May 07, 2005
Flow over hierarchy

Gapingvoid: The market is for "Flow" is larger than the market for "Hierarchy".
I think the important thing to say in answer to that is this doesn't mean that the market for Hierarchy isn't exploding as well.

If I don't stop to worry too much about what Gapingvoid's line means then I think you can say it's why Doc Searls has a point that we need a broader definition of 'capable' than merely IQ. Flow isn't what they teach in school. They teach hierarchy.
Unfortunately, another thing Searls is close to doing is subscribing to the "All the hard things have already been done anyway" argument. This usually goes something like this "Tech is over. You need people who can apply and communicate the pre-existing smart things in the world - the future belongs to the storytellers".
This is extremely untrue. The world has never had a bigger market for razor smart people, and they are actually doing things they wouldn't be able to do if they weren't razor smart. In the technical fields the numbers are unmistakeable: if you were clever in elementary school, you'll do better in secondary school and then you'll do better at university and it's just not true that the skills you're graded on at university don't translate to performance later on in life. IF you're in the business of being razor smart, that is.

What is true is that there are other routes to being capable, and another market for another kind of capability than razor smarts, and that the market for these other kinds of capability is also growing rapidly, possibly even faster than the market for razor smarts. It's also true that the business of razor smarts is in much higher danger of being outsourced to low-vage countries than the business of flow and communication. Communication is high touch you can't very well do it from afar.

Posted by Claus at May 07, 2005 08:18 PM | TrackBack (0)
Comments (post your own)
Help the campaign to stomp out Warnock's Dilemma. Post a comment.
Name:


Email Address:


URL:



Type the characters you see in the picture above.

(note to spammers: Comments are audited as well. Your spam will never make it onto my weblog, no need to automate against this form)

Comments:


Remember info?