The Future of Work by Laurie Everett
How can people and computers be connected so that—collectively—they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before?
When I was in high school one of the most influential non-fiction books that I read was Studs Terkel’s “Working” (which was subtitled, People Talk About What They do All Day and How They Feel About What they Do”). This landmark book provides profiles of the inner work life of hundreds of people in hundreds of different professions from hair dressers to Hollywood directors to auto mechanics and constructor workers and teachers.
“Working” had a profound affect on me as I thought about work, and the basic human factors in what we bring to and need from our work. The one story that stayed with me for many years was called Car Hiker, a profile of Al, a man who for thirty years, parked cars in a garage. HIs nickname was “One Swing Al”, as he could get any car into any parking space with one turn, using one arm. He never missed. He took great pride in this and through the prism of the dailiness of parking cars, knew more about human behavior and human foibles just by observing people in relation to their cars and how they treated the person who parked their car.
Thirty years after Terkel’s landmark book, I found myself completely drawn to MIT Sloan Professor Tom Malone’s book
The Future of Work. The title alone is enough for me to want to dive in and think about what “work” will mean for future generations, and how much the nature of work itself has changed dramatically through the 20th century. Now as the first decade of the 21st century is more than half over, just what is the future of work?
Malone spoke at Sloan’s Back to the Classroom series in 2005, a little more than a year after the book was published. In it he talks about how the cost of communication is the single most influential factor in how we work, from the decision making process to working in global e-lance economies, to thinking about asking more for advice than approval. He cites some interesting examples of empowerment in the workforce and projects an optimistic view of the future.
Malone heads up the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence whose central goal is to address the question: “How can people and computers be connected so that—collectively—they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before?”
After 30 years, Terkel’s Working still holds up, it’s a great read. I suspect in 2034 we’ll be able to go back to “The Future of Work” and say the same thing.
YAAY
1st POST
First Time
I just created a group on facebook for MIT 07 applicants. its name is “MIT 07 Applicants”. And hey everybody, i’m gonna accept any add by you guys.
go take a look at it.
Join it. it’ll be fun
The idea is profound… Gonna explore more about this stuff…
Hmm…interesting, not everyone works by choice
I very much like the ideas presented in this piece. I, too, will go deeper into these issues…
Why 2034? ^___^
I definitely will try and check out both of those, they sound interesting. Do you know if any of Malone’s work is available through MIT World?
M.I.T. =
<ol>
<li>M adness in mind.</li>
<li>I nnovation, as a result of madness.</li>
<li>T empest in the world of science.</li>
or,
M.I.T. =
M adman’s
I nstitution
(T ruly!)</ol>
Hi I for got my name !!!!!!!!!!
Anonymous on March 6, 2007 08:52 PM = me
A work space should be constructed like the universe, complex in the center, loose and flowy on the outside.
Yuri
just click on the link and you will find Malone’s talk on MIT World
or here’s the direct link
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/229/
Hey Madman, whatever happened to the longer version of your name? With the AKA and such?
Collective intelligence is a topic I’ve really become interested in lately. Namely, the problem of uploading experiences directly onto computers and networks.
Imagine combining personal experiences and observations with a Wikipedia-like system. Collective experience. Cool.
Ms. Laurie Everett, Professor’s Malone work is not directly linked to the area which I intend to follow in my career, Biology. However, he is really important to better understand and to better use the possibilities that will for sure come up in the future.
This is a kind of study that is influenced by variables that appear later. For example, it would be interesting, for the sake of comparison, to know whether there is a similar work, done around 35 or 40 years ago, before the Internet and before the end of the “cold war” (two new and important variables) in order to find out the conclusions reached by researchers at that time concerning what the work relations would be today and even in the future.
It would be interesting to know the appointed sceneries, the correct answers (and eventual mistakes) about the predictions that were made.