The rise of the global knowledge worker
People are the genesis of every company’s success. That statement is truer today than ever, but what is an employee really worth? Not Compensation! But VALUE?
As an extreme example, entertainer David Bowie floated a personal bond issue a couple of years ago. He offered investors a portion of his future royalties from previously recorded material and receipts from future concerts. The “Bowie Bonds” were gone within an hour of the offer, for more than $50-million.
In an even more striking case, when Dreamworks SKG went public, investors immediately drove the value of its bonds to $2-billion. Dreamworks was a film studio without a studio, a film or even a star. All it had was the intangible value of its founders: Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Getten.
A person’s “value” is just a measure of how much someone is willing to pay to obtain something from them. The intangible value of being --- that’s what the new knowledge economy is all about - Knowledge Value. Veteran information age guru Stan Davis confirms some insights into the increasing value of people in today’s economy.
In Blur, Davis and Meyer make the point that the boundaries between your work life and your home life are disappearing. In fact, today the rate of change and the depth of connectivity is so fast that every person, product, service and company are all blurring together.
Computerization and communications have made us all a linked community. There are, for example, nine times more computer processors in our products than in our computers—nine billion CPUs in items like phones, hotel keys, consumer electronics, day planners and cars.
As products are more driven by software, they become easier to link together. Intelligence and information become the key value being offered in a consumable product (some 90 percent of the value of a new car is estimated to be in the computers and software it uses). And you are the value-adder.
Today, employees in the high-technology world especially, tend to think of themselves as “free agents”—like a professional athlete who is always in training. Knowledge workers are continuously investing in the next set of skills and training, driving up their personal “stock price”. This puts knowledge value and knowledge workers in the driver’s seat.
Article by David E. Perry Managing Partner of Perry-Martel International Inc., co-author Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters and Career Guide for the High Tech Professional Readers may download 3 free chapters at www.gm4jh.com
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