Fortune Magazine's Stanley Bing, "While you were out", addresses the recent US Dept of Labor's release that (non-farm business) productivity hit naught for this past quarter. Meaning, American workers are getting paid (annually) 3.8% more for doing the same work as last quarter. Bing attributes the lack of productivity to variables such as excessive meetings, too many digital devices and too much time hanging ten on the keyboard (internet surfing).
Mr. Bing did an excellent job also addressing the intangibles of production: What does this country actually produce? How do we measure productivity? And after the job cuts to boost the numbers throughout the 90's and in this decade forcing 10 workers to do the work of 20, aren't we already maxxed out when it comes to productivity?As a blogger with a day-job, I understand the pressure of productivity. As a rule, I don't blog from work (full disclosure: every once in awhile I'll see a video on You Tube and spend the 20-seconds it takes to send it to the it takes to send it to the Bushido.) I do bounce ideas off of my colleagues and as part of my job I do get a lot of time to read articles for research. Besides, I spend my day putting out fires and dealing with deadlines so being on blogger wouldn't be very "productive".
I do take it as a point of pride to try and be productive on the Bushido, not for the money (naught) but to keep you all, if not informed at least talking about issues of the day. Obviously, you can tell when I am on vacation, sick (I had a touch of the bird-flu last week) or just plain beat from well, shuffling papers all day at Crosby, Stills and Nash. But if we measure productivity by posts, then the Bushido's production is up from last year. But since there is a new blog started every 30-seconds (one for every person in the country) then I have to at least keep things interesting, brief and office appropos to keep you coming back. So I'll do my part of producing intangible, yet entertaining, diatribes if you promise to keep up your productivity (currently even keel according to the government) at work.
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