Fanfare for the Future Workplace: Will the future collaborative

workplace result in the demise of GDP?

A few months ago when I presented my thoughts on the evolution of money & technology at a TEDx
event, I ended my talk on a Hitchcockesque note.
I asked my audience what they thought was going to be the definition of a career 15 years in the future,
when 50% of our current jobs in the manufacturing and services sectors will be replaced by dexterous
machines and self- learning AI capable of assimilating information at rates exponential to human
cognitive capacities.
This question was not meant to present a doomsday scenario, but rather to entice my audience to
contemplate on the future of the workplace.
The workplace of today:
Before we head off into the future, lets look at how the global workplace landscape is currently
evolving. A decade ago, employees were worried about losing their jobs to outsourcing. Today
companies like Amazons Mechanical Turk, ODesk and LiveOps can gather teams on the cloud to
perform research, sales, marketing and almost any other task.
Companies like Accordion Partners are redefining the face of the investment banking industry by
furnishing free-lance financial experts who work with a plethora of competing Wall Street companies,
providing them with technical expertise on a project to project basis.
The extended workforce is gaining breakneck momentum, with a number of Fortune 100 companies
having doubled their outsourced talent pools in the last two decades. Technology is further adding to
this transition, allowing companies to hire talent irrespective of mobility, location or borders.
This trend isnt reserved to a certain sector either. Engineers, tech specialists, healthcare workers and
business professionals are all part of this transition, working with companies on specialized, knowledge

To teach is not to
transfer knowledge
but to create the
possibility for the
production or
construction of
knowledge
Paulo Freire.

intensive projects. It would be safe to say that companies now have access to a buffet of talent which
they can mix and match to address the preferences of their customers.
Even the social aspect of working in an office has not been spared. Internet sites now allow individuals
to rent cheap office space within an organisation for a short time. By doing so, the extended workforce
can enjoy the social aspects of work and develop their networks concurrently, further leveraging their
influence on social sites such as LinkedIn.
These changes are providing companies with flexibility and adaptability. Rather than spending an
immense amount of time and resources on training their employees, companies now have agile, high
performance, skilled talent at their beck and call.
Simultaneously this trend is changing the professional lives of free-lance contractors as well. They now
have a chance to work on multiple projects, in different domains and with different companies. The
quality of their work creates their online reputation, which in turn, results in them securing their next
job. This encourages them to perform, while being able to enjoy complete flexibility in their personal
lives.
So what does this mean to the future of the workplace?
If we were to observe the contributions to GDP of the three primary sectors in todays economy of the
developed and developing nations, the figures show the dominance of the services sector.


However on taking into account the emerging trends in the workplace, it would be sensible to infer that
technology, global connectivity and intelligent social media will ensure that the global workplace of
tomorrow will be one that is an inter-connected knowledge based archetype, rather than a service
based one. This fact has been validated by many intellectuals including Joseph Stiglitz & Eli Broad.
If we are to adapt to a knowledge based economy the next question in this line of thought would be to
ask what defines knowledge. Is it the capacity to absorb facts and figures and be a walking pile of data?
Or is it the capacity to link together different pieces of information by having the monkey-wrench of
expertise as a sidearm?
First lets concentrate on data. We are on the cusp of transforming our relationship with computers and
machines. By the year 2030 it is estimated that over a 100 Trillion sensors will be in every part of our
houses, offices and even on our person, incessantly measuring and assimilating data whilst
simultaneously interacting between themselves.
With the rise of quantum computing and cognitive computing, the possibilities of what insight this data
would provide rise exponentially, mirroring the speed of quantum processing. Intelligent AI such as
IBMs Watson will further be able to leverage on this information and will transform every aspect of
work. Production, teaching, medicine and even security will enter the realm of this digital universe.
As this transition occurs, a number of questions arise: Is information and data accumulation akin to
knowledge? Are these machines of the future going to make our places of work obsolete along with us
in the process? If so, what will we be doing in order to earn a living? And what are the skill sets that we
need to develop in order to survive in this future?
Thinking: The Skill Set of the future
These questions do seem pessimistic in nature. But in reality they do offer a future of optimism. As
smart machines take over routine manufacturing and services jobs, there will be an increasing demand
for the kind of skills that machines are not good at Namely, thinking.
Thinking is a process that cannot be quantified. It is based on curiosity, blemished by experimentation
and is incapable of being codified. As the division of labour between machines and humans continues to
be renegotiated, it is our inherent ability to come up with Eureka! moments and our adaptability to
situations that will emerge as our greatest skill set.
Thinking encompasses a wide array of subjects. No computer will be able to comprehend desire, to feel
or to empathise. And as we move towards a more collaborative and interconnected society, it will be
these skills which are inherently human that will become our greatest skill set. Knowledge will be
based on our learning abilities and our creativity to be able to use this connaisance to find imaginative
solutions to the challenges at bay.
It is in this ambience that the extended workforce will truly flourish. Research shows that diversity
within an organisation is the core competency for successes. The ability to manage diverse teams whilst
respecting a variety of cultures will be the pivotal factor that will enable organisations to redefine
efficiency in this new paradigm.
Taking these parameters into consideration, a hypothesis of the future workplace begins to emerge:
We will increasingly be immersed in a workplace comprised of formal employees, consultant partners
and a global grid of contractors, all working in tandem with the public to provide innovative solutions to
the needs of the future.

Not only will this change the way we work, it was also lead to the creation of new jobs. A study initiated
by the Institute for the Future, summarises a few of the future jobs that will be at our disposal:


An element of commonality in all these jobs is the manifestation of our inherent capacity to adapt and
make sense of the environment around us. In other words, our ability to think. Yet, it is often seen that
this fundamental ability is often ignored in the current educational system. Or is that about to change?
A revision of our educational system:
In 2013, Sugata Mitra won the TED prize for his talk on Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLE).
Mitra highlighted that the current education system was manufactured 300 years ago, in order to
address the needs of the industrial revolution. His talk resonated the elemental need to develop the
elements of creativity, intelligence and insight in our current education systems, which were also
expressed by another education legend Sir Ken Robinson in an earlier TED talk.
The point that both these educators were trying to convey was that the trail of monotony found in the
current education system, and its emphasis on teaching students to be capable of doing repetitive tasks
robs us of our capacity to self-learn and thus our creativity in the process.
Apart from this grim reality is the fact that the current education system is a costly business. Students
doing a Bachelors or a Masters Degree end up incurring vast sums of debt. The reasons for the high
costs are quite stark. Degrees have become an exclusive commodity, the price of which is fuelled by low
admission rates, well qualified students, the promise of high starting salaries and a clamouring sea of
applicants.
To render the situation even more macabre, the skills learnt at school are not in unison with the needs
of the changing workplace. At a time when innovation is the mantra in most organisations, the skills
learnt by these students are not always in cohesion with the required skills of the future workplace.
As mentioned above, the workplace of the future, is going to be one in which the extended consultant
will play a crucial role. In hiring these consultants, companies will ask a single questionWho is the best
person for the job? Hence, the begetting question that we need to ask ourselves is how do we become
the best person for a task? Would it be asinine to contemplate that only experts would have a chance of
establishing themselves in this new ambience?
I argue that this will not be the case. The solution evidently lies in our education system. Our education
system needs to be overhauled only from an economic standpoint, but also in terms of its pedagogy
and the variation of subjects, as exemplified by the Jobs of the Future infographic.

Fortunately for us, educators and innovators are already taking a step in this direction.

Evolution in the education system:
As with the previous section of this article, it would be useful to relook our education system, in order to
determine what are the game changing methods and technologies being considered today. Just as
technology is giving the workplace a facelift, education, thankfully as well, has not been spared.
I. MOOCs:
The biggest game changer in the education system is the development of Massive Open Online
Courses or MOOCs. A MOOC is primarily defined by 4 attributes:
M A very large number of participants per course O Content delivered online
O Low cost/ free content, & no admission stipulations C Structured content with periodic assessments

The advantages of this new method of online teaching are multi-fold:
1. There is a reduction of fees and an increase in outreach of courses.
2. Students can now learn most of mechanical subjects at their own pace and without the need of
expensive faculty.
3. As most MOOCs also have forums that are created by the students, they can now gain an
experience in learning collaboratively and develop their contacts and networks.
4. Employees can now see graduates as co-workers or entrepreneurs, rather than ill-prepared
assembly line workers in a knowledge economy.
As a direct consequence, MOOCs also allow faculty to concentrate more time on their research. Hence,
instead of paying for research, via student fees, a greater allocation of funds can now be siphoned
towards research thus reforming the cost structure at universities.
A research report by the Wharton School further shows concrete evidence to this breakthrough. While
the current annual cost of creating a journal amounts to approximately $400,000, the cost of creating a
MOOC, which allows for a greater reach, is about $11.20 per completing student. Not only does this
encourage us to rethink the cost structure at schools, it also allows us to reconsider the productivity and
contribution levels of academics to society.

II. Nano-Degrees:
As the Internet of Things moves towards the Internet of Everything, the evolution in technology is
creating a dearth of technical skills. In a recent report by the McKinsey Global institute, it was stated
that by 2018 the United States alone might face a 50%-60% gap of between the supply and demand of
people with an advanced training in data analysis, statistics and machine learning.
As the need for specialists in the fields of data mining, cognitive computing, web based services and
content curation begin to increase, the public sector is now entering the field of education providing
short courses in the form of Nano-Degrees. The leader in this domain is Udacity, which is currently
providing Nano-degrees in Front-end and Back-end Web Development, iOS development and Data
analysis.
The advantage of Nano-degrees is their focalised nature. Rather than going through an entire course,
these degrees focus on a core module and offering a learning style that is extremely collaborative and
adapted to the current workplace. Students are given a real time project which they all need to
complete by performing multiple tasks. At the end, the tasks are amalgamated with the aid of the
course guide, thus leading to the end of the project and the reception of a qualification certificate.
Unlike MOOCs, Nano-degrees are paid qualifications. However the cost is quite marginal at around
$150 making them increasingly affordable. What MOOCs and Nano-degrees do share is the reception
of a validation certificate by an institution or a university, formalising the applicants participation and
performance.
III. Learning Analytics:
As education becomes increasingly digital, teachers and school leaders have access to an increasing
amount of data. This data, which is primarily created by the students, now offers educators the
possibility of creating models which discover methodologies and tools for predicting and tailoring
courses based on each students profile.
One of the leaders in this domain is a Dutch public organisation called Kennisnet (Dutch for Knowledge
Net), which is dedicated to ICT-innovation in primary and secondary education as well as in vocational
training. Kennisnet provides educational content and information to teachers, pupils and parents and
provides IT led educational processes that provide technical and practical support for several innovative
educational aids.
Learning analytics can be seen as a formative aid to help students discover which learning pattern best
suits them while they are still in school. Hence, in this way each student can then develop their
individual self-learning methodologies and share these techniques on a collaborative platform. The
teachers role would be one of providing guidance rather than instruction
By capitalising on our innate curiosity, students in the future will not only be able to self-learn but also
to innovate. In an education system that is based on curiosity, experimentation and sharing, innovation
and entrepreneurship will no longer be a facet but rather an evident characteristic. MOOCs and Nano-
degrees will then offer the possibility of developing a specialization in a subject, allowing individuals to
become experts in a subject of their choice.
The end of GDP?
The findings in this report highlight the initiatives that are already underway in bridging the gap
between the collaborative learning space of today and the collaborative workspace of the future. It also
projects that as technology continues to make giant leaps, the future concept of work will be
transformed to celebrate our inherent creativity and sociability.
But this necessary transition, which has already begun, also poses some serious questions with regards
to how we ought to look at the future. A collaborative education system will lead to the creation of an
extended workforce. This would lead to the creation of a collaborative economy which will set the stage
for a new paradigm of economic growth and prosperity.
But are the statistics and parameters used today to measure the productivity of a country, capable of
taking into consideration this collaborative evolution of our societies? How will we be able to measure
our growth if the fine lines that were used demarcate nations and businesses begin to blur? What are
the parameters that need to be adjusted to gauge our prosperity? And who is going to be doing the
measuring?
Today the measure of an economys competency is measured in terms of its GDP. But the biggest
contributor to GDP today is the services industry. And the collaborative economy of tomorrow will
transform the services sector of all countries. Hence, in retrospect, would it be safe to say that using
GDP to measure a countries position in the global map is an outdated concept?
Would it not be safer to say that there is an increasing need to establish norms and indicators that
measure a countries holistic development which also encompasses human development?
Conclusion:
The findings of this study prove that the future of the workplace will be not only effect education and
society but the way we think of work as well. There is still a long way to go, but the changes in the
foundations are already becoming apparent.
As MOOCs and Nano-degrees gain more popularity and traction, businesses will need to reconsider the
way they look at these qualifications and the way they hire people. This would mean redefining the skill
sets required of personnel, reanalysing the importance of their cultural adaptability and measuring their
expertise and knowledge as indicated in their journals, blogs and social media contributions. In other
words, it would reshape the future of HR.
New social indicators that are representative of our future society also need to be considered. It would
be counterproductive and foolhardy to continue to use an antiquated system of measurement, when
the quantity to be measured in no longer the same.
The questions asked in this article are not meant to be an effort of establishing a methodology of
ending my thoughts on a Hitchcockesque note. Rather, it is an invitation to think, as the answers to
these questions will have solemn ramifications that will reshape our future.
After all; thinking will be the skill set of the future