Perspectives on new work

The concepts that govern our thinking and language in relation to work are not just semantics, but influence what we perceive and what we think is possible or not possible. Usually we are not aware of how these ideas prime our thinking. We simply think and act along certain lines.

The narratives of work can be helpful but also outdated and crucially incorrect. As we are passing through a technological discontinuity of huge proportions we need new narratives beyond the models of industrial production and the separatist, mechanistic concepts of a corporation.

Smarter and smarter tools surround us, but if we don’t want to learn the new practices and take up the new roles that the new technologies make possible, they might as well not be there.

This book drafts three new narratives for the predigital era we live in: the algorithmic economy, the platform economy and the interactive economy.