For decades our understanding of economic production has been that
individuals order their productive activities in one of two ways:
either as employees in firms, following the directions of managers, or
as individuals in markets, following price signals. This dichotomy was
first identified in the early work of Nobel laureate Ronald Coase, and
was developed most explicitly in the work of neo-institutional
economist Oliver Williamson. In the past three or four years, public
attention has focused on a fifteen-year-old social-economic phenomenon
in the software development world. This phenomenon, called free
software or open source software, involves thousands or even tens of
thousands of programmers contributing to large and small scale project,
where the central organizing principle is that the software remains
free of most constraints on copying and use common to proprietary
materials. No one "owns" the software in the traditional sense of being
able to command how it is used or developed, or to control its
disposition. The result is the emergence of a vibrant, innovative and
productive collaboration, whose participants are not organized in firms
and do not choose their projects in response to price signals.
Irene V. on 04 Oct 12"Is Your Brand Ready for Unleashed Workers? by Marc Stoiber | keywords: articles, Computers/Electronics/Technology, Business Model Innovation, Employee Engagement, Environmental/Social Issues, Impact Reduction, Org Culture and Processes, Transportation/Logistics Tweet Video conferencing, courtesy of GoToMeeting. | Image credit: Citrix October 1, 2012- A key element of futureproof brands is the ability to predict the needs of rapidly evolving consumers. This is easier said than done. In hindsight, Facebook makes sense. But few could've predicted the rise of a generation willing to share every intimate detail online. Telecommuting is a similarly cagey concept. For years, we've been trumpeting it as progress toward less pollution and time waste, and greater sustainability. But there's still little indication what this new world of stay-away workers will actually look like, what working anywhere actually means, and how brands will have to adapt to serve this new group. My interest in this area was sparked by a conversation with Kim DeCarlis, VP of Corporate Marketing at Citrix (the folks pushing the virtualization envelope with offerings such as GoTo Meeting). Although DeCarlis agrees it's early days, she believes there are indicators of what brands serving future telecommuters should think about. Hyper Personal Standardization in electronics is still de rigueur in most offices. As DeCarlis says, "Permutation and new gear is anathema to IT departments. Trying to make an office work - and people share information - when everyone has their own platform is an exercise in futility." Virtualization and the Cloud have changed the need for standardization. "I have a computer, tablet and phone that I bought for myself," says DeCarlis. "With virtualized functions like data, applications and desktops delivered via the cloud, my personal gear is 100% usable at work." So what does this mean for the unleashed workers of tomorrow
