Though it's undoubtedly true that the future of work is always in the future,
it's also undeniably true that the future of your work has never been
closer. The rise of robots, machine intelligence,
distributed ledgers, quantum physics — a world being eaten alive by software. All of
these trends point to the new world which is shaping up quite differently from any
world we ever seen or worked in before. From almost the last 10 years, the Center for
the Future of Work has been cataloging and commenting on these and a whole host
of other extraordinary dynamics. But in these 10 years we've never attempted to
pull together all of our analysis and insight into one report—until now. From and To
is just that—a state of the union for the future of work. It's everything
you wanted to know about the future of your work but we're afraid to ask.
Here's a look at some of the key trends in the report. From hierarchies to wirearchies,
from car systems to feudalism to royalty and politics and now in big
multinational businesses, humans have always tended to organize themselves
into hierarchies. But now in our hyper-connected world, hierarchies are
a bug, not a feature—a disconnect in a networked world. Now Millennials prefer
to work in wirearchies—dynamic networks of connected nodes free of
predefined priorities or ranks. In many businesses, the agenda of the formal
hierarchy is misaligned often conflicts with the realities of how
work gets done. Will hierarchies go entirely extinct?
Probably not, but the future is a mix of both: of the formal and the informal, of
the hierarchy and the wirearchy. From bits to qubits: though modern digital
technology can often seem miraculous, what's really miraculous is that it's
all made possible by the simplest of concepts—ones and zeros. Individual
transistors at the heart of computers are no more than on/off switches,
represented as either 1 or 0. But now we're reaching the limit of bits—as CPU
manufacturers struggle to make binary based computing any smaller or faster.
Enter quantum computing! Long a scientific theory but now becoming a
reality, these computers go beyond this or binary
by using quantum bits or qubits—simply put a bit can only be either 1 or 0; a
qubit can be both 1 and 0 at exactly the same time. With this step functioning
computational power, a whole new class of processing power is being revealed:
predicting traffic 45 minutes in advance, completely solving prime numbers or
modeling the molecular interaction of drugs with almost 100% accuracy—these
are some of the scenarios that binary computers will never be able to achieve
but which will be in reach with quantum computing to hand. From the suit to be
hoodie: the office and the suit have gone together like Laurel and Hardy since
well... Laurel and Hardy. Picture somebody sitting at a desk in an office in
virtually any part of the modern world and your mind's eye goes to a jacket on
the back of a chair, a slightly loosen collar and tie, a yellow sticky note
"Don't forget the milk" placed on the edge of the computer screen. But now suits are
for suits: creative, mold breaking leaders don't wrap themselves in the conformity
of an idea or a drape. The suit no longer fits.
Take a peek inside Goldman Sachs. Sure you can still spot some suits but the
real power is off to the side of the room invisible behind a 27-inch Mac, clad
in a hoodie. 70 hours minimum a week of diving for pearls in PEARL in a gray
flannel suit does not compute. The a DJ now runs the world's most powerful financial
institution is proof if proof is needed that every company is now a technology
company and every company now dresses like one or should. Hoodies, the $3500
type from Piana – not a $19.99 from Target, rule. From retired to re-tired: for
the last hundred years the arc of a working life has been pretty clear. Go to
school, go to college, get on a career ladder, knuckle down to 40 years, relax
for a decade or so and then die. But now retirement—a phase of life that used to
last 10 or 15 years from 65 to 80— stretches out a head for 30 or 40 years.
If we quit work at 65 have we saved enough money to last us that long? For
many people the answer is "No". Live long enough to live forever," says Ray
Kurzweil. Sure, but how am I going to be able to afford it? Fortunately the rise
of the gig economy offers us a potential lifeline. We never need to
fully retire or we can unretire as circumstances dictate. Gigs can put food
on the table as long as we can keep in the game. Re-tired, we can seize the work
opportunities that are blossoming across the gig economy. Ride-sharing services
such as Uber and Lyft, platforms such as Upwork for writing, accounting, design
and related services, Guru for IT and engineering skills, Amazon's Mechanical
Turk offering knowledge workers a way to bid for expert work needed by
organizations large and small. All of these offer the post 65 crowd a way to
keep the money coming in rather than just going out. From mass-produced to
me produced: for the last hundred years we've become accustomed unless we're
Lord or Lady of the Manor to wearing store-bought off-the-shelf clothes. The
result: Well, we all look kind of the same. Now through rapid prototyping and
short-run production with 3D printers, we're paving the way for an era of
personalized print-it-yourself products. Forget the same as what everybody else
is wearing vibe, now we want uber-personalized one-of-a-kind, perfectly
tailored clothing, that's still affordable. Already Nike has started
using 3D printing for customized sports shoes. Adidas is getting into the Sewbot
game, a mixture of AI, robotics and 3D printing. By taking a picture via an
app, Adidas customers can have their body measurements taken and the data sent to
the nearest Sewbot which will create the item of clothing to fit perfectly. No
more ordering three versions of the same item to test the size and sending two
back. Returns will diminish as will the retail supply chain. The hope for a
completely sustainable model of clothing and footwear production is fast becoming
a reality. Shoetopia is a product that's similar to
the Adidas model allows customers to take pictures via the app and have shoes
custom-made in a local digital fabrication center. The shoes are even
biodegradable. The next step is to bring these production sensors into our own
homes with personal 3d printers. PIY is the eco-friendly future of manufacturing
and retail. Ranging across technologies, business models and demographics,
From and To outlines what we consider the most important trends that will change
what you do and how you do it: be you a chief executive, a student, a politician
or just a regular worker. Whether you're excited by the future or fearful, this is
no time to not be paying attention. The future of your work is changing. This
report is your field guide.