The easiest way to predict the future, as Alan Kay said, is to invent it. Some friends of mine, over at a stealth design/innovation startup called WilsonCoLab, decided to start a site dedicated exclusively to this task at www.cloudworker.org, which beta-launched today with a neat contest (seriously flattering to have a word you coined taken this seriously!). Cool logo, eh?
The rather festive-sounding “Light Up Your Cloud” contest invites you to submit anything you like — pictures, podcasts, videos, blogs, twitter-feeds — that showcases how you are creating a my-size-fits-me career using modern technology. Think of it as monthly mini X-prizes (no relation) to stimulate innovation around the concept of “work.”
This beta (or “zeroth”) iteration of the monthly contest has prizes sponsored by bestselling author Dan Pink (signed copies of The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, the career guide for cloudworkers), Wired contributing editor Jeff Howe (signed audio versions of Crowdsourcing, the other side of the job market for cloudworkers) and yours truly (some of the cool gear I won for coining ‘cloudworker’. In a way, that was Contest Number Minus 1, and this is Contest Number Zero.)
I love this first contest that WilsonCoLab has come up with. Marshall McLuhan once said that in the future all work will become increasingly like art. So what better way to explore this future than to invite people to describe their work in the form of an artistic portfolio?
As a sponsor, I am of course, ineligible to participate myself, but I thought I’d help my readers boost their chances by supplying some raw material. I like the idea of boy-scout style badges that succinctly show what work-life skills you’ve learned, and what you’ve discovered about your ‘career personality.’ So here are some sample badges. Make (or steal!) a couple and put them on your blog or someplace, to quickly garnish your “work-life design” portfolio for the contest. Hope a ribbonfarm reader wins!
Sleep Style Badges (Somebody make one for “napper”)
Work-Life Balance Style
About Venkatesh Rao
