Harold Jarche

Peddling ideas

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Friday’s Finds:

friday2

“If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often.” – Leonard Cohen

“If your network isn’t offending you, you’re stuck in an echo chamber.” – Howard Rheingold, via @opencontent

@shareski – “For too many kids, school has been about finding out what you suck at and spending time getting better at things you really don’t like anyway.”

@alexhimelfarb – “What kind of future do we build together when taxpayer & consumer have displaced citizen & the common good?”

Does Technology Improve Employee Engagement? by @dhinchcliffe

In other words, it shouldn’t be surprising that acquiring a powerful new engagement technology, and then not focusing on using what makes it so powerful, results in poor outcomes. A few test questions can illuminate this point: Are you rolling out social media broadly across the organization, yet not methodically opening up business processes to wider participation and scrutiny? Then you’ll get limited results. Are you creating a new intranet with some social features but keeping the publishing process locked down? Not much new will happen. Are you letting employees talk to customers via social media? Then customer care is going to stay expensive and poor quality.

Google’s Employee to Employee Learning, via @jaycross

Telling your employees that you want them to learn is different than asking them to promote that culture themselves. Giving employees teaching roles, says Google’s head of people operations, Karen May, makes learning part of the way employees work together rather than something HR is making them do.

How affordable CNC can re-make industry: thoughts on technology and business structure via @jhagel

What are the organizational implications of this coming disruption?  What is the right model to house this technology?

One possibility is a return to the putting-out system, which preceded the factory.  Perhaps independent contractors, each owning one or two tools in garage workshop, could do components of the job, passing work in progress to the next contractor.  Blade Runner, anyone?

The Idea Peddler: A 21st Century Pioneer, via @zecool

It’s incredibly difficult.  Being an idea peddler, a 21st century pioneer will require high levels of perseverance and stamina.  Much like the pioneers of the 1800’s.  Only different.  Less physical, more mental.

And as a 21st century pioneer, you have to understand that any time you push against the mainstream, against the status quo … you will have to spend periods of time serving as an outsider, an outlier.

How to work in the creative economy

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Gary Hamel says that we are moving from an Industrial to a Creative Economy, which requires more independent workers with initiative, creativity, and passion.

What other changes will this creative economy drive? I see changes on several levels.

  1. Core ideas about valued work:
    1. from producing tangible goods to intangible services;
    2. from looking for best practices to constantly developing emergent practices;
    3. from standardized jobs to being transparent in changing work practices as one learns while working.
  2. The underlying technology that enables work:
    1. from centralized factories to distributed and dynamic workplaces.
  3. Organizational models to get work done:
    1. from centralized physical workplaces, to decentralized and dynamically changing ones.
  4. Distribution and sharing of knowledge about how work is managed:
    1. from schools of business, removed from the workplace, to communities of professionals learning as they work.
  5. The ideology behind business and work:
    1. from the principles of scientific management based on:
      1. hierarchies
      2. standardized practices
      3. specialized tasks and jobs
      4. planning and control
      5. predominantly extrinsic rewards
    2. to an understanding of complexity and the necessity to continuously Probe-Sense-Respond and engage workers by enabling autonomy, mastery and a sense of purpose.

work is changing

Solo change agents set you free

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Here is what Domino’s Pizza learned about implementing personal knowledge management practices, after their recent pilot project:

First, learners want some guidance about the changing boundaries of professional development. Traditional models of learning involve taking a chunk of time to step out of the workplace. PKM makes learning a real-time activity within the flow of work. The company needs to clarify what people are allowed and expected to do in terms of learning during the workday.

Second, information services, particularly information security, needs to be a partner in the effort. The director of information security consulted throughout the effort and attended the workshop, where he was able to offer some valuable insights.

Finally, as learning practitioners, we’re awash in information about social tools and technology-enabled learning. It can be easy to overlook how unfamiliar busy professionals are with some of these technologies—especially in a work context. We need to take the time to help familiarize them with new tools, using practical, realistic examples. – Eric Kammerer

There were three key considerations: 1) how to take control of your professional development; 2) how to do this within a particular organizational structure, and 3) how to do this with the available tools and abilities of users. Unlike PKM at an individual level, in a corporate implementation there needs to be a balance found between organizational objectives and personal ones. In this case, I helped set the stage, provided some initial guidance, and then Eric and his team continued on their journey.

A key difference between a solo change agent and a corporate consultant, is that the former is there to set you free, not chain you to proprietary methods and processes. Had I been working for one of the big name consultancies on this PKM project I would likely have lost my job for not selling an ongoing engagement to my client at Domino’s. Instead, I provided enough support to get them going on their own. I am not selling fish, and I am not teaching people how to fish. I help people learn for themselves how to fish. This is social consulting and it does not scale the way traditional consultancies do. Instead, it grows through transparency, authenticity, results, and especially trust.fishing-nets

I have said before to beware of anyone trying to sell cookie cutter solutions for complex organizational issues. Companies have to do the hard part of organizational change themselves by putting in the effort. As a solo change agent, I can get you started, give coaching and advice, and provide ongoing resources. I cannot do it for you. Domino’s is an excellent example of a company that understands this. Is your company getting the best value from its consultants?

networks are the new companies

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Nilofer Merchant wrote in The New How that, “Permission to innovate without asking happens when the strategy is co-owned.” This is a necessity in an economy where the average company lifespan continues to decrease. The company no longer offers the stability it once did as innovation, and resulting business disruption, comes from all corners. Economic value has been redistributed to creative workers, and then diffused through knowledge networks. In an interview with Stowe Boyd, Nilofer succinctly explains several of the pieces that must come together in structuring work in the network era.

“Independent of the term, we all agree value comes from the creative source of a connected human. And to the earlier point, networks are the new companies. Connected individuals can now do what once only large organizations could. That tosses Ronald Coase’s work out the window. And those strategic constructs from the Porter frame of mind that suggest you can have an advantage over time are largely moot because sustainable advantages aren’t so sustainable anymore.” —Socialogy: An Interview with Nilofer Merchant

1) “value comes from the creative source of a connected human”

How can any organization create value if people are not connected? This should be the main concern for any support function within the enterprise. If HR, IT, or L&D departments are not enabling better connections, then they are decreasing business value. Measuring how connected workers are should be a prime indicator of relationship capital.

2) “networks are the new companies”

The biggest impact of this new reality will be on management. Networked workers do not need bosses as work becomes transparent. Inserting managers into a network decreases connections between workers and creates bottlenecks. The relationship between contributors (workers) and coordinators (managers) is flipping. Managers in networks are called assistants.

3) “Connected individuals can now do what once only large organizations could”

The evidence is mounting that work can get done with a minimal amount of managerial friction. Network-centric organizations are smaller than their industrial counterparts. Crowd-sourced funding platforms, like Indiegogo, require less management than traditional investment firms. Network transparency and the ability to connect to anybody, decrease transactional costs.

4) “tosses Ronald Coase’s work out the window”

One of the main criticisms of Coase’s work is also being tossed out the window. “So, a key criticism is that the [Coase] theorem is almost always inapplicable in economic reality, because real-world transaction costs are rarely low enough to allow for efficient bargaining.” —Wikipedia. In the network era, real-world transaction costs diminish. Furthermore, transaction costs between networked individuals are getting to be less than transaction costs inside organizations. Workers today often have faster access to knowledge outside their enterprises. With knowledge work, this begs the question of why we need organizations for anything other than support.

5) “sustainable advantages aren’t so sustainable anymore”

The example of large consulting firms purchasing others in order to create even larger entities shows that these companies are losing their sustainable advantage and taking short-term actions to try to increase value. But as the consulting industry amalgamates and becomes a monoculture, it will be ever more open to diverse and innovative disruption from outside. As Nilofer’s point #1 states, value today comes from connected humans, not monolithic structures.

Structuring for the network era

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It’s about networks

It is 2013 and F.W. Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management (1911) are still the basis for most of our current management systems.

It is only through enforced standardization of  methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone.

These principles assume that management knows best and that the higher up the hierarchy, the more competent and knowledgeable that person is. Of course, this is wrong. But it is why companies have such great expectations every time a new CEO is hired. We read about these in all the business media, and the cult of the leader helps to sell books, speaking engagements, and training programs. Many large enterprises are still looking for cookie-cutter best practices to save their businesses.

The “principles of networked management” should read more like this:

It is only through innovative and contextual methods, the self-selection of the most appropriate tools and work conditions, and willing cooperation that more productive work can be assured. The duty of being transparent in our work and sharing our knowledge rests with all workers.

Collaboration is not the same as cooperation. Collaboration means working together, with an objective, and usually for a boss. This can work well when the objective is clear and the conditions do not change. Cooperation means sharing and helping others without expectations of direct reciprocation. Cooperation helps to strengthen networks, where there is no central management. In times of rapid change, and decreasing lifespans of companies, cooperation trumps collaboration.

In complex environments, weak hierarchies and strong networks are the best organizing principle. While many organizations today have strong networks, they are too often coupled with strong central control. Letting go of control is necessary for individuals and organizations to thrive in the network era.

It’s about knowledge

Research shows that sharing complex knowledge requires strong interpersonal relationships. But discovering innovative ideas usually comes through loose social ties. Organizations need both, and communities of practice can help to connect tight work teams with loose social networks. Communities of practice can provide a safe space for professionals to share knowledge and challenge each other at the cutting edge of their expertise.

Effective organizational knowledge-sharing for this new world of work needs individuals who are adept at sense-making. One framework for this is personal knowledge management (PKM) because organizations don’t create or manage knowledge, people do.

PKM is a technology-neutral framework to promote common understanding through ongoing conversations. PKM is based on personal practices that are independent from enterprise software. It is a simple framework that needs experimentation and practice to master, but mostly it requires sharing. PKM makes knowledge-sharing a personal responsibility, so that each node contributes to the network. These knowledge networks need trust to function well.

It’s about trust

Solving problems is what most knowledge workers are hired to do. But complex problems usually cannot be solved alone. They require the sharing of tacit knowledge, which is knowledge that cannot easily be put into a manual or procedural guide. Research shows that tacit knowledge flows best in trusted networks. Trust promotes individual autonomy and this becomes a foundation for more open social learning. Without trust, few are willing to share their knowledge. An effective knowledge network also cultivates the diversity and autonomy of each worker.

People naturally like to be helpful and get recognition for their work. But humans need more than extrinsic compensation, as our behaviour on Wikipedia and online social networks proves. For the most part, people like to help others. Cooperation makes for more resilient knowledge networks, which are better for business.

As markets get more complex in the network era, business value is created through innovation. But innovative ideas come through loose social ties and diverse opinions. Organizations therefore need to push work beyond the coordination of tasks, and past collaborative work, in order to improve trusted cooperation amongst peers. Openness improves internal task coordination, so that all problems can be seen. Transparency can improve collaboration to get tasks done better. In such a work environment, trust emerges. With openness and transparency in place, cooperation with more diverse knowledge networks can then lead to real business value.

chance favours the connected companyIt’s about structures

In the network era there is a need to balance structured work and the sharing of complex knowledge with the concurrent requirement for unstructured social networking which can increase innovation through a diversity of ideas. Communities of practice are a middle ground, sometimes inside and sometimes outside the organization, that can link collaboration and cooperation, and help weave the organization and its people into a wirearchy.

Wirearchy – “a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology.” – Jon Husband

We know that many jobs today are getting automated or outsourced. The job was the way we structured human work for the past century. We now need to focus on creating more opportunities for creative work. For institutions, employers, educators and workers, that means giving up control and co-creating a new social contract for a networked economy. It starts with understanding networks, then sharing our knowledge in trusted networks, in order to build the necessary structures for the network era.

Old dogs, new tricks

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Senior folks have seen technology hucksterism too many times before to fall for hard sell, but equally more and more of them are becoming aware that, partly thanks to the internet, things are changing as never before. They know that they need to get their heads around what is happening — even if they decide that active engagement in it isn’t right for them or their organisations. —Euan Semple

After a presentation to the Conference Board of Canada’s HR Executives Forum, a senior VP told me that there was no way some kid was going to advise him on social media. However, he was willing to listen to me, as I was in my fifties, seemed to understand his situation, and didn’t make him feel uncomfortable. I think there is a great need to teach old dogs new tricks, especially senior managers and executives — my generation.

For example, the project leader for a client of mine was suddenly laid off, after 15 years in the same job. His professional network consisted almost entirely of people in that company. They were mostly useless in helping him find new work. A new LinkedIn profile, created the day someone needs to find work is like seeing a deer caught in the headlights. The sad part is that many salaried professionals think that social networks have no value other than looking for new work.

I have spoken at various venues and always come across people who do not see any reason to adapt to the network era. I am also seeing people who desperately jump on some social media platform because everyone else is doing so. But merely having a LinkedIn profile does not make you a networked professional. As Céline Schillinger recently remarked, “if you cannot find a community of practice for your professional development, then create one”.

Here’s the new trick for old dogs: you have to take some control in this networked, do-it-yourself, world. The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone. There are plenty of communities and networks to engage with, but creating a profile and waiting to see what happens is not engagement.

dogs_playing_pokerAs a single node in a network, you have to show that you are of some value. This means contributing your knowledge, in whatever form you like. I have suggested 14 ways to add value and 10 ways to share for starters. If you do not share, you will not benefit from a knowledge network or community of practice. But knowledge sharing requires practice, like working out loud or narrating your work.

The trick for old dogs is to find some way to practice these new skills. It may be difficult to do this at work, especially for those in positions of authority. But these skills can be developed outside the workplace as well. Take a hobby or interest and find networks where others share their passions. It could be finding wine lovers on Twitter, Facebook, or a more niche network. While it may take thousands of hours to master a skill, basic competence can be developed fairly quickly. I have seen people become adept at Twitter for professional knowledge-sharing within a few months.

I offer coaching and more structured workshops to show that even we old dogs can learn new tricks. As I look back on my own learning, I note that I took my first computer programming course in 1978 and swore I would never touch a computer again for as long as I lived. Over time, we learn not to say things like that.

PKM in 34 pieces

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One of my objectives with my latest PKM Workshop was to review most of my resources and work on developing new ones. Much of my work on PKM has been inspired by others. I have put these pieces together into a framework that I think makes sense and may be of some use.

This graphic combines the work of several people into a single aide-mémoire on PKM and the Seek > Sense > Share framework.

pkm in practice

The Five forms of filtering by Tim Kastelle are a good way to understand how to approach the digital surround and our way to seeking new knowledge.

Judgement Filters:

  • Naive filtering is what too often happens in our knowledge searching. It’s like prairie-dogging, or standing up in your cubicle and asking those close to you for advice. It’s rather hit and miss and dependent on who works nearby and happens to be listening.
  • Expert filtering worked when knowledge was more stable but in an interconnected, interdependent, digital world we have to ask, who are the experts? Still, good experts are valuable and I use platforms like Twitter to connect to them, like Valdis Krebs on social networks.
  • Networked expertise can be sought through group-sourced information resources, like our curated Working Smarter Daily or in self-created expertise lists like Google+ to create circles of expertise. You can also link to existing communities of expertise/interest such as KMers on knowledge management.

Mechanical Filters:

  • Algorithmic filters can be simple, like typing in a basic search string, or more refined using  techniques like Google’s advanced operators.
  • A good perspective on Heuristic filters is Howard Rheingold’s Crap Detection Skills:

Unless a great many people learn the basics of online crap detection and begin applying their critical faculties en masse and very soon, I fear for the future of the Internet as a useful source of credible news, medical advice, financial information, educational resources, scholarly and scientific research. Some critics argue that a tsunami of hogwash has already rendered the Web useless. I disagree. We are indeed inundated by online noise pollution, but the problem is soluble. The good stuff is out there if you know how to find and verify it. Basic information literacy, widely distributed, is the best protection for the knowledge commons: A sufficient portion of critical consumers among the online population can become a strong defense against the noise-death of the Internet.

James Mangan, in his 1936 book, You Can Do Anything, looked at 14 Ways to Acquire Knowledge. Maria Popova, at BrainPickings.org, reviewed his book and from her I discovered a number of methods of seeking knowledge.

  • Ask: As Maria Popova says, “I really believe our own curiosity is our greatest and most powerful tool for personal growth.”
  • Desire: Seeking without a goal is often just surfing the web, with little to show in the end.
  • Read: There is still a need to read in our digital age. Longer reads, and particularly fiction, and reading novels can make us better thinkers.
  • Listen: Whether it’s in person, on audio, or a video, listening gives us a chance to absorb what others have to say. Too often, our workspace do not allow this. There are many alternate ways of learning.
  • Observe: One learns best by observing from the edge, not the centre of action.

SENSE:

Ross Dawson’s five ways of adding value to information are a good start at sense-making techniques, with my short explanations appended.

  • Filtering: separating signal from noise, based on some criteria.
  • Validation: ensuring that information is reliable, current or supported by research.
  • Synthesis: describing patterns, trends or flows in large amounts of information.
  • Presentation: making information understandable through visualization or logical presentation.
  • Customization: describing information in context.

James Mangan (a very interesting character) identified several skills for acquiring knowledge.

  • Practice: This is absolutely critical. It is primarily through experience – perfomance  – reflection that we learn.
  • Get it from yourself: Sometimes it’s better to work things out for yourself than get a quick answer from someone else.
  • Walk around it: Looking at something from a different perspective, especially away from the mainstream, can give new insights.
  • Experiment: Use a constant probe – sense – respond approach with work and learning.

Finally, Robin Good picked up on this, and added five more curation skills, with my comments:

  • Comparing: With increasing complexity, and obfuscation by competing interests, being able to compare related items becomes more valuable. Imagine if someone could compare all your mobile telephone options in a clear, simple way.
  • Finding related items: Sometimes we forget about the past and it’s important to relate the present to what has transpired. Those who foretold the global financial collapse were in the minority. Good comparisons are quite useful.
  • Illustrating / Visualizing: Good info-graphics are very useful, but too often they obscure. Visualizing takes great skill but can be exceptionally useful.
  • Evaluating: Being able to set criteria and evaluate from a neutral point of view can add real value to what otherwise would just be data. Nate Silver has made a living from this.
  • Crediting & Attributing: While attribution may just seem like a nice thing to do, it is very important to trace how knowledge is constructed. With proper attribution to the original source, you can then make changes if evidence or circumstances change.

SHARE:

James Mangan and his 14 ways of acquiring knowledge also showed ways of sharing knowledge.

  • Put in order: This helps those learning something for the first time. Video from CommonCraft are an excellent example of things put in order to enable understanding.
  • Define: The popularity of Wikipedia shows the importance of defining knowledge. It provides a starting point.
  • Teach: The best way to learn something is to teach it. Google is embracing the power of teaching for sharing knowledge amongst its employees.
  • Write: Blogging changed my life for the better. Need I say more?
  • Reason: Putting thoughts out in public forces you to understand the reason why you are doing so.

In addition, Rob Cross and Lee Sproull looked at tacit knowledge-sharing, as described in the quotes below by Nancy Dixon. Cross & Sproull identified five categories of responses that can be given by experienced workers to those needing help in seeking knowledge.

  • Answers:  “The seekers were looking for the application of facts or principles in order to develop a solution.”
  • Meta Knowledge:  “This category was about where to go to get more information on the issue, or conversely where not to go because a certain report was out-dated, or superficial.”
  • Problem Reformulation: “To gain meta-knowledge and/or problem-reformulation requires the source to be willing “to understand the problem as experienced by the seeker and then shape her/his knowledge to the evolving definition of the problem” and is best served by the give and take of conversation.”
  • Validation:  [also identified by Ross Dawson] “Validation also provides seekers the certainty that they have done enough background work, saving the seeker the time it would take to gather further data.”
  • Legitimizing: “As with validation, legitimizing can save the seeker time by reducing the amount of proof or data that may need to be collected before the client is willing to act. It also serves to head off arguments others might raise.”

So there you have it; 34 ways to personally manage your knowledge. Not all are necessary, but it’s a good list to start with.

Pushing and Pulling Tacit Knowledge

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Sense-making is where the real personal value of PKM lies. The knowledge gained is an emergent property of all sense-making activities. In the PKM framework of Seek > Sense > Share, it is often sense-making that is most difficult to master. I often refer to Ross Dawson’s five ways of adding value to information, to introduce sense-making (my examples/descriptions follow):

  1. Filtering (separating signal from noise, based on some criteria)
  2. Validation (ensuring that information is reliable, current or supported by research)
  3. Synthesis (describing patterns, trends or flows in large amounts of information)
  4. Presentation (making information understandable through visualization or logical presentation)
  5. Customization (describing information in context)

PKM adding valueThese are examples of Pushing knowledge, adding value for oneself, that may in the future be useful for others. I have noted before that the difference between PKM and Curation is that the former is personal, while the latter is for an intended audience. I practice PKM for myself and my blog’s primary audience is me. Sharing online  makes it social so that I can learn with and from others.

But sometimes the act of sharing is also a sense-making activity. Knowledge can be Pulled by those seeking answers. Nancy Dixon describes how Rob Cross and Lee Sproull examined tacit knowledge-sharing in a large consulting firm. Even though there was a solid knowledge management (KM) structure in place, most people preferred to have conversations with others when discussing ambiguous issues. Cross & Sproull identified five categories of responses, according to Nancy Dixon:

  1. Answers:  “The seekers were looking for the application of facts or principles in order to develop a solution.”
  2. Meta Knowledge:  “This category was about where to go to get more information on the issue, or conversely where not to go because a certain report was out-dated, or superficial.”
  3. Problem Reformulation: “To gain meta-knowledge and/or problem-reformulation requires the source to be willing “to understand the problem as experienced by the seeker and then shape her/his knowledge to the evolving definition of the problem” and is best served by the give and take of conversation.”
  4. Validation:  [also identified by Ross Dawson] “Validation also provides seekers the certainty that they have done enough background work, saving the seeker the time it would take to gather further data.”
  5. Legitimizing: “As with validation, legitimizing can save the seeker time by reducing the amount of proof or data that may need to be collected before the client is willing to act. It also serves to head off arguments others might raise.”

PKM helping seekersAs knowledge is pulled through these conversations, a good PKM practice would be to record and reflect on these in some way, adding another layer of value and making at least some of the knowledge artifacts retrievable. Seek-Sense-Share is a continuous flow, with fuzzy boundaries, but all leading to better understanding, for ourselves and with others.

We discuss this, and much more, during my online PKM Workshop. Join us and push and pull your own sense-making.

Social filtering

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I started collating these Friday’s Finds because I knew I was learning a lot via Twitter, and later Google+, but I was capturing very little information, and using even less for my own professional development. Setting up a routine to review my favourites every two weeks helps me to make sense of some of the digital flows around me. For me, two weeks is a good interval. All I need to do is use the favourite (Star) function in Twitter whenever I see anything that may be useful for later. This is a minimal incremental habit that I have developed when reading Twitter. I do the same with G+, where I tweet & favourite items of interest from that platform.

In personal knowledge mastery, the key is finding small habits that can be developed, that over time yield big results, like grains of sand. My sense-making here comes through the habit of a fortnightly blog post. Finding what works for you is the focus of my PKM Workshops. The challenge is to find something that works for you and will last over time. This is probably the biggest hurdle in PKM.

friday2@Kasparov63 – “Celebrate victory, but if you do not understand its nature, that victory sows the seeds of your defeat. This is the gravity of past success.”

@EskoKilpi – The third foundation of social business: short path lengths

There are very few isolated geniuses. But there are many bright people who have continued and improved the work of others. Capable people have capable predecessors, people who act as filters connecting people and high quality information. The key concept in the knowledge-based future is acknowledgment of the importance of these messengers beyond what we have been used to so far. Social filtering, curation, is the new search.

@TimKastelle – What is the Best Organisational Structure for Creativity?

So why doesn’t everyone organise their company in this way? [like W.L. Gore & Associates] There are a few reasons. One is that it’s hard. It is a lot easier to put up some inspirational posters on the subject of creativity, and hope that works. But it won’t. Restructuring a company to reflect the fact that everyone there has creative skills takes a lot of work. Gore has been built this way from Day 1.

The second reason is that many people still don’t believe that everyone can be creative. The Breed Myth is powerful, and widespread. If you believe it, then you hire special people and put them in special rooms. If you don’t, you have to figure out how to put everyone in your firm into a position to be creative.

Curate or be curated – via @mcleod

The cure for information overload is coherent curation — data-driven discovery managed by skilled, thoughtful, and in some cases expert curators. Much as the quality of a restaurant is created by the chef, the quality of the curated end-product is going to be made by the curator. And that — without a doubt — creates new jobs, new opportunities, and even new economies in a world of information abundance.

There is no hourly rate on internet time

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Let’s say you are a consultant and have just received a call to do some urgent work. Feel free to replace the term consultant with freelancer, programmer, designer, advisor, or anything else. This post is for people who work for themselves and sell some type of intangible good, whether it be code, advice, reports, strategy, etc. Anyway, you got THE call. Now go ahead and do a little dance to celebrate.

Shortly after you say that you are available, you are asked about your hourly rate. If you say it’s $25, you’re wrong. If you say it’s $250, you are still wrong. Agreeing to work an hour for a given rate plays into the industrial trap, promoted by Catbert’s in HR departments everywhere. Many of today’s HR policies are still based on the Principles of Scientific Management developed in 1911, the dawn of the modern industrial age. These principles were built on F.W. Taylor’s flawed assumptions on how men shoveled iron and coal. And so began some of the modern myths of the management of ‘labour’.

rn coal stoker
Royal Navy Coal Stoker

Time and motion studies, such as those done by Taylor and others, were based on the assumption that certain types of work were of equal value. Labour, as defined by Taylorists, is replaceable. It’s all about standardized work and standardized recompense. But talent is unique. Talented people who set hourly rates give up their uniqueness.

A few years ago I was offered some research work that the client had calculated would take one week at $40 per hour. The total amount was not that attractive to me but I looked at the scope of work anyway. Much of the research was work that I had already done, with my ongoing PKM practices and other projects. I realized that I could complete the report in a few hours, by curating my own blog posts, social bookmarks, and other resources I had. Someone relatively new to the field of workplace learning, the subject of research, would have taken much longer and possibly more than one week to produce something similar. I accepted the work, under the condition that I not be paid by the hour. Why should I have been paid $120 for high quality work that would earn a less experienced person $1,600? Time at work is an antiquated concept.

You are not a ‘Human Resource’ and you do not have an ‘hourly rate’
(repeat as necessary).

I know that it is often the easiest route to just agree to an hourly rate when it comes to securing contracts. But can you really equate an hour of my time with yours? Does it matter? What matters is what is produced.

Instead of agreeing to an hourly, or daily, rate, start by asking a few questions:

  • What does the client want to achieve?
  • How will the client know it has been achieved? What are the indicators?
  • What is the smallest thing that needs to be settled first?
  • Is this something I can do for the client?
  • How much is that worth?
  • Does the client care how long it takes? Then set a deadline.
  • If I take longer, will the client pay me more? [probably not] Then why would the client want to pay by the hour?

Hourly rates only help to put you into a pigeon hole so that HR and Purchasing can easily classify you. You are not a pigeon.