TopCoder, for example, is a platform for software developers and has more than 400,000 members. The website offers problem-solving services for all technical questions and advertises itself as follows: “In the 11 years since the company’s inception, TopCoder has awarded more than US$36 million in member payments to the community for projects ranging in scale from full enterprise systems to conceptualisation contests and marathon algorithm optimisation matches as well as simple bug races and related work – all delivered by some of the best content authors, independent programmers and creatives from around the globe.”
Other industries are also testing the open-source model. InnoCentive is a comparable system, founded in 2001 by pharmaceuticals corporation Ely Lilly. The open innovation and crowd-sourcing platform connects organisations to diverse sources of creativity. Its clients include substantial international players, such as Procter & Gamble and Roche.
For InnoCentive, Forrester Research interviewed 229 decision-makers in late 2011 to test their opinion on outsourcing innovation to open systems. Six out of 10 executives claimed that projects with an external talent cloud were “emerging and expanding” in their company; two out of 10 said they were “experimenting” with open innovation projects. The main reasons cited for the move into the talent cloud were: solving business challenges that couldn’t be solved internally; fostering more collaboration internally among employees and divisions; and leveraging diverse talent resources, both internal and external.
The next frontier
Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice at London Business School, researches new forms of work. In 2011 she was ranked by London’s The Times newspaper as one of the world’s top 15 business thinkers. Her book, The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here (HarperCollins), describes this brave new world: one core group of employees in each company and many freelancers working in small hubs.
Gratton agrees with MacCormick’s view that the biggest challenge in the new world of work will be the relationship between the individual and the organisation. “It’s been sort of a child-parent relationship, where the employee was the child and the organisation was the parent. Over time and with the new technologies, the relationship has shifted to an adult-to-adult connection,” she says. Gratton strongly believes that this has positive implications, meaning that individuals will be more readily able to decide on their own careers and learning.
MacCormick can also see plenty of opportunities in the Liquid model. “When the contributors have more experience in different environments they tend to have a broader understanding of the issues. They bring their learning to the table and for employers that may trigger a lot of innovation,” she suggests.
While Gratton anticipates middle managers being replaced by highly specialised coaches, MacCormick envisages the future of management becoming more general, rather than specialised, with a workforce that is more geographically dispersed. “In terms of tasks, managers become the motivators whose role is to ensure everyone is on the same page,” MacCormick predicts. “Organisations will differentiate in their ability to create corporate cultures that make people want to engage. In the future, executives will need to be able to manage a network, rather than a hierarchy.”
For individuals, personal success will become reliant on their professional digital reputations on platforms such as the one proposed for the Liquid initiative. Individuals’ profiles will develop as with other forms of social media but, instead of posting their favourite music tracks, friends or photos, people in the talent cloud will post career achievements and qualifications. There will be more than the one “like” button as employers either express delight with an “immediate bonus” click or place criticism: “Did not meet deadline for last project”. The resulting digital CV will provide a basis for future job applications with IBM and all other companies using the Liquid platform.
For employers, “success will depend on their ability to define core competitive advantages, core IP, core staff and their core differentiating factor”, says MacCormick. All else will be outsourced to the work cloud.
