Because traffic is killing, because 5-days a week is so 20th century, because why is there a crater in the middle of the highway, because we may really need to make the meetings snappy, because weren't all these gadgets supposed to raise human productivity, because whatever happened to just chilling, because let's spread the work around so we won't have so many unemployed...

It's Thursday. We're almost there.
Then rinse, repeat.

Whose idea was the 40-hour workweek, anyway?  Hint, it's why we celebrate Worker's Day, aka my birthday :)

And how long before 40-hours-a-week goes the way of the pocket calculator? Hint: as soon as people decide they can tolerate the change.  Who would you be without a job, without the predictability of a daily commute?  Everybody's doing it, so it must be right, right?  

 Even CNBC, which must surely hold the usual mainstream business media bias, snuck in a story, courtesy of Larry Page's comments
soooo 
Next time you get a query about skipping work to get that extra sleep, play with the kids, enjoy the neighbourhood, or just get a slow haircut and manicure, just point to this page or this one and tell'em: I'm in the Future.

Just kidding.
Sort of.
We're almost there.  
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The World Can Afford to Shrink The Workweek

Interestingly, workers are not ready for the freedom that a shrinking workweek may entail.  For many the fear is "if I'm not commuting to and from work daily or earning a better job title, then who am I?"- an existential crisis.  The same type of fear that makes even wealthy people hate losing their job - rather than embrace the opportunities for a newer freer life, they're just upset because they want, more than anything zen you can think up, to keep in the game, so to speak. The job gives them meaning and order.

It is also true that many, particularly the poorest, need the jobs because they absolutely need the income.  Employment creates a pathway, particularly for the poorest people, to scramble out of poverty into the realm of possibility.

Employment creates a pathway for the poorest NATIONS also, and this is why it must remain a pillar of economic policy in Nigeria and several other developing nations - massive employment gives the population something to do that is not destructive, it may sometimes give the people a skills ramp too so they can move to higher-value production, and - very importantly - it earns income in a granular way that goes direct to the people and fosters democracy rather than through a central source that then fosters inequality and crime and war in the extreme scenario.  

Anyway, here are two comments on the need to shrink the workweek instead of moaning endlessly about unemployment:

Vivek Wadhwa, in We're Heading into a jobless future, no matter what the government does (The Washington Post):
"...Summers is right. Within two decades, we will have almost unlimited energy, food, and clean water; advances in medicine will allow us to live longer and healthier lives; robots will drive our cars, manufacture our goods, and do our chores. There won’t be much work for human beings. Self-driving cars will be commercially available by the end of this decade and will eventually displace human drivers—just as automobiles displaced the horse and buggy...
Summers is wrong, however, in his belief that governments can do as they did in the industrial age: create “enough work for all who need work for income, purchasing power and dignity.” They can barely keep up with the advances that are happening in technology, let alone develop economic policies for employment.  
The only solution that I see is a shrinking work week. We may perhaps be working for 10 to 20 hours a week instead of the 40 for which we do today. And with the prices of necessities and of what we today consider luxury goods dropping exponentially, we may not need the entire population to be working. There is surely a possibility for social unrest because of this; but we could also create the utopian future we have long dreamed of, with a large part of humanity focused on creativity and enlightenment."

Larry Page, in this famous, and very highly recommended, chat that also features Google co-founder Sergey Brin and venture-capitalist Vinod Khosla.  
"VinodKhosla The vast majority of employment shifted from farming to only needing about 2-percent of the U.S. workforce. That happened between 1900 and the year 2000. I see the beginnings of that happening again with the rapid acceleration the next 10, 15, 20 years.
LarryPage I totally believe we should be living in a time of abundance, like Peter Diamandis' book. If you really think about the things that you need to make yourself happy - housing, security, opportunities for your kids - anthropologists have been identifying these things. It's not that hard for us to provide those things. The amount of resources we need to do that, the amount of work that actually needs to go into that is pretty small. I'm guessing less than 1-percent at the moment. So the idea that everyone needs to work frantically to meet people's needs is just not true. I do think there's a problem that we don't recognize that. I think there's also a social problem that a lot of people aren't happy if they don't have anything to do. So we need to give people things to do. We need to feel like you're needed, wanted and have something productive to do. But I think the mix with that and the industries we actually need and so on are-- there's not a good correspondence. That's why we're busy destroying the environment and other things, maybe we don't need to be doing. So I'm pretty worried. Until we figure that out, we're not going to have a good outcome. One thing, I was talking to Richard Branson about this. They don't have enough jobs in the UK. He's been trying to get people to hire two part-time people instead of one full-time. So at least, the young people can have a half-time job rather than no job. And it's a slightly greater cost for employers. I was thinking, the extension of that is you have global unemployment or widespread unemployment. You just reduce work time. Everyone I've asked-- I've asked a lot of people about this. Maybe not you guys. But most people, if I ask them, 'Would you like an extra week of vacation?' They raise their hands, 100-percent of the people. 'Two weeks vacation, or a four-day work week?' Everyone will raise their hand. Most people like working, but they'd also like to have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests. So that would be one way to deal with the problem, is if you had a coordinated way to just reduce the workweek. And then, if you add slightly less employment, you can adjust and people will still have jobs.
SergeyBrin I will quibble a little bit. I don't think that in the near term, the need for labor is going away. It gets shifted from one place to another, but people always want more stuff or more entertainment or more creativity or more something."
Watch and/or read the complete fireside chat and transcript here.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...

Think Global, Be Global

It’s another year end, just less than 2 weeks to a new one. And this is wishing everyone great compliments of the season. I know it’s been an eventful year for all with its ups and downs, the high times and the low, but I know more assuredly that it has endowed us all with lessons and discoveries like no other year. Let me use this opportunity to ask any who is willing to share any of theirs to please send me a mail (bukolaogunfayo@gmail.com) and we can have others read and keep to guide and to encourage.

It is a good time in the year to reflect, to review goals, especially in anticipation of other opportunities in the New Year. It is an appropriate time to be grateful too, thankful to the One beyond man who has kept and preserved. I’m sure if we think well, we’ll have a number of things to give thanks for, starting with the gift of life.

For me, 2010 has been quite eventful. For instance, I was able to share regularly on FOOTSTEPS (this means a lot to me), I took a bow to paid employment, I got certified & inducted as an HR Professional and on another extreme, took on a skill in fashion. I can imagine what awaits me in 2011. However, I’m going to take my plans from a different angle this time around, which I believe some would need as well.

Sometime in November, I attended a conference in Lagos. I am very keen on personal development; in fact, I do plan to contribute significantly to the Education Sector sometime in the nearest future, which is what drove me to sit at the Syndicate session on Education. Amongst other things shared, one thing I took away from this meeting was a comment by the Speaker – Mrs. Susan Oyemade, “…you have to be a global teacher, you have to be a global pupil, you have to be a global housewife...” In other words, whatever you have decided to pursue, you need to do it with the world at large in mind, you need to think beyond the local environment, and you need to set a global standard (“world-class", as used in many circles) for yourself.

For a teacher, that’s an easy one. The delivery styles and the contents of the course material for instance need to be worked on, but one would wonder, how can a housewife be global? Well, what recipes is she working on in her food lab (kitchen), the same old ones with the same styles and the same ingredients? What looks does she have on the few times she’s out of the house for a school function or an outing with her husband? While one ponders on this, one has to agree there is room for everyone to think global and to be global.

As we come to another season where we strategize for another year of our lives, we need to ask ourselves what our peers on the global scene are doing better. What are they using to make their work different that we can acquire; what skill have they gained that we can learn, who have they connected with to help them be all they are now, that we need to consider networking with as well (for this we could get their peers in our vicinity). Whichever way, something new and/or something different needs to be worked into our norm to position us globally.

A few, may just actually be ahead of their peers globally already. In Performance Management we refer to them as operating on the Exceed Expectation rating. These ones need to up the stakes, look at their superiors, whose standard they now need to work towards.

I don’t know what we all may have in mind for 2011, but as I challenge myself, I leave this challenge with you, position yourself to become GLOBAL.