The Future of Work

Essay by jham16University, Bachelor'sA+, February 2004

download word file, 5 pages 3.8

The book is about Wetware. Wetware, a concept introduce by Grantham, is not about software and hardware; instead, it is the unique power which controls and directs the software and hardware. It looks at technology, not from the usual standpoint of hardware, computers, and machines, but as a tool that is made up of hardware that we can feel, software that we can see, and something that is our brain, our nervous system, and our superior ability to collect to and interact with hardware and software. It looked at the new economy from a different angle. A new economy that has turned the old economic logic inside out and upside down, and in the process, it has irrevocably restructured the relationships between employers and employees.

The book starts with discussion around what are the forces creating the change of work. The change we are facing today is big and extraordinary.

It is probably one of those that do not come in at least a hundred years. Some people even look at this change as the biggest since the advent of the printing press in the mid-1400s. Question resides at: what causes the change?

Per Grantham, there are four driving forces for the change of work: the natural development pattern of history---the cycles of time, the changing psychology of work, the changing face of work, and the technology evolution and revolution. Among these, the historical pattern, the cycle of time, in my opinion, is probably the root of all of the diving forces.

The model of the cycle of time was proposed by historians, William Strauss and Neil Howe. According to Strauss and Howe, each of us in our lifetime goes through a set of four eras. Each set of four eras equals a cycle, which lasts approximately 80 to...