John Steensen’s Blog

The New Age of Guilds July 22, 2009

Last night I attended an excellent presentation/discussion at the SDForum Business Intelligence Special Interest Group by DJ Patil, Chief Scientist and Sr. Director of Product at LinkedIn titled “The Analytics behind LinkedIn: A new model for Analytics and Business Intelligence”. It was a very interactive session where DJ’s openness and insight into the process of thinking about the innovative application of analytics were in sharp contrast to many presentations that I have attended which were basically advertisements for for a product or company.

The room (provided courtesy of SAP) was packed and, as a way of characterizing the audience before the talk began, the question was asked “How many of you are consultants?”. A sizable proportion of the room raised their hands. During the presentation an analytic example was presented as a graph comparing the number of self-ascribed job titles indicating that a person was in business for themselves over time from about 1975 to present. This graph showed a long term upward trend with a substantial rise starting around 2000. At this point someone mentioned the increase in the number of on-demand projects where skilled individuals, often consultants, are brought together for a project and, once the project is completed, are released or reassigned. These “dynamic” corporations are applying the same principles that cloud computing is based upon – you only pay for what you use. And, with plenty of available resources and limited demand, you don’t have to pay very much.

But, in talking with a number of individuals after the presentation, it seemed like many of the “consultants” were not consultants by choice but were unemployed and just trying to find a paying gig. That got me thinking – always a dangerous situation.

There was a lot of irritation expressed at the “business community” for reducing their labor forces and offshoring jobs. So, it occurred to me, “Is this the time for a New Age of Guilds?” A guild is a association that controls the supply and quality of a specific labor resource. In the middle ages there were guilds for almost every trade – butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. By controlling the supply of labor through organizational pressure and by promoting the passage of laws the guilds were able to provide their members some security that their jobs and professions would continue be valued by the society they served. Just as the business community controls the supply of work, and thereby controls the value attributed to that work, guilds for IT, graphic design, accounting, etc. could, if well organized and motivated, control the supply of labor and the value of that labor. Of course, the back channel to other sources of labor such as H1B’s, legal and illegal immigration, and offshoring would need to be blocked by appropriate legal and economic sanctions. In a country where “Change” is the word of the day and each person has (at least) one vote there is a way to change the working relationship between the supply of work and the supply of labor but only if people are willing to spend their time and money to make it happen.

So, what’s the likelihood of this type of movement happening in the U.S.? My assessment is that it is extremely unlikely unless union-friendly bills like the “Employee Free Choice Act” (better known as the Card Check bill) pass Congress without being substantially watered down. As it stands now, most people I know would rather be umemployed but free of another controlling organization. And, given that propensity,  the status quo reigns and a New Age of Guilds is not on the horizon.