Jason Fried: Why work doesn't happen at work

http://www.ted.com Jason Fried has a radical theory of working: that the office isn't a good place to do it. At TEDxMidwest he lays out the main problems (call them the M&Ms) and offers three suggestions to make work work.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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[dminorish]

Even in Africa, we work in offices.

[Notwilber3]

Smart companies would let more people work from home and have fewer bosses hovering over workers.

But, corporate America wants the worker bees to feel uncomfortable and to be watched at all times.

[SeventhSun]

▶▷▶▷ Discipline comes when there is an important task at hand.

[evilclown99]

I like working at home because it gives me more time to fuck the dog and take more masturbation breaks.

[HazedNote]

Oh, come on. He meant third world country businesses. Pretty sure someone speaking at TED isn't naive enough to think there's NO offices in Africa.

[Pokiehl007]

It's not that they want the workers to feel uncomfortable. It's a trust and control issue. They don't trust the workers to get the job done and/or they fear the loss of control.

[carolynglitters]

sounds like someone with little discipline.

[degen83]

Some days its exactly what he says, so much going on that you can't get anything done. Other days I have a huge amount of time to myself at work to get stuff done, it depends on the day and what projects we have going on. I do work better from home at times, but there are parts of my job that I have to be on site at work to do. This guy has some good points but seems to be focused on certain corporate jobs. A lot of jobs you have to be on site, construction, food, etc.

[abusehername]

I want him as my boss.

[XianBlackman]

The best way to approach this experiment would be giving potential small business owners the opportunity to join co-operative industries and manage a share of the company. Who would fund and organize these ventures I'm not sure, possibly several sources. People independently start these companies all the time and they are far more efficient and successful than independent small business owners. One way people work more independently and efficiently.

[XianBlackman]

What he seems to be getting at is workers self management. Anarchists and Socialists have been talking about this as early as the 1800s. There hasn't really been many examples of this happening in history, other than the Paris Commune and the Spanish Revolution nothing recent anyways so who really knows how effective it would be in a modern era. (cot'd)

[GeorgiaDiaconescu]

and that means that.. ?