To the list,
I agree about making the archives more usable. I have
found the hyper-mail functions of the Learning Org. list
to be very handy when researching or keeping a
thought going. It also saves me space on my hard drive.
However there is one drawback. Britton's comments
about intelligence are correct but easy access to the
archives would shoot his comments about our lack of
contentiousness all to hell. Consider the following:
As for the other two issues 1. the issue of sustainable
work in today's society and 2. the issue of unions and
their relevance.
1. I find very little willingness on the part of any of these
lists to discuss anything more than the old industrial
system's models cast in the guise of the Information
Era. Not to be disagreeable but I think that the new
IE has been discussed rather well by such people as
William Greider, Hedrick Smith and Fortune Mag.
columnist Thomas A. Stewart for the general public.
What I don't understand on these lists, is how a
continual repetition of Industrial Era models
proves their value. If Greider, Smith and Stewart
writing for the layman can articulate why the
old models don't work then why can't we hear it?
Britton refers to the continual high level of discussion
at FW and I agree. He also says that we are civil
with one another and on that I would say that we operate
on a level of democratic rigor that is built on practical
experience and less on political formula. We do have
a very low BS tolerance with the deft hands of Arthur
and Sally making a point without being obvious enough
to stir resistance or counter-transference. Their rigor
and our unwillingness to be exposed in our foolishness
serves as a governor on our word processing.
As for the other lists on the nature of work that I have
visited:
As I stated above too often their new models are
not really new at all. Even their information models
are the models of the Art's and Entertainment
Industries cast in the mode of "re-something or other."
e.g.
In the arts we often barter, use other models to
substitute for cash exchange, thrive on linkage
(connections) and drive ourselves to finish a project
no matter what the fiscal, emotional, familial or
physical cost.
As I have pointed out and documented for a couple
of years now on this list, this new Information work
world IS brave AND has many problems already
demonstrated in the pioneer world of the Arts and
Entertainment Industry.
That does not mean that we can reference
past Industrial models as an answer for a hyper-
democratized world built around a plethora of information.
The past is not the answer and the futurist models
potential "success" can be seen in the ruined lives of
the Arts and Entertainment industry pioneers.
There is no COMMON on the planet that exists like the
COMMON of the world of the musical ensemble. They
make all of the mistakes that could bankrupt the planet
if the rest of the work sector follows suit. (And it seems
to be!)
In addition their use of Unions creates work for a
few but is largely impotent at the kind of creative
work that builds the industry. What Hedrick Smith
calls the need for "constant learning, constant
technological change and constant self-improvement
as the engines of long term success" is largely
impossible in Union companies.
The most creative
work being done, the R & D of the music world is
being done in small high pressure companies that
are self-funded by the artists themselves. This is
what the composer Charles Ives observed 80 years
ago when he said that true creativity was impossible
in the "professional" musical world. He opted to
earn his money in insurance and write and fund
whatever he pleased. (We have basically done the
same.)
Musical ensembles are pure learning organizations
built around the exploration of the values of abstract
aural formal information. They even define the
abstract thought of whole nations and cultures by
translating the deepest psycho-physical intentions
of the time into visual, theatrical and aural art forms.
They give aid, comfort and even create a meaningful
life when practiced by amateurs, but when the models are
"professional" in the Union worker sense, they are often
an unmitigated disaster for the creative life of most of
their "workers." The music business is a microcosm
of the world at large with the upper one to two percent
making most of the money with the rest forced to
subsist out of love and work at other jobs. Not unlike
that NYTimes article on wealth that I posted yesterday.
Lest one complain that this is too complicated for the
average person, I would point to the great amateur
Concert Bands of the coal miners in England which
fostered the tradition of the greatest brass players in
the Western world or the choruses of Wales which
even in their dying has recently given us magnificent
Bryn Terfel or the new orchestra at Hewlett Packard.
The first two built the finest Instrumental and choral
organizations on the planet, at their height. HP is too
young to know if anything but the coldness of the
heart will come out of their venture, but there is hope.
So "how you construct work & the value of such" is the
question for me. IMHO we are too often trapped in
the non-renewable reasons for life and as a result
mis-define what it means to succeed in life.
I am
not against professions, I have worked within the arts
for most of my life, but the mass production models
for both unions and management are poor in the
development of creative endeavors and are more useful
in the development of derivitive or mass production
cultural products.
We are finding the same truth in
the other businesses as well, as we adapt to this more
creative era of Information development over against
the old "physical capital" model of corporate wealth.
In the Arts that is the model of the craftsman rather
than the business of real Art or as the Japanese
economists describe it, the "business of thought."
Craftsmen are wealthy with a big inventory while
Artists create on demand. The assets are in the
mind rather than a physical inventory. Tomorrow
Barnes and Noble will be inventoryless as they have
the technology to create only on demand. Their
inventory, like the artist's, will be virtual information.
That model in the arts has made mother's fear for
their children's sanity when they considered working
in the arts. It will not change just because they are
flexibles at Sony corporation, Micro-soft or UPS.
Mothers are not ready for the virtual world.
2. As for Unions, as a creative artist (entrepreneur)
with 37 years of work in this business, (having given
several thousand concerts of every variety, having
taught performing artists to work in every style and
venue in the country, having developed many world
premieres for the stage and recording and having
performed as the artist on many of these as well
as conducting the orchestra and designing the
stage and its direction) I support unions but only
with the same reservations that I reserve for
exploitive short term capitalists and bureaucratic
socialists.
I strictly separate religion from my work.
Ray Evans Harrell
Eric Britton wrote:
> Dear Friends,
>
> I would like to seek the collective wisdom and counsel of our group for the
> following.
>
> Back in 1993 we here at The Commons initiated a series of work discussions
> on the Net which eventually led to a series of events (conferences, skull
> sessions, public discussions, media coverage, Web site) and a published and
> widely read (5000 print copies, plus who knows how many electronic)
> thinkpiece with the European Commission entitled, Rethinking Work: New Ways
> to Work in an Information Society. More recently all this activity has
> morphed into an entirely redrawn WWW site which you will find at @Work on
> the Web', www.ecoplan.org/new-work.
>
> What I would now like to explore with any and all here are ways in which we
> might creatively link, somehow, these two streams of activity, in a way
> which reinforces and extends the reach of each. These two new work projects
> appear to me to have a common basic thrust - mainly real dissatisfaction
> with present work related arrangements and a feeling that something can
> indeed be done about them - but go about their self assigned tasks in very
> different ways. Since you are familiar with this list, I guess you might
> have to go over to @Work to get a feeling for our angle on all this.
>
> Our approach over there is pretty structured. And while we offer quite a
> rich pallet of communications tools (including group voice conferences which
> work pretty well if you have a decent modem and a bit of patience, and some
> rather handy use of available stuff on the Web for rough cut translations),
> it has been our decision NOT to try to do the job which this forum does so
> well - that is provide a lively, focused space for open exchanges on our
> topic. Quite frankly, I do not know how you manage it. By and large I find
> the sheer quality of what goes on here at just about the highest level I
> have ever observed on the Web or any of its predecessors - and the level of
> mutual respect and relevance of what is posted here is to my mind exemplary.
> We on the other hand have opted for what I call "thin communications" in our
> mail room, as much as anything else because I just quite frankly do not know
> how to do as good a job in all this as you do here.
>
> Here is what I would like to have your views about this morning if you will:
>
> 1. How might we provide anyone who comes to us in a search for new ideas and
> inspiration on our troubled world of work with handy "one-click" access to
> your exchanges, historical and present?
> 2. Ideally, all this would also be one-click searchable. E.g., call up for
> me all mentions of "Lester Brown", "population", "Sally Lerner", etc. And
> various combinations and permutations of whatever might be our key words.
> 3. We think that this is very important in a situation such as you have here
> where there is really quite a lot of useful material, thoughtfulness and
> references - which should not be lost or hidden away. FW has of course all
> those great archives, but do you think we might do something together to
> open them up a bit? Of at least encourage someone to do so?
> 4. And perhaps our communications frame and various utilities might be
> useful from time to time for some of you.
>
> In closing let me apologize for taking your time with something that is of
> course a bit off the main track that brings us here, and perhaps I should
> have just written in private to the organizers to put this before them. But
> I figured that with all you smart and dedicated people out there, why not
> ask you. I am sure that the final results, whatever it might be, would be
> an awful lot better than anything that we might have thought up in a corner.
>
> With all good wishes,
>
> Eric Britton
>
> P.S. I am sure that most of you know about the ILO on-line conference on
> Organized Labour In The 21st Century that is about to begin, but if not all
> you have to do is click the ILO Conference link on @Work and you will be
> taken directly to it. (And perhaps I might mention that if you read through
> the introductory statements of the several hundred people who have already
> signed on, you are likely to find them, as I ceratinly do, quite a
> remarkable and admirable group of people. A bit of a change from the usual
> tame professional conference types.)
>
> The Commons ___ technology, economy, society ___
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