Knowledge Worker

I have been hit recently by how recently things have changed. It is a modern concept to have so many freedoms, and abilities. I am sure I am not the first to see this trend, but I would like to comment on it, if you will allow me (given my new sense of freedom!!!).

Stephen Covey, in his book entitled "The Eighth Habit, from Greatness to Significance", talks about the "knowledge worker". From my understanding of his idea, there will be opportunity in this decade to recognize and reward the individual contribution workers give while at work. This recognition and rewarding thing is not that special, it is why they will be recognized and rewarded.

I have many interests. How on earth could one company take into account all of my skills and abilities, and pay me the sum of what I am worth? (in December this will start to be a valid question when I graduate from College). This equation of worth must add up a workers creative abilities, side hobbies that lend to understanding in diverse fields, basically, workers that continually learn and grow, and apply that knowledge and passion back into work.

What does this look like? I have no clue. I have ideas, dreams, plans for what I would want it to be, but lets face it, I can not see the future (not yet anyways! I may or may not let you know when and if I ever can).

So that disclaimer aside, what might it look like, from my/our current standpoint? An example may be open source software. If you have ever used software written by people not paid to do it, it feels different. More dynamic, more alive, granted more buggy since sometimes adding a new feature is more exciting than fixing those pesky phylum (bugs).

Another example? Lets go hypothetical. Lets say you hire Leonardo DaVinchi. At first you say to me "Awesome!!! I get this highly creative guy on my team, made all those cool things, painted, drew, other stuff....." I have to interrupt you after several minuets because you keep blabering.

He writes backwards and has his own code, no good at sharing notes. He had the most unfinished works of any master (came from a book, will cite this sometime, believe me till then). Juggled in his spare time, and always scribbling in his journals. He would have been awful to have in the office. Like MacGuyver always pulling out his pocket knife to fix the broken fax machine, Leonardo would have ditched his assignments and done flight experiments with his attempt at a wooden helicopter.

Ok, so he might not have been that bad, but he would not have fit in. He had too many talents. How can companies fit this type of character into their companies, and keep them interested?
Lets use some corporate lingo-
1. Break the walls of interdepartmental knowledge barriers
2. Allow creative problem solvers to solve creative problems wherever they arise
3. Find a way to encourage learning and creativity, even if it is not directly related (ie juggling, art, ambidexterity...... you can get a little creative here, it is ok by me).
4. Pay people according to the value added activities they provide the company (figure out how to measure(better yet, let them tell the company how to measure) their value added activities, and pay people proportionate to how much of it they get done).
5. Build in time to allow people to increase their capacity to learn/work/increase creativity/give back/whatever.

Some companies get some of these concepts, but there is a ways to go. People like Google, Apple, Ideo, and others are starting to understand work sucks if you feel like a cog in a wheel in a machine. Work can be fun if you can contribute, add personal touches, do what interests you. Lets hope more get the point by the time I graduate! (otherwise consider this public notice that I will be starting a business that does as many of these things as possible, and we will take over the world!)

(For those of you who care to continue reading this gargantuan post, I do not think Leonardo would have done that badly, just not used to his full potential. Imagine Einstein at McDonalds, he would have been awful, staring off into space imagining gravity and light and singularities. Or more likely, the inefficiencies he saw around him, how he should write to corporate to speed this up, change this, do that. Corporate would have hated him! Unless they brought him up to a level where he could have seen the problems from a broader perspective, then he would have been a Genius!)

Resistance to Change

I am always surprised by someones resistance to change. I have chosen to continually grow and learn in my life, but I realize that not everyone has done this.

I only become aware of any difference when I talk about a great new "technology" or idea, like tags. If you are on the web at all, you are probably familar with using tags and how great they are. People that have not used them do not feel the same way.

"Why would anyone do something extra like typing in relivant keywords just so other people can search something better?" Well, I started to draw out supply and demand charts from my early econ days, then I thought about the effects of a public good or positive externalities, but all of these danced around the point.

Do unto others as you would do unto them. I now sound like I am preaching about technology. I think the point boils down to this, if you make something and you want people to see it, where will you put it? Lets say it is pottery. Would you put it in a closet? Or would you put it in a window? Even if that window was a litter farther away?

Tags are wonderful. I wish I could use them for real life objects, and organize my life by knowing what things I will need for school on a given day, and tagging them "school" and they magically fly into my backpack. That would be awesome!!!

But alas, that does not happen (yet!). Until then my digital life will remain dynamically organized by category and priority, while my room lies in dismal ruins (or organized by level of proximity from door to bed to floor, aka equally and evenly distributed between all three points in space).

Recent Aspiration

So you say you want to start a business?

So I says to the guy, "yea, I do!"
Then he says to me, What makes you think you will make some money eh?

So then I say "You see, when a market opportunity exists that has the potential to change the way business does business, is in its early stages of implementation, and there is one company that is doing it well and making good money, I say sign me up."

So what is it you ask?

I want to be a consultant, helping businesses integrate new collaborative technology into their companies. These simple tools, like email in the 90's, can revolutionize the way business operate, and they are giving the software away! That's right, there is good free stuff out there, but small and large companies don't know what to do with it yet.



Here is where I come in. I have heard it said, all the world looks a nail when you are holding a hammer. I do not believe world hunger can be solved by a wiki(well actually if you got enough people involved all finding the domain of their agreement on the issues at hand....), it might, but not yet. I think the greatest application will be to change the way groups work together, the way information is exchanged, like what email did to the paper inter office memo (only email made the annoyance, pain, and arduously non-relevant flow of information much faster, not necessarily decreased the redundancies, inefficiencies, or other silly things that happen in offices).

Do I think wikis are the savior of the information age? They will not perform any miracles. Nor will they give forth any metaphorical wine(or would it be digital wine?). But there will be a revolution. And I want to help in the unfettering of the digichains that currently bind our information to the jail cell walls of old world, old software constructs (tell me you have never saved a document, and unknowingly placed it in the unsearchable miry depths and quagmires in the heart of your computer, with no hope of rescue? The grave sin of not maintaining an anal retentive filing system, shame on you).

Beautifull Photo

Originally uploaded by Little Jon1.

This just looks amazing to me. It is so great what can be done with so little, all you need is a $5,000 camera, a $7,000 computer, a few hundred dollars of software, and a few hundred hours of playing around with the exposure settings to get amazing pictures like this.

If I could, this would be the top of the list, from my 30 hobbies.

Flowers HDR

Flowers HDR
Originally uploaded by curlykrakow.

So I was trying to remember what technique it is called when the photographer is gathering more wavelength light than the human eye can see, and I stumbled upon the name, and this picture at the same time. This kind of thing always happens to me. I think of one thing, and it leads to another amazing discovery(to me anyway!)

Changed Formatting

Ok,

So I have changed the formattting to be a little simpler. I am not the Techie genious that I sometimes think I am. I have also learned I am a starter, not a finisher. Anyways, this will hopefully turn less introspective, more observational and provide people with usefull information. That is the goal anyways.

Wish me luck.

I have have been delinquent in making this blog exciting in the least, or even very readable by breaking up text with pics and stuff. Now that I know how to add these things the natives call "pictures", this blog may get more readership(I think posting regularly may add a little to this phenomenon of people "reading", this thing that I "write", but lets not read too much into common misconception of a broad reader base like timely delivery or appealing to an audience)

This picture is of me, back three years ago, with some fake and real facial hair.