Freeforming And Matching - Signs Of The New Economy
In my previous blog, I talked briefly about the trend for companies to do more with less employees - and how this will lead to the growth of a self-employed class of professionals Richard Duvall of Zopa referred to as ‘freeformers’.
This view of our present - and our future - is supported by research by ethnographic researcher Bruce Davis “who studies people - families, couples and individuals - from all walks of life and from different parts of the country” notes a research document from Zopa.
“Rather than use interviews to discover people’s attitudes, Bruce’s work is based on long periods of observation of people as they go about their everyday lives.” From his recent research, Bruce notes that our ways of earning money have changed and that we have become “more fluid and complex” in our needs of and uses for money.
Our values are changing too. Chantal Benjamin , Manager of Communications for BBC Audience and Consumer Research noted recently that 54% of social groups A and B now want fulfilment above wealth and property.
How will our working lives change as a result?
We will work for more employers and for shorter periods. The model will be most reminiscent of the movie business where teams of independent workers and small firms come together - often in a company specific to a single film - and work together towards a set of well-defined outcomes.
At the end of the process, they go their separate ways to other projects, and to look for the next opportunity.
It has been said that search is the ‘killer app’ on the Internet but search without finding is of little use to most of us.
The main successes of the Internet era, Google , Yahoo , eBay and Amazon are all matching engines. Google and Yahoo match you to information you need, eBay matches buyers and sellers, and Amazon matches you to books and - increasingly - to a wide range of consumer goods. Zopa has been launched to match lenders (that is individuals with money to lend) to borrowers without the need for a banker in the process.
In the freeform world, freelance workers will need to be matched to suitable work.
Unlike traditional recruitment, the need for a quick and accurate match will be paramount. Project owners will need to find whole teams or specific skilled individuals, whilst individuals will be looking for a continuity of work that fits their lifestyle AND their need for fulfilment in equal measure.
Social business networks will need to become the matching engines of the freeform generation. They should provide project owners with the ability to define opportunities and freelance workers with the ability to specify their needs and skill sets. Then the network can match their requirements and send offers to the freelancers that they may choose to take up. It’s a Buyers and Sellers market and it is often as hard to buy (that is to find a scarce resource) as it is to sell.
The day will come, I believe, when you can log onto LinkedIn or openBC or Ecademy and there, in your inbox, will be the offers of work that you need for the next three to six months.
I see that my job is not just to have a pretty website and offline events with Chardonnay, but to put work on every members table internationally.
Global Labour Matching in real-time is the future of work and the future of Ecademy. These are the challenges facing us all in networking today and new challenges will bring forward new solutions.
This article can be found at http://afriendineverycity.com/. The author has chosen to accept comments from fawning lickspittles only. This blog provides some balance.
Technorati - ecademy - blackstar - marketstar
This view of our present - and our future - is supported by research by ethnographic researcher Bruce Davis “who studies people - families, couples and individuals - from all walks of life and from different parts of the country” notes a research document from Zopa.
“Rather than use interviews to discover people’s attitudes, Bruce’s work is based on long periods of observation of people as they go about their everyday lives.” From his recent research, Bruce notes that our ways of earning money have changed and that we have become “more fluid and complex” in our needs of and uses for money.
Our values are changing too. Chantal Benjamin , Manager of Communications for BBC Audience and Consumer Research noted recently that 54% of social groups A and B now want fulfilment above wealth and property.
How will our working lives change as a result?
We will work for more employers and for shorter periods. The model will be most reminiscent of the movie business where teams of independent workers and small firms come together - often in a company specific to a single film - and work together towards a set of well-defined outcomes.
At the end of the process, they go their separate ways to other projects, and to look for the next opportunity.
It has been said that search is the ‘killer app’ on the Internet but search without finding is of little use to most of us.
The main successes of the Internet era, Google , Yahoo , eBay and Amazon are all matching engines. Google and Yahoo match you to information you need, eBay matches buyers and sellers, and Amazon matches you to books and - increasingly - to a wide range of consumer goods. Zopa has been launched to match lenders (that is individuals with money to lend) to borrowers without the need for a banker in the process.
In the freeform world, freelance workers will need to be matched to suitable work.
Unlike traditional recruitment, the need for a quick and accurate match will be paramount. Project owners will need to find whole teams or specific skilled individuals, whilst individuals will be looking for a continuity of work that fits their lifestyle AND their need for fulfilment in equal measure.
Social business networks will need to become the matching engines of the freeform generation. They should provide project owners with the ability to define opportunities and freelance workers with the ability to specify their needs and skill sets. Then the network can match their requirements and send offers to the freelancers that they may choose to take up. It’s a Buyers and Sellers market and it is often as hard to buy (that is to find a scarce resource) as it is to sell.
The day will come, I believe, when you can log onto LinkedIn or openBC or Ecademy and there, in your inbox, will be the offers of work that you need for the next three to six months.
I see that my job is not just to have a pretty website and offline events with Chardonnay, but to put work on every members table internationally.
Global Labour Matching in real-time is the future of work and the future of Ecademy. These are the challenges facing us all in networking today and new challenges will bring forward new solutions.
This article can be found at http://afriendineverycity.com/. The author has chosen to accept comments from fawning lickspittles only. This blog provides some balance.
Technorati - ecademy - blackstar - marketstar
posted by Ste Andreassen at 10:42 AM
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