How workplace designers of the future are failing 51% of our country.

Why we need new designers and voices creating “The Future of Work.”

Call it whatever you want. The Great Reset. Build Back Better. The #futureofwork. The Recovery Plan. It doesn’t matter what veneer economists, politicians, and foundations put on it…what we are talking about is bigger than one term can hold.

The big management consultancies continue to just riff off one another. They aren’t centering solutions on womxn and gender non-conforming humans, especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous people–they’re only saying they are. They seem to be stealing from smaller orgs with more diverse voices, then calling it “innovation” and “disruption.”

As a consultancy focused on communications, brand strategy, and social enterprise I understand the urge to define things, which is why I can’t believe I am saying this. We need to stop worrying about how we brand it–and focus all efforts (resources, money, brainpower) on solutions. If we properly address the divides, does it matter what we call this new economy or model of commerce?

I am a proponent of explanations. A lover of words—lots of them, obviously. In a room full of change agents, I usually pine away for a clearer definition of social entrepreneurship. Yet, I find myself asking: When we live in a world where the difference is those that are comfortable (or even going to Cancun to escape a winter snap), and those that are freezing to death (literally), where do we put our energy? What matters more. The term (like Mutual-aid) or the benefit (a community that survives)?

If we properly address the divides, does it matter what we call this new economy or model of commerce?

Often “futurists” get way too hung up on terminology, instead of focusing on the heart of the matter. Don’t we have enough defined? We know what to fix: White supremacy, and the inequality perpetuated by the patriarchy.

Knowing the issue is sufficient. It’s enough to start iterating on solutions without a term, more numbers, more reports. Good designers know, you gotta try out different things when there is no mathematical binary answer. Instead, businesses get hung up on the “case for diversity,” wanting more data to prove what we already know.

Meanwhile, even as more and more of us wake up to privilege and power, people continue to be harmed, disenfranchised, and die. Work is still toxic. Numbers do not lie. There’s no time for a “journey” with issues this urgent. Action and trying something, anything, is better than this slow march towards progress. Fire season is almost here.

Maybe someone has a magic switch we can flip to fix the wage and wealth gaps, poverty, healthcare, climate change, education, and student debt?

When do-gooders go looking for the right term for a business with some kind of soul, I think we are just hoping someone has figured it out. Someone must know the answer. Maybe someone has a magic switch we can flip to fix the wage and wealth gaps, poverty, healthcare, climate change, education, and student debt?

Sadly, there is no magic switch. If there was, I would hope we would have flipped it: Capitalism off. Rad Hyper-New Idea Economy on.

The truth is daunting: We need to rethink every global system we have had for hundreds of years–no small feat. Society and economic global systems are as intersectional as we are; we can’t fix one part. We must address it as a whole. It is likely the -ism needed has yet to come to fruition. Who knows how it truly operates until we start doing it? Whatever we call it, the economists and corporate leaders of the past acknowledge: the economy is not working for everyone. Why, then, are they building our roadmap to this “better” future?

“New Economy” is another bucket to describe this new phase of humanity and economics. Bloomberg Business articles look and sound mostly the same; they just slapped “New Economy” on the website.

We need a totally new way of working, living, and trading in the world. (Some of us are already making headway.) Why use the same corporate business structures that were sexist and racist, and expect their diversity statements will fix “work”? Did we truly think their shift towards purpose was anything more than posturing?

Too many are surprised that things are moving in reverse. Have you been watching a slow-motion coup or the rise of misogyny online and IRL around the globe? Have you seen what happened to frontline workers or moms this past year? Stop being shocked. Yes, work is still that bad.

We have vaccines; technically we are in the future, right? The post-pandemic workplace emerging feels exactly the same for way too many people (toxic, stressful, unfulfilling, high rates of burnout, fake, and all about money). Why? By and large, the ones creating “the future” are the same ones that created the past. Spoiler alert: It’s everyone’s favorite “oppressed” majority: white men.

We are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams—not McKinsey. We didn’t go to Wharton; we went to raves.

Let’s consider this: we need a new type of business consultant. One who isn’t out for a $1000/hr bill rate while participating in illegal investing. Don’t you want advice and support from someone who actually cares about the people in your org, even if (especially if) that’s just you? We are the music makers, the dreamers of dreams—not McKinsey. We didn’t go to Wharton; we went to raves.

We may not know deep statistical analysis, but we know human behavior. Unlike Bill Gates, we know the cost of a melon. It’s not $20, yet. We know design thinking and bloom’s taxonomy and how to truly educate. We understand debt; we have it or have at one point. We see what’s missing and we see opportunities get offered elsewhere or to us for lower wages. We are on the other side of the gaps that need to close, not Deloitte or the Rockefeller Foundation.

And, that’s why we’ll be the ones creating the “Future of Work.” Together, we can build back better, as long as better is not trying to improve upon “before.” Before only worked well for some. The rest of us still want better to mean equality, safety, and health. The “future of work” doesn’t work without us.

So…here’s to a new economy, an -ism that has no name, and a planet that needs some care. No justice, no peace. We want justice.

Despite men who love to say “I got this,” the patriarchy does not have this. It’s our turn because we know the way to a better future–for everyone. We got this. Let’s get to work.