Q: And what do you do? A: I'm a cloudworker

Venkatesh Rao, who does crowdsourcing research at Xerox coined a new term ‘cloudworker,’ the winning word in a Plantronics contest to retire the word telecommuter ( the last time I used ‘commute to work’ in a sentence I wore shoulder pads and feathered hair). Cloudworker applies to information workers; those who compute ‘in the cloud.’

Rao won $2,000 for his entry donating $1,500 back to some friends from an innovation/design startup, WilsonCoLab, who started cloudworker.org, another experiment in the modern tradition of using contests to do research.

Back to cloudworker. This is Rao’s image of the cloudworker. But you must read his cloudworker creed post understand the concept best.

The way I see it, you’ve got two types of information workers at your organization. You’ve got ‘cloudworkers’ who will define what they need. They won’t feel the need to rely on you. They won’t limit their professional development to what you provide. They will use the tools and technologies that fit them. They will develop (and have developed) their own social networks. Their identity and content is ‘out there’ in the cloud. ‘Here I am and here’s what I’ve got to offer.’ This means learning anywhere at anytime. In a house. With a mouse. In a box. With a fox. Here or there. Anywhere.

The rest of your learners (and many managers) seek (and are use to) clarification (although there are probably a few that aren’t even seeking that – just practicing on-the-job retirement or hating their jobs). They want to know what courses, what classes, what instructors, where, when, etc. They’re not comfortable or experienced with cloudiness. They’re more comfortable with the traditional model of distance education (another term in need of retirement). They are probably not comfortable with 24/7 learning and the blending of work – life or with self-developing online networks. Their work (retail, insurance, government) is their ‘real work’ and everything else (learning)  is not. They’re employees of a company. They wouldn’t think to ask someone something via a public network outside of work. (It’s proprietary!) They share with other learners one thing: their employer. Not so with cloudworkers. The workplace is where they are today and who they’re with today.

But cloudworkers are cool with “traditional” learning too. They’re cool with classes, courses, tutorials, certification programs, etc. It co-exists with  their own brand of learning. But they don’t see classes, courses, etc. as a way to career success. Career success is created through building their own brand & networks.

So how do you appeal to the cloudworker without freaking out everybody else?

• Focus on the goals and activities of learners, not on designing content (activities = experimentation, discussion, research, etc.)
• Embed learning in a social learning environment and provide tools for learners that act as a bridge
• Weave the traditional courses into the social environment

Photos: Rao (2008)

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