Working on Web3 requires and relies on effective freedom through collaborative efforts.
“I work in Web3”. There’s always that problem with increments like now we’re at ‘iphone13’, and what happened to ‘iphone12’ last year, and next year it’s ‘iphone14’. And so we assume there is continuity, the same stuff, but newer and better, maybe.
But “Web3” is much more than “Web2”. It is more about changing thinking and practice in a fluid way, having to think and operate with new perspectives and paradigms in often challenging but beautifully creative ways. And that implies rethinking “work” itself, what it is, how it is done, where it is done, why it is done, and with whom it is done.
And this is how you can approach the new ways of working that seem to apply to Web3. The pandemic lockdown was definitely a major catalyst in how many now view the work they do and how they do it. The people had the opportunity to sit down and say “enough, I don’t want this anymore”. There is now more freedom and flexibility in work practices, goals, and measures of success.
The changes have taken place over a number of years, but it is only by looking back that one can appreciate how radical these changes have been, and how much work and working life have changed.
There is a Generational Change Regarding Work
These differences in what work is and how it works now are even clearer when you reflect on how and what work was like for the previous generation, in the late 1980s and 1990s. Such a generation would go to work every day, in a suit and boots, wanting to move on and be well regarded. Work was a place you went to, and you were (or became) your profession throughout your “working life.” And then you retired, and you talked about yourself only in terms of your old profession.
A generation later, there began to be more freedom and flexibility. The pandemic brought about greater geographic freedom and no longer being a slave to the ever-watchful eyes of the office, but the greater tyranny of corporate email culture and effective labeling emerged.
Web3 Changes the Way of Working: Collaboration is Key
Working on Web3 requires and relies on effective freedom through collaborative efforts. It is a world apart from the ancient practices of competition and beating others; now, it is about working with many like-minded people globally.
It is essential to work more creatively, not to say imaginatively, working and thinking beyond the mythical boxes of the previous corporate worlds, bridging between web2 and web3, and making the transition from blue chip organizations to the world of great opportunities.
There is no certainty as to where exactly Web3 will take us, or where Web3 will take all of us, perhaps this is part of the charm.
What is known is that it will be a revolution and a revelation. We will look back in awe, just as we look back at how we used to work, and what work was like. And it will also be like playing a very different game according to the new rules established by the game, and the rules that we ourselves establish. Web3 is young, hungry, volatile, and not without risk, but at the same time dynamic and full of opportunity.
By Audy Castaneda
