Curatorship is arguably the big new job of our times; it is the task of re-evaluating, filtering, digesting, and connecting together. In an age saturated with new artifacts and information, it is perhaps the curator, the connection maker, who is the new storyteller, the meta-author.
— Brian Eno in Artforum, 1991

WHAT DOES WORK LOOK LIKE TO YOU? THINKING ELEMENTALLY...

Years of research, systems and design thinking — which began with a single term, “telecommute,” coined back in 1973 — led me here, to this tool, a distillation of, yes, my curation of “work.” At the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the explosion of AI, the narrative — the very nature — of what we have known as work, jobs, careers is changing amid accelerated innovation and uncertainty. To remain relevant, let alone thrive, we must reconsider our structures, styles, skills, values, behaviors, and the external conditions that define them. We must ultimately rethink our relationships with work, what it means to each of us today, and what it will mean tomorrow, when what we do on an individual plane ripples within an increasingly asynchronous workforce. 

This periodic table assembles a dialogue of eras, of approaches, of methodologies, of priorities, of productivity and success — another term that bears rethinking. Walk through the groups to arrive at your formula of the elements shaping the future of work. Make connections as your own curator, storyteller, meta-author. As the table evolves online, accompanied by a user interface to gain deeper insights, the document will also evolve, capturing a fluid portrait of our individual and collective futures. It is my goal to encourage a greater understanding of work, for the goal of better understanding ourselves, one another, and the challenges, opportunities, and disruptions of tomorrow.