1. Zoli Erdos on July 27, 2005 4:03 PM writes...

Well, this is he "Project Economy" a'la Tom Peters et al ... not just inside a corporation, but outside those boundaries.
The "buzz" in 99-2000 was Freelance Economy, Talent/Project Marketplaces .. etc. All this went out of fashion with the decline .. coming back soon :-)

2. John on July 28, 2005 9:01 AM writes...

For these trends to become established in any meaningful way, workers, their companies, and one must assume, the Federal and state governments, will have to somehow solve the problems of access to and the portability of employee benefits. The fact that medical insurance, basic income protections like life and disability insurance, and capital accumulation plans like the 401(k) (which, even though portable, are subject to vesting requirements) remain tied to one's employer will continue to restrict the free flow of workers to new firms, projects, guilds or confederations.

Barring significant changes in the provision of medical insurance, to pick only one example, I believe the more likely scenario will be for your "smaller groups of people" to come together under the "sponsorship", if you will, of the traditional corporation. This model already prevails to varying degrees in professional services firms. Without that sponsorship, your small groups will lack the kind of purchasing power that make employee benefits available and least somewhat affordable.

Bear in mind, as well, that a significant and growing percentage of workers are approaching their retirement windows, a time when matters of job stability, medical coverage, and income protection become natural preoccupations. The trends identified here are arguably ideally suited to the emerging trend of phased retirement, but not without some real changes in the ways pay and benefits are delivered.

3. Jim Ware on July 28, 2005 1:38 PM writes...

John:

You raise a number of valid and importants points - caveats, really, to our predictions. And I have to say I am in basic agreement with you.

I do believe, however, that eventually public policy will change to reflect the "new" economy - and that the barriers you cite will become non-issues.

Stay tuned for more of our "Theses" - we actually do touch on several of the points you made.

4. Tom Jackson on July 30, 2005 11:17 AM writes...

Hmm.

These bullet points (except 4, and the last sentence of 1) have been (growing) in place for two decades, and are not irrelevant.

However if we are looking at real trends not wishes we need to seriously include the active forces of deskilling (dumbing down) jobs and people, decline in rewards based on productivity, a rigged free market system in employment, the tyranny of heartless work, the push for function over capability, the entranced (manufactured conformity) pull of consumerism (standard of living) over quality of life, the bankruptcy of meaning in job slots, the separation of "jobs" from Work itself, and the lack of human values in most of the workplace.

Most important is the highjacking of and the control of capital and its rewards by the 5% of the population that controls the livelihoods of 75% of the people.

These are active trends (although they are historic the accelleration is real and retrograde)- that must be spotlighted so that revolutionary ideas and ideals can be kindled that can move the paradigm from corporate centered work to people centered work.

You are absolutely right in your headline. The future will be tense.

Tom Jackson

5. David Berger on August 1, 2005 4:03 PM writes...

I find all these speculations about the changing nature of work to be disturbing as they do not address the fundamental nature of work: that it is structured in a top-down, authoritarian way. Basically, corporations are dictatorships. All I see here is that so-called knowledge workers will be able to choose, on a rapid basis, which dictatorship they are subservient to. As to the rest of us, and workers in poor countries it will be business as usual

There isn't even a hint in all of these of any notion of work democracy. All this is is a calitalist's fantasy of their ideal world where corporate responsibility will be even less social while corporate power will be even more absolute.

Old Karl Marx once said that the courgeoisie gtends to reduce all relationships to the relationships of cash payment. This program celebrates that.

Bush and his neocon crew will love it.

6. Jim Ware on August 1, 2005 5:36 PM writes...

David, I appreciate your comments, but feel compelled to react in a couple of ways.

First, you are reacting only to the first seven of a total of 23 "Theses." I think you'll find as you read the rest (#'s 8-14 are here, the final 8 will be posted later today), that we are in fact predicting a world that is a bit more egalitarian than today - and one where individuals (and small groups) have both more power and much more influence relative to corporations than they do today.

Secondly, please keep in mind that in this conversation-starter we are attempting to describe what we think WILL happen - that's not necessarily what we wish WOULD happen (our views are closer to yours than you might think).

And frankly we don't think the top-down structuring of work that is so common today - though not as common as most people think: over three-fourths of us actually work in fairly small organizations - is at all inherent or inevitable. As we move from an industrial economy to a knowledge-based one, the nature of work is changing in ways that will make top-down organization less and less viable (no one has yet figured out how to manage creativity the way you manage an assembly line producing cars or refrigerators)

However, we just don't see enough evidence yet to convince us that the hierarchical, "dictatorial" nature of large corporations is going to fade away - as much as we might wish it would.

And, finally, we actually do think there is something going on that actually does point to a more egalitarion, less dictatorial world. It this: as knowledge work and creativity become the primary source of value-added, the means of production rest in the hands of the workers, not management or even investors. The balance of power is most definitly shifting. We freely admit we may not have captured that adequately in our "ReFormation" thoughts.

But - and this IS my final thought for today - there will also always be a role for large organizations, because some things need large-scale attention (telecom networks, power plants, massive construction projects, global banking systems, etc). BUT - and this is an important But - we agree with Tom Malone of MIT that even those larger organizations are tending towards more democratic governing principles, and already in some cases have become large internal marketplaces where jobs, compensation, and working conditions are more negotiated than mandated.

And frankly I don't think the Bushies will like what's coming at all - even though I'm convinced it is inevitable.

Anyway, keep those comments - and especially disagreements - coming. Lively conversation is how we all learn. And that's what this site is all about.