Tag: work

Posted on

The Future of “Work”: Are You A Cog In a Machine Or A Nanobot In A Swarm?

I had the honour of spending 60 seconds with John Key this morning.

john-key-and-me
MP Simon Bridges, PM John Key, Sheldon Nesdale

I was 1 of 10 young professionals invited to tell him about what we’re up to here in Tauranga, the city I love.

Here’s my 60 second speech:

Hi, I’m Sheldon Nesdale and I’m helping to build a eco-system of entrepreneurship and innovation here in Tauranga. One of 6 ways I’m doing that is by organising an event that people can go to and learn about entrepreneurship and innovation in a hands on way. It’s called Tauranga StartUp Weekend and it’s happening July 5,6,7 this year. It’s like a cake. You throw in ingredients like mentors, prizes, judges, strangers, structure, and chaos, and you eat whatever you cook.

This guy runs a whole country so his perspective is mostly a macro sized one. (Although he has this talent of zooming down to the individual level too).

This means he sees the big picture, the big system and the big moving parts.

When he was talking about Fonterra and exports, 2 pictures formed in my head that I want to tell you about.

The first picture was one of a giant machine which needed cogs to work.

cogs-in-a-machine
Do you feel like a cog in a machine sometimes?

What are the cogs in this machine? People.

You and me.

You might be a big cog or you might be a small cog, but the machine wants to be able to replace you easily or work without you if it needs too.

For example your job might be to sit in a cubicle and answer phones. The machine wants you to stay there.

But even if you leave, it’ll very quickly fill that spot with someone else.

The second picture was one of a nanobot swarm.

nanobot-swarm
Do you want the freedom to swarm to problems you are passionate about solving?

What’s a nanobot?

It’s a tiny machine. So tiny a million of them can fit on the head of a pin.

This time the people are individual nanobots.

They are separate. They are autonomous. They make their own decisions. But the supercool thing is that they can swarm to problems that need solving.

For example, poverty needs solving.  The people/nanobots that care about poverty will swarm to that problem and solve it together.

That’s the future of work I think.

So, are you a cog or a nanobot?

And if you want to change, when are you going to start?