April 27, 2010

Redesigning Work and Organizations for the Digital Age (3)

Derived from…
Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable
Previously
Redesigning Work and Organizations for the Digital Age (2)

Leisure
The work modes of the Industrial Age reflected the machinery of the time.
We did standardized jobs in fixed locations and set blocks of time to produce standardized products marketed in standardized ways.
In the Information/Knowledge/Digital Age we can work wherever our brain is and whenever we feel like it on stuff that appeals to us.
The customized niche of designing your own work and lifestyle is the promise of the Leisure Age.
It’s the Leisure Age not because we are doing nothing, it’s because when we work in our passion/gift our work becomes our pleasure and leisure.

Book Rapper References

The Four Hour JOLT! (The 40 hour work week retires)
How to Think Right (The outsourcing of left-brain work)
Make Money From Niches (the long tail of niches)
Purple You (The demise of standardized work)

Not for Profit
Previously, owning the means to production was the key to making profits.
And there was a clear distinction between who owned it and who were the workers who ran it.
This line has blurred and possibly evaporated.
Now, via the internet the tools of production are in the hands of everyone with access.
As a direct result the pursuit of profit changes.
Even a so-called not-for-profit organization needs to pursue profit to fund the future.
The big difference is the need to make profit to fund a future and then make profit on top of that to feed shareholders.
Take away the shareholder level, add the freemium models and the gift economies and all of a sudden the pursuit of profit and ultimately capitalism changes.