[12] Horizontal Work Models in Web 3
Dear Readers,
Hope you had a great weekend!
Following up on last week’s Web 3 Workplace article, we’re going deeper into the rabbit hole and exploring how the structure of work is evolving, i.e. working on multiple projects at once versus focusing on one job. We hope you enjoy this piece.
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Caveat: When we are talking about “jobs” here, we are largely talking about knowledge workers (where we have actual experience and feel we can make observations) ✌️✌️✌️
Overheard on Twitter: The “3” in Web 3 really stands for 3 jobs.
Oftentimes we talk about Web 3 as a technology innovation (and obviously in many ways it is), but Web 3 is also a social innovation … particularly in experimenting with new systems on how humans work together.
In Web 3 work culture, it’s common and sometimes even encouraged that you work on multiple projects (“what projects are you working on?” versus “what is your job?”).
People seem to be gravitating toward a horizontal work model versus a vertical work model.
Where Horizontal means working on more than one thing across projects and even companies versus Vertical, where we spend all of our time and mental energy on one job.
Before we explore the Horizontal, let’s explore the Vertical.
The 9 to 5 ⏰ 💼 👔
Most of today’s knowledge jobs are in the 9 to 5+ model. You spend 8-10 hours (or more) of your day devoted to a single job (Vertical). And it’s probably more when you also factor in commuting time, getting ready, etc. (pre-pandemic).
So let’s just say you spend 10 hours in one job.
In the status quo today, the input / output model is linear: the more hours you put in, the more units of output you create.
If you work 10 hours, ideally you generate 10 hours worth of output.
This sounds great on paper, but how often does that relationship hold true?
How much of this time is spent creating value? Versus How much of this time is wasted on complete BS / non-value added activities?
What actually happens is that you are at work for 10 hours, but the time you are actually creating value is less than 10 hours.
Reasons include some obvious things like breaks, lunch — which are normal and expected.
But the reason you don’t get 10 hours of output is because of things that inevitably come up during the day and suck up your time or distract you, things like meetings, low value/high time tasks like unnecessary admin (some admin is good). I’m sure there’s a lot more, but those come to mind.
So this glorious 10 hour day really ends up producing way less than that, yet you are giving up 10 hours of your most precious asset … time (often indefinitely).
The default mode of work we have today is a byproduct of the industrial era. In the industrial era, the input (time spent) and output (product/value created) model is very linear.
And the question is, is this the best way to get productivity out of people?
Do people even want to work this way?
If we all just looked around in our lives, we can probably see many examples of people wanting something different.
So … what is a horizontal work model?
As more digital tools become readily available and different reward systems become readily acceptable, workers will have more choice in how they structure their work.
Freelancing is already shedding some light on this, but as work becomes more modular (project-based, goals and output driven) and people want to pursue multiple interests and projects at once … it might look like freelancing on steroids.
Maybe you can actually build a career around your interests (and hobbies), as opposed to aligning yourself to a single entity or your career to an industry because of a decision you made as a college freshman (i.e. your major or degree studies).
If we think of work as giving your time and skills out to someone else, newer models like freelancing are just different interpretations of giving your time and skills out to someone else, but with more flexibility.
The real question is, what if we channeled our time and skills into meaningful projects of our choosing and we can structure our work to our preferences
AND
What if the incentives and rewards are more aligned for each individual?
Let’s take a look at an example…
It can look something like this:
On Monday, you are writing for your own blog
On Tuesday and Wednesday, you are helping a project with their crypto economics design
On Thursday and Friday, you are supporting a product launch with a large company
In one project you are getting paid an hourly rate, in another project you are getting some variable compensation, and yet in another project you are getting to participate in the upside.
What you choose to work on and what type of value capture mechanism you want to participate in (hourly rate versus variable compensation with upside) is entirely up to you.
In today’s world, we draw the line in the sand that your “day job” is what pays the bills, and therefore you have to be attached to it for one reason. Then with whatever time you have left, you can pursue your “hobbies,” a set of activities that are supposedly more for fun.
Who said they had to be mutually exclusive?
After all, humans don’t have just one interest.
Coordinating Work
In our model of work, if we have mechanisms that …
(1) value what people create 💯
(2) coordinate discovery, matchmaking and 🔍
(3) help people capture value from their work / outputs 💰
… then we’ll see more of a multi-faceted approach to work rooted in flexibility but NOT at the expense of value capture.
It’s about different value systems and matching people whose value systems are similar (across some parameters).
This is (in part) Web 3’s big experiment: can we have mini-markets created to operate a system of work at the smallest unit level without creating more transaction costs and/or discovery costs for everyone involved?
By the way…
People are already experimenting with this model of work (in both Web 2 and Web 3) as a result of the pandemic. The behavioral change is already in progress, so technology and tools should soon follow.
And if this foundation holds water, and more people adopt this new mode of working horizontally across more than one thing, we’ll probably see more collaboration in this future of work.
Everyone will be looking for partners to create, build, and iterate with.
There is flywheel potential here… 🎡 …This is why Web 3 is worth exploring.
Will this work? Do we all want to work this way?
Like most of the questions we ask here at Life in Color, it is going to land somewhere in the middle.
Where will it land?
Only time will tell, but when there is a will, there is a way.