In the old world, we needed a lot of laborers. We needed a lot of people to take “this thing” and move it over to “that place.” We needed people to “push that button” all day. We needed people expend all sorts of energy doing a whole lot of things that we just don’t do anymore. We needed a lot of people to scale the work.

Now, it’s not that we don’t need those things anymore, it’s just that we don’t do them any longer. Increasingly, this kind of “assembly line” work is getting pushed further and further away, especially in the US, due to globalization and technology.

And yet, our organizations are still built to encourage button pushers.

How did we get here?

One of the best short explanations I’ve seen comes from a fabulous book called Tribal Leadership.* Here’s an excerpt/summary:

Between 1890 and 1920, 80 percent of the rural population moved to the city to take millions of new factory jobs, and they brought their children with them. On the farm, many children meant many helpers, but in the factory, many children meant many accidents and acts of exploitation. Children’s welfare and child labor practices became the issue of the age, and most people felt that something had to be done to protect and train the children while mom and dad worked in the factory.

The solution was to train a new generation of workers by teaching them inside a system that looked a lot like a factory. In school, bell rings, go to class; bell rings, recess; bell rings, go back to class; bell rings, eat lunch; bell rings, go home. At school, children with the “right” answer get a gold star, then an A. A star pupil is one who does the homework and has the right answers. This new system undid the classic liberal education, which said that the value was in the well-designed question, and this shift in focus made the worker exploitable, often consigning him to a Stage Two or Three career.** In between bell rings, children learned what they needed to become effective workers, and that amounted to reading, writing, and math. The system didn’t emphasize creative thinking, strategizing, leadership, or innovation. Stars were smart conformists, and people who stuck to the pattern became model students.

When children come of age, they find a familiar model. Whistle blows, go to work; whistle blows, take a break; whistle blows, go back to work; whistle blows, eat lunch; whistle blows, go home. A star employee is one who knows the right answer to a factory problem, obeys the rules and doesn’t make waves.

The current incarnation of our schools were created to serve the old world. They teach students how to stay in line and push buttons and follow orders.

But those aren’t the things the world needs anymore. In basic economic terms, the demand for assembly line workers is plummeting. And on the other side, the need for more people who can do creative, connective, collaborative, complex work — instead of just “pushing the button” — has grown much higher than the supply of them.

We’re churning out button pushers into a world that doesn’t have buttons.

Because of this disastrously outdated system, we’ve got a job crises that goes much deeper than just having (or not having) a “job.” We’ve got a full-blown work epidemic, and it’s going to take a whole lot of us working together to fix it.

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* I honestly can’t recommend this book highly enough. Please buy it. And read it. At least once.

** This will make sense when you read the book.

UPDATE 9/5/11: Here’s a great post on this topic today from Seth Godin.

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I had the good fortune of being able to attend the 53rd Grammy Awards yesterday. While my feelings are incredibly mixed about what the awards are actually accomplishing, I first have to say that I had a great time.

The show is SO much more fun in person — this may seem ridiculously obvious, but it’s not something I ever really thought about before as I’ve always just watched it on television. The energy from a live show just can’t be pushed through a screen, I suppose, and the telecast is like 14 mini-concerts. It’s quite a spectacle… and really fun to see with 20,000 other people.

In any case, on this day after, per usual I find myself pondering what’s happening behind the scenes.

The Grammy Awards are an interesting thing. First, they’re serving an industry that has been gloriously ripped to smithereens over the last decade. Second, they’re predicated on an idea that there is a “singular mainstream” of music.

Think about it: the entire televised awards ceremony focuses on 11 awards (out of the 109 given out) under a huge assumption that the majority of people still care about those 11 categories more than any other.

The entire show is based on the idea that a “mainstream” still exists.

I’ve always found this concept fascinating — the notion that there exists a primary flow of “normal-ness” in the larger culture: a “mainstream.” Back when I wanted to make music my career, I had a grand vision for how I’d “break into” the mainstream. I would guess many musicians still want this. But the “mainstream” doesn’t really exist.

At least not anymore.

I think it did exist, for a time. But the so-called “mainstream” was just a construct of 20th Century marketers, who, through the usage of very limited, controlled distribution channels, were able to create a mass-market population the likes of which the world had never seen. “Creators” could perfect a “product” and deliver it to virtually everyone at the same time.

In music, it was Studio to Album to Radio to your CD player. It was linear and sensible. It was perfect, a flawless system.

And now it’s disappearing.

Like most things in our Mosaic world, the music supply chain was reduced to pieces by a changing mentality and new technologies.

I probably don’t need to get into why the mainstream is fragmenting (in short: almost limitless competition from other attention-hoarders like, say, everything on the internet), but I do wonder how much longer the “mainstream” fabrication will stay afloat. As it is, it’s a house of cards, an illusion being propped up by old-minded industry types who somehow think the world still works like it used to.

This makes for some very complicated questions for the good people at the helm of these awards shows, like NARAS.

Because, that’s the thing: these are good people. They’re not dumb, nor do I think they’re intentionally living in a fantasy. It’s just a really, really complex revolution we’re in. And revolutions require armies of pioneers. They demand dreamers and visionaries and prophets. Unfortunately, these are not qualities many organizations have placed at the top; beancounters with MBA’s are much more popular.

We have a long journey ahead to reorient the world around the emerging values of tribes, transparency, and democracy (in its truest sense). The old world was not good at these things, but the new world is.

It’s the transition time we’re in right now that’s messy.

Prepare for it to get a lot messier before it gets cleaned up.

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As you all probably know, I’m a pretty big fan of a website called Brazen Careerist. It’s a great community of intelligent and savvy (mostly young) professionals who are passionate about their careers and finding better ways to work.

The community leaders are constantly trying to innovate ways for similarly-impassioned individuals to meet and connect, and thus, have come up with this:

Come on by and check it out (look me up if you do). I think it’s pretty cool.

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Trying to make any kind of career shift can be incredibly frustrating, and through my current search I’ve found there are some dirty little secrets most people just don’t talk about when it comes to job hunting. Here are 7 unconventional, and helpful, things I’ve learned:

1. Everything is your resume (& other resume thoughts)

Your website, your emails, your email signatures, your business cards, your blog, your social media profiles… make them all consistent and flattering. You never know who might be looking at what. (Of course, taking full advantage of social media channels is an “understood” part of this tip.)

About “real” resumes, my biggest finding is this: don’t spend too much time sending resumes. Do you need an amazing two-page resume? Yes, to play the game (see #7), but that is really its only purpose. More than likely it will be a connection (see #6) that will actually catalyze the movement to get you an interview. But you will need a great resume to get there.

2. Have a target = “know thyself”

Know your strengths and know what you want. Have an elevator speech prepared to answer the question, “What do you want to do?” because you will get it. A lot. How can you hit a target if you don’t know what you’re aiming for?

How to do this? First, there’s a huge amount of information on the idea of personal branding online to research (download the two best articles I’ve ever read on personal branding here). Second, I’ve written extensively about strengths, and you can see my “elevator homepage” here.

3. Make it easy for people to help you

When emailing your “inside connections,” always include your latest resume so they don’t have to go digging for it. Also, develop a list of 3 target industries (and then a few company examples within those) for where you’d like to land. Counterintuitive as it sounds, making your desires more specific is what makes it easier for people to think of connections.

4. Set up search agents

Most large companies have web systems in place to create a profile and to search their open positions. Many of these also allow you to set up a “search agent” which will automatically email you new openings that fit your exact criteria as soon as they are posted. Love it.

5. Approach it all from a consulting perspective

Consultants come from the position of helping the company, which is the exact right perspective to have when trying to land a job. Hiring managers want to know what you can do to help them. To this end, ask the recruiter “What are the 3 key things you are looking for in this position?” so you can strategically tailor your interview prep.

The other benefit of this mentality is that consultants (ideally) take the jobs/projects they want — this is a tremendously helpful frame of mind to maintain through the grueling self-esteem “beatdown” that can accompany a job search. We’ve all heard it, but remember, try to interview them as much as they are you.

6. Say yes!

Meet with everyone, make new friends, join professional organizations, expand your circle and be a part of new groups. Search meetup.com for affiliations that make sense for you. Be nice to everyone, say thank you — A LOT — and always offer to help them. Don’t ask for a job, just be friendly, helpful, and ready to tell a very positive version of your story when asked.

7. Be ready to play the game

Whether you like it or not, getting a job at most companies is a complete game. You have to know the rules — and yes, some of them are outdated, nonsensical, or completely ridiculous — and you have to be willing to play by them.

My thoughts? Just make a note of what was most annoying to you… once you’re on the inside maybe you can help make it better, adding value to your new company!

What would you like to see changed about the way companies find, recruit, and hire people?

Any other tips you’ve come across that I missed?

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Jargon is everywhere. Just like countries, every industry has its own language with terminology, slang, and catch phrases. Some of this is fine, maybe even good — it can help people within the tribe connect to each other and speak more quickly and accurately about things.

But in many groups these days, we have gone ridiculously overboard with our jargon, to the point where it is not helping anything, especially not our communication.

Take my field of Organizational Development / Human Resources (OD/HR), for example. Here’s a list of jargon I pulled from an email I received today:

• Large and small group interventions,
• Outsourcing,
• Localized change management initiatives within the BU’s,
• Strategic planning,
• OD-type transformational change initiatives,
• Aligned to business units,
• Succession planning,
• Enterprise-wide SAP implementation,
• Field OD team, and
• Process changes.

All from one email.

Here’s the problem: outside of my field (hell, even INSIDE my field in many cases), to many folks this would be meaningless gibberish. And even for those “in the know,” my question is… does it have to be so complicated? Why can’t we just say what we need to without hiding behind a bunch of terminology?

Personally, too much jargon makes me wonder if folks really know what they’re even talking about.

As boundaries between industries continue to break down in the new economy, internal vocabularies across the board need to be simplified.

Take the iPad. Releasing this coming Saturday, this is a device that will obliterate even more barriers between technology and the news industry, and unlike the Kindle, also incorporates elements of traditional business (word processing) and entertainment (movie viewing and music listening) capability as well.

You’ll notice Apple NEVER uses complicated jargon to describe what the iPad does, or any of its other products for that matter. And they are in the technology business; one of the most complicated fields out there.

Making our communication simpler makes it more meaningful to more people. We should make it our goal to kill some jargon.

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This morning, one of my regular check-in sites, Mashable.com, posted a link for a movie promo partnership they initiated with Cinemanow.com. They were giving away free digital copies of Terminator: Salvation. I’d never gotten a chance to see the movie, and I’m always curious about new streaming movie technology, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

If you’re not aware, I’m a tech savvy guy. A master programmer I’m not, but anyone who knows me will tell you I’m an honorary member of the Nerd Herd, and generally the go-to guy for computer issues. Well, from the moment I set foot on Cinemanow.com, this “simple movie download” was anything but simple.

First, I click the download button. It doesn’t work. So I think “browser problem” and move from Safari to Firefox, which gives me the following insightful error: “You must use Explorer or Firefox.” Um, really? Pretty sure I just did that. Back to Safari. The internet gods smile upon me and the button magically works this time, but now leads me to a “Download this software” page. It starts to download an .exe file — as worthless to my Mac as a clock in a DMV office. At this point I’m strongly considering giving up. Then I recall reading somewhere that you can use DivX, so I install DivX and reload the page. It now gives me an option to actually download the movie, which I consider to be a helpful step in the right direction of actually watching the movie. Unfortunately the DIvX player is clunky and flaky on my machine, but it seems to be working. I’m in business!

But is this a success? I’m not sure.

For any organization, this is the downside of the new economy: choices. Consumers have a nearly obscene number of options for places they can go to get whatever it is you do/sell/provide. I don’t really care what it is you do/sell/provide, with Google on the side of the customer, they can always find somebody else.

We don’t get many chances to get it right anymore. Most people will click the link to your free movie and when it doesn’t work, move on with their day and forget all about you.

Best to get it right the first time.

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I had a great conversation the other day with David Kinnaman, the President of The Barna Group and co-author of UnChristian (a fascinating book centered around a research study about the perception of the Christian subculture amongst larger society). While we were talking, we ambled onto the topic of my writing, and the topic of my latest book, The Silent Revolution. During this dialogue, I realized I didn’t have any information about either of my books on my website!

As of today, that’s fixed.

Check out my new “Books” page here.

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Here’s a brand new social media facts video from the kind folks at XPLANE and The Economist. I’m always a big fan of the Did You Know? videos; here are a few of my favorite facts from this one:

• More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last two months than if ABC, NBC, and CBS had been airing new content 24/7/365 since 1948 (which was when ABC started broadcasting).
• 95% of all songs downloaded last year weren’t paid for.
• 90% of the 200 billion emails sent every day are spam.

Makes one wonder where it’s all going…

I have some ideas. Love to hear yours below!

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This isn’t a technology blog by any means, but these invisible speakers have the potential to be fairly game-changing for TVs, computers, and game systems. Have your mind blown right around the 2 minute mark.

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The title and opening sentence for this MSN article (http://tr.im/inflightwifi) says:

In the Air, Wi-Fi Gets a Ho-Hum Reception

The good: Air travelers love Wi-Fi. The bad: They don’t like having to pay for it.

I would like to lend my professional opinion to this topic:

DUH.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this seem like common sense?

To understand what’s happening here, I think we have to look at this from each of the two points of view — 1) from the company’s perspective and 2) from the customer’s viewpoint.

First, let’s take a look at this idea from the airline’s perspective. People like wi-fi, and people have to fly. Our business isn’t doing so hot, so if we install wi-fi on our planes we can make some extra money by charging the passengers to use it.

On the surface, not a bad idea, really. All those things are true.

Unfortunately, even though they’re true — they don’t matter.

To understand why they don’t matter, let’s pretend I’m a common coach passenger. I’ve followed the bizarre rights of passage that accompany an airport terminal, allowed myself to be herded like a sullen, obedient American cow into this cramped metal tube and discovered my preordained place in Row 25, Seat B. I stumble on what we’ll call an “oversized” individual, already snoring against the window (and spilling onto what is clearly — half, at least — MY armrest) and an inconsolable child in Row 26, Seat B who is, apparently, for some reason, not happy to see me. I spent more than I wanted to for a plane ticket months ago and was just charged another $25 just to carry my own clothes onboard the same plane I’m on because my 4 oz. Pantene is clearly some kind of plastic explosive. My shoes still don’t feel quite right since I tied them in such a hurry trying to get out of the way of the angry TSA agent stacking gray plastic bins. I sit down on the dingy blue-ish cloth seats designed solely for my discomfort and check my email on my phone. By the time “it’s safe to use my electronic devices,” my 2 hour flight has dwindled to less than an hour and a half of usable surfing time. Should I spend another $12-15 paying for wi-fi? No, I’m pretty sure I can wait to check my email until the wheels touch the ground and my phone goes back on.

Slightly hyperbolic, sure, but probably only slightly (I didn’t even mention the rude agents behind the counters!).

It’s a fairly common organizational tale: introducing benefits that seemed like a good idea in the strategy meeting but customers don’t actually find value in. At least, not enough value to pay for.

I told my friend Joel about this article and at first he was excited: “They’re installing wi-fi on airplanes!?” Then immediately he was put out: “…but I’d have to pay for it?”

Because we are already connected everywhere else for no extra money through our cell phones, for most of us it just doesn’t make sense to pay for it on a flight.

The way I see it, offering FREE wi-fi could be a decent selling point for an airline, and a small competitive advantage (particularly now, when no one is doing it). It would be a small silver lining on what is normally a rather dreary and energy-consuming experience.

Here’s the question I really can’t figure out: when some of these airlines are experimenting with charging $1 for wi-fi (seriously, it’s in the article), why not just build another dollar into my ticket price on the front end and let me THINK it’s free?? You get your dollar AND I get something of value that actually adds to my perception of your brand!

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