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Virtualization of work and the economy is pretty much inevitable, barring a near civilizational collapse. The momentum is powerful. This is not to say face-to-face is unimportant or goes ways — I’d argue that it becomes even more important in a virtual world. And off-grid services like crafts have special value. But make no mistake, the virtual is coming, well, already here and getting stronger. In crafting scenarios of knowledge work [1], we saw virtualization proceeding in stages with an outcome — which may sound out there in today’s world — of a rebalancing of power in which professional people/workers/talent with requisite skills and capabilities are in a much more powerful position vis-à-vis organizations than they are today.
The basis for the strong (perhaps obvious) statement about virtualization derive from an analysis of key trends and drivers, depicted in the graphic. We mapped out what we thought were the key components of knowledge work, and then developed a detailed trend inventory and summarized into the dozen “drivers” captured at the edges of the graphics in the rectangles. It was pretty convincing to us — and you? Andy Hines
[1] A Hines & C. Carbone, “The Future of Knowledge Work,” Employment Relations Today, Spring 2013.
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