The future of office work: Difference between revisions

The future of office work (view source)

Revision as of 19:33, 2 November 2023

229 bytes added , 2 November 2023

no edit summary

Amwelladmin

Bureaucrats, Interface administrators, Administrators

82,891

edits

@@ Line 114: / Line 114: @@
 [[Stewart Brand]] had the fabulous insight to imagine the onward progress of a [[complex system]] through the interaction of revolving concentric layers of significance, the outermost being the most provisional, erratic and fast-moving, and the deepest being the most stable, reliable and slow. Brand’s “[[pace layering]]” metaphor describes many kinds of complex system, but is especially well-suited to human ones.
-The “layers” are sets of abstract impulses, grouped by their significance and way in which they act upon the system as a whole. In a society, for example, the outermost layer might be “fashion”, then successively inside that “commerce”, “infrastructure”, “governance”, “culture” and finally “biology” and “geology”. Fashion moves the fastest, geology the slowest.
+The “layers” are sets of abstract impulses, grouped by their significance and way in which they act upon the system as a whole. In a society, for example, the outermost layer might be “fashion”, then successively inside that, “commerce”, “infrastructure”, “governance”, “culture”, “biology” and finally “geology”. Fashion moves the fastest, geology the slowest. (But if the geology suddenly moves, everything else moves pronto!)
-Adjacent [[Pace layering|pace layers]] interact with each other: the “fast” layers pull, the “slow” ones resist. The fast moving layers command our attention, but the slow-moving ones should command our ''respect'', because they are the store of system knowledge.
+Adjacent [[Pace layering|pace layers]] interact with each other and thereby the system self-regulates: the “fast” layers pull towards the new and exciting, the “slow” ones resist, clinging on to the tried and tested. The fast commands our attention, but the slow should command our ''respect'', because they store system knowledge.
-A fast fashion must persist before it influences the commercial system, which must in turn persist even longer to influence infrastructure and governance. The consumer computer revolution started as a fashion — ZX81s and Apple IIes — but gradually picked up commercial momentum, and after long enough began to influence the development of infrastructure. These infrastructural changes — laying a ton of fibre cable around the world and across the Atlantic in the late nineties (bless you, Global Crossing) — enabled the extraordinary pivot to remote working at the onset of COVID. Had that cable not been there, the lockdown response may well not have been possible.
+A fashionable idea will not change the world overnight but must persist until the commercial system has embraced it. Commerce must in turn persist even longer to influence infrastructure and governance. The consumer computer revolution started in the 1980s as a fad — Sinclair ZX81s and Commodore  64s — but the fad persisted and gradually picked up commercial momentum. Before long the infrastructure began to respond to and accommodate the commercial demand. These infrastructural changes — laying a ton of fibre around the world and across the Atlantic in the nineties (bless you, Global Crossing!) — enabled the extraordinary pivot to remote working at the onset of COVID. Had that cable not been there, the lockdown response may well not have been possible.
 The argument is often put that COVID was the [[black swan]] that opened the office working world’s eyes to an adjacency it hadn’t previously realised was possible. Once we moved through that door the range of [[Adjacent possible|adjacent possibilities]] changes forever.