I blogged the other day about protecting our vision, but I didn’t go into detail about what that vision actually is.
It’s easy to assume that people know what we’re about, but a lot of people have joined along the way who only know part of the story.
The vision’s also evolved over time. When I first got into this, I simply wanted a better place to work than my home or a bland office. Now, three years later, we’re talking about being part of a much larger societal movement.
What happened? Along the way, I discovered that my newfound flexibility in where and when I work was an increasingly common phenomenon, facilitated not just by advances in technology but by changes to the economy and the arrival of a new generation to the workplace.
All these forces are conspiring to drive a fundamental shift in the way we think about work and the role work plays in our lives. The notion of commuting in a car to work 9-to-5 in a cubicle for 30 years for one company is not nearly the foregone conclusion it once was. Whether by choice, graduation, or layoff, an increasing number of people are taking their lives into their own hands.
There’s never been a better time. These days, someone with even the slightest design talent and proper inspiration can open a tee shirt store in minutes. A passionate writer can be blogging and making a name for themselves in no time. A kid with a camera they got for free after rebate can become a star on YouTube.
A protester can spark a movement with a Twitter account.
The challenge is that we’re not used to having this kind of autonomy. All of the responsibility and decisionmaking that an independent career entails can be difficult to manage on one’s own.
Which is why we’re better off joining forces. By forming communities around our shared interests and needs, we can help each other become better masters of our own domains. We can do what we want to do, but better— and have fun doing it.
This is a healthy thing for everyone, because people who are working on something they care about are far more likely to be working on something which has a positive impact on society. When the focus isn’t just on making as much money as possible to pay for a fabulous retirement, but instead on spending our time doing things that make us happy, we all benefit.
We’re still in the early stages of this revolution, and there’s a long transition ahead. New Work City seeks to help people make that transition. We want to make it easier for people to identify and execute upon what it is that they want to do with their lives. We want to provide whatever resources and education might be called for to get people from where they are to where they want to be.
Most importantly, we want to create something which is self-sustaining and run by the people who participate in it. That way, it will always be whatever the people need it to be.
We’ve made fantastic progress to date, but there’s so much more to do.
We’ll be discussing our future more on this blog and also this Thursday at NWC. I hope you’ll join us.
