ALUMRISE

Since joining Twitter, I’ve been getting into the free-flowing online “jobs” discussion. I recently followed an interesting thread about whether the new workforce generation will move to a model of 40 jobs in 40 years.

Whether or not a Gen Y professional will actually racks up that number of jobs isn’t the key point I took away (though a greater majority than we think may end up falling into the serial category) – what was more interesting to me was the idea that it was 40 “jobs” as the qualifier.

As ALUMRISE readies to move beyond its technology launch into go-loud (yes, we’re officially moved into our new office in Plano, we’re inking contracts, re-doing the site for user input, readying press releases), we’ve also been honing in on what makes us unique so that we better communicate that to new introductions and existing members like you.

Why I found the discussion above particularly interesting? It’s because our team here at ALUMRISE believes our mission is creating a unique space that supports jobs of all shapes and sizes – connecting and achieving better fit for professionals to employers of all shapes and sizes. The traditional career job hasn’t gone away, it’s still very important as a stabilization center for entities - but it’s role in each of our individual lives, may well have permanently shrunk. A confluence of technology, globalization, shifting employer practices and a renewed focus on broadly relevant cross-industry skills, means we’re going to be about gigs & fits.

What does that mean? It means I believe we may well be moving to a world in which we well may well have 40 gigs in 40 years.

Some gigs will continue as part of each day or week – long term gigs. (p.s.: I think parenting or elder care fall into this category – they will always take a certain part of our day and should be acknowledged as such). Others will be short term – volunteering; internships or returnships; mentoring; or coaching. Some will be fixed (3 years, full time). Others more lenient (such as: when I need you, for the next 5 months at $120/hour).

At ALUMRISE we believe our task as professionals will be to figure out two things:

• Our income needs
• The total available time or capacity we have to generate it

We should each plan to among these variables to get to right gigs & fits equation - including our unpaid gigs! And as employers of professionals, we should recognize that this is an emerging factor in the equation for where a professional will want to work.

What do you think? Agree or disagree, I hope you consider this a point of debate - do share your comments or reactions.

Join the marketplace! http://www.alumrise.com/alumsignup.aspx

Ps: Stay in touch with us by signing up for our RSS feed and newsletter so we can share some new tools ALUMRISE is developing as part of the launch of our social presence (we can’t help it, we’re watchers and analyzers … we take our time to trigger things like a Facebook fan presence). Our hope is that new tools we introduce will help you make fit happen, whether you’re a professional seeking a job of any shape or size, or an employer figuring out how to find the best fitting professional for your work need.

This weekend, I got teased a bunch for being social. It made me realize, I’ve spent most of the year locked up in my office, along with our dedicated team, bringing ALUMRISE to life.

I missed lots of parties in 2008, because I was on the road. Didn’t get a chance to talk to my daughter about her precocious 4 year old views on life:

“Mama, You don’t have a good remembory,” she tsk-ed tsk-ed to me, the other day. “You forgot again to go to the bank. And then you forgot to go to the post office.”

How does a 4 year old have a better grasp on my task list than me?

For most of 2008, I woke up every night every time I heard a ping on my blackberry. The blackberry has been put on winter holidays early this year. 

The end of year is a great time to let loose and remind ourselves who we want to be associated with; and which affiliations, either professional or personal – matter to us the most. It’s also a great time to think about who we will choose to be most closely aligned with in 2009. In good times or bad, our affiliations speak for us – whether in business or in life. 

As an ALUMRISE team, we’re spending a whole lot of our holiday time this year talking about the power of connectors and groups. You will be excited to hear what is to come in 2009 that speaks to the true power of group-makers, and the power of real-time, dynamic groupings of talented individuals.

But just right now, I’m reminding myself to go be social. The holidays are coming early this year, and thank goodness they are, because 2009 is going to be a rollercoaster. Enjoy the time, and keep your valued friends and associates close. That’s what I’m doing.

Most days, when I wake up, I don’t have time to take a pulse. Life’s too busy.

But this Thanksgiving week is deliberately slow.

When the year gets quieter, I turn to literature both to help me move forward and to allow me to reflect on the past and ideas that have been fermenting throughout the year. For most of this morning, a certain quote has been stuck in my head:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities.

Dickens spent most of his life serializing the plight of the new industrial age. What children, what bourgeoisie, what farm workers were affected by the shift to factories and assembly lines?

This holiday season, we will have every opportunity to reflect on new shifts, seismic shifts, global shifts, in how we work and live.

Let’s make this quiet time, this holiday time, the best of times, by illuminating new solutions, not despairing the demise of the old.

How can we make 2009 the best of times?