Hard work will define the twenty first century

Tuesday, 03 November 2009 09:22

This past week I spoke at Deutsche Telekom's Innovation Day in Berlin celebrating the fifth year anniversary of their Innovation Labs. The theme was the Connected Life and Work, and there were a lot of interesting discussions about the work-life imbalance of the future.

One of the speakers said that the rest of society would learn from workaholics - who tend to love their work - that work without joy is unacceptable.

The fusion of work and life will continue; we can see this already in the under-30s generation who don't compartmentalise their life.

But the pièce de résistance came from Ze Frank, a well-known satirist in the US who pens articles for Time magazine, who brought home how the internet is connecting us all. Ray, a middle-aged man in the heartland of the US, wrote a song for his daughter who had called him in distress about her job. Ray didn't really know what to do to give her comfort, but he wrote her a song that she could sing when she was frustrated.

Then he thought that he could share the song with all suffering employees worldwide, so he put it on the web.

The song goes:
I'm about to whip somebody's ass
Ohhh, I'm about to whip somebody's ass
Oh if you don't leave me alone
You're going to have to send me home
Cause I'm about to whip somebody's ass

The song travelled around the world - thanks to the net - and can be readily found on YouTube. Ze Frank picked it up, and became determined to find its composer, Ray.

Inside a week, he found the man - knowing just the song and nothing more.

Life is all about connections, and the web is simply another means of connecting, but one with exponential growth and the power to amplify a linear thought.

Encountering a lazy colleague or a horrendous boss can make us feel lonely. Connecting to all other suffering employees in the world makes us feel connected and powerful.

I see a lot of people in my line of work who are quite smart, but sometimes lazy. There is an internal contradiction between having ability and being undisciplined enough to work hard. Most people have no idea how hard they will have to work to achieve something important in their life.

There will be different speeds in the workforce in the future. Talented and hard-working people will rise to the top.

People who want to work less will drive more slowly, and live a different style life - no matter how smart they are.

The commitment to hard work will be a defining characteristic of the 21st Century.

Julie Meyer is chief executive of Ariadne Capital.

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Comments (1)

Disagree! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdsnIYurpSM

Hard work will not define the twenty first century!....Julie, I think you mean that slavery will define the twenty first century!!!

Why would anyone in the know bother to work hard or enslave themselves to safe guarding and contribute to a flawed and skewed system.

This video explains clearly why we all should turn our backs on these idiotic leaders!

Why bother to build law obiding businesses when these guys can pass ridiculas laws to steal from us...Do we hear of any Billionaires losing their shirts? Do we hear of any members of parliament losing their lively hoods?.....Do we hear of any members of Congress losing their jobs and homes?...the answer to all of these is a BIG FAT NO!

While we have elected and un-elected fraudsters running the world; The future of businesses, enterprise and innovation is very bad. If one wants to survive....yes I said survive and not thrive, we must play the only game in town, and thats do what they do, and thats exploit the financial instruments of mass destruction that they use to steal from us everyday...there is no other way around it.

What is the point in earning millions of US Dollars or Pounds Sterling if at the end of the day this paper wealth will only be diluted, and destined to be worth less and less every single day?

So I suggest we get smart real quick!....take a macro economic view of the world, and hedge our NET wealth so that we don't get left behind....ordinary Joe & Jill have now been dragged into a very dirty fight!...enjoy the fireworks....I meant enjoy the tree shaking volatility!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdsnIYurpSM

seanys , November 08, 2009