How Meaningful, Smarter, Freelance Work Is Redesigning the Social Enterprise

11 thoughts on “How Meaningful, Smarter, Freelance Work Is Redesigning the Social Enterprise”

  1. Great Post Luis!
    And to think I was never interested in a long term project, always wanting short term do it, get it done work, and then move to next project. I was just ahead of the curve.

    1. Hi Keith! You are most welcome! Absolutely!! I know of a few folks who would feel pretty comfortable with working in a project for almost their entire working lifetime, or, perhaps a bit less, but definitely in the several years altogether, and some other folks who have got a generic rule of switching projects every two years or so because when they feel it falls into daily routines and no longer feel challenged anymore to learn and innovate along the way.

      I guess the latter folks somehow sensed what was coming for the org. from back then and they themselves have become the wild ducks, freelancers and intrapreneurs we are witnessing becoming more and more relevant by the day!

      Well, welcome to the club! 😀

      1. I am the latter, prefer weeks to months and months to years. Ideas I don’t think have ever gone out of style, but they have migrated from say marketing or IT to sales and other areas. Those with an ability to see a better way or even a different way have always found the route to make it possible.
        But what about the theory that says these are still the same people as always, just now they are more about their own PR and their projects? And who takes responsibility if the great idea turns out to get you sued? Always something that has limited people in the past, some still will, but others are pushing on in spite of or despite of backing from their company.
        Chaos or revolution? Time will tell.

        1. Hi Keith! Thanks a lot for the follow-up! Interesting perception, indeed! I think a lot would have to do with that concept of co-sharing of responsibility. After all, most companies have been employing hard working professionals all along, so I don’t think that’s going to change. They would still employ plenty of common sense in knowing what can be done and what can’t. And if they can’t make up their minds, that’s probably one of the main reasons why there are social computing guidelines out there as well to help guide and provide advice on moving things further.

          I still think that trusting your employees to do what they know and let things go out there would be more along the lines of a chaotic revolution of some kind, and that’s bound to be a good thing. Chaotic as in unstructured, free form, employee driven and revolution as perhaps the way the corporate world will survive in the knowledge economy of the 21st century…

          Indeed, time will tell… Thanks again for the feedback! 🙂

  2. Chaos is good, thus the Chaos theory.
    Common sense prevails, but what would happen if every employee was given a slice of budget to get something done. Like Google had employees do something else with part of their time?
    The problem, I believe, is fear. Fear by executives. what if they lose their power, or someone has better ideas or plans or gets it done better?
    The next generation of management appreciates better employees and does have so much fear, but this is the hurdle some face today.

    1. Thanks, Keith, for the feedback comments and for the follow up! Well, you cannot believe what people can do with their idle time, if you give them the opportunity and a few $$$ to let their minds run wild! Amazing experience, as Google and other companies have shown already! Nothing to prove, just do it! 🙂

      RE: fear, that’s probably what it comes down to, isn’t it? Fear of losing their command and control, their power from top-down, their ability to call the shots, and whatever else, but the key question here is “Were they ever in control in the first place?”. I doubted it back then and I doubt it now even more, I am afraid!

      That’s the main reason why fear has never been good when facing change by itself. Quite the opposite, it’s not about fearing whatever may be happening; it’s more about being that leader walking the talk, leading the pack, and showing how even wirearchy needs to have prominent and confident leaders wanting to make a difference to keep innovating and delivering business value, that’s what matters at the end of the day. The goals are pretty much the same, the method is what changes, and if folks are too fearful it will be happening, not to worry, the changes will take place anyway, they have already gotten started, and it is just a matter of whether they would want to jump into the bandwagon or not. Our task is to be that helping hand to get them on board, because the train already left a while ago …

  3. I believ that most ‘work’ in most large enterprises is now what we would all call project work .. purpose-and-objective driven, made up more and more often of people from different areas (including outside contractors) and temporary, dissolved when the project is done.

    I believe that this intensifies and amplifies the definition of my favourite emergent organizing principle .. and that ‘knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results’ by an interconnected network of people are the tent pegs for the new (temporary-ish) emergent organization.

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