MicroBucks

I'm doing a little internal thinking about 'Social Networking in the Enterprise' - something I've touched upon before.

In a moment of flippant typing to the working group I remarked:

"Maybe in the future, you will simply be an XML file (sort of a representation of your CV) consisting of your skills, capabilities, qualifications, and attributes, which is just plugged into an organisational hive. The hive then connects you to relevant vTeams, and as you build reputation, workflows come your way. Meanwhile you can grow your connections, capabilities and reputation. You’re micro-payed per workflow so you can belong to many organisations (subject to XML NDA/Conflict of Interest rulesets) and you can work from anywhere as there’s no notion of an office. Most employees work out of locally sponsored hotdesking cafes scattered like Points of Presence on a CDN. As a result, Starbucks shares rocket and they buy Cisco, Microsoft and Nestle to become the world’s first mega-corporation. 80% of the world’s population work for the new company. When you hit 30 they kill you, if the coffee hasn’t done that already. (OK, the last bit is from Logan’s Run)."

Then I see this piece about 'coffee houses as offices' in yesterday's Times. (As an aside, I loved the quote "they're not selling coffee, they're selling space" for obvious reasons.)

So with all of this stuff about buying Yahoo, maybe we should be looking to the big coffee/fast food chains...

I've often wondered whether it would be possible to run a significant enterprise organisation with no central hub. I can see tons of advantages for the kind of mobile and flexible workforce that we have (for instance) but I'm not sure that some of the central infrastructure could work in this way right now. I'm thinking finance and human resources rather than email and data centres.

I'd also add that I think the dream of working from a cafe sounds better than it is. I do know of a few great spots to hideaway and write, but I find the majority of establishments have significant white noise levels and generally bad acoustics (and music) which kills my ability to think quicker than a cup of camomile tea.