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In addition to that PG article, you might also be interested in this video lecture by MIT Sloan professor Thomas Malone, where he discusses his book The Future of Work, which is right up that alley. http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/229/
Apparently he's kind of the guy behind "e-lancing" "In Thomas Malone's optimistic view of the future, the human values of creativity and freedom ultimately triumph, and business leads the way. This explosion of possibilities in work, and everyday life, will flow from the increasing ease and decreasing expense of communicating. Malone sees parallels between the emergence of democracies in political and business worlds, and technological advances in communications. He notes that in the age of the Internet, businesses are growing decentralized, markedly departing from "command and control" organizational models to newer environments where "workers seek advice instead of approval."" And not to make this the longest comment in N.YC history, but to your microgeography point, you'd like this video with Sandy Pentland of MIT: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/494/ "Alex (Sandy) Pentland performed a unique experiment in a large German bank, tagging its employees with special badges that tracked individuals' interactions, down to head nodding, body language, and tone of voice. His research, conducted over a month, looked at how face to face interactions played into the overall organizational flow. The patterns he uncovered in the data collected from his name badges and from email and more traditional documentation, demonstrated the significance of social dynamics in workplace productivity. Certain individuals acted as information bottlenecks; others as polarizers, group thinkers, or gossip mongers. Pentland shared information about these patterns of communication with individuals." |