Is Your Head in the Cloud?

We most often use the term “cloud computing” in the context of applications — Software as a Service (SaaS) if you will.  Venkatesh Rao of the Xerox Innovation Group has coined a new term, “cloudworker”, which humanizes our concept of the cloud.  On his blog, RibbonFarm.com, Venkatesh defines a cloudworker as:

“the prototypical information worker of tomorrow.  He overachieves or coasts remotely, collaborates or backstabs virtually, and delivers his gold or garbage to a shifting long-tail micro-market defined only by his own talents or lack thereof.  The cloudworker manages personal microbrand equity and network social capital rather than a career.  Over a lifetime, through recessions and bubbles, he navigates fluidly back and forth between traditional paycheck employment, slash-work and full, untethered-to-health-insurance free agency.”

Venkatesh’s vision of a cloudworker meshes nicely with my views on Work 2.0, the changed and continuously shifting contract between employees and employers.  I’m undecided on the vialibility of the term that he has minted — I think cloudworker is too strongly tied to the cloud computing fad of the moment — but I’m highly sympathetic to the notion of knowledge workers shifting between regular employment, freelance work, and anything in between.  I have made those shifts several times in the last ten years and anticipate doing so again during my career.

The piece of Venkatesh’s definition of a cloudworker that resonates most strongly with me is his statement that “the cloudworker manages personal microbrand equity and network social capital rather than a career.”  In other words, building a strong network of colleagues in your area of expertise, developing your reputation within that network, and leveraging those relationships and their perception of your reputation is more important to work success than trying to climb the career ladder in an organization.

As I said in the initial post on this blog, “I have reached a point where the benefits of being an employee of an organized, legal entity (a corporation) and my ability to collaborate with others to address business opportunities and issues — independent of my employment — have reached equilibrium.  My employer offers some very attractive compensations for my client-facing work, namely a salary and strong benefits package.  However, I no longer rely exclusively on IBM for channels through which I can collaborate with others.  I can work and innovate with, learn from, influence, and lead others without that organizational affiliation, largely thanks to the Internet and social software.”

So, to me, Work 2.0 is about more than just the cloud.  Yes, the Internet is a critical enabler of the emerging way of working, but it is not the primary one.  People are always more important than technology.  The key to Work 2.0 is collaboration — specifically, the building of a solid network of peers and interacting with them to identify and respond to business opportunities.

Beware the Wisdom of Crowds

I couldn’t help but thinking more about this installment of Zippy after seeing it in the Boston Globe on Sunday.  Much has been said lately about the wisdom of crowds and most of it has been positive.  Many companies have begun to look to their customers and business partners for input regarding existing products and services.  Some organizations have taken the next step and solicited ideas for new offerings from external constituents.

Crowdsourcing is a welcome form of collaboration whose positive effects outweigh the potential shortcomings, but Bill Griffith is right to question our rush to embrace the wisdom of crowds in his cartoon strip.  We need to take the limitations of this type of collaboration into account when making business decisions based on information gathered from the crowd.

Like it or not, ignorance plays a role in shaping the feedback generated by the crowd.  Individuals (and the collective, by extension) are often not aware of what is possible.  They can’t imagine an innovative solution because they are unable to think beyond what they currently know and understand.

I’ve encountered this bias many times in my work as a consultant.  When helping clients develop new ways to collaborate, I used to ask them questions like “How would you like to collaborate with X?”, or “What would that look like?”, or “How would that work?  More often than not, my efforts to have the client describe what they wanted were rewarded with silence and/or blank looks!

I eventually learned to show clients a potential answer to the question that I’m asking and have them build off of that.  Putting a use case scenario, an interface mock-up, or a process diagram in front of the customer always elicits a response that I can use to begin to understand what they really want.  This is true if I’m working one-on-one with a client or if I’m conducting a workshop with a group.

Next time you turn to the crowd for ideas, be sure to seed some information with which they can innovate.  Don’t ask them to start with a blank sheet if you want great results.

Blogs Are Dead, Long Live Blogs!

There is an interesting, but perhaps excessive, post by Paul Boutin on Wired.com this morning.  Mr. Boutin says that we “amateur” bloggers should give up because our voices are drowned out by profession and commercial blogs.  He suggests that we should use Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook as our self-expression outlets instead of blogs.

My, we have short memories.  Mr. Boutin’s statements remind me of .com retailers during the Internet bubble days.  They claimed that the Net was a new channel that superseded brick and mortar stores as the place to sell to customers.  As we later learned, the Internet is a complementary channel, and the best business model is one that embraces multiple distribution channels.

Most successful non-professional bloggers I know express themselves through several channels and actually engage in cross-channel promotion.  For example, Twitter is used both to broadcast short opinions and to announce (and link to) new posts on a blog site.  This is a far better approach than deserting a well-established channel in favor of a new one.

Success in collaboration, as in retail, is increased when we use multiple channels, or determine the best channel for the situation from a number of options.  Declaring one collaboration channel as passe in favor of newer one is self-defeating.