No. 16: The growing ownership economy, skills-based hiring, leveraging a digital mindset
Our technology and digital-first lives changed our social lives first. Understanding its impact on our education institutions and future of work lags behind.
First, some numbers….
150 - Dunbar’s number: the maximum number of relationships a person can maintain 1
49 - Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade which was decided 49 years ago in 1973 2
18.9% - Annualized 5-year return on MIT’s $27.4 billion endowment fund 3
What is the ownership economy? [aka Web 3]
It’s too early to predict the impact of Web 3 on the future of work, but it's worth starting the conversation now.
The vast majority of internet users own exactly 0% of the services they contribute to. Creators don’t own their content, developers can’t control their code, and consumers can’t influence the policies or decisions of the platforms they use. This scenario, which once went unquestioned, looks increasingly archaic.
This is starting to change via the ownership economy—often referred to as web3—with products and services that turn users into owners.
The products and services that will define web3—and the next generation of the internet—are those that transform users into owners. We call this the ownership economy.
Still, identifying this phenomenon isn’t always simple, or obvious. That’s because ownership manifests across a spectrum of experiences that range in user effort, responsibility and degree of collectivity. One user might own a single digital media asset, like an NFT. Another might influence a network’s operation via a governance token. The experience of being an owner encompasses both passive (i.e., hodling) and active participation.
Read further at Variant
Hiring in a skills-based economy
Skills-based hiring offers an alternate way of addressing these challenges by removing unnecessary barriers that limit the talent pool. While university degrees can be useful in assessing a candidate’s qualifications and experience, hiring managers must look beyond degrees and consider the myriad qualities and skills the candidate brings to the table.
Skill requirements are also changing faster than ever. Having the “right” degree or experience in a particular field doesn’t guarantee that a person has the skills required to do today’s job. As Joseph Fuller, a management professor at Harvard Business School, says, “The shelf life of people’s skills for a lot of decent-paying jobs has been shortening.”
via Forbes
Developing a digital mindset
Learning new technological skills is essential for digital transformation. But it is not enough. Employees must be motivated to use their skills to create new opportunities. They need a digital mindset. Psychologists describe mindset as a way of thinking and orienting to the world that shapes how we perceive, feel, and act.
A digital mindset is a set of attitudes and behaviors that enable people and organizations to see how data, algorithms, and AI open up new possibilities and to chart a path for success in a business landscape increasingly dominated by data-intensive and intelligent technologies.
Read further at Harvard Business Review
Till next time…
There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs. – Zig Ziglar