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ОглавлениеWHAT IS DIFFERENT TODAY?
“This is the modern world that I’ve learnt about
This is the modern world, we don’t need no one
To tell us what is right or wrong -
Say what you like cause I don’t care
I know where I am and going too
It’s somewhere I won’t preview”
The Jam: “(This is) The Modern World”
The End of the Office and Its Consequences
How do we actually want to live? This question is not only on the mind of young professionals, but also of that older generation that has always worked a lot and started realizing during the crisis – if not earlier – that a life spent predominantly in the office isn’t necessarily an extremely fulfilling one. “Since the 1970s, it has become somewhat unfashionable to have time on your hands,” writes journalist Claudia Voigt in the German Kulturspiegel magazine. “Those who had time on their hands were either old or lost since the days they were young.” We have been searching for happiness in our workplaces in vain and for too long. We have spent ten or twelve hours in the office, bending over backwards. “In this respect, the current economic crisis has something good about it,” says Voigt. “It is profound and world-shattering enough to suddenly make room for questions such as: How do we live? What is important to us and what are our values? How much longer is this supposed to go on? And: How do we actually want to live?”
Voigt makes an argument for ultra-flexible and, most notably, shorter working hours as smart ideas can be developed just as well in a 30-hour week. She pleads for going to the office only to work – not to drink coffee, read private e-mails, or download music from the Net. She rails against the requirement to be present permanently and to do overtime in executive positions. She likes the idea of trading money for time and of having the freedom to use that time as you like. Voigt’s article is important as it describes a connection between our new working reality, the economic crisis, and the search for meaning that I agree with: “How do we want to live? Lots of work and little time: For a long time, this was regarded as the only way to a successful existence, yet the crisis will change this – thank goodness.” Besides, this connection raises a question that I will try to answer in this book: “What will people do who already have stopped being present at the office around the clock?”
Welcome to the Meconomy
All of a sudden, issues such as the search for meaning or self-improvement during times of economic crisis seemed to dominate the cover pages of a wide variety of magazines. SZ Wissen, a science magazine published by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, sported the line “The Good Life – Alternatives to Career Mania” on its cover. The title of Germany’s Focus magazine was “Self-made Happiness,” followed by the subtitle “Germans discover the fun of taking their lives into their own hands.” In the same week, Junge Karriere, a Düsseldorf-based monthly business publication, demanded: “Reinvent Your Job!” Alluding to a well-known IKEA advertising slogan, the magazine asked its readers: “Do you still work or do you already have a life? Here’s how to realign your career – with or without a boss!” Something was happening here.
“In times of crisis, people start asking themselves again what is really important,” analyzed Süddeutsche Zeitung. According to the newspaper, people are trying to get out of a system that they considered devoid of meaning, while a new generation of social scientists is thinking about alternative models of society: “Where old certainties are shattered, people become increasingly willing to try something new.”
Munich-based sociologist Ulrich Beck even thinks that, in terms of new life concepts, there is a “tremendous need for reform – as was the case at the onset of industrialization.” Horst Opaschowski, scientific director of the Stiftung für Zukunftsfragen (Foundation for Future Studies) in Hamburg and consultant in economics and politics, seconds Beck’s point of view. To him, the global crisis is a “turning point” that can even be compared to the German student movement of the late 1960s. “Back then, there was the same sense of a new era.” Germany, says Opaschowski, is about to experience a period of renewal: “Visions for the future are no longer confused with new product visions. Germans want to find ways to the future that are inspired by entrepreneurial courage rather than by faith in the state.”
In a recent study published by German futurist and trend researcher Max Horx, the economic crisis is considered a “cleansing thunderstorm” that accelerates a long-overdue process of change. According to Horx, employees are increasingly turning into self-dependent entrepreneurs. Rigid hierarchies, inefficient communication structures, and linear business processes are becoming more and more incompatible with the ever-changing digital business world. The new working environment is characterized by self-employment, freelance project work, temporary unemployment, and having multiple jobs. In the economy of tomorrow, the wish to do something meaningful and to realize personal aims will become the key drivers of productivity for future-oriented companies.
Life as a Construction Set
It is at exactly this point that the Junge Karriere cover story, which was published at almost the same time, comes in. The spin-off magazine of the big German business paper Handelsblatt describes a new generation of employees who want to actively shape business processes and improve their professional skills, reinventing their jobs and themselves. “Trying new ways and ideas has become more important than ever,” conclude the authors – because: “Today, anyone who chooses a certain career and takes up a job needs to accept that he will have to go through many stages in his professional life.”
Sociologist Richard Sennet estimates that, over 40 working years, an average American changes his job eleven times and replaces his entire know-how three times. In Germany as well, corporate hierarchies are becoming flatter, the number of legal regulations is decreasing, and employment periods are getting shorter. “This situation offers a chance of self-actualization, yet it also implies the risk of not being able to keep up with the development,” says the Junge Karriere magazine.
Today, this phenomenon is as relevant as never before, yet it isn’t new. As early as in 1960, management professor Douglas McGregor coined the term “self-actualizing man” – a man who reinvents himself and who strives for self-fulfillment by making use of his talents and opportunities in a company. By the end of the 1990s, Richard Sennett raised his concerns over the new “flexible man,” who runs the risk of losing his real personality due to constant new challenges posed by an ever-changing capitalist environment. However, around the turn of the millennium, US sociologist Richard Florida discovered the positive side of this unsteady lifestyle: The members of his “Creative Class” are fueled by ideas, prefer loose acquaintances over a few close friends, and are always ready to change their jobs and places of residence – in short: their lives.
Today, more than ever, this is a necessity. Time clock punching is increasingly becoming a thing of the past – “and this is why traditional jobs are dying out,” explains labor market researcher Frank Wießner. Manufacturing processes are increasingly automated or outsourced to low-cost countries. Employees have to acquire new qualifications time and again, and they have to score with expertise that gets outdated at an ever-growing pace. “Knowledge-intensive jobs are booming,” says Wießner.
The economic crisis reinforced tendencies that had already been at work for some time, put them at the center of attention, or simply made them visible. To the generation of 20- to 35-year-olds, these tendencies do not constitute abstract sociological or economic theories: They shape the world that they live in – a world that requires them to develop entirely new skills to get by. Frequently, their parents are having a hard time trying to imagine an existence that is profoundly insecure and extremely mobile, yet at the same time full of enormous possibilities. In a cover story about the “children of the crisis” that was published in summer 2009, the German magazine Der Spiegel wrote: “Now, during the crisis, perceptions of life are increasingly defined by uncertainty, and this is what connects members of this generation throughout the social spectrum to each other.”
Timm Klotzek, Editor-in-chief of Neon – a magazine that is considered the voice, agony aunt, and guidebook of Germany’s less-than-30-year-olds – thinks that his readers share a particular concern: “The big question is: What will become of me?” The children of the crisis have to make the best of a situation characterized by enormous complexity, and they are already pretty good at that. They are globally mobile. Think Tank 30, the Club of Rome’s hotbed of young talent, provides the well-educated elite of this generation with a forum to discuss global issues. One of its members has just returned from the US, one from Mali, and two have just come back from London. Recently, one member of the club went on a world trip and organized video conferences with schools in 25 countries. “Maybe only five or ten percent of this generation lead a truly global life, yet this has an exemplary effect on the rest of the generation,” says youth researcher Klaus Hurrelmann. “Flexibility, mobility, and globality are their Trinity,” writes Der Spiegel.
Moreover, this generation increasingly searches for meaningful ways of earning money. They long to leave dreary work routines and the practical constraints that still shaped their parents’ everyday life behind. Granted, every young generation wants to lead a more exciting life than the previous one, but the current generation is probably the first one ever that has sufficient social and technological means to put this aim into practice. Plus, there is no way back to the old certainties anyway.
That’s why they want to have their say when it comes to defining their jobs. According to a study conducted in 2004 by the German Internationales Institut für Empirische Sozialökonomie (International Institute for Empirical Social Economics), 71 percent of participants want to actively contribute to shaping processes. Two out of three employees want to develop their skills on a permanent basis and receive career support. The 2009 Arbeitsmarktklima-Index (Human Resources Climate Survey) showed that working satisfaction increases with the tasks that employees are allowed to fulfill.
Yet it is exactly this need of employees – to contribute something, to be creative, and to prevent their suggestions from being talked to death by supervisors and boards – that many companies do not meet yet. In its “Gute Arbeit” (“Good Work”) survey, the Confederation of German Trade Unions asked 8,000 employees for their opinion, covering all regions, income groups, industries, company sizes, and types of employment according to their respective share in overall employment. The majority of participants considered their professional development and education opportunities, as well as the possibilities available to them to be creative, to exert influence, and to shape processes, to be “mediocre.”
A Labor Expert’s View
Werner Eichhorst, Deputy Director of Labor Policy at the Bonn-based Institute for the Study of Labor, frequently receives invitations from the German Government to come to Berlin – usually when politicians don’t know how to proceed further anymore. He often appears on TV as well. In short: Eichorst is a classic expert in politics. Today, even people like him have a Facebook account. His profile says that the 40-year-old likes Erik Satie, Bill Murray, Gerhard Richter, books by Montaigne, and the film “Amélie.” Thus, Eichhorst is a pretty modern academic, and that’s why I wanted to get his perspective on the Meconomy subject:
Mr. Eichhorst, the crisis is on the wane, but it has left a deep-seated fear: Many old certainties and institutions have been rocked to their foundations. Do we have to reinvent ourselves and our jobs now?
Werner Eichhorst: At least job beginners – who are currently confronting hiring freezes and questionable employment conditions everywhere – have to be particularly creative now. At the moment, a whole wave of highly qualified and highly motivated people is entering the job market. These people won’t find a job that suits their needs just like that. They will be put on hold several times, and that’s when they will come up with the idea to try something new. If there was an unlimited number of steady jobs with good pay until retirement available, I’m sure that many young professionals would be happy to accept them. However, due to structural changes and the current economic crisis, the situation is different. That’s why people will have to use all of their energy and creativity in order to get by – this is the central challenge to each individual.
What does that mean in numbers?
Eichhorst: On the one hand, our surveys show that, after all, 55 percent of working people still have permanent full-time jobs and that this percentage hasn’t been decreasing dramatically at all in recent years. Besides, the overall number of available jobs is higher than it was five or ten years ago. Thus, the labor market is bigger than it was in the past. Many women and previously unemployed people have entered the market as well. We consider a relatively stable proportion to have additional employment opportunities as freelancers, temporary workers, or part-time workers. On the other hand, transitional phases at career entry levels have become longer. Today, many high-skilled people initially work as trainees or interns, acquire additional qualifications, or have temporary work contracts. Starting a career this way has become normal for most of them. You could say that they perceive it as an extended probationary period.
Thus, soon everything will be as it was before the crisis?
Eichhorst: No. The burden of the adjustments to come will not only be carried by the margin – by which I mean part-time workers or job beginners – but also by the core of the labor market. People working for classic large-scale employers such as Opel, Quelle, Schaeffler, or Märklin are very likely to get laid off sooner or later. Jobs that were considered crisis-proof for a long time are disappearing now, and they won’t become available again to the extent that we have become used to. Thus, the structural change rather will be accelerated by the crisis. Both the mailorder business and the manufacturing sector are shrinking rapidly. The car industry – a sector that used to be relatively viable in Germany – is currently undergoing a painful reduction in size. Similar developments have recently become visible in the financial services sector. For employees, this results in a greater necessity to switch to other occupational areas, including the service sector.
Do more people in Germany start their own businesses today?
Eichhorst: This trend can be confirmed. However, Germany lags behind other nations in this respect due to our tradition of socially secure, permanent employment relationships and the widespread longing for public sector employment. Besides, up to now, it wasn’t really necessary to deal with this issue due to the relatively good condition of the job market. Recently, starting your own business has been rehabilitated and it has also received public support. Just think of the “Me Incorporated” phenomenon: Particularly in the creative industry and in the media business, this has become one of the dominant models. In any case, major cities like Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, or Munich have virtually become “laboratories” where these trends can be observed earlier and have grown more prevalent than in other regions.
Does all of this also imply a chance? Historically speaking, many big brands and products were created during times of crisis…
Eichhorst: I agree. It is certainly possible that, just now, business ideas are being developed and companies are being established – either due to sheer necessity or due to opportunity – that we might be well familiar with ten years from now. However, I somewhat doubt that Germany provides the right basis or sufficient starting points for the emergence of something like this.
What is missing?
Eichhorst: Most notably, we need adequate support for founders of new businesses. Moreover, our educational system does not put enough emphasis on, e.g., the development of sustainable ideas in colleges…
…which isn’t the case in the United States.
Eichhorst: Exactly. The economic stimulus packages provided by the German government, however, focus on rather conservative things like scrapping incentives, road construction costs, or short-term employment – in short: things that essentially serve to slow down structural change.
What exactly should our government do instead?
Eichhorst: It should invest more money into the support of smaller businesses that are being established at the moment. This would result in more positive multiplier effects other than financing businesses that, sooner or later, shrink or disappear anyway.
Which fields should receive financial support?
Eichhorst: Energy efficiency, intelligent buildings, new forms of energy generation, modern solutions in the field of traffic engineering, education, research…and, most notably, innovative concepts in the field of healthcare – which is another sector that has antiquated administrative structures in Germany but offers enormous innovation and business potential.
How Digital Natives Change the Working World
Around the globe, experts are observing the current fundamental changes in the working world. One of them is Alexander Greisle, who formerly worked for the Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation (Fraunhofer Institute for Work Management and Organization). Today, he runs his own business, consulting clients such as the European Union, Bayer AG, and Allianz in the development and implementation of new management and office concepts. Greisle publishes regularly on, as he puts it, “trends in the working world, providing information workers with tips and dealing with the information society.” Probably the most important trend that not only Greisle has come across is the way in which so-called “Digital Natives” redefine work. This generation that has grown up with the Internet and cell phones is being courted by market researchers, scientists, and human resources representatives like no other group. How they work and communicate, what they expect of their bosses and colleagues, whether they still go to the office at all, which technologies they would like to find there, and what products they are interested in – all of this is currently being discussed at countless congresses, workshops, and camps.
As a consultant, Greisle does not shy away from contact with people. He has already interviewed many members of this generation and was able to find out what makes these new professionals tick. His basic assumption is that Digital Natives naturally integrate technical possibilities into their everyday lives: “They wouldn’t even think of viewing the Internet as some more or less strange ‘add-on to real life’,” explains Greisle. “They consider it quite absurd that surveys on the frequency of Internet use are still being conducted.”
Moreover, the numerous possibilities of communication and collaboration that they make use of on a daily basis seem to effortlessly fit into their individual work lives. “Interpreting this solely as the result of software and technical skills definitely misses the point,” says Greisle. “What we are talking about here is a change in work culture.” He highlights the following crucial points:
High-level networking is a necessity in everyday business – both at home and at the office – as it reduces spatial and temporal boundaries.
Collaborative tools – from chats to web office suites – belong to everyday life.
Extensive social networks are more reliable than colleagues you don’t know – even if all of these networks are virtual.
Research things instead of trying to memorize them. There is much more information available than could ever be memorized. Instead, search and find.
Try it yourself. Don’t be afraid to try new possibilities and to question limitations.
Develop a solution out of different components instead of reinventing the wheel.
Question recommendations and gather additional information.
Communicate fast, spontaneously, and personally instead of spending time on scheduling meetings.
Combine “always on” with flexible working hours to keep your life in balance.
Multitask and communicate on several channels at once.
Act fast and have confidence in the Internet and computers.
Greisle has observed that young people who have been socialized this way often find it difficult to cope with traditional working environments: “You can almost physically feel the cultural shock that young people with such behavioral patterns and extensive technological and systematic know-how experience when they join one of our companies,” says the consultant. “The traditional working and management structures of many companies thwart them completely.”
Among those who are at the beginning of their professional lives as employees at the moment, especially the well-trained ones take the liberty to select companies with an adequate working culture. “Being members of the Internet generation, they will also seize the opportunity to rate employers online.” Companies who do not adjust to the changed needs of their future employees run the risk of “lacking fresh blood and of choking new impulses and ideas with the conventional. The phrase ‘We’ve always been doing it this way’ kills employee motivation.”
So, what to do next? How can employers prepare for the challenges to come? Again, the consultant has compiled a competent list:
The prerequisite is to provide the tools. Resist the temptation to work with restrictions.
Get familiar with Social Web tools. This will allow you to join in – it’s less difficult than you might think.
Create a company culture based on trust – both within the management team and between managers and employees.
Communicate in an open and timely manner. Digital Natives will be faster than you anyway.
Attach importance to a good and respectful culture of communication within the company, and when contacting partners and clients.
Accept the new openness and take it as an opportunity. In the past, industry meetings were held every year. Today, they are held every day.
Sustainability is not a subject of discussion anymore, it is a culture. Put it into practice – socially, economically, and ecologically.
Create a variety of workplaces designed to meet the demands of modern working – open space offices that facilitate communication, adequate rooms for retreat, workplaces that foster creativity, home offices, and co-working spaces.
According to Greisle, Digital Natives think flexibly – employment is just one option for them: “Ultimately, it is up to companies themselves to attract them as employees.”
Interestingly, the somewhat older generation of 30- to 45-year-olds seems to adopt these new working principles more rapidly than experts thought. A recent Forrester Research survey shows that, currently, it is not the 18- to 28-year-olds – the so-called “Generation Y” – but rather the members of Generation X who promote the use of collaborative technologies in companies. The reason for this is simple: The less-than-29-year-olds don’t have the necessary seniority and influence within companies yet. Their older co-workers, however, have by now become aware of the importance of social media – which is why they constitute the fastest-growing group of Facebook users – and of the advantages of collaborative work that is independent of time and space. Moreover, telling their bosses how great these technologies are isn’t all they can do as many of them are bosses themselves. Thus, what I have described above increasingly seems to apply to people beyond the age of 29 as well – which is something I can personally attest to.
“Security is gone anyway. Just do what your heart is set on.”
Johannes Kleske probably wouldn’t want to be given a label as people of his age find generalizations and debates on generational differences rather annoying – yet there is no way around it: If Digital Natives exist at all, the 31-year-old is one of them. His main job is being a so-called “social media expert” – which means that he consults companies in leveraging new communication platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to reach a young, critical, and highly fragmented target group that hardly uses classic media like newspapers or TV anymore. Besides, Johannes is – in plain words – a big name in the Internet because he is smart, kind, upstanding, and a man of vast reading. He has more than 3,000 followers on Twitter. To give a comparison: I have just around 500.
I first came across Johannes in mid-2008 when my first book “Morgen komm ich später rein” was just about to be published. Back then, I was researching the web for the best and most successful blogs dealing with productivity and new working methods because I wanted to send the book to some ten experts in advance for reviews. Johannes, author of the blog Tautoko, was one of them. After he had twittered on the book, the number of visits to my page went up dramatically. In his world, Johannes undoubtedly has media power.
Besides, there is scarcely anyone out there who is more knowledgeable in terms of modern nomadism and self-fulfillment in the digital economy. His theses underline that a new generation with new questions to life and work has emerged – questions that neither most employers nor state and institutional structures have answers to. We exchanged opinions for several weeks via Twitter and e-mail, discussing, among other things, the new age of insecurity and how to prepare for the jobs of the future:
Johannes, what does work mean to you?
Johannes Kleske: To me, doing things that my heart is set on is essential. That’s why I try to continuously develop my work further and to bring it closer to what I consider “fulfilling.” Still, with this approach, being stuck in an unsatisfying job is only a part of the problem. I have observed that many people don’t quit their current job because they don’t even know what job they would rather be doing. To me, the search for an occupation that my heart is set on is a lifelong journey. Each experience helps me to find out more about my personal interests, talents, and needs. I view each job as one more step toward an ideal state, while being aware of the fact that I will never reach that state as it is constantly changing together with me. Those who believe to have found their dream job at some point in this process run the risk of standing still.
Marketing expert and author Seth Godin maintains that there are an infinite number of tribes out there that are waiting for you to become their leader. Do what you love and the global platform consisting of Web 2.0, Mobile Web, etc. will reward you with followers, clients, and business opportunities. What do you think about Godin’s argument?
Kleske: I really like Godin’s definition of leadership as it isn’t based on power and managerial skills but on passion. Looking at the current state of the global economy, I believe that passion will play a much more important role again in the future. We have been accepting compromises in job choices for ages in favor of security, and now we’re flabbergasted to see that no job in the world can offer us the security we desire. I hope and believe that this insight will cause many people to say: “Security is gone anyway, so why shouldn’t I do what my heart is set on?”
What exactly do you think might happen?
Kleske: I think that, in the next months and years, we will see a new boom in trade, small businesses, and self-employment in general. My thesis is that this will ultimately lead us out of the crisis and create much more sustainability and stability than we had before the crisis. Slogans like “grow slow, grow strong” will come to the fore and quick money making will take a back seat.
On a more general note, is self-fulfillment easier in the digital economy? Is it possible to optimize your life by “hacking” it?
Kleske: This definitely holds true for ideas that can be realized in the “digital economy.” For instance, if you’ve come up with an idea for a new web application, you hardly need to invest anything – except for time. The developer tools by Google, Microsoft, and Amazon that provide programming environments and server systems have made getting started much easier. Another advantage of reduced initial costs is that you can try way more ideas today than in the past, which allows you to see which of them actually work in practice. The flexibility of the system ensures that you don’t have to quit your job before you’re sure that your ideas will catch on. Initially, you work on them in your leisure time; as soon as they become so successful that they require your undivided attention, you quit. Start-up costs are low in all other areas of the digital economy as well.
Is thinking about these issues a frivolous luxury in times of a slowly abating crisis?
Kleske: To the contrary, I think that they hold tremendous opportunities. With regard to the establishment and start-up of businesses, I even see a significant advantage: It has become a lot more difficult to get financial support for half-baked ideas. As mentioned before: At the same time, it has become much more affordable to try new ideas. I hope that, in the next months and years, businesses will increasingly start small and grow slowly in order to be able to focus on quality and service. The best thing the crisis can do for us is to cure us of our greed for quick growth.
Building a Life That Suits You
Today, the future of work and life is invented over peanut snacks and sliced peppers while electro music is playing in the background. Colored Post-its are attached to huge whiteboards, charming little models are built, and activities like crossing a river as a group or climbing a wall using hand-made rope ladders are performed to foster self-awareness. Welcome to Palomar5, a camp in which highly talented young people – i.e. Digital Natives – are supposed to explore their generation’s ideas of work and identity.
On the spacious terrace on the Spree riverside in Berlin, hardly anything suggests that the sponsor Deutsche Telekom AG has invested a considerable amount of money to be able to impress Angela Merkel with the groundbreaking insights of the young elite at the next IT summit. The camp participants are sitting around on blankets and cushions, drinking cheap supermarket water from plastic bottles, cutting, gluing, and chatting. You can hear the muffled sound of a subwoofer, and somewhere in the background a swing is hanging from the ceiling. The whole scenario rather resembles a summer camp than a state-of-the-art think tank. However, first impressions can be misleading.
All of the participants are bi- or trilingual designers, communication scientists, IT experts, or prospective managers in their twenties – in short: people who definitely belong to the professional elite of tomorrow. Here at Palomar5, their first task is to playfully define what they imagine their future private and professional lives will look like. In the next step, they are supposed to develop products that enable companies to meet the demands of Digital Natives. After all, the workplaces of the future will have little in common with ours.
To these young people, it goes without saying that they can work everywhere and that they don’t have to be at the office every day. Collaborative software solutions allow them to permanently keep in touch with their colleagues, the bliss of permanent employment is a thing of the past, and future projects will be realized within a lose network of companies, subcontractors, freelancers, and experts. Consequently, it won’t matter anymore who is a freelancer and who is a permanent employee. They have entirely new ways of thinking and very concrete questions: “Why can’t you have three work contracts at once?” asks Stefan Liske, co-organizer of Palomar5. Or: “Assuming that, in the future, we will have chips implanted beneath our skin that transmit our biological data to a server, would employers be allowed to evaluate this data to find out when we’re most productive?”
These questions might suggest that Palomar5 is basically a big science-fiction playground – and that’s what it is actually supposed to be to a certain extent. However, HR managers and executives should pay close attention to this generation’s ideas about their future jobs and lives. Companies that do not address these issues will realize that high-potential candidates will prefer to join rival companies. At the same time, questions like these contribute to the emergence of a new market with products and services that are tailored to the needs of young professionals.
So here they are: Smart people in their mid-twenties delving into concepts like “The Next Generation of Identity,” “Knowledge Cultivation,” or “Collaborative Value Creation.” While all of this might sound like a satire on futurologists, it is highly relevant to these people’s everyday lives: “Our biographies are fragmented,” says Chinese-born Xiwen in perfect English. “We have one personality on Facebook, one on Xing, one on our blog, and one in the real world. We need new tools to manage all these facets of our lives.” The other participants are nodding portentously – obviously, these problems can be considered cross-cultural today.
I have been invited today to give a speech on my new book. For this purpose, I’m establishing a Skype connection with mobile knowledge workers in New York, who are giving the virtual visitors from Berlin an enthusiastic welcome. While the managers of some major corporations would probably be quite impressed by something like this, the young camp participants are taking it as a matter of course, reacting in an interested, yet nonchalant manner. What I, as a 39-year-old, would definitely consider modern and kind of high-tech is no more than everyday life to the twentysomethings around me. Cheap bottled water and peanut snacks aside, they indeed seem to have the potential to discuss the camp’s official topics – such as “Business Ecosystems,” “Leadership Models,” and “Knowledge Management” – and to come up with new solutions. René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG, will have a lot to tell to Angela Merkel.
Wasting Away in Middle Management
The reality of work and life is not only changing for people in their mid-twenties and job starters. Even well-established executives and entrepreneurs start to feel uneasy about the ever-growing pace of the change. On a sunny morning, 15 successful, middle-aged businessmen are sitting in the meeting room of a design hotel in Hamburg, worried about their future, their careers, and the meaning of life. They work in different sectors: Some are bankers, some are marketing managers, and some are controllers. There is a scientist, a freelance architect, and a director of commercials among them. What all of them share is that vague feeling of discontent, that gnawing anxiety about the future. They are not afraid of failure or unemployment, but of leading an average life full of mediocrity and boredom – the idea of “that was basically it, there’s not much more to come.” What they fear is that all the exciting stuff out there is happening without them.
What I am describing here is not a motivation seminar but a self-organized meeting of friends and acquaintances. Some of them have known each other since their childhood, others have recently joined them because they found the idea appealing. But what idea? One of the participants brings it to the point: “All of us are good at what we’re doing. We make good money and we’ve achieved something, but if we don’t watch out, we will be stuck on this level for the rest of our lives. We’re wasting away in middle management.” And this is not the way it is supposed to be – not in the Meconomy with its promise of self-fulfillment and jobs that we are burning to do. That’s why the 15 businessmen developed a schedule that mixes self-discovery with professional training and business start-up coaching. Today is their first meeting.
In a quick round of introductions, the participants tell each others what they do and what motivates them. It soon becomes obvious that all of them attach importance to their jobs – still, the soft factors are all the more important. One of them tells the group about his last world trip that he took a sabbatical for. Another one shows pictures of him skiing and sailing. The message is clear: There is more to my existence than my job. The participants tell each other about their plans and dreams, about things that they still want to experience or achieve. The 15 men indeed form a representative cross-section of the German working population in their mid-thirties. All of them are ready – if not even dying – to reinvent themselves.
That’s why they want to find out now how others made it. They picked a city – Hamburg – and simply called some of the most interesting and intelligent achievers, asking them: “What about this: We come over and you can give us the inside story behind closed doors. Is that a deal?”
You wouldn’t believe this kind of strategy would be successful, but it actually worked. Within the next three days, they will talk to 20 CEOs, chief editors, company founders, and start-up businesses. During long, intensive, and confidential interviews, they will hear about what went wrong in their interview partners’ careers and businesses, what they would do the same way again and what not, what impact their jobs have on their private lives, and what goals they have.
The list of interview partners is impressive: start-up businesses, entrepreneurs, and exciting personalities. From Gabriele Fischer, Editor-in-chief of the German business magazine brand eins, to Mark Korzillies, founder of the restaurant chain Vapiano. From Thorsten Becker, managing director of the Hamburg-based HR consulting company Management Angels, to Arndt Roller, CEO of Parship. The list also includes potential sponsors, such as Jens Müffelmann, who coordinates the investments of Germany’s Axel Springer publishing house in technology ventures, and Christian Nagel, co-founder and managing partner of the venture capital company Earlybird.
I had the opportunity to attend the interviews – as a participant and contributor – and I was indeed impressed with the list of prominent interview partners that had been compiled by a group of no-name individuals. However, what I found even more impressive was the likeable enthusiasm with which they questioned the experienced entrepreneurs. Here, a group of young managers really wanted to know how to start your own business, how to present ideas, how to create a financing plan, and, ultimately, what might go wrong in all of this. I took extensive notes and would summarize the most important insights as follows:
1. Usually, much more goes wrong than you would expect as an outsider. I can’t give you any details in this respect as I agreed to treat all the information confidentially. However, you wouldn’t believe how dramatic the mistakes, mishaps, and errors were that many business founders made and got through. Just because they are successful today, this doesn’t mean they have always known everything and done everything right. Sometimes they were simply unlucky. Of course, when talking to journalists, they always tell the success stories.
2. Sometimes you have to let go of your own idea to make it work. Today, Mark Korzillius owns but a small share in Vapiano – although he is the one who came up with the idea for this globally successful restaurant chain. He says that he is satisfied to see his concept grow.
3. Sometimes you have to stick to your idea against all odds to make it work. When you listen to Gabriele Fischer talking about the difficult beginnings of brand eins, you ask yourself: Why on earth did she do that to herself and her team? Because she knew that they would triumph in the end? This is easy to say in retrospect…
4. You might have to challenge your business model to keep it alive. The MediaLab, a subsidiary of the German Madsack publishing group, recently invented the first newspapers that exclusively contain user-generated content – which means that all articles are written by laypersons and not by professional journalists. Please note: We are talking about a major German publishing house here that actually makes money by selling classic newspapers. Is this insane? Or a bold strategy that counters industry trends? Probably, it’s a little bit of both…
5. After all, no one knows in advance what will work. Earlybird doesn’t know which of the start-up businesses they finance will make it. Madsack doesn’t know if their investments in the Internet radio platform www.radio.de will be profitable. Parship doesn’t know if people will spend 30 Euros a month on dating during the financial crisis. The planners of Hamburg’s large-scale architectural project HafenCity don’t know if they will create a vibrant district or a soulless concrete jungle. The trick is to stop calculating, deliberating, and forecasting at some point and to start doing things. No one knows what the future holds, but all of us can take a chance.
This might seem more difficult during times of crisis. To many people, however, these are perfect times to get started: When the economy is down, resources and rents are cheap, manpower is available, and you have time to prepare for the take-off of your business after the crisis.
The Time to Do What You Love Is Now
“There is no more reason today to do stuff that you hate,” says the young American entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, who gave up managing a wine wholesale company with a revenue of millions in order to realize his dream: He recently became the world’s most successful wine blogger. He broadcasts his daily show via the Internet and rejects offers of TV stations. In this way, Vaynerchuk became one of the pioneers of the Meconomy: “Ask yourself: What do I want to do every day for the rest of my life? Do that! I promise you can monetize that shit.”
This message catches on with the target group of young, well-trained employees who have been disappointed one time too many – by their bosses, by their investment advisors, or by politicians. We lost money in the bank crash of 2008, and some of us even lost their jobs in the economic crisis. We are flexible, motivated, and well-trained – but that doesn’t really help us during the downturn. Many of us who still have our jobs do them in a rather disenchanted way and without too much loyalty. We know that we might get the sack once management decides to change its business strategy. As we don’t trust our bosses, more and more of us prefer to become our own bosses and start our own businesses.
On average, the number of independent professionals is increasing by five percent every year in Germany. In 1992, there were 514,000 of them; in 2007, that figure had already almost doubled to 954,000. Between 2006 and 2007 alone, the number of physicians and pharmacists increased by 7.6 percent, the number of lawyers, tax accountants, and auditors grew by 5.3 percent, the number of people working in technical and scientific professions (such as architects, engineers, and biologists) rose by 7 percent, and the number of people working in the cultural sector (such as journalists, actors, directors, and writers) increased by more than 6 percent.
Particularly the Creative Class gains more and more importance: According to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the cultural and creative industries grew in 2008 – despite the general economic trend. This was largely due to the economic input of small businesses. With 2.6 percent, the cultural and creative industries contributed more to the GDP than, e.g., the chemical industry (2.1 percent).
This trend towards more entrepreneurial spirit, courage, personal responsibility, creativity, and eagerness to experiment – i.e. towards the Meconomy – certainly isn’t very typical of Germany and has various structural, technological, psychological, and historical reasons. In the following, we will dip into the most important ones, looking at the core theses of two prominent observers of this development: Jeff Jarvis, communications expert and professor of journalism, and Seth Godin, entrepreneur, author, and marketing guru.
Learning from Google
Many things suggest that the world as we know it is undergoing a profound change: Time-tested business models are crumbling. Hierarchies are increasingly being replaced by collaborative, network-like structures. Communication within companies and within society isn’t entirely based on the top-down approach anymore – however, creating but a few bottom-up channels is not enough: In the long run, an irregular tangle of senders and receivers will replace the old media. People no longer want to perceive themselves as hollow consumers or marketing targets. Instead, they want to exert influence on products and innovations, as well as on the designs and functions of the things and tools that surround us.
Jeff Jarvis is known for his particularly merciless and prophetic analyses of this change. In the past, the 55-year-old worked as a media manager and created the famous US magazine Entertainment Weekly. Later on, he developed an online resource website and became a university professor. Jarvis lectures on the changing media landscape, proclaiming that the death of the newspaper is at hand, and writes highly successful blogs and books such as the bestseller “What Would Google Do?.”
In this book, he describes what would happen if other industries operated according to the rules of the search engine giant. To Jarvis, the above-described changes can be summarized in a short guiding principle that he gives the (rather immodest) name “Jarvis’ First Law”: “Give the people control, and we will use it. Don’t, and you will lose us.” What does this mean in the Meconomy context?
The first thing you need is what Jarvis calls “Googlejuice”: Ensure that you are searchable via Google (or other search engines). At a minimum, you should put your curriculum vitae, a portfolio of your previous work, and information on your network of friends and colleagues online. Besides, your website shouldn’t rank fifth or tenth in the search results. If you google for “Markus Albers,” the first website you will find is mine – because I fought for it. And here is how you do it: Create links – both online and in the real world. The more things/products/contents you create and the more producers you are linked to, the more links will lead others to you, the easier it is to find you, and the more jobs/contacts/knowledge you will get.
Moreover, you need to be honest and authentic – or, as Google puts it in its corporate slogan: “Don’t be evil.” The more rapidly online interaction between market participants gains momentum, the less it pays off to act in an immoral, uncooperative, and exploitative way, as the cost of such actions increasingly outweighs the benefits. Jarvis: “When people can talk with, about, and around you, screwing them is no longer a valid business strategy.”
You have to position yourself in a distinct way. “Our online shadows become our identities,” says Jarvis. “To stand out from our crowd, we need distinct identities.” You have to become your own brand, an expert, someone who represents something. For this purpose, you don’t have to become a quantum physicist or an opera star. Being known for less grandiose things or being an expert within a small group of people works just as well: Just think of someone who always repairs the heaters of his neighbors, ex-teachers who show others how to work computers, people offering pottery courses or drum lessons, mothers arranging playgroups, or someone who is really good at organizing parties – all of them are experts. However, you should carefully consider whether you want to be known for your professional qualifications or for your passions. You might be able to separate both online identities from each other: professional banker on Xing, rock guitarist on MySpace. Happy people manage to combine both – which brings us to the last point.
Do things. A clerk who meticulously files documents won’t become famous for that – neither will it add to his profile as an expert or to a portfolio that distinguishes him from others. We don’t know which documents Franz Kafka worked on as an insurance clerk, but we know his novels, short stories, and letters. Fortunately, standard processes are increasingly being automated or outsourced today. This doesn’t mean that all of us should become novelists now. However, it is certainly legitimate to ask: What achievements or what “body of work” would you like to look back on at the end of your life? “The internet doesn’t make us more creative,” writes Jarvis. “Instead, it enables what we create to be seen, heard, and used. It enables every creator to find a public, the public he or she merits.” Before we move on to this last aspect, I want to make clear that “creating” does not exclusively refer to arts, music, or dancing. Setting up a business, delivering engineering services, or imparting knowledge to others can be highly creative processes. It doesn’t matter how “valuable” a product or an idea is – what matters is that you create it.
Become the Leader of Your Own Tribe
Seth Godin is an advocate of this new way of thinking. The marketing expert, entrepreneur, and book author belongs to the few who are able to pinpoint what exactly is different about the new economic order that I refer to as the Meconomy in this book. In 2009, Godin coined the term “tribes” to describe the networks of relations between individuals. Tribes have always existed: The inhabitants of a small town formed a tribe, same as, e.g., athletes in Thuringia or the members of the Hamburg branch of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In these old tribes, geography still played a crucial role.
The Internet has eliminated these geographic barriers. Today, an unlimited number of tribes exist parallel to each other, small and big ones, horizontal and vertical ones. All of us are members of many more tribes than in the past – tribes that we form with those who we work, travel, or shop with, who we discuss politics with, who we show our photos to, who like the same music, or who share cooking recipes with us. We have an ever-growing number of tools available to organize membership in these tribes and to connect with other members: Facebook and Xing, Twitter and Basecamp, e-mails and websites.
According to Godin’s theory, all of these tribes are looking for leaders – and you could be one of those leaders. The best thing, however, would be to create your own tribe. Yet what purpose, topic, or product would that tribe be about? In order to answer this question, you will have to do some serious soul-searching, asking yourself: What is it that I really want? What am I passionate about? What am I dying to do? The answer should become the topic of your tribe.
–> Your interest in chocolate makes you want to know everything about it and to share your knowledge with others? The same applies to Holger in’t Veld. That’s why he established his “Schokoladen” shop in Berlin where he sells high-quality cocoa products. He also opened a café, produces his own chocolate, and wrote a book called “Schokoladenrebellen” (“Chocolate Rebels”). In’t Veld used to work as a music journalist – today, he has gathered a tribe of chocolate connoisseurs around him. This illustrates that the tribal approach certainly isn’t restricted to online business models. Still, by definition, they seem to work better, as is shown in the following case.
–> Your granny is really great at crocheting and you have some wacky designs that the old lady could crochet? This is what Manfred Schmidt earns his living with, selling potholders with skulls on them as well as highly original crocheted caps, t-shirts, and egg cosies via his website “Oma Schmidts Masche.” Schmidt used to be an architect. Today, he has created his own tribe with products that are sold online throughout Germany, if not even worldwide. With a small retail store and, thus, a very limited target group, this probably wouldn’t have been possible.
–> Andreas Stammnitz’s true passion has always been to teach others. Although he was very successful in his job as head of marketing for a big German publishing house, he just couldn’t let go of the idea of setting up his own business in the field of adult education. Today, Stammnitz has cut back to part-time and is currently setting up an online community that offers coaching and professional development services.
These are just three examples of Seth Godin’s main thesis that the new economic order rewards passion: “Tribes are about faith – about belief in an idea and in a community,” writes the US author. “Do you believe in what you do? Every day? It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy. Many people are starting to realize that they work a lot and that working on stuff they believe in (and making things happen) is much more satisfying than just getting a paycheck and waiting to get fired (or die).”
Godin argues that life is too short to hate what you do every day – too short to produce mediocre stuff. Almost everything that is considered standard, ordinary, or average today is perceived as being mediocre – i.e. boring – by people: “The end result of this is that many people (many really good people) spend all day trying to defend what they do, trying to sell what they’ve always sold, and trying to prevent their organizations from being devoured by the forces of the new. It must be wearing them out. Defending mediocrity is exhausting,” says Godin. Those who work for Opel, Karstadt, or some daily paper will know what he means.
Yet what if you fear that your passion, hobby, or field of interest is too exotic? Or too ordinary? In short: What happens if you’re afraid to exchange the security of mediocrity with the adventure of the unknown? The first thing you should do is to consider the example of Andreas Stammnitz: Try to gradually set up your new business, website, store, or tribe alongside your job. You will find out when the time is right to abandon the old and to focus entirely on the new. However, you should be ready to deal with failure constructively and to learn from it: “Understand how powerful it is not to have to be right,” says John Naisbitt – renowned futurologist, author of the world bestseller “Megatrends,” and advisor to several US presidents – in his recent book “Mindset”: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you fear to be wrong, you will not be able to exploit the opportunities this evolutionary period is offering.”
Second, consider the “1,000 True Fans” theory that was developed by Kevin Kelly, Internet legend and co-founder of Wired Magazine. The theory states that normally 1,000 true fans are enough to enable an artist or an owner of a small store to make a living. According to Kelly, a true fan will bring three friends with him to a concert. He will buy the expensive hardcover edition of a book instead of only clicking through the author’s website. He will drive across the city to buy a specific brand of chocolate at a specific store. And, most notably, he will support the tribe and spread the word, telling others about how great it is to be a fan of – you!
Now, does this mean that all of us should become small-scale entrepreneurs, bloggers, artists, or chocolate retailers? No. That’s exactly what it doesn’t mean. Organizations are still important: They increase efficiency and make it possible to scale processes and reduce complexity. We need organizations. They “give us the ability to create complex products,” writes Godin. “They provide the muscle and consistency necessary to get things to market and to back them up. Most important, organizations have the scale to care for large tribes.” However, organizations don’t have to be factories – this is how Godin refers to organizations in which your boss tells you what to do – anymore. Routine tasks, standardized processes, and the manufacturing of mass products only slow modern companies down and can easily be outsourced. “The organizations of the future are filled with smart, fast, flexible people on a mission,” says Godin.
Tribes might as well emerge within organizations – e.g., around someone who had an innovative idea, someone who inspires her colleagues with her enthusiasm, someone who isn’t just punching the time clock, or someone who doesn’t only think about what her supervisors expect her to do, but what goals they have in mind and how they are trying to achieve them. Thus, finding out what your heart is set on, telling others about it, and gathering fans around you to pursue a common goal works just as well in a company, i.e. at your workplace. Actually, you have to do this in order not to die of boredom or to avoid being dismissed due to lack of creativity.
Not only has it become dramatically easier today to create this sort of life for yourself – it is also much more likely that this strategy will bring you success and satisfaction.
Or not? To get to a definitive answer in this respect, it might be helpful to find out more about the things that make us happy. Experts have noticed time and again that we have surprisingly vague and unrealistic ideas about what “happiness” actually is and how we can achieve it. The next chapter attempts to answer these questions in the Meconomy context.
