There’s an interesting use of terms used to describe the ‘new ways of working’ – flexible working, remote working, mobile working. These are all generally understood to be part of the existing heirarchies within organisations where work is allocated in a particular way. The terms can be seductive; suggesting work freedom when often they lead to greater pressures (on the workforce) and increased productivity. 

This change to the social character of work also creates other new things; something that could be described as connectedness. Not just in terms of social networking, but the ability to carry out one’s day to day activities and work by being able to constantly connect to the means of communication (email, Sype, mobile phones), to information resources (the internet) and to work activities.

And what else? Well loose confederates of people can work together with very few means of production – cheap laptops and internet connections will do. There isn’t the same need to have offices in the middle of cities.

So what might emerge? Just as the internet has changed patterns of consumption through people ordering online, there could be a big shift in patterns of production. This could have two tendencies. The first being the automation of white collar and service work. Today I paid my mobile phone bill through an automated service. There was no actual communication with a human. If low paid white collar work in local authorities, service industries and so on could be automated, then it will be. In the same way that industries like the docks moved from being labour intensive to being capital intensive – or steel production (Britain currently imports and exports immensely larger quantities of goods than ever before – but with only a fraction of the number of dockers; it makes more steel than ever before – but again with a fraction of the workforce.

Whatever the intellectually challenged Alastair Darling says, the whole world is heading for one big, big recession and this is going to be put myriad pressures on companies and organisations. This recession however comes at a time of a much more wired world; and this is going to have an impact on how companies respond.