MARKUS ALBERS

MECONOMY

How to reinvent ourselves
for the future of work

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All parts of this publication are protected by copyright laws. Any utilization of its contents requires written permission by the author.

published by epubli GmbH, Berlin

www.epubli.de

ISBN 978-3-86931-885-1

Copyright © 2009 Markus Albers, Berlin

www.markusalbers.com

www.meconomy.me

Translated into English by Martin Fischer

Cover design by Katrin Hoffmann

Typeset by Dirk Mönkemöller

WHY I AM WRITING THIS BOOK

“Starting your own business is risky, but the recent economic turmoil suggests that we should recalibrate our notions of safety. The working world used to be divided into safe but boring jobs, and exciting but risky ones. Of late, many of the supposedly safe professions have been decimated – which should help us let go of illusions of safety.”

Alain de Botton, Monocle “Small Business Guide” 2009/10

Actually, the plan was airtight. I had quit my well-paying, permanent employment because I wanted to be free. I wanted to get away from the daily grind at the office, from being directed by others, from the terror of nit-picky meetings and required attendance. I had even written a book called “Morgen komm ich später rein” (“I’ll be in later tomorrow”) about the fact that we are free to work when and wherever we want to – as long as the job gets done. During my research for the book, I had found many progressive companies that gave a lot of freedom to their employees and were highly successful in doing so. However, I knew exactly that my former employer – the magazine Vanity Fair that I had worked for as a managing editor – didn’t belong to them, same as most of the other media companies that I knew. Journalists are on duty 24/7. And they better always stay at their desks as there might be something that needs their attention.

Thus, I had decided to initially test my work-anywhere concept – which I had called “Easy Economy” – in the position in which it can be realized best: as a freelancer. I had many contacts, a presentable portfolio, many ideas, and I charged daily rates that I felt comfortable with. The plan was that I would travel the world, writing stories and developing concepts, anywhere. After my return to Germany, I would work as a consultant for publishers and agencies or give speeches. Should I get itchy feet for a couple of months, I would simply write the next book. In Bali, Buenos Aires, Bangkok – or some village in Eastern Germany. I fancied a life that I had always dreamt of: independent, cosmopolitan, and comfortable.

Then the economic crisis hit.

Initially, I thought what probably everyone else thought: It’ll pass. Doesn’t affect me. Then, the first people around me – professionals whom I had always considered optimistic and content – started painting the world black, predicting fewer jobs, smaller budgets, and crankier customers. Eventually, I noticed it myself: Editors didn’t call back. Fees were forced down, and jobs that I had believed to be safe were cancelled from one day to the next. Things didn’t really feel dramatic but still difficult, insecure, and kind of gloomy.

Did I really want to realize my vision of global mobility, maximum freedom, and professional self-fulfillment right now, of all times? Was it still about having the freedom to “be in later” or about having a job at all? Don’t act bitchy, don’t make unrealistic demands, and, for God’s sake, be at your desk and reachable. You better work overtime before they put you on short hours. During the recession, these were obviously the new demands that employees and freelancers had to meet. It occurred to me that I’d better put my travel plans on hold, mothball the collaboration software, and look for a decent 9-to-5 job – as long as there were any – and that I should be glad to get to sit at my desk every day.

Or not?

After several days of pondering and numerous long discussions with friends and colleagues, I decided to do what every analytical man of action would have done after careful consideration: nothing to begin with. Maybe the crisis would just solve itself in the end. In any case, I didn’t want to jettison my theories just because the going got tougher – even though I felt like a man running towards an erupting volcano against a stream of refugees.

On one of those days when I seriously asked myself if my decision to abandon my leading position with the editorial staff had been somewhat rash, my phone buzzed with an SMS alert: “Vanity Fair out of business, all get the sack,” wrote a former colleague from the editorial board. At this point, I knew: It had been smarter to leave the sinking ship on my own initiative and with a vision than to cling to a permanent job that, at the end of the day, wasn’t that permanent. At any rate, my laid-off ex-colleagues had rough times ahead of them: The dismissal had taken them by surprise, and most of them didn’t have a plan B. Moreover: When 80 magazine employees look for a new job at once, things get tight. During the months to follow, jobs that had been believed to be crisis-proof turned out to be rather shaky – even at traditional brands such as Märklin, Rosenthal, Schiesser, Karstadt, and Opel. The security for life that previous generations enjoyed could no longer be found at these companies.

I, in turn, realized that the initially poor job situation was merely due to the insecurity that companies felt at the beginning of the crisis. Apparently, my theory wasn’t that naïve. There was indeed a chance that I could lead my free, independent, and happy life even in economically difficult times. Today, I earn at least as much as I did as a permanent employee, provided that I don’t take a time out. The way I work – sometimes in an office, sometimes in a café in Lisbon – isn’t questioned by anyone anymore. Life isn’t always easy, but you probably don’t get any closer to the Easy Economy.

Since then, I have met many people who have gone very similar ways: Disappointed by old certainties, they decided to take their lives into their own hands and to finally do what they love. They established an e-learning company or invented a little iPhone app that allows people to increase their own productivity. They set up a freelance agency that offers virtual personal assistants, they spent the winter months working in South America or stayed at a little house in the countryside.

To some, the lesson from the crisis is to stick to security even more and, in particular, to their permanent employment – provided that they have one. This seems plausible and, for the short term, reasonable. Yet in the long run, it isn’t necessarily the best and definitely not the only strategy. Some quit their well-paid jobs because they didn’t want to be intimidated by the crisis or because they perceived it as a chance. Many young professionals abandoned all hope for permanent employment and started to pursue their own business models from their living rooms, using nothing more than a laptop.

It is no accident that the Easy Economy approach, i.e. the approach of mobile, flexible, and autonomous working, also works during economically difficult times. Actually, I’ve come to believe that it even works better during such times. The crisis is already over again – at least this is what it feels like – but it has caused a profound change of consciousness. It was the catalyst for a development that experts had already considered inevitable, yet the crisis accelerated it and, most notably, made it visible to many people for the first time.

Its results are biographies and professional vitae that have little in common with those of the generation of our parents. We turn our hobbies into our professions, making the places where we feel the happiest and where we are most productive the centers of our lives. We have to position ourselves much like a brand, work on our strengths, and outsource tasks that we don’t like or that we’re not good at to other experts, maybe even to service providers in other countries. We feel easier about becoming independent professionals; above all, however, we think and feel in a more independent way. It is a good, exciting, and fulfilling life, yet not everyone can lead it. Only those with a good education, a disposition for lifelong learning, cultural open-mindedness, inquisitiveness, and a belief in their own abilities can be among us. This also means that many will fall through the cracks. The new working environment – let’s call it the Meconomy – will be tough, and it will divide our societies right in the middle.

Granted, not everyone can turn their passion into their profession, shake off the shackles of office life, and strive for self-actualization in our modern world. Those who will profit from this book are people who are attracted to the possibilities of the digital economy, of global mobility and individual branding: Permanent employees who suffer from being directed by others and consider at last doing something meaningful with their lives. Freelancers who have to eek out a living with routine work and bread-and-butter jobs. People who want to invent new jobs that don’t exist yet. Employers who want to find out how to attract the best employees in the future. This book is not directed towards those who appreciate cozy routines, calling it a day on time, and having a completely predictable future. Moreover, there are some occupations in which the promise of the Meconomy simply cannot be realized. This is a book that I essentially wrote for a specific target group: knowledge workers, also referred to as the “Creative Class.” Thus, it is a book for people who deal with information, who develop rather than manufacture products, who offer digital services rather than craftsmanship, and who mainly do computer-based work. Today, this applies to about 50 percent of all jobs – with an upward trend. Still, it doesn’t apply to all jobs.

The main reason why the Meconomy will be hard for all of us is that we will have to do with less security and without some of the guard rails of the old economic order. State, social security systems, and numerous political structures will have to adapt to this new world if they want to remain valid for people. Those who continue to rely on government-based networks, learned routines, and their familiar everyday work life, instead of on their own passions and skills, will encounter difficult times and will probably be on the losing end. The nice years are over. Here come the exciting and demanding years full of dangers and opportunities.

This book is published as an e-book precisely because of the fact that today we don’t need many of the classic institutions anymore. Instead, we are free to take things into our own hands, and this is what I want to prove with this book. I want to find my readers myself – without the backup of a major publisher or bookstores – or, respectively: I hope that readers will find my book. Besides, I believe the digital format to be superior for certain publications. Irrespective of the fact that reading devices are getting more and more user-friendly and that the paid content debate (i.e. the discussion about the pros and cons of selling contents via the Internet) is gaining momentum, the main reason for selling this book as an e-book is speed. My publisher would have needed almost one year to print the German version of the book and to put it into stores. I, in turn, wanted my theses to be discussed as soon as they were relevant: immediately.

This doesn’t mean that this book will never exist on paper. Its initial digital publication is an experiment, and I’m excited to see the result. I would be happy if you helped me prove what I firmly believe in: This distribution channel – which has already proven its relevance for documents, music, photos, and films – will also become dramatically more relevant for longer texts in the near future.

INTRODUCTION

“The future of business will be more startups, fewer giants, and infinite opportunity.”

Chris Anderson

Sometimes we have to be thrown off course in order to find out where we want to go. Sometimes we need a decent push from the outside in order to accept changes which we have long known to be inevitable. And sometimes we just want to try something new, as the old tastes kind of stale and is likely to collapse soon anyway.

During the global economic crisis, we started to realize that many of the values and norms that had given our parents security and reliability had limits to them. We had already sensed that, but now it had become obvious: There was hardly anything that still offered existential security. A job for life? Big company brands? Retirement provisions? Either unreliable or completely obsolete. The supposed predictability of our rhythm of life, the daily way to work, saving money for retirement – suddenly, all of this seemed to be hopelessly outdated, unreliable, and wrong. Things looked pretty bleak. Nevertheless, it was still possible to find good news among the bad. After all, what is it that is waiting to replace the patriarchal system of Rhine capitalism, town houses, and retirement plans? Maybe it is a life that we have already had a taste of in the past but that we haven’t really dared to try yet – a life that offers us freedoms, decision options, and ways of self-actualization we wouldn’t have even thought of a few years ago.

To the magazine Monocle, 2009 was the “rethink year.” Editor-in-chief Andrew Tuck, who publishes voices on this topic from all over the world, told me that people had learned to rely on their abilities: “Many had to face terrible losses, but there were also some beneficial corrections.” Tuck also believes that it has become easier now to reinvent yourself: “I know people who were photographic agents and then retrained as cooks, same as people who were bankers and became farmers, and they do a good job in both fields. I think that’s great. It’s never too late to do what you really love.” During and after the crisis, many people learned what actually makes them happy.

It is said “Do what you love and you won’t work a single day in your life.” What sounded like an overblown romanticism of self-discovery some time ago has all of a sudden become possible. Especially the digital economy makes it easier and, at the same time, even more necessary to find target groups, supporters, and markets for activities and products that we feel passionate about. Life becomes a construction set that provides us with countless possibilities, and we are free to put exactly the parts together that suit us.

These days, people throughout the world are exchanging information about how everyday things in life can be managed better with practical tricks and modern technology. This way, they try to optimize their productivity as the good old 9-to-5 day at the office is increasingly a thing of the past. Thanks to the end of required attendance, we are, for the first time, interested in getting things done faster and more efficiently in order to have leisure time afterwards. In my last book “Morgen komm ich später rein,” I showed how mobile and flexible ways of working allow us to spend less time at the office and to gain time for other things. The resulting question is: What happens next? What do you do with that time? To more and more people, the answer is: educate yourself, expand your skills, and improve yourself.

At the same time, new Internet-based communication technologies and mobile services make it easier to build, motivate, and mobilize groups. This way, every person may become the leader of his own “tribe,” as marketing expert Seth Godin calls it. The current 18- to 25-year-olds are already considered the “creative generation”: They are not only used to consuming, but also take producing for granted. This presents another unprecedented chance for self-actualization to all of us.

Parallel to working environments, business models change as well. “What would Google do?” asks US author Jeff Jarvis and gives an answer that applies to many business sectors: They have to reinvent themselves, disclose many of their former business secrets, and allow their customers and subcontractors to remix their products in an unexpected way. Chris Anderson, Editor-in-chief of the smart technology magazine Wired, has identified “Free” as the new trend – the giving away of products and services in order to finally make money in various new ways. One thing is for sure: Currently, many business models are undergoing profound changes, and most companies still don’t know how to react to them. This essentially means two things:

1. It doesn’t matter how stable and big our employers used to be. Their future success and, consequently, our jobs are uncertain.

2. The barriers against the successful market entry of new players are lower than ever. Since no one knows how to proceed, it might as well be us who co-invent the future.

We are thrown back to depend on ourselves in a positive sense. The smallest meaningful unit that we can rely on in the knowledge society is our mind (i.e., us).

In this book, I dwell on ten pivotal developments that, in my opinion, will shape our work life and, thus, the world we live in during the years to come:

1) Established biographical routines and basic parameters of our life planning – such as permanent employment, safe pensions, 9-to-5 workdays, or traditional education – increasingly lose their value. More and more of what used to make our parents’ existence predictable has, at best, sentimental value for the generation of less-than-40-year-olds.

2) Many young people have reservations with regard to government-based structures. In the age of globalization, they take security promises with a grain of salt. They place more emphasis on their own initiative and entrepreneurship than on classic careers. Their motto is: If social standards cannot be maintained in the long run anyway, I at least want to be free.

3) Work will become increasingly mobile and flexible. We won’t spend the bulk of our life at the office anymore. This alteration of our work routines is predominantly a result of technological innovations that also lead to the development of alternative occupational areas. As knowledge, skills, and business models become outdated at an ever faster pace, we need to reinvent ourselves permanently. For us, the catchphrase “lifelong learning” is a tough reality.

4) We feel we are on our own. As a consequence, individualism as an aim in life gains more and more importance for many people. Others feel overwhelmed and left behind by the very same development.

5) This change implies a tremendous chance: The possibilities of communication provided by the Internet allow us more than just to find many like-minded people. At the same time, this technology also creates a huge laboratory of learning. The imparting of knowledge increasingly becomes free, global, individual, and socially organized.

6) Simultaneously, this communicative connection to the world allows us for the first time to turn our passions into professions and to make money with what inspires us. In the Internet, we find customers, like-minded people, and business models – yet we also encounter maximum competition. This not only means that we need to put more effort into taking charge of our lives but also that we are actually able to do so for the first time ever.

7) Learning things in order to apply them to practical work afterward isn’t enough anymore. In fact, we have to present ourselves as a brand and to use self-positioning in order to keep up within the global competition for workforce. In this context, making use of the Internet’s ability to connect and recalling our own strengths and passions will help us.

8) According to happiness researchers, we fulfill all requirements to be happy with this autonomous, diversified, yet also demanding way of structuring our work and life.

9) Both personal branding and the increasingly mobile and flexible nature of work allow us to choose places where we are happy and productive. Life and work gain independence from employers and places of residence. We become globally mobile, and this might make us happier.

10) As we increasingly decide for ourselves how, where, and with whom we make money, the search for meaning gains more importance. The trend to combine economical with social engagement grows stronger. We want to do good, be happy, and make money. In the old patriarchal, hierarchical, and inflexible working world, these aims were often mutually exclusive. In the Meconomy, their combination is almost a precondition for success.

All of this raises a number of questions that I shall deal with in this book. The first part “What is different today?” summarizes the changes that characterize the environment of the Meconomy. If and how these changes can make us more satisfied is discussed in the second section “What makes me happy?”. The third chapter, titled “What Could I Become,” tells us what we have to know in order to be successful in the Meconomy and how we acquire that knowledge. The question asked in the fourth section is: “How will I work?” Here, I use numerous examples and studies to explain why we can and must make our passions our professions. That these professions – along with a healthy dose of wanderlust – might lead us to distant places is described in the fifth chapter “Where do I want to live?”, which deals with our new global mobility. Finally, the sixth part elaborates on why the Meconomy does not entail a purely egoistic philosophy but, to the contrary, promotes a new culture of empathy and social engagement. At the same time, the question is raised which role the government with all its institutions might play in this development and which political reforms have become necessary now.

“Meconomy” is definitely a call to action, an optimistic counterpart to apocalyptic scenarios, crisis depressions, and doctrines of passiveness that suggest we “weather the storm” and “wait and see.” It is a tool kit for life – an invitation not to suffer from existence but to actively shape it. It addresses both individuals who want to take charge of their own careers as well as employers who want to find out which changes their companies will be facing regarding the needs of their highly qualified employees. Combining numerous practical examples from daily life with easy-to-understand theoretical support, the book summarizes the current state of a discussion led by academics, entrepreneurs, and practitioners. We live in confusing times. However, I don’t want to complain about that. Rather, I want to explain why things can be different, what we can learn from them, and how we can use recent developments to build a better life for us and our children.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT TODAY?

“This is the modern world that I’ve learnt about
This is the modern world, we don’t need no one
To tell us what is right or wrong -
Say what you like cause I don’t care
I know where I am and going too
It’s somewhere I won’t preview”

The Jam: “(This is) The Modern World”

The End of the Office and Its Consequences

How do we actually want to live? This question is not only on the mind of young professionals, but also of that older generation that has always worked a lot and started realizing during the crisis – if not earlier – that a life spent predominantly in the office isn’t necessarily an extremely fulfilling one. “Since the 1970s, it has become somewhat unfashionable to have time on your hands,” writes journalist Claudia Voigt in the German Kulturspiegel magazine. “Those who had time on their hands were either old or lost since the days they were young.” We have been searching for happiness in our workplaces in vain and for too long. We have spent ten or twelve hours in the office, bending over backwards. “In this respect, the current economic crisis has something good about it,” says Voigt. “It is profound and world-shattering enough to suddenly make room for questions such as: How do we live? What is important to us and what are our values? How much longer is this supposed to go on? And: How do we actually want to live?”

Voigt makes an argument for ultra-flexible and, most notably, shorter working hours as smart ideas can be developed just as well in a 30-hour week. She pleads for going to the office only to work – not to drink coffee, read private e-mails, or download music from the Net. She rails against the requirement to be present permanently and to do overtime in executive positions. She likes the idea of trading money for time and of having the freedom to use that time as you like. Voigt’s article is important as it describes a connection between our new working reality, the economic crisis, and the search for meaning that I agree with: “How do we want to live? Lots of work and little time: For a long time, this was regarded as the only way to a successful existence, yet the crisis will change this – thank goodness.” Besides, this connection raises a question that I will try to answer in this book: “What will people do who already have stopped being present at the office around the clock?”

Welcome to the Meconomy

All of a sudden, issues such as the search for meaning or self-improvement during times of economic crisis seemed to dominate the cover pages of a wide variety of magazines. SZ Wissen, a science magazine published by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, sported the line “The Good Life – Alternatives to Career Mania” on its cover. The title of Germany’s Focus magazine was “Self-made Happiness,” followed by the subtitle “Germans discover the fun of taking their lives into their own hands.” In the same week, Junge Karriere, a Düsseldorf-based monthly business publication, demanded: “Reinvent Your Job!” Alluding to a well-known IKEA advertising slogan, the magazine asked its readers: “Do you still work or do you already have a life? Here’s how to realign your career – with or without a boss!” Something was happening here.

“In times of crisis, people start asking themselves again what is really important,” analyzed Süddeutsche Zeitung. According to the newspaper, people are trying to get out of a system that they considered devoid of meaning, while a new generation of social scientists is thinking about alternative models of society: “Where old certainties are shattered, people become increasingly willing to try something new.”

Munich-based sociologist Ulrich Beck even thinks that, in terms of new life concepts, there is a “tremendous need for reform – as was the case at the onset of industrialization.” Horst Opaschowski, scientific director of the Stiftung für Zukunftsfragen (Foundation for Future Studies) in Hamburg and consultant in economics and politics, seconds Beck’s point of view. To him, the global crisis is a “turning point” that can even be compared to the German student movement of the late 1960s. “Back then, there was the same sense of a new era.” Germany, says Opaschowski, is about to experience a period of renewal: “Visions for the future are no longer confused with new product visions. Germans want to find ways to the future that are inspired by entrepreneurial courage rather than by faith in the state.”

In a recent study published by German futurist and trend researcher Max Horx, the economic crisis is considered a “cleansing thunderstorm” that accelerates a long-overdue process of change. According to Horx, employees are increasingly turning into self-dependent entrepreneurs. Rigid hierarchies, inefficient communication structures, and linear business processes are becoming more and more incompatible with the ever-changing digital business world. The new working environment is characterized by self-employment, freelance project work, temporary unemployment, and having multiple jobs. In the economy of tomorrow, the wish to do something meaningful and to realize personal aims will become the key drivers of productivity for future-oriented companies.

Life as a Construction Set

It is at exactly this point that the Junge Karriere cover story, which was published at almost the same time, comes in. The spin-off magazine of the big German business paper Handelsblatt describes a new generation of employees who want to actively shape business processes and improve their professional skills, reinventing their jobs and themselves. “Trying new ways and ideas has become more important than ever,” conclude the authors – because: “Today, anyone who chooses a certain career and takes up a job needs to accept that he will have to go through many stages in his professional life.”

Sociologist Richard Sennet estimates that, over 40 working years, an average American changes his job eleven times and replaces his entire know-how three times. In Germany as well, corporate hierarchies are becoming flatter, the number of legal regulations is decreasing, and employment periods are getting shorter. “This situation offers a chance of self-actualization, yet it also implies the risk of not being able to keep up with the development,” says the Junge Karriere magazine.

Today, this phenomenon is as relevant as never before, yet it isn’t new. As early as in 1960, management professor Douglas McGregor coined the term “self-actualizing man” – a man who reinvents himself and who strives for self-fulfillment by making use of his talents and opportunities in a company. By the end of the 1990s, Richard Sennett raised his concerns over the new “flexible man,” who runs the risk of losing his real personality due to constant new challenges posed by an ever-changing capitalist environment. However, around the turn of the millennium, US sociologist Richard Florida discovered the positive side of this unsteady lifestyle: The members of his “Creative Class” are fueled by ideas, prefer loose acquaintances over a few close friends, and are always ready to change their jobs and places of residence – in short: their lives.

Today, more than ever, this is a necessity. Time clock punching is increasingly becoming a thing of the past – “and this is why traditional jobs are dying out,” explains labor market researcher Frank Wießner. Manufacturing processes are increasingly automated or outsourced to low-cost countries. Employees have to acquire new qualifications time and again, and they have to score with expertise that gets outdated at an ever-growing pace. “Knowledge-intensive jobs are booming,” says Wießner.

The economic crisis reinforced tendencies that had already been at work for some time, put them at the center of attention, or simply made them visible. To the generation of 20- to 35-year-olds, these tendencies do not constitute abstract sociological or economic theories: They shape the world that they live in – a world that requires them to develop entirely new skills to get by. Frequently, their parents are having a hard time trying to imagine an existence that is profoundly insecure and extremely mobile, yet at the same time full of enormous possibilities. In a cover story about the “children of the crisis” that was published in summer 2009, the German magazine Der Spiegel wrote: “Now, during the crisis, perceptions of life are increasingly defined by uncertainty, and this is what connects members of this generation throughout the social spectrum to each other.”

Timm Klotzek, Editor-in-chief of Neon – a magazine that is considered the voice, agony aunt, and guidebook of Germany’s less-than-30-year-olds – thinks that his readers share a particular concern: “The big question is: What will become of me?” The children of the crisis have to make the best of a situation characterized by enormous complexity, and they are already pretty good at that. They are globally mobile. Think Tank 30, the Club of Rome’s hotbed of young talent, provides the well-educated elite of this generation with a forum to discuss global issues. One of its members has just returned from the US, one from Mali, and two have just come back from London. Recently, one member of the club went on a world trip and organized video conferences with schools in 25 countries. “Maybe only five or ten percent of this generation lead a truly global life, yet this has an exemplary effect on the rest of the generation,” says youth researcher Klaus Hurrelmann. “Flexibility, mobility, and globality are their Trinity,” writes Der Spiegel.

Moreover, this generation increasingly searches for meaningful ways of earning money. They long to leave dreary work routines and the practical constraints that still shaped their parents’ everyday life behind. Granted, every young generation wants to lead a more exciting life than the previous one, but the current generation is probably the first one ever that has sufficient social and technological means to put this aim into practice. Plus, there is no way back to the old certainties anyway.

That’s why they want to have their say when it comes to defining their jobs. According to a study conducted in 2004 by the German Internationales Institut für Empirische Sozialökonomie (International Institute for Empirical Social Economics), 71 percent of participants want to actively contribute to shaping processes. Two out of three employees want to develop their skills on a permanent basis and receive career support. The 2009 Arbeitsmarktklima-Index (Human Resources Climate Survey) showed that working satisfaction increases with the tasks that employees are allowed to fulfill.

Yet it is exactly this need of employees – to contribute something, to be creative, and to prevent their suggestions from being talked to death by supervisors and boards – that many companies do not meet yet. In its “Gute Arbeit” (“Good Work”) survey, the Confederation of German Trade Unions asked 8,000 employees for their opinion, covering all regions, income groups, industries, company sizes, and types of employment according to their respective share in overall employment. The majority of participants considered their professional development and education opportunities, as well as the possibilities available to them to be creative, to exert influence, and to shape processes, to be “mediocre.”

A Labor Expert’s View

Werner Eichhorst, Deputy Director of Labor Policy at the Bonn-based Institute for the Study of Labor, frequently receives invitations from the German Government to come to Berlin – usually when politicians don’t know how to proceed further anymore. He often appears on TV as well. In short: Eichorst is a classic expert in politics. Today, even people like him have a Facebook account. His profile says that the 40-year-old likes Erik Satie, Bill Murray, Gerhard Richter, books by Montaigne, and the film “Amélie.” Thus, Eichhorst is a pretty modern academic, and that’s why I wanted to get his perspective on the Meconomy subject:

Mr. Eichhorst, the crisis is on the wane, but it has left a deep-seated fear: Many old certainties and institutions have been rocked to their foundations. Do we have to reinvent ourselves and our jobs now?

Werner Eichhorst: At least job beginners – who are currently confronting hiring freezes and questionable employment conditions everywhere – have to be particularly creative now. At the moment, a whole wave of highly qualified and highly motivated people is entering the job market. These people won’t find a job that suits their needs just like that. They will be put on hold several times, and that’s when they will come up with the idea to try something new. If there was an unlimited number of steady jobs with good pay until retirement available, I’m sure that many young professionals would be happy to accept them. However, due to structural changes and the current economic crisis, the situation is different. That’s why people will have to use all of their energy and creativity in order to get by – this is the central challenge to each individual.

What does that mean in numbers?

Eichhorst: On the one hand, our surveys show that, after all, 55 percent of working people still have permanent full-time jobs and that this percentage hasn’t been decreasing dramatically at all in recent years. Besides, the overall number of available jobs is higher than it was five or ten years ago. Thus, the labor market is bigger than it was in the past. Many women and previously unemployed people have entered the market as well. We consider a relatively stable proportion to have additional employment opportunities as freelancers, temporary workers, or part-time workers. On the other hand, transitional phases at career entry levels have become longer. Today, many high-skilled people initially work as trainees or interns, acquire additional qualifications, or have temporary work contracts. Starting a career this way has become normal for most of them. You could say that they perceive it as an extended probationary period.

Thus, soon everything will be as it was before the crisis?

Eichhorst: No. The burden of the adjustments to come will not only be carried by the margin – by which I mean part-time workers or job beginners – but also by the core of the labor market. People working for classic large-scale employers such as Opel, Quelle, Schaeffler, or Märklin are very likely to get laid off sooner or later. Jobs that were considered crisis-proof for a long time are disappearing now, and they won’t become available again to the extent that we have become used to. Thus, the structural change rather will be accelerated by the crisis. Both the mailorder business and the manufacturing sector are shrinking rapidly. The car industry – a sector that used to be relatively viable in Germany – is currently undergoing a painful reduction in size. Similar developments have recently become visible in the financial services sector. For employees, this results in a greater necessity to switch to other occupational areas, including the service sector.

Do more people in Germany start their own businesses today?

Eichhorst: This trend can be confirmed. However, Germany lags behind other nations in this respect due to our tradition of socially secure, permanent employment relationships and the widespread longing for public sector employment. Besides, up to now, it wasn’t really necessary to deal with this issue due to the relatively good condition of the job market. Recently, starting your own business has been rehabilitated and it has also received public support. Just think of the “Me Incorporated” phenomenon: Particularly in the creative industry and in the media business, this has become one of the dominant models. In any case, major cities like Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, or Munich have virtually become “laboratories” where these trends can be observed earlier and have grown more prevalent than in other regions.

Does all of this also imply a chance? Historically speaking, many big brands and products were created during times of crisis…

Eichhorst: I agree. It is certainly possible that, just now, business ideas are being developed and companies are being established – either due to sheer necessity or due to opportunity – that we might be well familiar with ten years from now. However, I somewhat doubt that Germany provides the right basis or sufficient starting points for the emergence of something like this.

What is missing?

Eichhorst: Most notably, we need adequate support for founders of new businesses. Moreover, our educational system does not put enough emphasis on, e.g., the development of sustainable ideas in colleges…

…which isn’t the case in the United States.

Eichhorst: Exactly. The economic stimulus packages provided by the German government, however, focus on rather conservative things like scrapping incentives, road construction costs, or short-term employment – in short: things that essentially serve to slow down structural change.

What exactly should our government do instead?

Eichhorst: It should invest more money into the support of smaller businesses that are being established at the moment. This would result in more positive multiplier effects other than financing businesses that, sooner or later, shrink or disappear anyway.

Which fields should receive financial support?

Eichhorst: Energy efficiency, intelligent buildings, new forms of energy generation, modern solutions in the field of traffic engineering, education, research…and, most notably, innovative concepts in the field of healthcare – which is another sector that has antiquated administrative structures in Germany but offers enormous innovation and business potential.

How Digital Natives Change the Working World

Around the globe, experts are observing the current fundamental changes in the working world. One of them is Alexander Greisle, who formerly worked for the Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation (Fraunhofer Institute for Work Management and Organization). Today, he runs his own business, consulting clients such as the European Union, Bayer AG, and Allianz in the development and implementation of new management and office concepts. Greisle publishes regularly on, as he puts it, “trends in the working world, providing information workers with tips and dealing with the information society.” Probably the most important trend that not only Greisle has come across is the way in which so-called “Digital Natives” redefine work. This generation that has grown up with the Internet and cell phones is being courted by market researchers, scientists, and human resources representatives like no other group. How they work and communicate, what they expect of their bosses and colleagues, whether they still go to the office at all, which technologies they would like to find there, and what products they are interested in – all of this is currently being discussed at countless congresses, workshops, and camps.

As a consultant, Greisle does not shy away from contact with people. He has already interviewed many members of this generation and was able to find out what makes these new professionals tick. His basic assumption is that Digital Natives naturally integrate technical possibilities into their everyday lives: “They wouldn’t even think of viewing the Internet as some more or less strange ‘add-on to real life’,” explains Greisle. “They consider it quite absurd that surveys on the frequency of Internet use are still being conducted.”

Moreover, the numerous possibilities of communication and collaboration that they make use of on a daily basis seem to effortlessly fit into their individual work lives. “Interpreting this solely as the result of software and technical skills definitely misses the point,” says Greisle. “What we are talking about here is a change in work culture.” He highlights the following crucial points:

High-level networking is a necessity in everyday business – both at home and at the office – as it reduces spatial and temporal boundaries.

Collaborative tools – from chats to web office suites – belong to everyday life.

Extensive social networks are more reliable than colleagues you don’t know – even if all of these networks are virtual.

Research things instead of trying to memorize them. There is much more information available than could ever be memorized. Instead, search and find.

Try it yourself. Don’t be afraid to try new possibilities and to question limitations.

Develop a solution out of different components instead of reinventing the wheel.

Question recommendations and gather additional information.

Communicate fast, spontaneously, and personally instead of spending time on scheduling meetings.

Combine “always on” with flexible working hours to keep your life in balance.

Multitask and communicate on several channels at once.

Act fast and have confidence in the Internet and computers.

Greisle has observed that young people who have been socialized this way often find it difficult to cope with traditional working environments: “You can almost physically feel the cultural shock that young people with such behavioral patterns and extensive technological and systematic know-how experience when they join one of our companies,” says the consultant. “The traditional working and management structures of many companies thwart them completely.”

Among those who are at the beginning of their professional lives as employees at the moment, especially the well-trained ones take the liberty to select companies with an adequate working culture. “Being members of the Internet generation, they will also seize the opportunity to rate employers online.” Companies who do not adjust to the changed needs of their future employees run the risk of “lacking fresh blood and of choking new impulses and ideas with the conventional. The phrase ‘We’ve always been doing it this way’ kills employee motivation.”

So, what to do next? How can employers prepare for the challenges to come? Again, the consultant has compiled a competent list:

The prerequisite is to provide the tools. Resist the temptation to work with restrictions.

Get familiar with Social Web tools. This will allow you to join in – it’s less difficult than you might think.

Create a company culture based on trust – both within the management team and between managers and employees.

Communicate in an open and timely manner. Digital Natives will be faster than you anyway.

Attach importance to a good and respectful culture of communication within the company, and when contacting partners and clients.

Accept the new openness and take it as an opportunity. In the past, industry meetings were held every year. Today, they are held every day.

Sustainability is not a subject of discussion anymore, it is a culture. Put it into practice – socially, economically, and ecologically.

Create a variety of workplaces designed to meet the demands of modern working – open space offices that facilitate communication, adequate rooms for retreat, workplaces that foster creativity, home offices, and co-working spaces.

According to Greisle, Digital Natives think flexibly – employment is just one option for them: “Ultimately, it is up to companies themselves to attract them as employees.”

Interestingly, the somewhat older generation of 30- to 45-year-olds seems to adopt these new working principles more rapidly than experts thought. A recent Forrester Research survey shows that, currently, it is not the 18- to 28-year-olds – the so-called “Generation Y” – but rather the members of Generation X who promote the use of collaborative technologies in companies. The reason for this is simple: The less-than-29-year-olds don’t have the necessary seniority and influence within companies yet. Their older co-workers, however, have by now become aware of the importance of social media – which is why they constitute the fastest-growing group of Facebook users – and of the advantages of collaborative work that is independent of time and space. Moreover, telling their bosses how great these technologies are isn’t all they can do as many of them are bosses themselves. Thus, what I have described above increasingly seems to apply to people beyond the age of 29 as well – which is something I can personally attest to.

“Security is gone anyway. Just do what your heart is set on.”

Johannes Kleske probably wouldn’t want to be given a label as people of his age find generalizations and debates on generational differences rather annoying – yet there is no way around it: If Digital Natives exist at all, the 31-year-old is one of them. His main job is being a so-called “social media expert” – which means that he consults companies in leveraging new communication platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to reach a young, critical, and highly fragmented target group that hardly uses classic media like newspapers or TV anymore. Besides, Johannes is – in plain words – a big name in the Internet because he is smart, kind, upstanding, and a man of vast reading. He has more than 3,000 followers on Twitter. To give a comparison: I have just around 500.

I first came across Johannes in mid-2008 when my first book “Morgen komm ich später rein” was just about to be published. Back then, I was researching the web for the best and most successful blogs dealing with productivity and new working methods because I wanted to send the book to some ten experts in advance for reviews. Johannes, author of the blog Tautoko, was one of them. After he had twittered on the book, the number of visits to my page went up dramatically. In his world, Johannes undoubtedly has media power.

Besides, there is scarcely anyone out there who is more knowledgeable in terms of modern nomadism and self-fulfillment in the digital economy. His theses underline that a new generation with new questions to life and work has emerged – questions that neither most employers nor state and institutional structures have answers to. We exchanged opinions for several weeks via Twitter and e-mail, discussing, among other things, the new age of insecurity and how to prepare for the jobs of the future:

Johannes, what does work mean to you?

Johannes Kleske: To me, doing things that my heart is set on is essential. That’s why I try to continuously develop my work further and to bring it closer to what I consider “fulfilling.” Still, with this approach, being stuck in an unsatisfying job is only a part of the problem. I have observed that many people don’t quit their current job because they don’t even know what job they would rather be doing. To me, the search for an occupation that my heart is set on is a lifelong journey. Each experience helps me to find out more about my personal interests, talents, and needs. I view each job as one more step toward an ideal state, while being aware of the fact that I will never reach that state as it is constantly changing together with me. Those who believe to have found their dream job at some point in this process run the risk of standing still.

Marketing expert and author Seth Godin maintains that there are an infinite number of tribes out there that are waiting for you to become their leader. Do what you love and the global platform consisting of Web 2.0, Mobile Web, etc. will reward you with followers, clients, and business opportunities. What do you think about Godin’s argument?

Kleske: I really like Godin’s definition of leadership as it isn’t based on power and managerial skills but on passion. Looking at the current state of the global economy, I believe that passion will play a much more important role again in the future. We have been accepting compromises in job choices for ages in favor of security, and now we’re flabbergasted to see that no job in the world can offer us the security we desire. I hope and believe that this insight will cause many people to say: “Security is gone anyway, so why shouldn’t I do what my heart is set on?”

What exactly do you think might happen?

Kleske: I think that, in the next months and years, we will see a new boom in trade, small businesses, and self-employment in general. My thesis is that this will ultimately lead us out of the crisis and create much more sustainability and stability than we had before the crisis. Slogans like “grow slow, grow strong” will come to the fore and quick money making will take a back seat.

On a more general note, is self-fulfillment easier in the digital economy? Is it possible to optimize your life by “hacking” it?

Kleske: This definitely holds true for ideas that can be realized in the “digital economy.” For instance, if you’ve come up with an idea for a new web application, you hardly need to invest anything – except for time. The developer tools by Google, Microsoft, and Amazon that provide programming environments and server systems have made getting started much easier. Another advantage of reduced initial costs is that you can try way more ideas today than in the past, which allows you to see which of them actually work in practice. The flexibility of the system ensures that you don’t have to quit your job before you’re sure that your ideas will catch on. Initially, you work on them in your leisure time; as soon as they become so successful that they require your undivided attention, you quit. Start-up costs are low in all other areas of the digital economy as well.

Is thinking about these issues a frivolous luxury in times of a slowly abating crisis?

Kleske: To the contrary, I think that they hold tremendous opportunities. With regard to the establishment and start-up of businesses, I even see a significant advantage: It has become a lot more difficult to get financial support for half-baked ideas. As mentioned before: At the same time, it has become much more affordable to try new ideas. I hope that, in the next months and years, businesses will increasingly start small and grow slowly in order to be able to focus on quality and service. The best thing the crisis can do for us is to cure us of our greed for quick growth.

Building a Life That Suits You

Today, the future of work and life is invented over peanut snacks and sliced peppers while electro music is playing in the background. Colored Post-its are attached to huge whiteboards, charming little models are built, and activities like crossing a river as a group or climbing a wall using hand-made rope ladders are performed to foster self-awareness. Welcome to Palomar5, a camp in which highly talented young people – i.e. Digital Natives – are supposed to explore their generation’s ideas of work and identity.

On the spacious terrace on the Spree riverside in Berlin, hardly anything suggests that the sponsor Deutsche Telekom AG has invested a considerable amount of money to be able to impress Angela Merkel with the groundbreaking insights of the young elite at the next IT summit. The camp participants are sitting around on blankets and cushions, drinking cheap supermarket water from plastic bottles, cutting, gluing, and chatting. You can hear the muffled sound of a subwoofer, and somewhere in the background a swing is hanging from the ceiling. The whole scenario rather resembles a summer camp than a state-of-the-art think tank. However, first impressions can be misleading.

All of the participants are bi- or trilingual designers, communication scientists, IT experts, or prospective managers in their twenties – in short: people who definitely belong to the professional elite of tomorrow. Here at Palomar5, their first task is to playfully define what they imagine their future private and professional lives will look like. In the next step, they are supposed to develop products that enable companies to meet the demands of Digital Natives. After all, the workplaces of the future will have little in common with ours.

To these young people, it goes without saying that they can work everywhere and that they don’t have to be at the office every day. Collaborative software solutions allow them to permanently keep in touch with their colleagues, the bliss of permanent employment is a thing of the past, and future projects will be realized within a lose network of companies, subcontractors, freelancers, and experts. Consequently, it won’t matter anymore who is a freelancer and who is a permanent employee. They have entirely new ways of thinking and very concrete questions: “Why can’t you have three work contracts at once?” asks Stefan Liske, co-organizer of Palomar5. Or: “Assuming that, in the future, we will have chips implanted beneath our skin that transmit our biological data to a server, would employers be allowed to evaluate this data to find out when we’re most productive?”

These questions might suggest that Palomar5 is basically a big science-fiction playground – and that’s what it is actually supposed to be to a certain extent. However, HR managers and executives should pay close attention to this generation’s ideas about their future jobs and lives. Companies that do not address these issues will realize that high-potential candidates will prefer to join rival companies. At the same time, questions like these contribute to the emergence of a new market with products and services that are tailored to the needs of young professionals.

So here they are: Smart people in their mid-twenties delving into concepts like “The Next Generation of Identity,” “Knowledge Cultivation,” or “Collaborative Value Creation.” While all of this might sound like a satire on futurologists, it is highly relevant to these people’s everyday lives: “Our biographies are fragmented,” says Chinese-born Xiwen in perfect English. “We have one personality on Facebook, one on Xing, one on our blog, and one in the real world. We need new tools to manage all these facets of our lives.” The other participants are nodding portentously – obviously, these problems can be considered cross-cultural today.

I have been invited today to give a speech on my new book. For this purpose, I’m establishing a Skype connection with mobile knowledge workers in New York, who are giving the virtual visitors from Berlin an enthusiastic welcome. While the managers of some major corporations would probably be quite impressed by something like this, the young camp participants are taking it as a matter of course, reacting in an interested, yet nonchalant manner. What I, as a 39-year-old, would definitely consider modern and kind of high-tech is no more than everyday life to the twentysomethings around me. Cheap bottled water and peanut snacks aside, they indeed seem to have the potential to discuss the camp’s official topics – such as “Business Ecosystems,” “Leadership Models,” and “Knowledge Management” – and to come up with new solutions. René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG, will have a lot to tell to Angela Merkel.

Wasting Away in Middle Management

The reality of work and life is not only changing for people in their mid-twenties and job starters. Even well-established executives and entrepreneurs start to feel uneasy about the ever-growing pace of the change. On a sunny morning, 15 successful, middle-aged businessmen are sitting in the meeting room of a design hotel in Hamburg, worried about their future, their careers, and the meaning of life. They work in different sectors: Some are bankers, some are marketing managers, and some are controllers. There is a scientist, a freelance architect, and a director of commercials among them. What all of them share is that vague feeling of discontent, that gnawing anxiety about the future. They are not afraid of failure or unemployment, but of leading an average life full of mediocrity and boredom – the idea of “that was basically it, there’s not much more to come.” What they fear is that all the exciting stuff out there is happening without them.

What I am describing here is not a motivation seminar but a self-organized meeting of friends and acquaintances. Some of them have known each other since their childhood, others have recently joined them because they found the idea appealing. But what idea? One of the participants brings it to the point: “All of us are good at what we’re doing. We make good money and we’ve achieved something, but if we don’t watch out, we will be stuck on this level for the rest of our lives. We’re wasting away in middle management.” And this is not the way it is supposed to be – not in the Meconomy with its promise of self-fulfillment and jobs that we are burning to do. That’s why the 15 businessmen developed a schedule that mixes self-discovery with professional training and business start-up coaching. Today is their first meeting.

In a quick round of introductions, the participants tell each others what they do and what motivates them. It soon becomes obvious that all of them attach importance to their jobs – still, the soft factors are all the more important. One of them tells the group about his last world trip that he took a sabbatical for. Another one shows pictures of him skiing and sailing. The message is clear: There is more to my existence than my job. The participants tell each other about their plans and dreams, about things that they still want to experience or achieve. The 15 men indeed form a representative cross-section of the German working population in their mid-thirties. All of them are ready – if not even dying – to reinvent themselves.

That’s why they want to find out now how others made it. They picked a city – Hamburg – and simply called some of the most interesting and intelligent achievers, asking them: “What about this: We come over and you can give us the inside story behind closed doors. Is that a deal?”

You wouldn’t believe this kind of strategy would be successful, but it actually worked. Within the next three days, they will talk to 20 CEOs, chief editors, company founders, and start-up businesses. During long, intensive, and confidential interviews, they will hear about what went wrong in their interview partners’ careers and businesses, what they would do the same way again and what not, what impact their jobs have on their private lives, and what goals they have.

The list of interview partners is impressive: start-up businesses, entrepreneurs, and exciting personalities. From Gabriele Fischer, Editor-in-chief of the German business magazine brand eins, to Mark Korzillies, founder of the restaurant chain Vapiano. From Thorsten Becker, managing director of the Hamburg-based HR consulting company Management Angels, to Arndt Roller, CEO of Parship. The list also includes potential sponsors, such as Jens Müffelmann, who coordinates the investments of Germany’s Axel Springer publishing house in technology ventures, and Christian Nagel, co-founder and managing partner of the venture capital company Earlybird.

I had the opportunity to attend the interviews – as a participant and contributor – and I was indeed impressed with the list of prominent interview partners that had been compiled by a group of no-name individuals. However, what I found even more impressive was the likeable enthusiasm with which they questioned the experienced entrepreneurs. Here, a group of young managers really wanted to know how to start your own business, how to present ideas, how to create a financing plan, and, ultimately, what might go wrong in all of this. I took extensive notes and would summarize the most important insights as follows:

1. Usually, much more goes wrong than you would expect as an outsider. I can’t give you any details in this respect as I agreed to treat all the information confidentially. However, you wouldn’t believe how dramatic the mistakes, mishaps, and errors were that many business founders made and got through. Just because they are successful today, this doesn’t mean they have always known everything and done everything right. Sometimes they were simply unlucky. Of course, when talking to journalists, they always tell the success stories.

2. Sometimes you have to let go of your own idea to make it work. Today, Mark Korzillius owns but a small share in Vapiano – although he is the one who came up with the idea for this globally successful restaurant chain. He says that he is satisfied to see his concept grow.

3. Sometimes you have to stick to your idea against all odds to make it work. When you listen to Gabriele Fischer talking about the difficult beginnings of brand eins, you ask yourself: Why on earth did she do that to herself and her team? Because she knew that they would triumph in the end? This is easy to say in retrospect…

4. You might have to challenge your business model to keep it alive. The MediaLab, a subsidiary of the German Madsack publishing group, recently invented the first newspapers that exclusively contain user-generated content – which means that all articles are written by laypersons and not by professional journalists. Please note: We are talking about a major German publishing house here that actually makes money by selling classic newspapers. Is this insane? Or a bold strategy that counters industry trends? Probably, it’s a little bit of both…

5. After all, no one knows in advance what will work. Earlybird doesn’t know which of the start-up businesses they finance will make it. Madsack doesn’t know if their investments in the Internet radio platform www.radio.de will be profitable. Parship doesn’t know if people will spend 30 Euros a month on dating during the financial crisis. The planners of Hamburg’s large-scale architectural project HafenCity don’t know if they will create a vibrant district or a soulless concrete jungle. The trick is to stop calculating, deliberating, and forecasting at some point and to start doing things. No one knows what the future holds, but all of us can take a chance.

This might seem more difficult during times of crisis. To many people, however, these are perfect times to get started: When the economy is down, resources and rents are cheap, manpower is available, and you have time to prepare for the take-off of your business after the crisis.

The Time to Do What You Love Is Now

“There is no more reason today to do stuff that you hate,” says the young American entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, who gave up managing a wine wholesale company with a revenue of millions in order to realize his dream: He recently became the world’s most successful wine blogger. He broadcasts his daily show via the Internet and rejects offers of TV stations. In this way, Vaynerchuk became one of the pioneers of the Meconomy: “Ask yourself: What do I want to do every day for the rest of my life? Do that! I promise you can monetize that shit.”

This message catches on with the target group of young, well-trained employees who have been disappointed one time too many – by their bosses, by their investment advisors, or by politicians. We lost money in the bank crash of 2008, and some of us even lost their jobs in the economic crisis. We are flexible, motivated, and well-trained – but that doesn’t really help us during the downturn. Many of us who still have our jobs do them in a rather disenchanted way and without too much loyalty. We know that we might get the sack once management decides to change its business strategy. As we don’t trust our bosses, more and more of us prefer to become our own bosses and start our own businesses.

On average, the number of independent professionals is increasing by five percent every year in Germany. In 1992, there were 514,000 of them; in 2007, that figure had already almost doubled to 954,000. Between 2006 and 2007 alone, the number of physicians and pharmacists increased by 7.6 percent, the number of lawyers, tax accountants, and auditors grew by 5.3 percent, the number of people working in technical and scientific professions (such as architects, engineers, and biologists) rose by 7 percent, and the number of people working in the cultural sector (such as journalists, actors, directors, and writers) increased by more than 6 percent.

Particularly the Creative Class gains more and more importance: According to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the cultural and creative industries grew in 2008 – despite the general economic trend. This was largely due to the economic input of small businesses. With 2.6 percent, the cultural and creative industries contributed more to the GDP than, e.g., the chemical industry (2.1 percent).

This trend towards more entrepreneurial spirit, courage, personal responsibility, creativity, and eagerness to experiment – i.e. towards the Meconomy – certainly isn’t very typical of Germany and has various structural, technological, psychological, and historical reasons. In the following, we will dip into the most important ones, looking at the core theses of two prominent observers of this development: Jeff Jarvis, communications expert and professor of journalism, and Seth Godin, entrepreneur, author, and marketing guru.

Learning from Google

Many things suggest that the world as we know it is undergoing a profound change: Time-tested business models are crumbling. Hierarchies are increasingly being replaced by collaborative, network-like structures. Communication within companies and within society isn’t entirely based on the top-down approach anymore – however, creating but a few bottom-up channels is not enough: In the long run, an irregular tangle of senders and receivers will replace the old media. People no longer want to perceive themselves as hollow consumers or marketing targets. Instead, they want to exert influence on products and innovations, as well as on the designs and functions of the things and tools that surround us.

Jeff Jarvis is known for his particularly merciless and prophetic analyses of this change. In the past, the 55-year-old worked as a media manager and created the famous US magazine Entertainment Weekly. Later on, he developed an online resource website and became a university professor. Jarvis lectures on the changing media landscape, proclaiming that the death of the newspaper is at hand, and writes highly successful blogs and books such as the bestseller “What Would Google Do?.”

In this book, he describes what would happen if other industries operated according to the rules of the search engine giant. To Jarvis, the above-described changes can be summarized in a short guiding principle that he gives the (rather immodest) name “Jarvis’ First Law”: “Give the people control, and we will use it. Don’t, and you will lose us.” What does this mean in the Meconomy context?

The first thing you need is what Jarvis calls “Googlejuice”: Ensure that you are searchable via Google (or other search engines). At a minimum, you should put your curriculum vitae, a portfolio of your previous work, and information on your network of friends and colleagues online. Besides, your website shouldn’t rank fifth or tenth in the search results. If you google for “Markus Albers,” the first website you will find is mine – because I fought for it. And here is how you do it: Create links – both online and in the real world. The more things/products/contents you create and the more producers you are linked to, the more links will lead others to you, the easier it is to find you, and the more jobs/contacts/knowledge you will get.

Moreover, you need to be honest and authentic – or, as Google puts it in its corporate slogan: “Don’t be evil.” The more rapidly online interaction between market participants gains momentum, the less it pays off to act in an immoral, uncooperative, and exploitative way, as the cost of such actions increasingly outweighs the benefits. Jarvis: “When people can talk with, about, and around you, screwing them is no longer a valid business strategy.”

You have to position yourself in a distinct way. “Our online shadows become our identities,” says Jarvis. “To stand out from our crowd, we need distinct identities.” You have to become your own brand, an expert, someone who represents something. For this purpose, you don’t have to become a quantum physicist or an opera star. Being known for less grandiose things or being an expert within a small group of people works just as well: Just think of someone who always repairs the heaters of his neighbors, ex-teachers who show others how to work computers, people offering pottery courses or drum lessons, mothers arranging playgroups, or someone who is really good at organizing parties – all of them are experts. However, you should carefully consider whether you want to be known for your professional qualifications or for your passions. You might be able to separate both online identities from each other: professional banker on Xing, rock guitarist on MySpace. Happy people manage to combine both – which brings us to the last point.

Do things. A clerk who meticulously files documents won’t become famous for that – neither will it add to his profile as an expert or to a portfolio that distinguishes him from others. We don’t know which documents Franz Kafka worked on as an insurance clerk, but we know his novels, short stories, and letters. Fortunately, standard processes are increasingly being automated or outsourced today. This doesn’t mean that all of us should become novelists now. However, it is certainly legitimate to ask: What achievements or what “body of work” would you like to look back on at the end of your life? “The internet doesn’t make us more creative,” writes Jarvis. “Instead, it enables what we create to be seen, heard, and used. It enables every creator to find a public, the public he or she merits.” Before we move on to this last aspect, I want to make clear that “creating” does not exclusively refer to arts, music, or dancing. Setting up a business, delivering engineering services, or imparting knowledge to others can be highly creative processes. It doesn’t matter how “valuable” a product or an idea is – what matters is that you create it.

Become the Leader of Your Own Tribe

Seth Godin is an advocate of this new way of thinking. The marketing expert, entrepreneur, and book author belongs to the few who are able to pinpoint what exactly is different about the new economic order that I refer to as the Meconomy in this book. In 2009, Godin coined the term “tribes” to describe the networks of relations between individuals. Tribes have always existed: The inhabitants of a small town formed a tribe, same as, e.g., athletes in Thuringia or the members of the Hamburg branch of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In these old tribes, geography still played a crucial role.

The Internet has eliminated these geographic barriers. Today, an unlimited number of tribes exist parallel to each other, small and big ones, horizontal and vertical ones. All of us are members of many more tribes than in the past – tribes that we form with those who we work, travel, or shop with, who we discuss politics with, who we show our photos to, who like the same music, or who share cooking recipes with us. We have an ever-growing number of tools available to organize membership in these tribes and to connect with other members: Facebook and Xing, Twitter and Basecamp, e-mails and websites.

According to Godin’s theory, all of these tribes are looking for leaders – and you could be one of those leaders. The best thing, however, would be to create your own tribe. Yet what purpose, topic, or product would that tribe be about? In order to answer this question, you will have to do some serious soul-searching, asking yourself: What is it that I really want? What am I passionate about? What am I dying to do? The answer should become the topic of your tribe.

–> Your interest in chocolate makes you want to know everything about it and to share your knowledge with others? The same applies to Holger in’t Veld. That’s why he established his “Schokoladen” shop in Berlin where he sells high-quality cocoa products. He also opened a café, produces his own chocolate, and wrote a book called “Schokoladenrebellen” (“Chocolate Rebels”). In’t Veld used to work as a music journalist – today, he has gathered a tribe of chocolate connoisseurs around him. This illustrates that the tribal approach certainly isn’t restricted to online business models. Still, by definition, they seem to work better, as is shown in the following case.

–> Your granny is really great at crocheting and you have some wacky designs that the old lady could crochet? This is what Manfred Schmidt earns his living with, selling potholders with skulls on them as well as highly original crocheted caps, t-shirts, and egg cosies via his website “Oma Schmidts Masche.” Schmidt used to be an architect. Today, he has created his own tribe with products that are sold online throughout Germany, if not even worldwide. With a small retail store and, thus, a very limited target group, this probably wouldn’t have been possible.

–> Andreas Stammnitz’s true passion has always been to teach others. Although he was very successful in his job as head of marketing for a big German publishing house, he just couldn’t let go of the idea of setting up his own business in the field of adult education. Today, Stammnitz has cut back to part-time and is currently setting up an online community that offers coaching and professional development services.

These are just three examples of Seth Godin’s main thesis that the new economic order rewards passion: “Tribes are about faith – about belief in an idea and in a community,” writes the US author. “Do you believe in what you do? Every day? It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy. Many people are starting to realize that they work a lot and that working on stuff they believe in (and making things happen) is much more satisfying than just getting a paycheck and waiting to get fired (or die).”

Godin argues that life is too short to hate what you do every day – too short to produce mediocre stuff. Almost everything that is considered standard, ordinary, or average today is perceived as being mediocre – i.e. boring – by people: “The end result of this is that many people (many really good people) spend all day trying to defend what they do, trying to sell what they’ve always sold, and trying to prevent their organizations from being devoured by the forces of the new. It must be wearing them out. Defending mediocrity is exhausting,” says Godin. Those who work for Opel, Karstadt, or some daily paper will know what he means.

Yet what if you fear that your passion, hobby, or field of interest is too exotic? Or too ordinary? In short: What happens if you’re afraid to exchange the security of mediocrity with the adventure of the unknown? The first thing you should do is to consider the example of Andreas Stammnitz: Try to gradually set up your new business, website, store, or tribe alongside your job. You will find out when the time is right to abandon the old and to focus entirely on the new. However, you should be ready to deal with failure constructively and to learn from it: “Understand how powerful it is not to have to be right,” says John Naisbitt – renowned futurologist, author of the world bestseller “Megatrends,” and advisor to several US presidents – in his recent book “Mindset”: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you fear to be wrong, you will not be able to exploit the opportunities this evolutionary period is offering.”

Second, consider the “1,000 True Fans” theory that was developed by Kevin Kelly, Internet legend and co-founder of Wired Magazine. The theory states that normally 1,000 true fans are enough to enable an artist or an owner of a small store to make a living. According to Kelly, a true fan will bring three friends with him to a concert. He will buy the expensive hardcover edition of a book instead of only clicking through the author’s website. He will drive across the city to buy a specific brand of chocolate at a specific store. And, most notably, he will support the tribe and spread the word, telling others about how great it is to be a fan of – you!

Now, does this mean that all of us should become small-scale entrepreneurs, bloggers, artists, or chocolate retailers? No. That’s exactly what it doesn’t mean. Organizations are still important: They increase efficiency and make it possible to scale processes and reduce complexity. We need organizations. They “give us the ability to create complex products,” writes Godin. “They provide the muscle and consistency necessary to get things to market and to back them up. Most important, organizations have the scale to care for large tribes.” However, organizations don’t have to be factories – this is how Godin refers to organizations in which your boss tells you what to do – anymore. Routine tasks, standardized processes, and the manufacturing of mass products only slow modern companies down and can easily be outsourced. “The organizations of the future are filled with smart, fast, flexible people on a mission,” says Godin.

Tribes might as well emerge within organizations – e.g., around someone who had an innovative idea, someone who inspires her colleagues with her enthusiasm, someone who isn’t just punching the time clock, or someone who doesn’t only think about what her supervisors expect her to do, but what goals they have in mind and how they are trying to achieve them. Thus, finding out what your heart is set on, telling others about it, and gathering fans around you to pursue a common goal works just as well in a company, i.e. at your workplace. Actually, you have to do this in order not to die of boredom or to avoid being dismissed due to lack of creativity.

Not only has it become dramatically easier today to create this sort of life for yourself – it is also much more likely that this strategy will bring you success and satisfaction.

Or not? To get to a definitive answer in this respect, it might be helpful to find out more about the things that make us happy. Experts have noticed time and again that we have surprisingly vague and unrealistic ideas about what “happiness” actually is and how we can achieve it. The next chapter attempts to answer these questions in the Meconomy context.

WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY?

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain

In a Nutshell: The Most Important Theories of Happiness

Summer of 2009: Eckart von Hirschhausen’s book “Glück kommt selten allein” (“Happiness Loves Company”) has ranked number one on the bestseller list for three months, with more than 500,000 copies sold. At long last, Der Spiegel can’t ignore this phenomenon anymore. Showing but moderate enthusiasm, the news magazine grouchily titles its big cover story “The Little Shop of Happiness Is Buzzing”: “The more books are being published on the subject, the more pressing the audience’s wish becomes to get an overview. And so, the list gets longer, with more advice being given and more ways being shown.”

And it’s actually true: The word “happiness” is contained in the titles of about 1,500 books listed on Amazon. Along with Stefan Klein, author of the well-researched modern classic “Die Glücksformel” (“The Formula of Happiness”) that was published in 2002, there are various other renowned German authors – among them Wolf Schneider, Anselm Grün, Lothar J. Seiwert, Wilhelm Schmid, and Hape Kerkeling – who want to lead their readers to a better life.

The German psychological journal Psychologie Heute laments the current “flood of guidebooks to happiness that range from respectable to wishy-washy” and simultaneously publishes a special edition called “Glücksmomente” (“Moments of Happiness”) itself. A Heidelberg-based commercial high school even teaches “Happiness” as a subject, providing 17- to 19-year-old students with lessons in philosophy, collective cooking, and how to praise each other.

Yet where does the new fascination with this virtually ancient subject come from? “The resurgence of the question of happiness is also connected to weariness resulting from an ever-growing impact from stress, flexibility, image cultivation, pace, market leadership, and efficiency under the pressure of a globalized economy,” assumes Der Spiegel with a slight undertone of cultural criticism – but also with reason. To the magazine, the pursuit of private happiness in the midst of increasing complexity is “a typical reaction to the crisis of a value system that was considered stable for a long time.”

Of course, you could also look on the bright side of the development described by Der Spiegel: When you feel that the conditions surrounding you fail to reliably make you happy, when the fear of losing your job, ailing welfare systems, and uncertain plans for the future put you at the risk of becoming the plaything of chance, you might as well take things into your own hands. Fortunately, the current state of research suggests that it is exactly this approach that provides the best recipe for finding happiness.

The Happiness Research Database

Ruut Veenhoven, Professor of Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, has been collecting surveys and studies on human happiness and life satisfaction in his World Database of Happiness for several decades. The database encompasses more than 3,000 surveys and over 10,000 studies. “A couple of decades ago, happiness was considered not measurable. Today, we know that subjective perceptions of happiness can be measured very well,” says Wolff Horbach, who – by his own account – operates the largest German website on the subject and evaluated the data collected by Veenhoven. Among other things, the evaluation showed that jobs offering a certain amount of freedom create more happiness than jobs with a very strict daily schedule. To give an example: On average, truck drivers are happier than employees, and journalists are happier than teachers. Besides, people are happier when they are in a good physical condition, when they feel healthy and full of energy. Contrary to the generally accepted notion, the level of income hardly exerts influence on the degree of happiness. According to Horbach, the key to happiness is activity: “As long as you twiddle your thumbs, nothing will happen.”

Ernst Pöppel, a Munich-based neuroscientist, confirms this point of view: “There is no happiness without effort. You have to set goals for yourself, as satisfaction is a result of achieving these goals.” 40 percent of our frontal lobe, says Pöppel, is responsible for self-monitoring. It is not until we put effort into something and overcome challenges that the reward center, which is located in this brain region, is activated.

Thus, it seems that our search for the good life actually wasn’t determined that much by the conditions surrounding us. “Nothing creates more security than the feeling of being able to change the course of things,” says SZ Wissen, a science magazine published by Süddeutsche Zeitung, in its cover story on “The Good Life.” Apparently, reinventing yourself simultaneously sets the stage for increasing your satisfaction and balance – which makes the Meconomy an engine of happiness.

Curiosity, Comfort Zone, Work, and Flow

It was not until a few years ago that scientists really started performing systematic research on what makes people happy. New imaging procedures allow us to observe what is happening in the brain when humans feel happy or miserable. Today, we know the physical causes of happiness. “The central scientific message is that happiness can be learned,” explains happiness researcher Horbach. We can train behaviors and acquire habits that increase our happiness.

The German language is surprisingly imprecise when it comes to defining different phenomena of happiness. The noun “Glück” (which translates to both “happiness” and “luck”) and the corresponding adjective “glücklich” are used to describe strikingly different situations: Winning a lottery, not being scored on at a soccer game despite doing poorly as a team, or coincidentally meeting your dream partner in a bar – all of this reflects your “Glück.” Likewise, you are “glücklich” about being in good shape despite your years, achieving success in your career, or the birth of your cute little baby.

The English language is more precise in this respect: The word “luck” is used if something positive happens by chance or unexpectedly. “Happiness,” in contrast, describes the state of feeling good, the absence of pain and suffering. Mind the difference: “Luck” is something that comes from the outside and there is no way we can exert influence on it. “If we expect ‘Glück’ (in the sense of ‘luck’) to come from the outside, this might result in waiting a long time,” says Horbach: “Yet this is what most people do: They expect to be lucky, hoping to find their dream partner, get a great job, and win a lottery…” If their hopes aren’t fulfilled, they are disappointed, frustrated, sometimes even depressed – and others are the ones to blame.

Creating happiness, however, is possible and actually not that difficult. The relevant guidebooks to happiness are full of tips in this regard – astonishingly enough, they are hardly different from each other. Der Spiegel summarizes the most important ones as follows: “Do something, take your life into your own hands, keep moving on, stay interested in things, remain focused, work through lists, learn to love and to help, be modest, discover and temper your ego.” Let’s have a more detailed look at the four aspects now that are relevant to our topic: the search for the new, stepping out of the comfort zone, work, and achieving the so-called “flow state.”

–> The New: Neuroscientists are able to show today that our brain becomes particularly active when we are searching for something new. Learning or discovering something new boosts our neurotransmitter production. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shows that absorbing something new activates similar regions of the brain as the activities fostering feelings of happiness such as eating or exercise do. What American author Eric Weiner found out about the connection between happiness and the place where you are, and why he recommends us to take a global approach in searching for happiness, is described in my chapter “Where Do I Want Live.” As a start, Horbach suggests to tackle new things with courage and not to hesitate too much: “I would love to start my own business, but what if things go wrong? I would love to travel to China, but I fear that I won’t be able to get along there. I would really love to tell my boss that I would rather do my job in a completely different way, but I don’t dare to tell him as I might get fired.” However, to be able to act in such situations, you also have to cope with the following:

–> The Comfort Zone: In order to be happy, you have to leave this zone every once in a while and go beyond what you normally feel comfortable with: your apartment, your workplace, your favorite restaurant, your daily newspaper, and the type of books that you like – i.e. all the safe and familiar things. “Unfortunately, there is no growth inside the comfort zone,” says Horbach. “If you talk to the same people all the time whose opinions and thoughts you have known for many years, you might be relatively safe from unpleasant surprises. On the other hand, you don’t learn anything new.”

–> Work: According to the 2008 Eurobarometer survey, 42 percent of Germans consider their work the most important factor when it comes to achieving happiness. A survey conducted by Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (a promotional bank owned by the Federal Republic of Germany) shows that self-employed people are particularly happy: Only one in ten who successfully made it through the critical start-up phase considers himself “dissatisfied,” just under two-thirds are “satisfied” or “very satisfied.” Still, there are also some differences within this group: Those who started their own business because they saw a good opportunity are happier than those who did it out of necessity – of the first group, seven out of ten are “satisfied” or “very satisfied.” As the survey shows, those who are even able to hire employees tend to be really happy. Generally speaking: “People perceive their job as meaningful if they have the possibility to communicate with others and feel that they can achieve something that corresponds with their beliefs,” explains Florian Straus, Director of the Munich-based Institut für Praxisforschung und Projektberatung (Institute for Practical Research and Project Counseling). The simplest example of this, says Straus, is a craftsman: He creates something useful and sees the result of his work every day. This is closely connected to the next aspect, which shows that happiness cannot be achieved by lying on the couch or the beach, but only through activity.

–> Flow: Coined by psychologist and happiness researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, this term describes the feeling of being completely absorbed in an activity, the experience of a “rush of creativity.” A flow might emerge when a person controls a complex, fast process and lies somewhere between anxiety caused by an overwhelming challenge and boredom caused by lack of challenge. Thus, a flow constitutes a form of happiness that you can exert influence on. This state occurs particularly often in work situations – particularly when you enjoy working on a difficult task that you have set yourself. What is important is that the motivation to fulfill the task comes out of yourself. “If we tackle a task only because we think that this will impress others, we will lose our motivation quickly,” warns Horbach. “We will surrender. In the end, we might even feel like losers or failures.” On your way to the flow state, the crucial factor is whether you feel that you are controlled by yourself or by someone else. “In case the task is a product of our wishes, dreams, and desires, we act in a self-determined way and will experience fun, joy, and happiness while fulfilling it.”

This means that humans are happy when they try something new or do things that they are particularly good at. Whether they are permanent employees or freelancers does not play a role in this respect – at least at first sight. However, as Horbach told me in our interview, today, many companies unfortunately fail to identify the talents of their employees. Companies frequently recruit them via job postings specifying limited tasks that the candidate is expected to fulfill. “Yet people have various talents that could be used for the benefit of both the employee and the company. Unused talents are frustrating,” says the happiness researcher.

Many companies still make the following mistake: They try to meticulously predefine every process for efficiency and quality assurance reasons. “This contradicts the crucial human need for autonomy and trying new ways,” criticizes Horbach: “Clever companies give their employees plenty of room to realize their own ideas and projects. 3M and Google are highly successful with this strategy. Those who aren’t given these freedoms at work are well advised to look for other working environments. Life is too precious to spend years and years on joyless work that doesn’t comply with your needs at all or only partially complies with them.”

Horbach illustrates this with an example: Someone who was born one hundred years ago as the oldest son of a farmer had a predetermined life path: He would inherit his father’s farm at some point. The good news about this was: If he made no grave mistakes, he would be able to make a living until his death. The bad news: It was very likely that he would never leave the boondocks. Today, it’s exactly the other way round: “Nothing is safe, but we have an incredible variety of lifestyles to choose from. Unfortunately, our schools and universities do not prepare students for this. Way too many of them rely on old structures. Very few students want to start their own business. Most of them try to find employment with a global player where they can pursue their careers. We have a poorly developed culture of self-employment.”

Passiveness is a major obstacle on the way to happiness, says Horbach, as many people can’t cope with being responsible for their own life. “Prosperity seems to make many people inflexible. They rather spend half of their life being dissatisfied with the circumstances they’re in than creating an existence that better suits their needs.” Apparently, there’s still a lot of educational work to be done. Horbach thinks that introducing “Happiness” as a subject in schools would be a first start.

He also says that there is a wonderful book by Alan W. Watts, one of the last century’s leading philosophers of religion, called “The Wisdom of Insecurity.” In his book, Watts – an eager student of Eastern philosophies such as Taoism and Buddhism – describes how modern man gets entangled in his own net and deprives himself of crucial life experiences by trying to make life entirely controllable and predictable. Horbach: “It is understandable that people strive for security, yet this also makes them inflexible. People searching for security try to preserve the old status quo and worry about the future way too much. However, life with all its facets is colorful, and it can only be lived through immediate experience. Happiness is something that only exists in the here and now.” Thus, the current economic crisis could indeed be a welcome opportunity to think about the really important things in life.

What we have seen so far is that the Meconomy can help us to lead a happy life: If we continually reinvent ourselves, we are positively forced to try new things, to learn how to leave our secure comfort zone, and to accomplish difficult tasks we have set ourselves. It is these three things that happiness researchers have identified as steps toward a better life.

But isn’t it also incredibly exhausting to permanently acquire new knowledge, to learn new job skills, and, ultimately, to become a new person? In fact, doesn’t popular psychology tell us that we first have to discover our “true self” to be able to adjust our plans for the future to it? Put differently: Isn’t it stability that actually constitutes the precondition for happiness? And what about authenticity, a quality that is frequently – and quite rightly – considered essential in the context of social media and personal branding? Sure enough, these are some legitimate objections