BB pal Marina Gorbis, executive director of Institute for the Future, wrote a provocative essay for the Capitol Hill magazine Roll Call suggesting how much of today's corporate organizational theory has no future. We've spent a century developing organizational processes that maximize shareholder profits, she writes, but a big change is gonna come. On the horizon are: the emergence of an ecological/epidemiological view of markets and behaviors, a workforce of amplified individuals, and the engagement economy. From Roll Call:
The corporate culture we created spread well beyond the business realm. In his forthcoming book “Life Inc.,” media expert Douglas Rushkoff points out that corporatism has permeated our culture, language, philanthropic organizations, schools and media. It is how we’ve come to think about getting things done. We almost cannot conceive of a world without hierarchical organizational charts, mission statements, bounded departments, and clear sets of corporate rules and incentives.
All of this is about to change. You can think of the next decade as a decade of experimentation with new ways of organizing our society, including our economic and business activities. Beginnings of new organizational shapes already abound – from Wikipedia to volunteers taking over customer-support services for organizations. Turns out that being helpful to others can be its own reward.
"Organizational Change Is Coming Soon"
Maria Farrell admits that comparing smartphones to abusive men (they try to keep you from friends and family, they make it hard to study or go to work, they constantly follow you and check up on you) might seem to trivialize domestic partner violence, but, as she points out, feminists have long been pointing out […]
Trump wants to roll back regulations that promote low-power light bulbs, even though at this point the industry has moved on and isn’t likely to do much in the way of modernizing incandescents. His interest is, as always, deeply personal: he thinks LED lights make him look orange. “The light bulb,” the president began. “People […]
The wonderful folks at Paleotronic (previously) have rounded up scans of articles from 1980s-era computer magazines that advised new computer users on navigating the burgeoning world of dial-up BBSes.
The field of data analytics can get intimidating, even for business professionals who constantly rely on it. But at its heart, its purpose is to simplify. To take mounds of information and distill their insights into a single clear picture. Currently, the go-to software for painting that picture is Tableau. And if you want to […]
If you’re in the market for a stable, durable camera fully suited for first-person video, there’s a good chance that you’re the adventurous type. So why settle on a familiar name like GoPro? The DJI Osmo Action 4K HDR Camera checks off all the same boxes on the action cam checklist as the GoPro 4K […]
The market for web developers is wide open these days. If only we could say the same about the pathway to that career. If you’re not already an experienced coder, it can be difficult to get things rolling. A four-year college degree or technical school? Sure, if you’ve got the money. What about web tutorials? […]
