This era of the web has been labeled Web 2.0 as we move towards a more interactive and integrated global platform. Thinking of the industrial era, we are reminded that the human race is OBSESSED with automation to increase productivity. We are moving out of the “industrial web” era into a more semantically connected world with bots and automated reasoning systems (Web 3.0 is on the cards, Hypercities claims to be the first…) and socially integrated networks.
Looking at the Most Innovative companies as awarded by Fast Company recently, you can see a shift towards a new kind of organization. The emergence of the social network and the business model, where monies flow in ways that are not understood – is clearly the focus-of-the-day. The concept has some challenges, but look at a company like Prosper that is now in the top50 most innovative companies. Yet, social banking did not exist a few years ago. Credit networks and social lending business modes are set to disrupt banks, especially in the micro-lending markets. We can now remove the human from the system and let the social network play its role. Reducing complexity, reducing costs possibly to the point of making it free (check Outercourtyard), simplifying the overall concept of lending?
Blue collar workers are referred to as people of the working class involved in manual labour. The blue collar revolution is a term used to describe move towards automation where the human component is not needed. White collar workers are people mostly employed in professional positions and clerical roles. There is a new form of revolution raging – one that focuses on removing the human from professional, services and other positions (a place where white collar workers could ONCE craft professions).
Check this “map of the web” and the development of the interrelationships between different communities. Obsessive automation and social network engineering are concepts set to bring us closer to the synthetic white collar worker. A NEW kind of worker that is not human…