Skip to content
By using Twitter’s services you agree to our Cookies Use. We and our partners operate globally and use cookies, including for analytics, personalisation, and ads.
  • Home Home Home, current page.
  • About

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Language: English
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Bahasa Melayu
    • Català
    • Čeština
    • Dansk
    • Deutsch
    • English UK
    • Español
    • Filipino
    • Français
    • Hrvatski
    • Italiano
    • Magyar
    • Nederlands
    • Norsk
    • Polski
    • Português
    • Română
    • Slovenčina
    • Suomi
    • Svenska
    • Tiếng Việt
    • Türkçe
    • Ελληνικά
    • Български език
    • Русский
    • Српски
    • Українська мова
    • עִבְרִית
    • العربية
    • فارسی
    • मराठी
    • हिन्दी
    • বাংলা
    • ગુજરાતી
    • தமிழ்
    • ಕನ್ನಡ
    • ภาษาไทย
    • 한국어
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文
  • Have an account? Log in
    Have an account?
    · Forgot password?

    New to Twitter?
    Sign up
vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

Tweets

  • © 2020 Twitter
  • About
  • Help Center
  • Terms
  • Privacy policy
  • Imprint
  • Cookies
  • Ads info
Dismiss
Previous
Next

Go to a person's profile

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @

Promote this Tweet

Block

  • Tweet with a location

    You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

    Your lists

    Create a new list


    Under 100 characters, optional

    Privacy

    Copy link to Tweet

    Embed this Tweet

    Embed this Video

    Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Hmm, there was a problem reaching the server.

    By embedding Twitter content in your website or app, you are agreeing to the Twitter Developer Agreement and Developer Policy.

    Preview

    Why you're seeing this ad

    Log in to Twitter

    · Forgot password?
    Don't have an account? Sign up »

    Sign up for Twitter

    Not on Twitter? Sign up, tune into the things you care about, and get updates as they happen.

    Sign up
    Have an account? Log in »

    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

    Country Code For customers of
    United States 40404 (any)
    Canada 21212 (any)
    United Kingdom 86444 Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2
    Brazil 40404 Nextel, TIM
    Haiti 40404 Digicel, Voila
    Ireland 51210 Vodafone, O2
    India 53000 Bharti Airtel, Videocon, Reliance
    Indonesia 89887 AXIS, 3, Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata
    Italy 4880804 Wind
    3424486444 Vodafone
    » See SMS short codes for other countries

    Confirmation

     

    Welcome home!

    This timeline is where you’ll spend most of your time, getting instant updates about what matters to you.

    Tweets not working for you?

    Hover over the profile pic and click the Following button to unfollow any account.

    Say a lot with a little

    When you see a Tweet you love, tap the heart — it lets the person who wrote it know you shared the love.

    Spread the word

    The fastest way to share someone else’s Tweet with your followers is with a Retweet. Tap the icon to send it instantly.

    Join the conversation

    Add your thoughts about any Tweet with a Reply. Find a topic you’re passionate about, and jump right in.

    Learn the latest

    Get instant insight into what people are talking about now.

    Get more of what you love

    Follow more accounts to get instant updates about topics you care about.

    Find what's happening

    See the latest conversations about any topic instantly.

    Never miss a Moment

    Catch up instantly on the best stories happening as they unfold.

    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      There’s a trend in the business world I’d like to call out: the Consumerization of Employment (CoE). Employment relationships now have the structure of consumption/shopping relationships. This rhymes with consumerization of IT and BYOD (bring your own device) a decade ago.

      1 reply 11 retweets 44 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      The only real difference is that the money flows in the other direction. If you couldn’t see direction of $ flows, it would be hard to tell “work” and “shopping” behaviors apart since they’re getting so alike. This isn’t “prosumerism” btw. We’re talking behaviors, not functions.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      I’m also not talking about affiliate ecosystems or under-the-API/outside-the-firewall network jobs like uber driving. I’m talking about regular old-fashioned jobs where you go to some building, badge in, log onto an intranet, and sit in an open office doing stuff from 9-5.

      1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      The CoE action centers on a particular subset of vanishing jobs: mid-grade, white-collar staff jobs. Work being automated by enterprise software (we’re now at 90% extinction of 1980 levels). But it isn’t “100% eliminated” so much as refactored/redistributed across other workers.

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Mid-grade white-collar staff jobs have largely turned into admin overhead shadow labor for other workers. If TPS report system screws up, you no longer have a Lumberg proactively bugging you. You have line workers on hold with level 3 customer support for eTPScore™ in Bangalore.

      1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      When I had a regular job, old timers used to wistfully reminisce about how even mid-grade line workers had individual admins in 80s. Now sometimes even senior VP+ execs of larger companies have to share. Mid/low grades have 1 admin for entire department, more like office managers

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      The old-timers who experienced the human-admin-rich world of work (like in Mad Men), with heavy in-house staff orgs, have largely retired. It’s now largely a SaaSy outsourced backend where the only humans are third level customer support for when things break.

      1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Call this Dark Staff by analogy to lights-out/dark data centers or dark kitchens. Enterprise software is Dark Staff. The term BPO (business process outsourcing) is misleading. Traditional staff work doesn’t just migrate to other orgs. It goes dark along the way, via automation.

      1 reply 1 retweet 5 likes
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Enterprise software basically is about replacing 100 hours of human admin work with 0.25h of remote customer support work per week, and specialized-but-not-skilled admin software skills in end user.

      11:16 AM - 11 Dec 2018
      • 2 Retweets
      • 6 Likes
      • Alex Schleber 👽😷 ben chan Corn Woman 🌽 Herr Dr Mr Modern Major General brrr Seitz Raghav Agrawal Adolf Richter Brill 🐮 Traian Docolina Rob MacLachlan
      1 reply 2 retweets 6 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Instead of dealing with 1 smart human admin whose full-time job was dealing with a dozen other human functional service provider orgs (and often marrying her since it was usually a woman supporting a man), you now have to learn 15 pieces of enterprise software. Shadow line-labor.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          “Bullshit jobs” is a bit of an unfair term for humans who used to be at the client (admin assistant) and server (staff org pro) ends of routine business processes. They did real work, which is why real software businesses plus shadow line labor have replaced them.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          I hope it’s improved since I left paycheck world, but I’d guess about 10-30% of worker time now is the equivalent of bagging your own admin groceries in self-checkout admin bureaucrat machines in the Dark Staff cloud.

          1 reply 5 retweets 21 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          This is something like the dystopian world of Vonnegut’s Player Piano, except that instead of clear divides between skilled human work and automation, all humans are now partly low-skill shadow-line labor robot babysitters, spending 10-30% time working the Dark Staff cloud.

          1 reply 2 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          (soon to be equipped with AI and genuine people personalities a la Siri/Alexa/Cortana... then certain functions may go almost fully dark with even most customer service being handled by AIs that learn on process failure instances across large call data sets)

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          As these systems improve the routine use will get better and better, reaching near consumer-grade UX quality. Invoicing systems will get as precision-engineered as google. The flip side: failures will get harder and harder to fix.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Basically, economies of business process scale are kicking in with a vengeance. Soon, resolving a problem with eTPScore will be like trying to get Twitter to unfreeze an incorrectly frozen account. The difference is, your paycheck might be held up while you wait.

          1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          CoE has profound consequences. All the troubles ailing social media today — fake news, exploitative bots, algorithmic crashes — could potentially migrate to enterprise systems. Think Dark Staff phishing etc. I already get the occasional fake invoice.

          1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes
          Show this thread
        10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Free-agent world is barely distinguishable. I think I use as many self-bagging admin things but they tend to be narrower point solutions for much more specific, unbundled needs. I suspect I overall spend more time on admin since I have to do more by myself, but it’s all necessary

          1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
          Show this thread
        11. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          In a way the free agent/paycheck distinction is now irrelevant. Flexwork + consumerization of IT + BYOD + consumerization of employment = amazing dissolving workplace. There is no need for an access controlled physical/digital “office” to work in. No walls. Open borders economy.

          2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The CoE effect is even stronger where you’re an actual consumer too (Amazon or Starbucks say). Think old-fashioned employee stores/employee discounts/company towns but seamlessly integrated at relationship level.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
          Show this thread
        13. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          You no longer compartmentalize your relationship with the corporation. It’s the same login/id and access credentials. It just has rich, fine-grained effects on cash inflows/outflows based on your full relationship with the Dark Staff, via the corporate-employer-as-switchboard.

          1 reply 1 retweet 1 like
          Show this thread
        14. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          So employer organizations are now increasingly like virtual switchboards connecting workers to Dark Staff services. If there’s an office, it’s for either specialized physical equipment or community services. The watercooler IS the office now.

          1 reply 1 retweet 4 likes
          Show this thread
        15. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The so-called “third place” is no different from the office now. Both are basically coffee shops. The coffee just might be cheaper in one. Even f2f privacy is not as critical a function. That’s for one of the phone booths, which Starbucks might soon have.

          1 reply 2 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        16. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          To wrap it up, think of it this way. Soon “quitting/changing your job” may not be a dramatic event with huge lifestyle consequences. It might just be some permissions getting downgraded on one switchboard, and upgraded on another.

          1 reply 1 retweet 17 likes
          Show this thread
        17. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 11 Dec 2018
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          You’re bagging your own admin groceries in either case, at most from a different coffee shop. Welcome to the brave new world of consumerized employment. Your call is important to us. Our Dark Staff representative, Cortana, will be with you shortly to discuss your paycheck freeze.

          1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
          Show this thread
        18. End of conversation

      Loading seems to be taking a while.

      Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.

        Promoted Tweet

        false

        • © 2020 Twitter
        • About
        • Help Center
        • Terms
        • Privacy policy
        • Imprint
        • Cookies
        • Ads info