Chapter 7. Threading Some Trends Together

There's something afoot, and it deals with several pieces of economic pie shifting at the same time. In fact, it's a little strange that Richard Florida's latest book, Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life, is so timely. For a little more trend connection, throw in a little bit of Seth Godin[33] from May (this has stuck with me since then).

If you are an employer, think about the following.

CONNECTIVITY IS EVERYWHERE

It costs you more money to house a work staff than it does to manage them remotely. Consider items such as cost per cubicle, cost per in-house service, cost per enterprise service license, your network bandwidth costs, your power and cooling costs, all the things you have to do to keep people comfortable in an office space.

Afraid of how they'll work?

Shift measurements from "being there" to "what you've done." Look for deliverables that are based on pieces of information, goals met, business moved forward.

I'm on Verizon EVDO and writing this by the lake where I took my daughter swimming. I can work anywhere there's a signal. So can a lot of us. In fact, I do my job much better at a remote location (plus, it saves four hours of driving, two each way, at $66 a tank of gas twice or more a week).

THE LOOSELY JOINED EMPLOYEE

The age of half-owned brands is upon us. Years ago, it was only Robert Scoble. We watched in awe as he put a whole new face on Microsoft. He then ...

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