Useful research by Aimee Whitcroft who goes beyond the call of duty testing various ways of turning Linkedin data into infographics.
Her Your LinkedIn profile, visualised concludes the artwork generated by services automating the process are little more than good-looking gimmicks and certainly not good enough to send someone when you’re looking for a new job.
She goes onto the say the idea is lovely and there are some great elements, but the services need to improve.
Computerworld has a front page story about iPhone app developer Layton Duncan planning to move his Polar Bear Farm business from Christchurch. That piece isn’t online yet, but Toby Manhire had an earlier story on this at The Listener.
No-one can blame Duncan for wanting to up sticks. The last two years of earthquakes would test the patience of a saint.
The authorities running the show in Christchurch seem clueless. We can all sympathise with Duncan’s frustrations.
What concerns me most and what should worry other New Zealanders is Duncan hasn’t chosen to set up shop in Wellington, Auckland or anywhere else in this country. He has chosen Melbourne in Australia.
I hope someone in government has asked Duncan why he chose to move overseas.
If it was just one person making a trans-Tasman move, it would be a pity. But it isn’t, we’re looking at an entire generation. That’s not a pity, it is a tragedy.
Knowledge workers make a living by dealing purely with ideas and information.
The term has only been around for 50 years. Writer and management expert Peter Drucker first used knowledge worker in his 1959 book “Landmarks of Tomorrow“.
Drucker modestly said he was only the second person to use knowledge worker. He said it came from Fritz Machlup a Princeton economist.
Either way, Drucker popularised knowledge worker spending years expanding on the original idea and its wider implications.
Knowledge worker is widely used today. While people generally understand the term’s meaning, there is still misunderstanding about its exact definition — even among knowledge workers.
Some think knowledge worker only applies to people working in information technology or elsewhere in industry using tools created by IT workers.
IT workers are only a subset. Anyone who makes a living out of creating, handling or spreading knowledge is a knowledge worker.
This covers a wide range. Teachers, trainers, university professors and other academics are clearly included. Writers, journalists, authors, editors and public relations or communications people are all knowledge workers. Lawyers, scientists and management consultants can also all be described as knowledge workers.
One key difference between knowledge workers and other white-collar workers is the level of education and training. Some knowledge workers don’t have a formal tertiary education or high-level training – they are a minority.
As a rule, knowledge workers have at least a university undergraduate degree, but that’s not always the case.
Older knowledge workers may have fewer formal qualifications. That’s partly because higher education was less available when they started out — and, anyway, university isn’t the only path to knowledge.
Another reason is practical experience counts for a lot. But the key here is knowledge workers
each have a personal knowledge store they apply in their work.
Knowledge workers are well paid compared to other groups of workers. Some knowledge workers join unions, but they are not usually organised in that sense.
This can lead to forms of genteel exploitation: few knowledge workers get paid overtime yet most are expected to voluntarily work for more than the basic 40 hours a week.
Knowledge workers are more mobile than industrial workers. They can take their expertise elsewhere at the drop of a hat. This happens all the time.
An employer who abuses knowledge workers’ professionalism is likely to see their most important assets walk out of the door one evening and never return. This applies as much today as it did when there were more jobs around.
Few governments have come to terms with the implications of having a highly mobile, highly educated, knowledge workforce. Just as knowledge workers can quickly find a new employer if necessary, most can move freely between countries. Any nation that doesn’t look after knowledge workers can expect – over the long-term – to lose them.
This applies in New Zealand, which operates a progressive income tax system that, at times, appears deliberately designed to alienate knowledge workers. To understand this, compared the marginal and absolute rates of income tax paid by most New Zealand knowledge workers, they are noticeably higher than in most competing nations.
When I wrote the first draft of this post (it originally appeared in a different format in 2001) the same could be said of Australia. Since then Australia has moved to correct its tax system and is attracting 40,000 New Zealanders each year, most of those emigrants could be classed as knowledge workers.
In the 1960s there was a lot of talk about a ‘brain drain‘. If anything the flow of knowledge workers migrating to more benign economies is accelerating.
Drucker distinguishes between various classes of knowledge worker.
High-knowledge workers include professional groups such as doctors and teachers deal mainly in the realm of the mind while the knowledge technologists work with their hands and brains in the IT industry, medicine and other areas. Although both categories of knowledge worker are growing, the bulk of growth comes from this second group.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter makes an interesting point at The Harvard Business Review when she writes about a successful legal action brought by Mattel, owner of the Barbie brand against MGA Entertainment which owns Bratz.
Former Mattel designer Carter Bryant was charged with intellectual property theft because the company said he had the idea for Bratz while working for Mattel. The company’s contracts make it clear inventions made while working for the company become its property.
So, if your current employer does things badly and you know a way to do them better, you now need to halt your thinking processes while you serve out your notice or you could find yourself on the nasty end of a writ.
Writing for Australia’s Nett magazine Donna Page offers timely advice as we approach Christmas.
The magazine targets small business owners, but her Holidays are good for your health (no longer online) applies equally to knowledge workers.
She writes:
There is no doubt holidays are good for us; studies have linked overwork with anxiety, depression and workplace accidents. But the fact remains that very few small business owners take a breather from work.
Does this sound familiar?
As she says, “no leave, no life”. So make a deal with yourself now to take a good break over Christmas.
If you’re in the antipodes, that means to set aside two weeks of summer for rest and recreation. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, take a shorter Christmas break, but make sure you set aside time when the weather is more suitable.
Employers who see knowledge workers as a cost, not an asset are out of touch.
Jay Cross pulled together some interesting quotes from management guru Peter Drucker about the factors needed for knowledge worker productivity at the Internet Time Blog. They are all worth reading, but the last is, to me, the most important. He writes:
Knowledge worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker is both seen and treated as an “asset” rather than a “cost.” It requires that knowledge workers want to work for the organisation in preference to all other opportunities.
This sums things up nicely. Companies need to learn knowledge workers are assets, but they also need to recognise they are assets that can leave at a moment’s notice taking their skills and expertise elsewhere.
via Productivity advice from the sage — Internet Time Blog.
