Folks that were interested in our Frithjof Bergmann episodes last fall about New Work should subscribe to the New Work YouTube channel, of which I am the proprietor, with Frithjof's encouragement and cooperation.
All of the videos previously created on this topic for bloggingheads have been reedited and put in a playlist here, and I have continued in recent months doing interviews with other people associated in some way with New Work. These now include:
-Two interviews about entrepreneurship with John Glazer, a long-time associate of Frithjof's and the Director of TechGROWTH Ohio, an Ohio Third Frontier-funded venture-development organization housed at Ohio University's Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs in Athens, Ohio. TechGROWTH helps early-stage technology companies acquire resources to accelerate commercialization.
Watch John Glazer on YouTube.
-A two-part discussion with Frithjof and Blair Anderson, community activist and former Black Panther to talk about New Work in Detroit.
-A new interview with Felena Hanson & Skyler McCurine on female entrepreneurship and New Work. Felena founded Hera Hub, a shared workspace for female entrepreneurs, while Skyler works for Hera Hub and also runs Le Red Balloon. They both currently live something of the New Work life, creating their own work based on their passions through entrepreneurship and cooperative support.
With these interviews, you can get a good picture of how New Work principles are being used to create businesses, from Blair's discussion of leather-working and community policing and farming in this area where regular businesses are not hiring, to Felena's story about being laid off three times during her 30s from traditional companies before starting her own business and now dedicating herself to help others to the same. John has the most global outlook of those I've talked to so far, as not only a university professor but a consultant in helping people get funding for new business efforts: in his talks, you'll learn in outline how to get funding for New Work efforts and about the B Corp option, where you can start a business specifically with a government (tax!) recognized goal of not only making a profit, but improving the world.
These and future efforts are all in the service of helping convince people that New Work is a real thing, not just something this philosopher dude thought up. No, we don't have any whole communities yet creating 80% of what they need as Frithjof thinks is now possible. We don't have a simple guidebook for people to get out of the traditional job system, and we're a long way from proposing legislation to formally recognize and encourage alternative work scenarios. Still, many of the elements of New Work have been put in practice, and I'm looking forward in future videos to talking with folks involved with specific New Work technologies, with economists who can give more technical presentations of the basic picture Frithjof has outlined, with those working with dispossessed populations, those working in governments (foreign and local US) on New Work efforts, and others.
If anyone is especially keen on volunteering some time to help with video editing or otherwise helping with this documenting and promotional effort, let me know.
Watch Skyler and Felena on YouTube.
-Mark Linsenmayer
very impressive, truly the antithesis to the merely academic world of philosophy, congrats.