Tagged with: context machine
“The telecommuter is dead; meet the cloudworker.” – Venkatesh Rao
CloudWorkers. By the amount of mails I got after my earlier post this week, I assume it’s a topic you find fascinating. Well, I do. As far as I know, this term was coined by Venkathesh Rao:
“The cloudworker is the prototypical information worker of tomorrow. He overachieves or coasts remotely, collaborates or backstabs virtually, and delivers his gold or garbage to a shifting long-tail micro-market defined only by his own talents or lack thereof. The cloudworker manages personal microbrand equity and network social capital rather than a career.”
The term itself refers to the fact that this kind of knowledge worker uses his laptop and a connection to The Cloud (the Internet) to get his work done.
And we have the notion of organizations as nothing more but vehicles to facilitate talent coming together to achieve a certain purpose.
A pool of flexible talent on one side, facilitating containers with a purpose on the other side.
For some this image might be a stretch. Nothing more than some “hypothetical idea for the future”. If that is you, I’ll invite you to watch a small video from a company called oDesk. oDesk is a marketplace for online workteams, with, according to the company self, the best business model for buyers and providers. I have no affiliation or experience with this company. I just invite you to watch the short video and read this webpage with statistics.
It gets you a little more in the direction of what I am taking about.
Questions! What do you mean?
I also got a question about the “temporary context”. Why don’t call it a project? (Read this if you get all confused about “context”)
Fair question. Temporary context is a project viewed as a cultural entity. It is not limited to a project though. It can also be an online community or movement that has a temporary character.
And. What has PMBok, agile, scrum or any framework, methods, Bag of Tricks to do with culture?
The adoption of any approach, idea or philosophy of how things should be done, is part of the culture. With any Bag Of Tricks, by choosing one, the organizational culture is affected.
Diversity and homogeneity in the organizational context.
Yesterday I argued that decentralized diversity is needed for resilience. But homogeneity is also needed to ensure an organization has consistency.
I’ll illustrate this idea with an example.
An organization can create a context in which a large diversity of people find it a pleasure to work. Richard Florida, author of “The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent“, argues that three factors are important to attract highly skilled, creative, independent thinking people: technology, talent and tolerance. The 3Ts.
“For a city to attract the Creative Class, he argues, it must possess “the three ‘T’s”: Talent (a highly talented/educated/skilled population), Tolerance (a diverse community, which has a ‘live and let live’ ethos), and Technology (the technological infrastructure necessary to fuel an entrepreneurial culture). In Rise of the Creative Class”, Florida argues that members of the Creative Class value meritocracy, diversity and individuality, and look for these characteristics when they relocate (2002).” (Wikipedia)
Although Florida’s application is to geographic regions, like cities, the concepts could also be extended to an organizational context.
Alignment!
A clear vision, a compelling corporate ambition, is a homogeneity factor. The story the organization is telling is very important. You are making the world a safer place for citizens. You are creating a more sustainable environment by developing eco-solutions. You want to bring a PC to every desktop in the world. You want to provide a laptop to every child in developing nations. Your story is worth telling. And it’s this story that will keep everyone focused around a common theme.
An organizational context should balance elements that nourish diversity and homogeneity.
How do the three levels interact?
At this moment, I consider the following interactions between organization, temporary context and individual.
One.
On meeting a Challenge the organizational context is dominant when the temporary context is created. If the organization is traditional, the initial temporary endeavor will also be traditional. If the organization is tolerant, the initial project culture will be tolerant.
Two.
The temporary context serves as an attractor for individuals. An exciting project, a WOW project, will attract certain individuals. A public declaration of cause and culture functions as an attractor for “the right people”. Or, to stay in tune with the opening of this post: “the right CloudWorkers”.
Three.
After time, the members of the temporary context start effecting their own context. This reinforcing loop can create a creative and productive context, but it can also create a destructive deviant clique.
What’s the use?
It provides a way to look at “managing a culture of temporariness.”
A pool of flexible talent on one side, facilitating containers with a purpose on the other side. How do we get one side to the other side, and what happens next?
Sure. It’s still a basic structure. With sometimes confusing labels.
And we need to talk about the Openness that is The Internet. Or Ze Cloud.
Definitely need to talk about that.
Image by markhillary.
