THE END OF JOBS?

At the Future of Talent conference in October, Verna Allee talked about a day when traditional "jobs" could disappear and instead companies would have ongoing relationship with a "value network" of people who would move in and out of projects. Then at Elliott Masie's Learning 2005 in November, author Malcolm Gladwell predicted the "tipping point" for society would be the changing relationship between people and their employers (above is my mural of Gladwell's talk). I'm hearing more and more conversations about implications implications. What is the role of schools in preparing students for network-employment. What about health insurance, professional development and other benefits? Some are suggesting this is a new calling for old unions. The paradigm has already shifted for individuals. A lot of us whose work is based in Silicon Valley have our own small companies and affiliations with larger organizations, moving between projects. It helps to have a spouse with traditional employment. I'm looking for examples of small businesses or individual freelancers who have gotten together to address these issues. (Thanks, Robert Scoble and Anthony Townsend for inspiration to return to posting images on the blog!)