Martijn is a speaker, writer, thinker, advisor and connector. In 2007 he was the first life hacking teacher in the Netherlands at the NHL in Leeuwarden.Value Thought in a changing economy and society
Martijn Aslander
Paradigm shift
Regularly I have been noticing that my ideas about values are so connected to the old fixed values, it seems hard for people to grasp the concept of it. Even more so, these ideas are connected to a paradigm shift 1.
“A paradigm is an accumulation of rules and procedures (written and unwritten) which will act in two different ways: (1) It defines limits or points them out: (2) It describes how to act within those limits to be successful. A paradigm shift will mean a change to a whole new game, a new accumulation of rules. With the thought, ‘the world’ looks like and (therefore is) the way we see it, we create a new mental prison. The bars in such a prison are ‘the barriers in thought’.”
When you work with such a subject matter, the chance of misunderstandings is large. Colleagues 2 whom similarly experiment with new models will run into this as well.
Terminology
Just like many other things that are new and different, it is the art of perfection to find the right words to communicate it. For many years I have tried to explain to people I live from donations. The word donations did not seem to be the right word to explain what I actually meant to say. It immediately brought up the image of a street bum hoping for the occasional alms. In retrospect, the frequently asked question “what do you live off” may not be so strange after all. Sanne Roemen 3 had cleverly used the term ‘validation afterwards’. And this is how it is. The people whom I am working with (I like to work with people, not for them) always can decide afterwards what my value is to them and how they want to express that value. In spite of the fact that it is not always easy for them to do so and the fact that value is not so easy to express, it never makes the discussion about it less valuable.
“When you work with such a subject matter, the chance of misunderstandings is large”
Reasons
In the last six years I have asked for my services — which consist of help, knowledge and ideas — with no money in advance. I have done this for several reasons:
1) You are consciously working with your client. What kind of clients do you really want to have? Which clients are you able to help in the best possible way? How do you differentiate yourself from possible competition? When you work with validation afterwards, you will only get rewarded — in whatever possible way — if you are valuable, and are in the right place to do it. This increases the consciousness about whether or not you are of any value, and if you are doing it in the right place.
2) You lower the threshold. When a product or service is really valuable, it is handy if your customers have to cross as few doorsteps as possible to be able to experience if the product is adding something for them.
3) You can concentrate on the real question. Often an advisor will be approached to solve an illusional problem, without actually working on the real problem. When you are not for hire, you also avoid (hard to work with) employer-employee relationships, which end up causing you not to be critical for fear of not having any job continuation.
4) The much used formula of hourly rates can be thrown overboard. Sometimes you create a lot of value in just a few hours, by giving information, handing out ideas, or by offering a useful contact. In many cases I can tackle a job in 15 minutes to half an hour. In such a case an hourly rate is not really handy.
5) Time is not money. Time is relative. When I’m working with a client (person) I learn a lot too. My client will have a lot of knowledge and access to resources and worlds I don’t have myself. The good thing about knowledge and access to ideas is that there is no limit to how much of it you can hand out, without getting any less of it back. You can help someone, and give them the opportunity to do something in return. For instance, I go to the cinema for free, because I have offered some of my services to someone in the film industry. Going to the movies without having to pay is so much more fun than having the money.
6) You can set your own parameters. Many advisors will wriggle to the wishes of the ‘holy’ employer. They will give up a part of themselves and lose most of their real value. Be yourself! Be the best you can be, and look for people who need what you can give the most. Personally I don’t really believe in advice reports. A waste of time! Making such a report is time consuming; nobody actually reads it, never mind something useful to come out of it. It's not my thing... creating movement is, but paper hardly ever leads to create movement. Ever since I am not ‘for hire’ anymore, I don’t ‘make’ paper anymore, up to now I really believe the ‘client’ is actually helped with that.
7) You can start working straight away. You don’t have to wait until a job comes along. Find places where you can deliver your added value and start doing it! You learn from it, you make people happy and believe me, somebody who really adds something, will be rewarded. Just realize, there are more ways to express value than just money. Information, knowledge, ideas, attention, compassion and access are just as much ways to express value which may help you do your thing on this planet.
“As of 6 years ago I am letting others decide what my value is”
A vision on the economy
For a year now I have been speaking about our economy on a regular basis, and the role of money within that system. I have noticed that (certainly in my lectures to banks) many people have an understanding of the fact that the world around us is fundamentally changing. But people don’t see what those shifts will mean in our daily practice. To put my vision on validation afterwards in a different daylight, I will point out my perception.
1) Hierarchic structures are slowly but surely replaced by more flexible network models which can play into the organizational needs of the moment much faster. I have already spoken about the book ‘The starfish and the spider’ 5 before 4, in which the power of networking is clearly explained. Tom Peters 6 has written about it years ago in ‘The end of hierarchy’ 7.
2) We are living in a knowledge economy and an information society. All qualities of trained plasterers and other craftsmen put aside — in our economy we increasingly make use of knowledge and ideas. This means we no longer work with our hands, but with our heads. Our models are not equipped so we can work with our heads. This explains my exceptional interest in life hacking 8. How do you work with your head in a smarter way in a world in where you have to compete with knowledge? The reasons why we are still in traffic jams and have to be in the office from 9 to 5 are from the old, obsolete ideas of how work works. John really doesn’t need to be in at 9 o’clock to grab the screw on which Pete will turn the bolt. We have to be at work at traditional moments because of the hierarchic needs for control, fear and distrust. Networks are built for trust, interaction and connectivity. If you are interested in the rules of the network economy, open up Kevin Kelly’s 9 book for reference.
3) Our economy is still based on striving for maximum profit. This never actually leads to maximum profit. This is why companies again and again are trying to cut costs, to re-organize and to press more profit out of the markets in which they move. The book, ‘Blue Ocean strategy ’ 10 shows that this way of gaining profit is no longer the best way. Trend analyst and futurologist Justien Marseille 11, is talking about a change in gaining a maximum profit to gaining optimal utility. In the near future, striving for optimal utility (where can I be of maximum use) will replace striving for maximum profit. The internet will make possible, easier and faster than ever, that we can commerce our value in the right places.
4) Trading time for money. Many people would like to work less. To retreat, develop themselves or another reason. But you will earn less money. Salary, but also an hourly rate, is based on trading time for money. For most people the only way to make more money is to work more hours, raise your hourly rate (if the customer will accept it) or to make sure you get a better position within the company you are working (with all due results, are you trying to make more money or are you trying to create more value?). Validation afterwards is a way to break this ‘exchange time for money’ paradigm. In our Calvinistic society, self sacrifice (work hard, make long hours), is highly appreciated. I am wondering if somebody who is working from 8 o’clock in the morning until 7 o’clock at night will be of value and productive for all that time, if even available. Prime Minister Balkenende recently said in a conference 12 about our economy that we should be working smarter, not harder. Being rewarded for the value you deliver instead of being rewarded for worked hours would be a smart solution in that framework, to what, in my opinion, is one of the most important questions of our economy of the day of tomorrow. Timothy Ferriss 13 wrote about this humorously in his book ‘The four hour workweek’ 14.
5) We will have a serious shortage on the labor market when, within the next 10 years, all the baby boomers will be retiring. A shortage which we can, to my opinion, only solve by transforming our organizational structures. Many analysts are talking about individualization of the labor market and society. They are pointing out as ‘proof’ that many people are choosing to be single independent entrepreneurs. The misconception lays in the fact that it is considered that all those individuals work alone. On the contrary, these entrepreneurs know how to find each other through a network-connection and will work in temporary ‘swarms’ around a question or business opportunity. They learn, see each others qualities, and know when to call when there is a job. Such a smart ‘swarm’ will solve problems faster then a traditional company would do. In that framework it is worth the effort to keep track of the development concerning crowd sourcing 15, swarm intelligence 16, and micro jobs 17.
“Hierarchic structures are slowly but surely replaced by more flexible network models”
My inspiring economy teacher Hans Jansma taught me in my school days that money has three functions:
1) Means to speculate
You can speculate with money, just like roulette or a poker game. Many people on the stock market speculate on the crashing of the economy, and make money that way. Of course they can decide for themselves, but I recon you can do much wiser things with that money. Sometimes speculations can go terribly wrong, millions of dollars suddenly go missing.
2) Means to hoard
You can save money, for better times. And when you save money at the bank, you get more money... interest. The bank can lend this money to others and will in turn earn money with it, with the difference between lending and borrowing, and the speculations with this money. I predict that within ten years this model will be obsolete because people will lend money to each other in a reliable way through web services, which are already active in the United States 18 and England 19 and since a short while in the Netherlands 20. The mediation of banks to save money will no longer be necessary, just like the increasing disappearance of mediating persons in other systems because of the developments on the internet.
3) Transactional means
And, of course, with money you can perform transactions, like the purchase of belongings, the payments of salaries and many more instances. For most people acquiring money is the most important reason to work hard. Rightly, because this is the way our system works. But people often think that without money, a lot of things are not possible. In a network and information society that is no longer true. We still need money for food and a roof over our heads, insurances and a few other instances in our western society. But apart from earning money to survive, we need money to buy other things, for example for the purchase of exclusive capital goods, like cars, art or stereos, or to acquire manpower, knowledge and ideas to get something moving, for example to organize a congress or event.
In a world where access is becoming more important than possession (Jeremy Rifkin 21, “The age of access” 22) you can also perform transactions with social capital or information capital. You can either start of with putting up your network and knowledge to do something with other people, without necessarily evolving money. Meanwhile a third of the world economy is about countertrading. Bernard Lietaer 23 wrote about this in his book “the money of the future” 24.Tangible stuff can be exchanged against each other. Bread for coffee or Pepsi cola for vodka (It seems that the Pepsi Company in Russia prefers to get paid in vodka as opposed to rubles or dollars, it appears to be more stable and more valuable and delivers more money). But this trading is always still transactional, like the “what is in it for me” principle. In a world of zero’s and ones, in which knowledge flies around the world, an exchange of connections instead of transactions could possibly be much more interesting. Should I absolutely receive money before I want to help a publisher to promote a book? Or is a free book for appreciation enough? I have noticed that with social capital I come a long way in this world. With information capital, which is all knowledge and information I posses, I notice that as well. Lietaer speaks in this framework about complementary economies 25, which, beside money, exists of other forms. It is these forms that fascinate me, and are what I am working with on a daily basis. I think connections should reach above transactions, and that a swarm of weak ties 26, full of connections will become a more durable model in the world of tomorrow.
“People are blind for better alternatives. That way you don’t get ahead”.
Observation of others
Lately I have shown some of the above mentioned to others and received, among other things, some valuable observations from them:
I know for example someone who can briefly observe, whilst occasionally asking essential questions, and who is able to get to the core of the case and to make it all accurate with two or three analyses, which is not completely un-important. It seems like this person kind of flies through the situation and within 10 minutes it is essentially done (analysis, advice). This way of working is often not measured at value; usually the involved parties DO want an advice on paper to read the important looking advice again. They understand what they pay for and moreover they have something to wave with to their superiors. Sometimes you have to compromise a little.
How many inventors are wrestling with this problem? They walk along the production line, point out three bottlenecks in the process give three suggestions on how it can be done better and that is that. Net result: the factory doubles their turnover within a year. The inventor in question receives a cup of coffee from the boss, a pat on the shoulder, thanks again! If we dress the same man in an Oger suit and we give him a Nappa leather writing-case, an expensive with gold inserted Waterman fountain-pen and let him work at the ‘analysis’ of the ‘supply chain’ for four weeks and do ‘logistic analysis’ and ‘production restraint audit’ then we call him a ‘production efficiency consultant’ and suddenly we can write him up for € 1200, — per day.
Remarkable indeed, what to think of this one (by Greald Henstra 27):
“What you are doing with ’living of donations’ or ‘valuation afterwards’ when you offer your services, is in fact taking the risk of the transaction upon your shoulders. If you compare that to the reality of street-fair performers and street buskers who raise money after doing the work, it is really nothing new.
When the productions of those services don’t cost much, the risk of the transaction can be taken. To play a song, or to perform a trick, or drinking a cup of coffee with someone while talking and thinking along does not cost you anything extra. Better yet: you are gaining wisdom from it. Just like musicians and street-fair performers who need to practice anyway.
Things are different when the supplier, preceding production, does need to make costs. This is what happened in the industrial era. This is when preliminary pricing proceeded. Funnily people were pricing the product based on the cost of making the product, instead of the real value of it. In rebound costs/value of labor were determined similarly. Don’t forget the unbelievably grim struggle it took, at the cost of millions of human lives, worldwide. Wage per piece has eventually been replaced by hourly wage, which was seen as a huge achievement.
This is how time has been exchanged for money. It has become a custom, also for sectors were it was not really necessary to do so. Where customs are being kept, people have stopped thinking further ahead. This way people are blinded for other alternatives, and no progress is being made.”
Food for thought
The world is changing fast, in many aspects for the better if it concerns me. Our economy, the drive in our society is in an enormous transactional phase, with all know consequences. Perhaps validation afterwards is not the right way to go for the future, but if we don’t try it, we will never find out for sure. The discoveries I’m making are too precious for me to follow any other path. And with me there are more, many many more.
Of course, just like with anything new, different and out of the ordinary, people do criticize my vision. Sometimes correctly sometimes out of fear, jalousie or ignorance. For them:
“In many ways, the work of the critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position of those who offer up their their work to ourselves and our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth us critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic actually risks something, and that is the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”
I am wondering what this journey is going to offer me and this society. I am curious to see newly added perceptions. Soon there will be an article about it in the entrepreneurs’ magazine ‘the case’. Earlier some articles appeared in NRC-Next 28, and two different articles in the magazine ‘Mirror Image’ (Spiegeldbeeld 29, 30).
About the author
Martijn is a speaker, writer, thinker, advisor and connector. In 2007 he was the first life hacking teacher in the Netherlands at the NHL in Leeuwarden.
Martijn gives presentations and workshops on the subject of networking, the network society, client value-thinking and the changing economy.
Martijn really likes to make people happy and usually does that by providing them with access to the right people, the information they need and by generating new ideas.
Footnotes - URL List
http://www.hanskokhuis.nl/Paradigma.html 1.
http://www.sanneroemen.nl/ 2.
http://www.sanneroemen.nl/de-kracht-van-vrij/ 3.
http://11knights.danalog.nl/martijnaslander/resourcerer/the-starfish-and-the-spider-the-unstoppable-power-of-leaderless-organizations/ 4.
http://www.amazon.com/Starfish-Spider-Unstoppable-Leaderless-Organizations/dp/1591841437 5.
http://www.tompeters.com/ 6.
http://www.tompeters.com/col_entries.php?note=005256&year=1990 7.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_hack 8.
http://www.kk.org/newrules/contents.php 9.
http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/ 10.
http://justienmarseille.blogspot.com/ 11.
http://www.minaz.nl/Actueel/Toespraken/2007/December/Minister_president_Balkenende_bij_Nederland_Innovatief 12.
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ 13.
http://www.lifebuilding.nl/een_werkweek_van_4_uur.aspx 14.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html 15.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_intelligence 16.
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2007/04/01/what-are-microjobs/ 17.
http://www.prosper.com/ 18.
http://uk.zopa.com/ZopaWeb/ 19.
https://www.boober.nl/ 20.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Rifkin 21.
http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/issues/rifkin207.htm 22.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lietaer 23.
http://bedrijfsethiek.nl/Geld%2520toekomst 24.
http://complementaire-economie.startpagina.nl/ 25.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_tie 26.
http://www.rug.nl/staff/g.henstra/research 27.
http://www.nrcnext.nl/loopbaan/article811677.ece 28.
http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tpntv.nl%2Feconomische_storm.pdf&ei=AxGvR53ADImE0QTOwfCyCw&usg=AFQjCNH9hL96Z0VtD3xu-H1nu8SlktgNDg&sig2=3yFzP68xweCM0myfBUDrBQ 29.
http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2F11knights.danalog.nl%2Fmartijnaslander%2Ffiles%2F2007%2F03%2Fstapineconomie.pdf&ei=DhGvR4OAEJfuwwH1m5V7&usg=AFQjCNGeVweexfLBqFM2eXUOTv9EHE1R7 w&sig2=sJVOeXB5keDV3hSkeh8GoA 30.