Matt Hodgson has pointed me to the writings of Anne Zelenka and a discussion they've been having about Peter Drucker and the implications of Drucker's thinking on work in a Web2.0 world.
Zelenka suggests that there is a difference of work (or maybe the focus of work) between Drucker's knowledge economy and the web economy. Hodgson and some others provide a different reading of Drucker that encompasses much of what Zelenka attributes to the web economy.
The list of work styles is interesting. I'm interested in the total list. It's loaded with things I think of when I consider knowledge work or personal knowledge management:
- individual AND collaborative productivity
- time efficiency (don't waste it on unproductive things)
- information efficiency (reduce redundant information streams)
- attention expansion (using that time to discover interesting new things)
All of these things are important. I need to be able to do what I do well. I also need to have ready access to my network of colleagues (both strong and weak ties), so that I can get work done with them. I want to have focus, so that I don't waste my efforts multi-tasking. I also want to have a breadth of view and attention, so that I can discover new and interesting people and information and apply it back into what I do.
One of the things I find interesting about this discussion of work is the balance one has to have between effectively getting work done today and seeking out new means for effectively getting work done tomorrow. And I think this balance varies for different people. Some want to spend a lot of time looking for new collaborative opportunities and interesting new tools that will help tomorrow. Others prefer to spend more time on the work at hand and use the tools and people that have always worked for them.