It has now been quite a while that I actively follow the broader topic of the Future of Work. I listen to podcasts, follow various interesting contributors on Twitter, have a bunch of related tags in my Pocket-App, read lots of articles, and finished as well as am enrolled in MOOCs on various related topics.
Why do I follow news on the Future of Work?
My main profession is in academia. You can learn about my professional life in my Bio. I need to be up-to-date on the Future of Work for example in order to be able to teach, write academic papers, and supervise theses in my field. However, I found that only following the academic debate on the related topics, does not fully connect me with what is really going on and discussed. This mere theoretical debate left me to feel cut off from the practical world. I wanted to try and fight this feeling actively. Thus, after finishing my PhD in 2017, I started engaging more and more with more practical aspects and views of topics related to the Future of Work, to better grasp the theoretical aspects.
What did I find by following the news?
Good things first: There are some really good and sophisticated articles and helpful stuff once you go beyond just reading scientific papers. My plan is to also share some of these here (#goodstuff).
But what also happened quite fast is that I mainly gravitated toward contents I considered science-based to a certain extent. At this early stage I would just skip other articles right after reading the headline. This again kept me from really diving into the entire field and again had me feel divided. After taking some time to realize this, I started to make a habit out of also reading stuff I consider rather random based on the headline, in order to really be able to enlarge my perspective. And let me tell you this much: I was really flabbergasted by the lack of theory and sometimes even real-world practicability behind some articles and products sold as the new hot stuff.
Stepping outside of my own echo-chamber had an unplanned effect on me. Reflecting on it now, I would say it made me feel frustrated somehow. I started to follow the practical side of the topic in order to get a bigger and better integrated picture. What I found however, was that just like I used to mainly focus on theory and ignore practice – others seem to ignore theory and sell innovations and products as the holy grail without looking at potential drawbacks and/or a broader context.
Why did I decide to share my thoughts?
In order to cope with this frustration I started to make up my mind by writing down and structuring my thoughts. I realized that I would prefer both perspectives to be integrated and there is a massive lack on such considerations.
Engaging in the Future of Work also means actively trying to shape it. This is also why I finally decided to share what has been hibernating for quite some time now. So from now on I will share my “WorkNotes”.
What are my aims?
- Becoming a credible source for people looking for scientific bases for technological developments in the field of work/people/tech.
- Personally gaining more structure in sorting out my thoughts on these diverse topics and documenting my thoughts in order to come up with new ideas.
- Expanding my professional and academic network.
- Hopefully being able to inspire fellows and students to work together or spark interest in topics.
- Feeding back into the pool of stuff written on the Future of Work, so that others might follow me and find my contents useful in their own endeavor to follow the topic.
Feel free to comment, or contact me through the various channels. I’d be happy to get in contact and also share some thoughts and ideas related to the topic.
WorkNotes 