One of the most valuable life lessons learned while building this company is that “…money does not define the limits of what is possible…”
I would not be here today if I’d let a complete lack of funds prevent me from pursuing our vision of this new venture. Or if I feared the stigma of being “unemployed”. By choosing to build my future using the only resources that are truly mine – my time and talents – in collaboration with others, I’ve discovered the freedom to follow my dreams and trust my intuitions. While I may be poor in terms of money I’m undeniably blessed and rich in the things that money can not buy; love, happiness, hope…
Our company, Jamie Josh and I, are living proof of what can be accomplished when people are willing to invest time and talent in lieu of earnings. We hope time trade and the use of time credits will help us all to redefine the value of work to include some of the values that define us as humans; our capacity to love and care for other people, animals and our environment. To share knowledge, collaborate and stand up for the things we believe in.
Every time we reward an act of helping with a time credit, we are declaring that the monetary economy does not have the power to define what real work is, that market price is not the only measure of value and that money does not define the limits of what is possible. Edgar Khan in The Time of Our Lives
I’m inspired by thought leaders like Edgar Cahn because here at Worknow we break from the definition of work as either “employed or unemployed” choosing instead the role of aspiring, social entrepreneur and incorporating the idea of time trade – into a company built to help people find and connect with work – so as to give equal value to both volunteer and paid work opportunities.
We hope that our intention will become more evident when we launch the beta site because Jamie’s created some funky elements, in the navigation and site design, to allow people to easily switch and identify between time trade and paid work options. They are after all two sides of the same coin because as my father used to say “…there’s more than one way to skin a rabbit…”
10 years from now we will represent almost 40% of the workforce and slowly but surely people are beginning to accept that aspects of our Gen Y work ethic, our project orientation for instance, are more suited to work in a knowledge economy.
AUSTRALIA’S pre-eminent demographer, Bernard Salt, has stepped into the debate on whether Gen Y is work shy by declaring they’re not lazy but they have to adapt in the downturn.
“In fact they’re incredibly hard-working within the areas they are interested in. In fact they work quite assiduously when they are engaged by a particular project,” he said.
While always nice to see people portraying “Gen Y” (Gen We as I like to call us) in a rare but positive light it remains evident that Mr Salt still expects us to conform to the norms that he works by. Norms that perpetuate the myth that happy and worker are divergent states of being.
“With the global financial crisis the wheel is turning and it’s time for Gen Y to adapt,” he said.
“It’s important for Gen Y to realise that work is not a form of entertainment. You should not be jumping out of your skin for eight hours of work.” Source
Fair call, it’s not a party but what Mr Salt’s discussion fails to recognise is that there exists other options to remaining an unhappy, under challenged, albeit adaptable employee.
Gen We Entrepreneurs
Research indicates we have an entrepreneurial spirit that makes us increasingly willing and able to take risks. As the most highly educated generation we are armed with knowledge and insight and chomping at the bit to apply it to work life.
Those that expect us to be so desperate for employment, during this recession, that we will just adapt to be more like the old guard was at work, may be disappointed to find we are indeed well equipped to adapt but simply not as dependent on traditional “employment” as previous generations have been.
Today we recognise that we always have the option of working for ourselves. With the right team, building a company need not be as risky as it has been made to look. With today’s networking tools is it’s becoming second nature for us to find, connect and work with each other
Worknow, like Trademe, for services on a networking platform.
Six months ago I did not know either of my two co-founders. I met Jamie by applying for a house on Trademe. Josh and I connected through shared networking circles – Intersect Facebook and Twitter.
Today we are evidence of the collaborative teams and new ventures being established using networking technology to connect talented, passionate people.
We encourage and support a more entrepreneurial work ethic by providing tools to help other people connect with each other to create solutions, new knowledge and work opportunities.
Time Trade aka Time Banking is simply about spending an hour doing something for somebody in your community.
In recognition for your contribution you receive one Time Credit which you can then gift or trade, with other members of the community, in exchange for their talent and time. It’s a simple idea, but it has powerful ripple effects in building community connections.
Here at Worknow we are building an online system to automate the transfer of time credits between Community Members. Our Time Trade system comes online August 2009. For more information check out these links:-
A wise person once offered me a very simple piece of relationship advice
“…make sure you talk about and discover what you each value…”
Now, I took that advice and to my dismay discovered that this guy that I was into thought “democracy” more important than my most fundamental life values.
This simple revelation was a turning point in that relationship and eventually, try as I might to think “…perhaps it didn’t matter…” the ever widening gulf between our personal values led to the demise of said relationship.
Lesson Learnt.
Finding Common Ground
As a new venture team, one of the most important activities our team undertook was taking the time to sit down and share with each other our goals, our dreams and our values and discuss what we hoped to achieve with Worknow.
We came up with a list of guiding values and our statement of intent which is simply:-
to create a world class business that helps people and effects change.
We also took the time to discuss our strengths and potential weakness’ which, as you may know, have more in common than many people expect and through this process discovered that we are a very strong team.
People. Our Greatest Strength
I can say with confidence that out team is one of our greatest strengths, we are talented, motivated, skilled and experienced but more than that we are aligned. We found our common ground and the shared purpose towards which we, as a team and individuals, aspire.
But it is not just our team that I mean when I say people are our greatest strength. It is everyone that we come in contact with during this process.
In order for our business to work we need to discuss and discover what other people value and aspire to achieve. And in learning these things find a common ground upon which to collaborate and achieve shared goals.
It’s starting to get a bit text book right, but honestly the more people we talk to the more feedback we get, the more questions we are asked and the easier it becomes to clarify and refine exactly how we will achieve our goals.
Worknow Community People
We are gathering a community of talented people that seek new more collaborative and flexible ways to work together because we believe networking technology can help foster and harness the collective potential of existing communities and distributed groups.
I studied business extramurally because, as far as I could see, the best way to learn business was simply to get involved. I planned to gain real life business experience while building and diversifying my skills in preparation for “one day” when the right opportunity came along for my own venture start-up.
I never exactly knew when that “one day” might be but I’d been pretty generous and given myself until 35 to discover it, on the basis that I would intuitively know the right opportunity when I saw it. And so in early March 2009 my one day arrived and I was ready.
Status Quo, Schmo
Jamie’s idea to develop an online contractors marketplace to help people find work, immediately struck a chord with me.The idea was, in essence, exactly what I needed and wanted for myself.
It was a means to encourage and support business creators, owners and collaborative teams. It was everything I wasn’t, but wanted to be and I immediately recognised his idea as a means to achieving my longest held work aspiration – to build a company that could truly help people.
We are quite happily, not in keeping with the status quo. Indeed as statistics bemoan rising unemployment I tend to see the job losses as inevitable because for social innovation and change to occur one must in some way destroy the old.
For all practical purposes this meant; if I was actually going to help people be their own boss; if I hoped to promote entrepreneurship and new business creation as a viable alternative to employment; if I was going to prove work existed but that the way we connect with it was changing; I simply could no longer work as a full-time employee
Making the Change
Mentally, in a recession leaving my only secure source of income was a pretty tough call to make. But in life we must take calculated risks. I was determined that money would not hinder my pursuit of the dream and in that decision alone I have learnt lessons for life, about the potential to get work done without the need for cash – ergo Time Trade.
Practically however, it is not at all hard to work your way out of a job. I’m not particularly proud of the way I left my last employee role but it was best for both parties. Indeed the hierarchy and their methods of control and authority, even their use of these words – when I aspire to collaboration and leadership – are driving factors in the development of Worknow.
Worknow
We are building this community and marketplace on the belief that 1) networking platforms can help us find connect and work together in new ways and that 2) there are other talented people here, that seek new more collaborative and flexible ways of working.
With this blog I intend to relate my experience as a business creator, owner and contractor, in hopes that my journey may encourage others along this path.
It seems that deriding Gen Y has become a marketing tool in itself. Repeat something negative about Gen Y and you’ve instantly attracted an audience.
Some readers will flock in order to have their personal points of view validated. But how many more will read because we’ve learned the importance of “…know thy enemy…”
Everyday we learn more about why the entrenched workforce fears us but more importantly the negativity provides us a challenge to rise to.
It seems, my entire generation now has a point to prove and the best way I can see to do that is to overcome the negativity, choose life and community over career, step around the square box and do exactly what we are disliked for.
Be different, challenge the status quo and find better new ways to get work done.
Although people continue to highlight our flaws a growing number of people are beginning to realise that these traits which appear as weaknesses may indeed be indicators of our strengths.
Disloyal vs Adaptive
Lazy vs Lifestyle
Demanding vs Achievement Orientated
Long hours vs Get the job done
Employee vs Entrepreneur
As one onlooker notes:-
“It is quite likely that some sizable percentage of these [Gen Y] workers will never work in a steady job on the payroll of a single employer. And an equally large segment may never know a career different from that of a ‘permanent part-timer,’ contractor, or consultant.”
Gen Y’s fierce independence will accelerate the nation’s evolution from a corporate economy of worker bees to an entrepreneurial one of innovative thinkers and rapid change, one where a majority of the Gen Y workforce is self-employed or even part of an ever-widening proprietary class.
The Gen Y group will be fiercely start-up oriented, and “by 2013, perhaps two- thirds of all adult Americans will be classified as entrepreneurial.” Source
Gen Y Entrepreneurs
So while this article talks of our US counterparts perhaps we should take note. More than any previous generation Gen Y has a more flexible and entrepreneurial approach to work.
Our entrepreneurial spirit makes us increasingly willing and able to take risks, our education has armed us with knowledge and insight and today’s technology allows us to connect, share and collaborate in new, more effective ways.
The traditional dependency on employment has begun to weaken as more and more of us recognise the potential we have to connect with others in order to create our own forms of work.
While our entrepreneurial and flexible approach to work demands of us greater self-reliance in return we capture the ability to shape our own future rather than “comply” or “conform” to the expectations of a workforce that often fails to utilise our talent or understand our work ethic.
Worknow
At Worknow we support a more entrepreneurial work ethic and are developing tools to help people find, connect and work together in new ways
