The nature of work is absolutely changing and evolving due to the web. A study by McKinsey & Company found that:
“The Internet's impact on global growth is rising rapidly. The Internet accounted for 21 percent of GDP growth over the last five years among the developed countries MGI studied, a sharp acceleration from the 10 percent contribution over 15 years. Most of the economic value created by the Internet falls outside of the technology sector, with 75 percent of the benefits captured by companies in more traditional industries. The Internet is also a catalyst for job creation. Among 4,800 small and medium-size enterprises surveyed, the Internet created 2.6 jobs for each lost to technology-related efficiencies.”
In fact, if I think about my own job, it is in academic technology which didn't really exist even a decade ago; but as we go into the future, more and more; my job would not exist at all without the internet. In my position, I am responsible for all of the institutional websites, capturing lectures and streaming them out to students, managing courses and course materials a host of other duties and projects that are dependent on the web to fully function.
The impact of the internet is huge in my workplace and it became very apparent during a network outage how dependent we are on it to do our day-to-day jobs. So much of our work has been transitioned from our physical brick and mortar offices to the web – for example using cloud based document archives to sharing and collaborating via Dropbox, to having conferences and meetings via Skype, AdobeConnect and WebEx. When the network went down; we literally had to send our teams home to work from home where they had access to the internet.
It was interesting for me to see how much of my team’s work could be accomplished via the internet and I have always been an advocate for telecommuting. In fact, we probably work harder, longer and more efficiently – and communicate more often amongst ourselves when we are not in the same suite and relying on the internet to work.
One of our big projects this year has been to implement a medical school curriculum management tool called One45. Everything about this implementation has been via the internet and 100% web-based.
For me and my team, using web-based tools such as Dropbox, WebEx, Skype allows us to work from anywhere. While I do try to discourage my team from working on holiday; we all seem to do so and we’ve had times where one of us was in Japan, another in South Africa and the rest scattered between their homes and over six campuses all working together synchronously on a project.
This would have been IMPOSSIBLE without the internet and the various web-based tools that we rely on regularly to do our work.
In his talk, Shirky focuses on the power of community rather than technology, exploring the capabilities of open-source communities and as I define open source code or content as code or content that is typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers or collaborators improve upon the code or content and share the changes within the community.
In my leadership role, I try to be as transparent and as open as I can, especially if something will directly affect my team – and I get a lot of flak from my senior leadership because of my attempts to be transparent and open.
There are times though, that being open and transparent with my team could result in a lot of discord and so even I pick and choose what I decide to share with them and that makes me selectively open and transparent despite my own best intentions.
While I think that Shirky is presenting a great twist on the idea of utopia, I don’t believe that any government – even the most democratic – is anywhere close to being transparent or ‘open’. I don’t think leadership as we know it in our governments and corporations is not optimized to be ‘open’ and I’m not sure that leadership and open is possible. But it is a great goal to strive towards.
The world, both physical and virtual are in a state of change and in many ways is being re-mapped. Whether we like it or not, Pandora's virtual box has been opened and there is no going back...
References:
The world, both physical and virtual are in a state of change and in many ways is being re-mapped. Whether we like it or not, Pandora's virtual box has been opened and there is no going back...
Cool visualization...I had not seen this particular one.
ReplyDeleteAs a faculty consultant on using the web for instruction, I stay busy. Yet in some ways, as digital literacy grows in both students and faculty, the need for an instructional consultant is going to diminish. So I keep trying to re-invent myself!
If our faculty (and many of the faculty at my local and national peers' schools) are any indication - your services will be greatly needed for some time LOL. We can't even get people to move away from reading their PowerPoint based lectures.
DeleteFantastic blog this week! You struck at many points, the most salient to me is how we need the technology (in your case, the internet) to function in many fields.
ReplyDeleteI know that I cannot function at my job as an instructor without technology. I store my work on a cloud drive and every lesson plan, visual aid, reference, etc, is retrieved via technology. You mentioned telecommuting (assuming this is with the internet at home) as something you have championed for in your own workplace and this is efficient.
I believe employers are hesitant to the "telecommute" practice because they think people would not use the time to work. Yet, the opposite is true, telecommuters end up working longer hours (some of this depends on the type of position held). http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/06/art3full.pdf
In my field of education, I have my work email forwarded to my phone. It is common for me to answer an email from students while waiting at the grocery store line. It is also common to see in our work place a colleague, too sick to lecture, yet uses sick time, to go home and instead of resting, grades papers.
This is not uncommon in other cultures to mix personal and business life, but there are still some working environments that believe these two should not mix. I think we are moving in this direction; technology is changing our working culture.
Ivette, you couldn't be more on point about telecommuting. My whole team is very much mobile-connected and we truly are salaried, exempt employees in that we interact 7 days a week at different points through the day about work and work projects. We do not 'officially' get comp time, but I have my staff keep track of their time spent on work outside of their required 7.5 hour days and you can't imagine (well, perhaps you can imagine) how many hours they log 'off the official clock'.
DeleteInterestingly, the same can be said for those of us in online educational programs - whether creating and delivering classes or taking classes - the amount of work and time spent in interaction easily surpasses that of the traditional face-to-face model. Of course, this is just my opinion, and I am certainly biased in my opinion.
Well I was in exactly the quandry of being left left powerless yesterday when the entire server network for my command headquarters crashed (or whatever it does when it stops working). At first I did not notice it because I had left my computer running over night after I had left my office the night before around 9 pm. Arriving 12 hours later I realized after sefveral attempts to access Outlook and the Crieghton Ed.D. sight that something was very wrong. I had to contact the help desk which is available only through call in emergencies on after hours and weekends (yes-even in the military when things usually go on "auto-pilot" thereafter). It took 2 hours for a response to get back and finally from 1pm until about 9 pm last evening a team of out computer experts got on the job trying to find out what happend and fix the problem(s). As of this morning (Sunday, 30 March) still no joy in Mudville...our system is still down and might still be unavailoable by the time our workforce starts again tommorow which will lead them to do exactly as you mentioned...walk the hallways until the system is up and running again.
ReplyDeleteFor myself, I had to take my work back to my residence and work on it from here, which brings up the next and bigger question of other than interfacing with people who work with, for or over us, why do we need to go to an actual office that takes us away from our homes, causes us to expend expensive fuel, clogs our transport nodes and ultimately the expense and cost of running huge facilities for people to interact in...something strange is going on here!
thanks as always
guy
Hello Guy,
DeleteThere is no worse feeling that to get cut off from the network when you are trying to get work done - truly maddening. I certainly can relate to and feel your pain.
In my case, I do not actually 'have' to go to my physical office to get my job done. Every year during New Year, I am in Japan and my staff truly do not notice that I am thousands of miles and hours of GMT time away from them. In fact, they question if and when I sleep LOL. The reality in that situation is that when it's noon EST for my staff, it's about midnight JST for me but since I am a night owl anyway; it's as if I am still just a couple doors down.
However, telecommuting is not allowed at my organization and so we all plod into our offices and work there before we leave our defined work hours for the day and then continue to work virtually from wherever we might be - so in terms of doing 90% of our actual work, we could do it remotely.
One benefit to the face-to-face, at least for me, is the networking and interaction that happens when all the players are within our brick and mortar structures. I don't actually have a huge amount of official, institutional power in my role and that limits what I can get accomplished - officially.
What I do have in my various work relationships across the campuses is a strong network of people at all levels who are vital to my being able to get a lot more accomplished via my personal power and every day, a number of us, made of of directors and assistant directors have lunch together.
This casual, social 'lunch' where we talk about all manner of things is where my true 'ability to get things done' comes from and without the almost daily face-to-face; this avenue would not exist for me and in some ways would limit what I am able to accomplish in my leadership role.
Like Patrick Gross pointed out in his blog post this week - there needs to be a level of cultural restructuring done so that we stop thinking of the workplace as some building where we all have to go to get our work accomplished.
Thanks, Pat
Just reviewing the comments again and keyed on:
Delete"...This casual, social 'lunch' where we talk about all manner of things is where my true 'ability to get things done' comes from and without the almost daily face-to-face; this avenue would not exist for me and in some ways would limit what I am able to accomplish in my leadership role..."
Which highlights for me the balance between being connected and being together. Nice commentary this week!
GREAT post, Patrick, and very engaging replies and commentary! The visualization in your embedded video was profound for me.
ReplyDeleteAt the heart of a lot of this conversation is one of the points I touched on briefly in my own blog this week--the inevitable melding of professional and private. You have aptly expanded that to include a redefinition of work and home, and you are spot on. As we are accessible 24/7, as we are compelled to check email on vacation and in the middle of the night, as employees engage in personal email and Facebook, and games, at work, and as we redefine our groups, our organizations, our affiliations, and our very fundamental societal institutions, the only thing that I am certain of is: change. And as you say--there is no closing the virtual box!
Did I mention, great post?
Patrick
Thanks Patrick - I took a lot of inspiration from your post this week and as you stated:
Delete"It's not that change is coming; it's here. As individuals, and as organizations, we are faced not so much with a choice of whether to embrace or resist, like or dislike. I see it more like a tidal wave: we can let it crash on us, or we can figure out how to surf it."
You and I and a lot of our peers seem to know and agree that we are definitely 'on' and 'working' and therefore accessible 24/7.
Much of the workforce and middle and upper managers have already adjusted and adapted to the new lay of the land but for whatever reason; most institutional leaders, those at the top levels of leadership have not really followed suit by starting the culture and practical change at their level. At least, not in my organization or in similar organizations around me.
What will be the ramifications of their delay in response - if any?
I have finally found you Chad!!!!! I love this post. I appreciate your comment, about your job not existing without the Internet. Many of us do not realize how the web and our newfound connection have transformed our positions. Just this past week I was asked to chair a policy committee on my campus. The "open" world is allowing me to search other institutions and connect with other peers for information and assistance with our own policies. If we did not live in an open world, I would be spending hours trying to research this information on my own. A problem that would have taken months, now takes hours.
ReplyDeleteHmm. It is interesting that you characterize our ever expanding reliance on the virtual as opening 'Pandora's Box.' While I am by far no optimist, I do believe the benefits of a more advanced technological society outweigh the disadvantages. However, after finishing the readings, I find it mildly disconcerting the idea of losing my job to a computer program or the like. But, that just may be the price of progress?
ReplyDeleteRobert
Is that too high a price? Should there be a personal or societal cost for technological advancement?
DeleteUsing Pandora's Box may not have been a good choice as it does imply negative repercussions. I meant it more along the lines of being cautious so that we're not getting into a situation over which we have very little control over.
DeleteSpeaking of repercussions, in every forward movement of progress or technology (such as the Industrial Revolution); there has been some type of job loss as jobs became redundant. What is important is to stay relevant and unlike the Industrial Revolution, I think we have a better chance of staying relevant and moving into the new jobs that are created as the redundant ones disappear.
Take mainframes for example. They were big through the 1950s through the 1970s then started diminishing into the late 1990s and there was even a prediction that they would disappear - no longer needed. (However, I believe they recently found new purpose since mainframes are particularly adept at large scale batch computing.) In any case, I have a friend whose job was all mainframe based and he saw the demise coming and just acquired some training and adapted his skills a bit to get into networking and he's now an IT infrastructure director.
I think there are always personal and societal costs whenever anything outsources an existing 'thing' and it is unfortunate. The important thing is to stay flexible and to roll with the changes as opposed to being a one-trick pony or a dinosaur that is left behind in the forward march of technological progress.
I think that the 'flatter' the world gets and the more more people who have access; the more competition there will be for existing jobs. The hope is that there will be equally exponential growth and creation of jobs as the world flattens.