more hours than the 1970s (for men).

If your organization wants innovation, your people need to get out. Vacation is a way of connecting to new experiences. Relaxation is a necessary part of synthesis. Connecting with family and friends is healthy. And although increasingly organizations recognize the punctuated work day as a reality (days that don't run straight through 8-5, but give people the empowerment that they need to choose when and where they work) that is not the same as a vacation.

Sure we all want stuff and that drives us to work longer hours. But think about a different perspective. Think about vacation as work (ok, ok!). Leisure is a type of work. It is a resetting and preparation for higher quality work to follow (not in comparison to the leisure, but to work before the vacation).

I don't agree with Klein that this is a collectivism vs. individualism issue. It is very much an individualism question, but one that is made in an uninformed way. People think that grinding through the clock is positive, when taking time off, changing venues, connecting with new experiences, is all very positive for the work at hand. No matter the work, and if the work is creative, it is imperative. And I agree with Richard Florida that work is becoming increasingly creative - all work - which requires exception handling, customer facing dialog and innovation.

And of course, this gets back to how organizations measure value. The steady constant employee who is there day-to-day but burns out after a number of years seems more desirable to the less constant physical presence of what is likely to prove the next generation worker: the one who lives the punctuated work day on a regular basis.

We need to ask people to make commitments to achieve goals. When then need to create incentives that are about achieving goals, not doing stuff. We need to simplify the work lives of employees so they can concentrate on adding value, and those employees need to recognize the success factors for adding value. And that means taking good vacation that recharge them creatively and socially.

Its almost August and its not too late. Go have some fun.

Surowiecki on Guest Workers

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:56:58 GMT

The June 11 & 18 edition of the New Yorker includes a short article by James Surowiecki on guest workers. As the battle over immigration takes place, I think this is an apt conversation. He points out that we have offered this program for years.

Surowiecki points out that the biggest beneficiaries of the guest worker program are the guest workers themselves, who receive better wages, benefits and other standard of living improvements. Making things in the United States, servicing American consumers - those are, as Harvard economist Dani Rodrick calculates, better for our economy than outsourcing - and it is better for the employee, and the best way to lift people from poverty.

I think there is another aspect to guest work, which is the H1B visa program, which as I have commented before, needs serious work to be worthwhile. High tech companies squabble over a handful of visas for real high tech candidates while the majority go to relatives and lower income workers. If we want high tech workers, we should have a guest program for them too.

All of this goes back to basic Constitutional law, a subject my daughter Rachel is studying this week at Girl's State in central Washington. She is a Supreme Court Justice for the week, and is now interpreting the Constitution. My interpretation on this one, is that citizenship is a precious, earned commodity. We should not be stingy, but we should not be overly generous to the undeserving. The Constitution, however, is not just a document for citizens, it is a document for persons. Our guests may not receive all the privileges of citizenship, but they will benefit from its protections.

Over the next several years, the demographics of the US will be such that the global talent war we face today will appear but a skirmish. We need to bring innovation to policy as much as we need to return to innovation cultures in our corporations. An innovative guest worker program along with a comprehensive overhaul of immigration policy would be good for America, and good for those who join it, and in the end, it will service both our economic needs and our desire to help others out of poverty into self-sustainability. I can't wait for a Mexico that is an innovative and thriving economy. Rather than forcing people into lawless acts, let's teach them how to compete, and provide them an incentive to go home and apply what they have learned to the betterment of all nations involved.

And if they do settle in America rather than returning home, I hope we can look forward to innovations being applied here. The innovation in this work needs to be emphasized. This is not about revisiting and reapplying past failures, but looking for new options for the world we live in today, and the one that we should anticipate for tomorrow.

Exporting the American Dream: Five Steps Toward a More Competitive Nation

Sat, 26 May 2007 18:32:08 GMT

MSNBC is running a story today: Every generation does better? Don't count on it that details the demise of the American dream. Like many successful notions, the American dream has been exported, diluted and adopted widely beyond the borders of America. The American dream lives in China, it live in India and it lives in many other parts of the world. Our freedom and transparency, and the global reach of information have torn down the walls that protected the myth. We have told people around the world how to be successful in every aspect of business, and in great detail. And we have shown that the myth of American dominance in almost everything is just that, as corporate scandals, failures of quality and competitive worries show us as vulnerable. So the American dream lives, to create America's elsewhere, from the growth of freedom to the growth of industrial strength.

Complacency is a learned behavior. This article, and similar ones that show American falling from the number one position in a number of areas, is a wake up call for America to do what it does best: to reinvent itself, to work harder and to work smarter. The competition is tougher and more savvy. The competitive landscape is also more complex. A dominant military is no longer the answer, it is a part of a larger answer. Here are five steps we need to take to be more competitive:

Education. Not just more money, but a complete reinvention of education. Our education system is one that assumes economic dominance, and it can no longer do that. We need to teach children hard competitive lessons early, we need to bring transparency deeply in, and bring it in early. When we competed with Russia we all knew about that competition, and for the Baby Boom, as well, Japanese test scores hung about our heads like fireflies. The way to win the ideological battle is not war, but innovation - and innovation is predicated upon competitive understanding. We aren't competing with radical Islam on military tactics or strategy, we are competing with them on ideas, and we had better start reinventing our own ideology now, because the way to win against radical Islam is to win in the innovation across the world.
Embrace sustainability. We may well think that growth is the only way, but growth is a word defined by local culture. If we want to lead the world, we need to lead in the next thing, and that next thing is sustainability. Recycling, clean energy, keeping wilderness about. And I don't mean our meager efforts to day, I mean radical rethinking of an economy built on consumption and waste to one built on sustainability and economic growth through replenishment. That will take imagination and leadership, two attributes we have in abundance, attributes when focused on this issue will not only reinvent us, but reinvent the world.
Transparency. Politics have always been politics. That won't do. People around the world are watching to see if we are better than they are, and we aren't necessarily the shinning light. By embracing transparency, and distributing our own democracy more evenly, we can demonstrate our moral authority with more authority.
Travel. Americans don't get out much, if they did, they wouldn't hate or fear as much - and they would have greater empathy for the world. We compete in a global economy, and that means more Americans should get out and see it, and more importantly, leave our arrogance at home and rather than always teaching, be open to learning.
Media. We have the greater connection to a people than has ever been available before. Freedom does not mean irresponsible. It means freedom as well to be responsible. Let's get the organization who own the media to police themselves, to remove drug messages, sexual messages and other negative images from the media as a demonstration of leadership. I am not advocating that it all go, but that we have more engaging thought leadership, more science, more history, more travel - not more sitcoms or reality televised exploitation exploited by its advertiser. We have the media model wrong. If you want that kind of content, you should have to pay for it. If you want free, well produced, thoughtful television, including entertainment, that should be free. We do a disservice to our airwaves with what we broadcast. Again, I am not suggesting government action, but private and corporate action. We see bits and pieces, but we don't see movement. People with the ability to choose can watch what they want, but children don't often get to choose, and the people who choose what is broadcast should remember that occasionally.

These are just a few thoughts. The issue is complex and rooted in our very nature, but we are seeing that our nature is not sustaining us, and rather than listen to these kinds of reports with fretful loathing or despondency, we should step up and do something positive instead.

Creating a Better Work Experience: Help Stop Declining Job Satisfaction

Tue, 15 May 2007 22:50:55 GMT

In February of 2007 the Conference Board reported (click here to read the press release) continued declines in employee job satisfaction. I am working on a new book about the work experience, but here are a a few ideas to help managers rethink the way they manage people.

Create engaging environments.
Incorporate flexibility into work schedules, locations, and arrangements (telework, work at home, and job share).
Integrate people into a variety of projects, assignments, and career opportunities
Leverage diversity. Make work a learning experience. Give people time to learn from other people's styles and experiences.
Harness talent and create opportunities for performance in a variety of roles. No job is just a single role. Role-based thinking puts people in boxes. Recognize that people change their roles during the work day and provide rewards and incentives across the entire spectrum of performance.
Create effective training and mentoring opportunities.
Involve them in collaborative team-based projects and environment.
Allow and support the pursuit of outside activities, both personal and social. In fact, bring some of those outside activities inside.

My best advice is to stop managing people and what they do, and manage the work experience you and your organization represent. People know what to do when given a goal. Give good goals, communicate all the time, be open to learning yourself and trust your people.

Remember people choose to work where they work. People are a valuable asset. Yes, anybody can be replaced, but replacement of skills and knowledge is costly in terms of loss of time, loss of social networks (relationships, internal and external), loss of specific knowledge and a myriad of other factors that make keeping employees better than loosing them. We often focus on performance to the detriment of innovation. If we want to drive growth rather than just cost reductions, we need to create new organizations, and most importantly, new experiences for those who work for them.

The Millennials at Work

Fri, 04 May 2007 02:47:56 GMT

It appears some of my experiences have sparked interest from Employee Evolution. We are entering into a period of change in the workplace. Baby Boomers will shift jobs (I hesitate to comment on retirement when 80% in an AARP said they would not retire) and Millennials will join the workforce in massive numbers as GenX inherits the reigns of management.

Rather than asking questions about Millennials or Baby Boomers (many of which remain to be asked and all of which remain speculation despite the definition of the opinion by many Millennials themselves and the seemingly definitive tone of academic hypotheses) I want to ask about the GenX ability to manage a diverse workforce.

GenX, as the middle child in the demographic shift has often been very focused on personal success. Pleasing on the outside while while a fuzzy sense of self and place fuels an already overly warm dislike of the world left by their elders. Those elders, the Boomers, were too self-centered and too focused on success to bother much with the nurturing of their offspring. Or so the story goes. Wikipedia lists the following traits:

lack of optimism for the future
nihilism
cynicism
skepticism
alienation and
mistrust in traditional values

As I write my new management book for a networked era, I have serious doubts about the leadership skills, people management capacity, perhaps even compassion that GenXers will bring to the role of manager. Since I don't believe trends are inevitable, but rather guideposts along a path that we can either continue down or turn from. The GenXers who really embrace the diversity they inherit: a keen technical skills from Millennials - optimism and entrepreneurial spirit, and the insight and experience of the Boomers (who will return to the workplace, perhaps acting more like Millennials than their current stereotype) will be the leaders of tomorrow. They will be the ones that either bring together new models or force disconnect.

The boundaries, the success, even the criteria, are to be negotiated. The way this plays out in the board rooms of the world, on the shop floors, the retail storefront, the coffeehouses and the programming houses, will be soap opera on a grand scale if we watch keenly for the signs of drama around us.

It’s the Workforce, Stupid!: The New Yorker's Surowiecki on Lay Offs

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 07:21:14 GMT

New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki takes a look at layoffs this week, and the fact that it appears to do very little to help companies succeed by reducing costs nor does it create a healthier enterprise in the long run. What it does do, which Surowiecki misses, is continue the slide of corporate trust from the children of their downsized parents.

In my work with the Millennial generation, it has become clear that what we were taught all along was true: children emulate or react against the example set by their elders. In the case of corporate America, now facing the reality that the next generation of worker is willing to give up benefits and pay for time, that they are not committed to the workplace like previous generations were, that they see jobs in many cases, rather than careers -- they children of the downsized-right-sized-laid-off parents feel the only things they can trust are themselves and communities they belong to, be those communities physical or virtual.

Knowledge management is making a come back, and the situation is more serious than aging workers: it is exacerbated by the Millennial attitudes toward work that will make finding long term replacements for valuable knowledge workers hard to find.

People have skills, knowledge and value. Managers need to find new ways to connect to employees. Businesses need to find new models that recognize the value not just the cost of employees. People are not interchangeable, the expectations of customers also come in from relationships forged with employees. Surowiecki is right, but his column doesn't go far enough. Not only do organizations need to retain employees because they may be the source of many lost opportunities for innovation or customer satisfaction. Organizations need to repair the lost trust that makes them a place people not only feel good about, but where they find an outlet for their passion, and lost passion for the American dream is perhaps the biggest loss large organizations can face.

It appears, however, that the lost American dream may be detrimental to large organizations, and alive and well with the Millennials as they snub traditional employment in favor of new work models, including an entrepreneurial spirit that may well reorganize the American workplace into something industrial age workers and leaders would not even recognize. I for one, look forward to the rewards of the transformation, and the chaos of the journey.

Link to It’s the Workforce, Stupid!: Financial Page: The New Yorker

Picture source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010721/windows/main1.htm

Clearswift Study Points Toward Confirmation: When You Hire, You Hire the Network

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 04:41:51 GMT

In my work with members of the millennial generation we have discussed that when you hire a younger worker, you don't only get them, you get their network.

A recent Clearswift study found that :

42 per cent of office workers aged 18-29 have discussed work-related issues on social media websites

the Millennials see work differently. They see a continuity that previous generations did not see. I don't believe this is a disregard for boundaries but a redefinition of boundaries. They extend their trust without the need for paperwork, like non-disclosure agreements. My sense is, that a violation of that trust is not easily mended. And as with many relationships on the web communications can severed swiftly and elegantly.

For traditional employers this can be a very disconcerting development. Intellectual property, though protected by law, may not be protected by practice.

Recommendations:

Millennials like to talk and learn. Make sure you talk to them about this issue. Make it as real to them as you can, but traditional monetary discussion (e.g., it will eat into your paycheck) may not work because for many, the job they have is temporary anyway. Talk about trust and social responsibility.
If you are really concerned, monitor web traffic to social networking sites. Remember, IP leaks may not result in immediate implications. If you suspect someone is sharing more than they should, work the issue now.
Join a social networking site and see what all the fuss is about. This isn't all bad. People with real knowledge spend time in these sites. One of the reasons the Millennials communicate through these venues is to learn what they need to know to succeed. A gift economy is a two way street.

Final thought

We know how to model gift economies, but we don't know how to model gift societies. Well, not in the Western world. We should spend some of the time we spend defending capitalism with some time looking at alternative models that are emergent. We don't have new manifestos written by men like Marx. We have new manifestos evolving before us in ways that their authors can't even recognize because the parts don't yet sum to a whole that means anything. We need to apply our own pattern recognition so we can see how these emergent economies are taking shape, how they relate to our current economy and what transition effects (in both the positive and negative directions) we should be expecting.

Find more on Clearswitft here.

Talking about Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: Blindness to the Deep Structures of Globalization

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 01:19:44 GMT

Quote

Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: Blindness to the Deep Structures of Globalization
John's post is right on. Globalization is not inevitable if we don't change our mindsets. The give and take of traditional economies, the "zero sum" game he writes about fails to take into account holistic markets and relationships. It is a problem with models in general. Models are abstractions. Models are meant to be predictive. The more complex the thing being modeled, the less accurate the models are, so we invest huge amounts of money in understanding the underlying principles of the thing being modeled. Thus we have subatomic-subatomic particles. Bohr's model was OK on one level, and left wanting science was able to see beyond it. We are getting there in economics as well, on multiple levels. The models are starting to fail, and as we dive deeper, we see more of the underlying variables, but unlike nature (well, most of nature, I will get to global warming in a minute) the economic variables are human inventions. They are psychological. I don't believe economics is, in anyway, law driven in the way the universe has underlying structures. We have created economic structures that we can tear down and reinvent. The "law of supply and demand" is a law only because we say it is so. Many creatures exist in other realities, we just happen to have a consumption model. The sustaining model of economics, or a green model, would mean progress measured in other ways. Growth may not be the only means to a happy economic end.
Back to the models though. Models of weather are probably more closely aligned to economics. The chaos theorists knew this. The models are OK, but they are not overly accurate, and as we dig into them with ever increasing fidelity, we discover what: that some of the underlying principles may change. It may not be enough to model jet streams and fronts, ocean currents and temperature variations. Cosmic rays, comets hitting the atmosphere, solar flares, the orientation of the earth, the magnetic field and hundreds of other variables make the models look more primitive with every discovery because we can't account for them, because they are part of some other system we haven't modeled. If we can't predict and input, we can't predict the output accurately.
We live in an emergent world. We need to learn to surf rather than predict. Interestingly, that was of course, an early metaphor for the web. It remains a valid one. Survival will depend not so much on our ability to predict, but our ability to sense and to navigate the waves of change.

Disappearing Workers

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 18:31:35 GMT

The April 9 BusinessWeek ran an article titles Where Are All the Workers? It has begun, not just from retiring Baby Boomers but in more subtle ways. The global worker shortage is being driven by demand. And high demand and low supply means one thing: higher prices. Even higher prices for prized employees.

What to do:

Company need to refocus on people. On core competencies to be sure, but also sustainability. Will their partners be able to deliver? If not, they need to think about alternative and contingencies. The less controlled by an organization, the higher the risk of disruption: not just supply chain, but the knowledge chain as well. We could start seeing more low cost suppliers firing their customers in order to go into higher profit businesses. The Internet makes wage disparity highly visible. If I can read the BusinessWeek article, so can the workers in India and Malaysia.

Next up: increase the lobby for education. Start investing in your own human capital. Not training classes, but real investments. Mentoring, knowledge transfer. Classes are OK, but lifelong learning is a constant thing. Employers need to decrease an emphasis on productivity and increase an emphasis on outcomes and retention. The metrics driven by productivity economics will break. The economists won't know how to tell us about our economic health because they will see slowdowns in things measured, and no understanding of how to value emerging measurements. But I think an emphasis on education, on quality and on employee retention will pay dividends in terms of survival.

When asked about automation, I often caution organizations to make sure they automate high value work in a meaningful way. Automating the wrong things will just accelerate demise, not improve profits.

Where are all the workers? Some are looking for ways to wield their new value. Organizations better start thinking long and hard or they will find themselves held hostage to the labor shortages of the future. It is time to create a good environment, value people for their contributions and create meaningful ways of measuring human value that discard the old metrics of the industrial age. The information age isn't about cogs in wheels, it is about the wheels of the mind creating new value, and sooner or later, that thought will cross those creative minds with increasing frequency, and then the answer to where are all the workers? will be: at the place that really wants them most, and is willing to make it worth their while to work there - and that means far more than salary, it means environment, enlightened management and empowerment.

Aging Entrepreneurs

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 05:18:54 GMT

The 31 March 2007 Economist is looking at the future for many retiring Baby Boomers. In Retire to be rehired they outline a number of cases where retired employees find new work in the private sector using the skills they have garnered over their life experience.

In a future of worker shortages, people will need to stay employed. They may not be able to afford to retire if they didn't save. Healthcare costs will also drive older people to keep working. And then, their is the health issue itself, meaning, many of these people won't have health issues. Information workers don't have the same physical ailments of their manual labor counterparts. People can contribute significant value as long, as well, as long as they can. Information work doesn't have an age limit.

Think about this. Pair older workers with younger workers in what I call reciprocal mentoring. Engage each of them in learning, and make sure their performance measurements reward them for both teaching and learning. Not only will the older worker find new meaning in their knowledge, they may help the next generation worker stay around a bit longer, as they exhibit new technical savvy picked up from their young mentors.

Microsoft Board of the Future at CeBIT

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 14:12:30 GMT

A few comments captured from my travels to CeBIT...

CeBIT - News Display

(Well, a cool blast from the past.... more here from the recent trip:

http://www.web20.cz/cebit_2007_web2.0_boom)

Next Up: National Association of Workforce Boards Forum

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 01:46:59 GMT

I will be speaking Monday on the how the U.S. workforce can be more competitive in a global economy. More from D.C. on Monday!

For informaiton on the conference, visit the NAWB site.

Forum Link