Archiv der Kategorie: Trends

Future topics, trends and scenarios are discussed in this section.

Sharing only works, if everybody benefits in the long run

The productivity of a society is not only determined by the turnover of the economic sector, but also by the degree of mutual private support, e.g. in the form of sharing. From time immemorial people create through joint efforts that could not be done solely. Building houses, clearing forests or digging wells required the cooperation of many individuals. Today associations realize new non-profit-models that build upon public spirit, e.g.

  • Public bookcases
    In cities you find bookcases that offer interested people the possibility of exchanging books in underground stations, modified telephone boxes or other public places. Some people leave them in these places and others take them – free of charge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_bookcase
  • Food bank
    The rising number of non-profit support groups that collect fruits, vegetables and other food, which would be otherwise destroyed, help fellow citizens without means to make ends meet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_bank
  • Repair café
    The new trend of self-help repair shops, where people help each other in repairing devices, avoid new purchases and extend substantially the “life” of electronic equipment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repair_Caf%C3%A9

These trends contribute in a new way to the well-being of the society. However, at the same time social movements emerge that use these trends for their own purposes. But sharing only works, if everybody benefits in the long run.

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Sharing is giving and taking that happens outside of the legal barriers of industries. Thus, it is an unregulated space that offers liberties that are not meant for commercial use. New ideas arise within the scope of governmental „public spirit” and the new ethics of sharing as well as by using the new possibilities of crowdsourcing. They offer a small group advantages by using the voluntary contributions of people that otherwise would have to be paid.

  • Governmental „public spirit “
    The public budgets are not able to fulfill all of their duties. Apart from public-private partnerships, governmental institutions transfer their tasks ever more frequently to the citizens. Today in Germany, volunteers assume tasks in estimated 70,000 to 100,000 self-help groups in the area of health, education and society, which actually the state would have to fulfill. This shift of responsibility takes place while maintaining the high social fees with less and less services.
  • New ethic of sharing
    Established sectors have to grapple with rivals who invent new ideas based on the internet. Examples are the agencies for car sharing and other private driving services. They bring together travelers and transporters. These offers are not subject to official regulations of the carrying business (e.g. driver licenses, or vehicle standards or insurances). Or think about those agents, who offer in large cities of the world apartments without being part of the hotel trade and its regulations (e.g. hygiene, specific infrastructure, or obligation to register). Cheap prices create acceptance among customers, but endanger the traditional companies with unfair preferences.
  • Crowdsourcing
    Everybody is in the Internet only a click away from each other. This makes it possible that everybody can provide a “small” contribution, as you can see in the following three examples. 1) The articles of the Wikipedia are produced and kept current free of charge by millions of authors. This eliminated the printed encyclopedias from the market. 2) In former times projects were financed by banks or sponsors. Today crowdfunding opens new financial resources. That way a music production can be financed via Pledge with small donations of the fans. 3) The approach the open innovation is particularly remarkable. In this concept, individuals take part in the search for information or the development of new products that will be later realized by the companies.
    The respective enterprise saves internal capacities and cash flow for external specialists. The involved “idea provider” receive in the best case a small prize or other advantages. At the same time they waive the rights of the results that remain in the enterprise. These approaches reveal new resources on the back of volunteers and destroy valuable jobs.

These are not examples of sharing based on solidarity, since individual groups obtain commercial advantages from the public spirit of people.
As soon as politicians transfer duties to the public by releasing governmental institutions from their original roles, it is time to rethink the tax structure. Isn’t it critical that additional fees are introduced with sinking governmental services? Which are not called taxes, for understandable reasons, but toll, Soli, Riester, or covering of the pension provision gap?
Shouldn’t the conditions for commercial sharing be clearly specified? Why do entrepreneurs get the chance to make profits on the back of the general public, without having to follow the established rules of the respective industry? The volunteers and the established businesses should be better governed.
Eventually within the scope of open innovation, the authors of the ideas have to be protected in such a way that they get their share of the success of their ideas.

Bottom line: New ways of sharing utilize the volunteers and create advantages for the benefiting companies. These types of markets are not sustainable, since on the one hand governance will reach these businesses within a short time. On the other hand volunteers will not accept to bet exploited for a long time, because it is still valid: Sharing only works, if everybody benefits in the long run.

Brainworker – Role of the future

Handworkers were the driving force for the development of the economy for a long time. They had the production of tools and things of everyday life in their hands – tanners, furrier, saddlers, shoemakers, bakers, painters, smiths etc. Complexer commodities could be produced by bundling different crafts in manufactories. This initiated the transition into industrial manufacturing. The breaking down of work into individual tasks, the so-called division of labor, has passed its peak in the 20th Century. Since the computer executes the “manual” activities faster and more reliable, the question about the future roles of the staff arises. The brainworkers will certainly become a large, new group.

Kopfwerker

The new types of employee will have no longer an affect through their hand, but through their brainwork. The feedstocks are less likely of physical, but predominantly of mental nature. In both cases the smart use of tools is decisive for the performance of the employees. Hammer, screw driver and brush are replaced by the computer and its various programs. The handworkers gain their abilities through regular exercise and longtime experience in handling the tools and materials. The new brainworkers develop their abilities through training and benefit from the acquired practice in handling ideas, drafts and other reasoned outcomes. Potential familiar brainworkers are: Chief Knowledge Officer, Knowledge broker, Change manager, Organization developer, Chief Information Manager. In the future new roles will emerge that will take care of information.

Brainworkers generally have the following tasks, authorities and responsibility as well as the respective capabilities.

  • Tasks
    are the activities of a role in dealing with information. Depending on the specific task, information is created, processed, stored, searched, updated, reused and deleted as well as distributed and additionally explained. Furthermore general tasks evolve – brainworkers guarantee the flow of information, prevent the loss of data, improve fundamental methods and actions, support the daily work with words and deeds and describe general relationships. They use social networks, IT-tools and all aspects of project-related work.
  • Authority
    describes the rights of a role that it needs for the execution of its tasks. All participants must be put into the position to provide and use information according to their role. This starts with the informational self-determination concerning the own, personal representation and goes up to the production of data and reports in the business context. Search engines as well as the barrier-free access improve the quality of the outcomes. The creators must it be allowed in case of further inquiry to describe their produced contents.
  • Responsibility
    describes the obligations in managing information. Since everybody is on the one hand user AND on the other hand supplier of contents, governance is required for handling information. This includes that all creators provide the data, which represents the bases of the information, with the correct quality (e.g. correctness, completeness, consistency and up-to-dateness). During the processing the quality should be maintained. The enterprises, institutions and governmental bodies, where people work, have to ensure that on the one hand the employees can process the information in a qualified way and on the other hand that data will not get lost, wrongly interpreted, or abused in any way.
  • Capabilities
    are the knowledge and dexterities of the brainworkers. This includes technical, methodical, social and systemic abilities in dealing with data, information and knowledge. The parties concerned must be able to interpret similarly the data in the respective industry sector and business environment. They need the proficiency for the procedures of the individual tasks. Cooperation and guidance have a central role since all results are produced in teams. It is necessary to develop skills, in order to master the social networking, various IT-systems as well as methods and procedures of time and project management. Today, enterprises are less regarded as clockworks, but more as organisms. This demands holistic thinking, system understanding and change competency for all participants.

The challenges for each brainworker are the balancing act between sharing information and the sustainable competitive advantage through brainwork. Information increases its value through as much as possible frequent and extensive sharing. It becomes the common property that everyone can use for its own advantage. The knowledge advantage, symbolized through ‚knowledge is power’, is thereby replaced with the ability ‚to create knowledge’. This requires that brainworkers learn continuously, create and transfer new relationships into the business practice. In the future, the borders between hand and brainworkers will blur. But the one will not function without the other.

After thought: The transition from hand to brainworker will be revalued in medium-term. The old proverb will be valid again “A trade in hand finds gold in every land”.