WHAT IS SOCIAL PRODUCTIVITY?

The Light of Reason

In the 1784 edition of the Berlinische Monatsschrift (Berlin Monthly) a reverend posed the question: what is enlightenment? The German philosopher Immanuel Kant responded with an essay that he sent to the magazine. You can find the original German essay (or English translation) online if you wish — it’s worth reading — but his answer can roughly be summarized with the Latin phrase he uses in the first lines of his response and later became the motto of the enlightenment:

Sapere Aude!

It translates to ‘dare to know’ or ‘dare to be wise’. What Kant wanted was for people to start thinking for themselves and to trust on their own rationality.

Now I know, the 18th century was a different time. Most people in this day and age are quite familiar with their own rationality and when in search for knowledge, there is always the internet. But nonetheless, Kant’s advice — a top tier philosopher whose influence on Western thought is not to be underestimated — still rings true today.

Self-Scanning

The world is changing at a rapid pace and we’re busy making ourselves redundant in our desire to make every system automatic. At the same time we have access to limitless streams of information and knowledge, so not before long we will have a legion of capable, smart people with a lot of time on their hands.

One of the biggest problems in the future will be how to manage all those skills and how to make sure that we’re still productive.

Let me give you an example: the biggest supermarket in the Netherlands recently opened its first shop without any cashiers. In an ‘old’ or regular supermarket, you first had to put all your groceries in your shopping cart. You then needed to unload your shopping cart onto the conveyor belt, only to put them right back in your cart again after the cashier had scanned the products. After that, you walk back to your car to once again move all the groceries from your cart to the trunk of your car.

When you use the self scan-service, you grab what you need, you scan it directly and you place the groceries in your shopping bag only once. As you can see, self-scanning is a lot more productive for all parties involved. And it’s also much safer and cheaper. So if you think that this process of automation is going to end anytime soon, think again.

In fact, here at Floown we’re happily joining in this development. You see, we are also in the business of making certain processes more effective with the technologies that are at hand. But we also firmly believe that whatever process you can think of, it should always be in service of the people. That is why we aim to make working in this new, fragmented age of internet easier and to make the people more resistant to changes.

Dare to Know

The reason I started this blog post with the enlightenment motto of Kant is that most people don’t seem to realize that these changes are going on right now.

It’s a problem that we’ve also encountered when talking with interested parties and investors. The people in the industries already working with flexible contracts and professionals on project basis immediately understood the value of our platform. They’re used to working with different clients and employers, so they couldn’t wait to start using Floown. But the industries still mainly working with permanent contracts proved to be somewhat reluctant. They seem to think that the current way of working will remain the standard in five or ten years from now.

To help make those companies and organizations better understand what we are trying to do we went back to an ancient old philosophical question; who or what are we? We felt we needed a catchphrase or a motto to set ourselves apart. A slogan if you will, to make instantly clear what we are trying to accomplish. After working intensely on Floown for the last couple of months, the answer was practically on everybody’s lips. Eventually it was Olaf who put the right words in the right order on one of his many Monday morning rants; we are a Social Productivity platform.

We’re writing a statement about Social Productivity, explaining what this concept means to us. It should be up next week so you can read it on our website if you’re curious or want to learn more. We will also expand further on this subject in the following weeks with our blog posts and on Medium, so keep following us if you dare.

This article was originally published on our website. Visit Floown.com for more on Social Productivity and our platform.