Copyright © 2014 Robert Joseph Harris, All Rights Reserved for content on this blog.

 

Working Past the Tipping Point

The way advanced countries and businesses work has shifted dramatically In the blink of a generational eye.  Paradigm shifting, normally a slow process taking many decades, is happening for work and business intra-generationally;  A 30 year-old person with a stable long-term job may no longer be employable at age 50!

This situation is not temporary, it represent a seismic shift to a  new way of working, living and being.  I will write about the causes of and remedies for dealing with this shift in this blog.

My quick advice is that people will have to learn how to surf on multiple waves of almost constant change almost simultaneously.  The human brain is wired for this, the current habits and knowledge most people have are not.

The Shift from Repetitive to Creative Work

Jobs and business, in general, have always depended on relatively long periods of repeatable actions for their success–from hands-on manual labor, to professional service processes,  to ten-year strategic business plans.  The habits and knowledge that made this system work have rapidly lost value because they are too slow and outdated for the times and technology.

Everything has speeded up by a factor of 10 to 1000 in just the past decade as almost half the world population has become connected via the Internet, and all work activities are driven by smart digital technology embedded in every nook and cranny of life.  Steady repetitive work of body and mind is being rapidly replaced by spontaneous smart creative work of the mind, with body-driven work already replaced in large part by smart machines.

The Human Brain is Ready for the Shift

We have entered the new Smart Digital Era. The pre-SDE time metrics of human work were measured in years, days, and hours; the current SDE time metrics of work are measured in minutes, seconds, and milliseconds, and speeding up.

The good news is that the human brain has been wired for thousands of years to operate at a milliseconds rate;  It is ready to be let loose.  Our human brain has been fooling us for millenia into thinking that reality is one smooth continuum experience, when in fact, it re-calculates human perception of reality every 100 thousandths of a second of so, which is many times faster than the cycle time of the picture on a modern television screen.

Don’t believe this?  Take a picture of your television screen with your smart phone when only white noise (snow pattern) is on and you will see the alternating light and dark bands of the picture cycle pattern.

Coping With The Latest New Reality

In this blog I will write about what I learned from coping, and helping clients cope, with shifts in their work and business realities as life has speeded up. This includes my current transformation to social media as a blogger/advisor. I draw on my current and past 30-year experience from my research, client experiences, and conversations with others, in dealing with shifts in how work and business is done.  In this space, I will continue to explore the shifting work and business trends in topics such as:

• Shift Towards Self-Work
• Shift from Static to Dynamic Work and Business
• Shift from Top-Down to Bottom-Up Value Creation
• Shift from Tall to Flat Economy
• Shift from Linearized to Networked Economy
• Shift from Corporate to Community Markets
• Shift to Simple Strategies for Complex Systems
• Intangible “Wheel” of the New Era
• Donovan’s “Big Brain” Data Analytics before Computers
• The Innovative American Mind in Action

My writing goal in each blog is to follow the advice of William Burroughs:

• Write about what matter.
• Write what you know about.
• Write in your authentic voice.

I welcome comments, hope I provide some value to you, and look forward to learning more about the topics I write about, from you.

Robert Joseph Harris, May 2014