Tuesday’s blog post has created a number of questions around Austin saying essentially

“O.K., but how are loosely organized workers going to replace and compete with companies like Dell? Can hundreds of I-build/support-PCs-in-my-bedroom companies make it in Austin? What other things are these people going to do?”

This is a good question, and there is no simple answer. No, I am not recommending that a number of loosely connected entrepreneurs try to go head to head in the computer assembly business with Dell. What is needed, is creating whole new types of connections and organizations of companies, to create and release whole new levels of value through innovation. A very timely article just came in from Fast Company, called The World’s Most Innovative Companies:

[P&G created the] Connect Develop program, which allows outside developers to get their concepts and designs into P&G’s product pipeline. An applicator developed by Cardinal Health (now Catalent), for example, helped P&G launch Olay Regenerist Eye Derma-Pods, now its top-selling skin-care item. Today, 42% of P&G products have an externally sourced component. And this giant is growing: Revenues rose 8%, to $78 billion, last fiscal year, while profits climbed 14%, to $11 billion.

P&G is showing that it has learned the need for leveraging a knowledge ecology around its business- they are leveraging the brains outside of their corporate walls…. with profits climbing.

The opportunity for entrepreneurs in the future is not just in “sourcing of components” but also the sourcing of new ideas, and creating even higher value add activities than what they might have previously done at former employers. Over this past weekend, I had the opportunity to talk with a P&G executive- who is actively exploring how to enhance P&G’s marketing programs- by identifying companies that are (1) sourcing of ideas, (2) placements of advertising or (3) media outlets… with one unique strategy: engage companies that are one or two of these types, but not companies that are trying to be all three (which by the way, allows smaller companies to play a part in P&G’s go-forward marketing strategies).  For the sake of this blog post, the key thing to glean from this article is that what I am talking about- moving to ecology strategies of organizing work- is already happening. This article about P&G confirms that this is already happening.
As a community (whether that community is Austin, or Texas, or the US, or the world), we need to support the timely transition from employee/former employee to entrepreneur, and supporting companies like Dell transition from command-and-control strategies to “ecology” strategies as quickly and smoothly as possible.  No, this won’t be easy, but the reality of massive layoffs are not creating many other choices…. but in the end, it is my belief that this transition will lead to healthier workplaces, with more direct control over one’s own work, resulting in people actually doing what they love.

Today’s news in Austin bemoans the restructuring of the American economy… The following clipping from today’s Austin American Statesman tries to put a happy face on a cold hard fact: 900 people just lost their jobs at Dell. Furthermore, I have heard an early rumor that more jobs are being cut today across a number of other companies. These are the trends that are driving Conceptual Shift #2- the shift from a “knowledge economy to a knowledge ecology”. First let’s look at a direct quote from the article today:Dell cutting 900 jobs with North Austin plant closure:

First and foremost, I recognize that this is a business decision, that Dell is making in order to survive…. Yet recognize, how is it that Dell has had to make such a drastic decision- when there could have been other options previous to this choice?

What options? This is where the opportunity to transition from a “knowledge economy to a knowledge ecology” is happening… if not by strategists at Dell, certainly by some of the disaffected workers that are losing their jobs today. Some number of these former employees are going to recognize the false illusion of the stability of the “job” of the past, and start transitioning to becoming entrepreneurs- making their own employment. And in the end, this will benefit both Dell and Dell’s former employers- for the ecology of work will become much more resilient…. (right now, as an example, 900 workers hitting the unemployment lines at the exact same time. This will make finding the next job for each one of them very, very difficult. Moreover, many of these workers will not have yet developed the skills to become entrepreneurs yet )

And to the former employees that just lost their jobs… make sure that you wake up when you read the word opportunity in the line above “We believe we have a $3 billion opportunity to drive both productivity and efficiency“. When a former employer looks at cutting your job as an opportunity, it is time to change your outlook on the idea of a job.
What needs to happen is we, the Austin community, need to start working together at a level that we have not done before- and fight the recession that we are in head on. I am hopeful, that although this economic downturn will be very hard on the workers that are displaced, that through the shattering of the idea of long term employment, better entrepreneurial outcomes will come for all.

Moreover, it is time to stop coddling companies like Dell. From the article above:

Dell also received almost $280 million in incentives from the state of North Carolina to build the plant, which is not operating at full capacity.

This is a shame…. If you remember that over 50% of the jobs created in the US last year were created in firms of 10 people or less. It is time that US economic policies start promoting our entrepreneurs to create resilient business ecologies. $280 million dollars would have gone a long way to create opportunity for entrepreneurs, whether through the programs that we are doing through Bootstrap Austin or Door64 here in Central Texas. 900 people lost their jobs today. Let’s do something to ensure that we support our entrepreneurs into the future to create resilience in our job marketplace, and to fight this recession that we are in.