Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself

And I never thought I would say that about any book other than the Bible. But Pink's book has become my professional Bible. I wasn't one of those wise ones who sat down, thought it all out, weighed all the plusses and minuses, and made a decision. Nope, not me. That makes way too much sense! After being left stranded high and dry after the Technology industry downturn last year, and scrambling to make it; little by little, one job here, one job there, I finally realized I was making it, and pretty well, but without the traditional J-O-B. Then I ran across Dan's book, and found myself!! It is overflowing with advice, insights, perspective, tips, you-name-it for those who love freedom and controlling their own life more than a corner office with a rubber tree plant! If you want to understand the current revolution in the workplace, read this book.If you think you might be interested in being a Free Agent, study this book! If you're trying to make it as a Free Agent, DEVOUR this book. Thanks for all your hard work, Dan! I can never thank you enough!!!

Reading this book was irritating! I've developed a habit of turning down the corners of pages when something on that page is particularly interesting to me. I discovered that I was turning down practically every page of Free Agent Nation! Daniel Pink has accomplished what most readers of non-fiction books desire: he's put solid value on almost every page. Your thoughts will be constantly stimulated as you move through this book.Our lives have changed substantially since William Whyte wrote The Organization Man in 1956. The work environment experienced by today's generation-and tomorrow's-is radically different. Instead of being captives of the organizational mode, income-earners are now free agents, including some 30 million freelancers, temps, and microbusiness owners. The lifestyles and philosophies of this growing group will impact the labor pool, retirement, education, real estate, and politics. Daniel Pink's name will go down in literary history for Free Agent Nation because he has so effectively covered the underlying philosophy of a generation.Free Agent Nation, an engaging, smooth read, is organized into five parts. The first part introduces us to what Free Agent Nation is all about. Chapter 2 gets right into "Numbers and Nuances" to give the reader a deep understanding. Chapter 3 explains how free agency happened. "Four ingredients were essential: 1) the social contract of work-in which employees traded loyalty for security-crumbled; 2) individuals needed a large company less, because the means of production-that is, the tools necessary to create wealth-went from expensive, huge, and difficult for one person to operate to cheap, houseable, and easy for one person to operate; 3) widespread, long-term prosperity allowed people to think of work as a way not only to make money, but also to make meaning; 4) the half-life of organizations began shrinking, assuring that most individuals will outlive any organization for which they work."Part Two explores The Free Agent Way, the new relationship between worker and employer. Part Three gets into How (and Why) Free Agency Works. Pink explains how people get connected-with work opportunities and with each other. While many free agents work alone, they are not alone. There is a growing community of mutually-supportive independent members in an evolving new design of society. But, all is not rosy in Free Agent Nation; this is not Camelot. Part Four examines the problems that arise from laws, taxes, and insurance. An interesting chapter (13) on Temp Slaves, Permatemps, and the Rise of Self-Organized Labor reveals the seedier side of this picture. Pay careful attention, and you can almost feel the changes that are coming.Part Five engages The Free Agent Future. Chapter 14 addresses E-tirement, confirming that older members of our society will be playing much different roles than in previous generations. The chapter on Education gives some initial insight into some different approaches to lifelong learn

Engage your imagination.Think of the individuals who provide the standard information we depend on -- those working for the mega-corporations that control TV, magazines and newspapers; the professors at universities and the consultants at large firms; and the public information officers working for the government -- as people whose very view of the world is supported, both economically and contextually, by the many concentric rings of a tree (their employer). These rings show the tree is many decades old, and planted firmly in the ground.One who is attached to such a solid, massive, rooted tree would hardly notice the slender, fresh young shoots popping out from the ground far below, even if those shoots are numerous in the tens of millions. Individually, they're just too tiny.Dan Pink's book is about the growing power, influence and population of those fresh young shoots. Even to acknowledge the validity of his premise shakes the big trees in a frightening way, down to their core foundations.I know whereof I speak. Until 1985, I was a tiny tendril of a branch of one of the great old trees. It was in 1985 I left my post as McGraw-Hill's World News San Francisco Bureau Chief. I know how to "wear the hat" of old-tree warrior-reporter.For 16 years I have been a free agent (I didn't know to call myself that until I read Pink's cover story in Fast Company). It was always curious to me that wearing my corporate newsman's hat, I could never see me writing about someone such as myself in my current incarnation -- solely because, as a free agent, I didn't have the institutional affilation (that is, I wasn't part of an old tree) which was needed to be seen by the media as credible.Of course, those things have changed somewhat in 16 years, as Pink so skillfully documents. But here's the most important point -- a few days ago, the government (one old tree) reported that in the previous month there was a huge wave of corporate layoffs (from another old tree), and expert economists (working for yet other old trees) announced that now we're in a recession, making their announcement through, of course, the mass media (yet another group of old trees).They may be right. They may be wrong. But their measurements are focused on a decreasingly important part of the economy. And, what is more, nobody factored into those measurements of economic movement what the 30-million-plus free agents had been up to during the same previous month.I dwell on these points because they illustrate how revolutionary -- in, I might emphasize, a pro-capitalist, economy-expanding way -- the book Free Agent Nation is. Many people aren't visionary enough to understand yet how well Pink has adduced a blueprint for the future in this book. But if you're interested in this book, you probably have enough of a sense of where we're heading to realize we will become a much less institutionally determined, and a much more individually negotiated, economy and society.Whether you are of t

The term, free agent, is borrowed from sports. It describes the players who are most talented and for whom other teams bid. As a result, they often command enormous salaries, perks, and influence. Recently, the term has been applied to people like free lance software programmers who are sought after because of their special expertise. In Free Agent Nation, the term is applied more broadly to describe all those who rely on project assignments outside of being directly and permanently employed by someone else. This group includes lots of professional free lancers as well as people who work through temporary agencies with few skills at deadly dull tasks. The ideal in the 1950s was to work for one employer, to be loyal to that employer and to receive loyalty in return. Steady progress would follow as seniority grew. Keeping the ship afloat came before the individual's needs. This world was described in the classic book, The Organization Man by William H. Whyte, Jr. Since then the world has changed quite a bit, and Daniel H. Pink's Free Agent Nation is the conscious updating of the working ideal to reflect today's growing free lance economy. This ideal emphasizes freedom, work satisfaction, flexibility, accountability, self-defined markers of success, and being authentic in your own eyes. It's the ultimate of wanting to do good and to do well. Mr. Pink draws on his own experiences, hundreds of interviews with free agents, qualitative surveys, and his review of the literature on this subject to weave together the best integrated story on how independent work is becoming a norm as well as an ideal in the United States. Mr. Pink's strength is that he is a great communicator. He deftly weaves his various sources into a tautly connected story that will make sense to anyone who reads it or has lived it. He connected quite a few dots for me that I have never thought of as being connected before. The book will be of most value to those who are thinking about leaving traditional employment to become a free agent. Free Agent Nation does a good job of describing what the benefits are once you have made the shift. On the other hand, the book almost totally ignores the difficult transitions that most people go through. If you are looking for advice on how to make the shift, some of what is in here will help, but you would do well to talk to some people who are doing what you would like to do first in order to get their ideas on how to transition.The book describes who the free agents are, estimates how many of them there are (a lot more than you probably suspect), how this work style emerged, and why people like it. Essentially, the model described here is a return to the agrarian model of a family growing its own food and always being in close touch. The main change is that people use technology to work from their own homes to meet their material needs rather than farming. Mr. Pink also connects this trend to the rise in home schooling,

Free Agent Nation exceeded my expectations, which were high to begin with. This is not just a drawn-out version of Pink's classic cover story in Fast Company. It reflects extensive research and provides many surprising insights and interesting predictions.This is not a book you can polish off in an hour or two. It is difficult to convey in a brief review the depth and richness of Free Agent Nation.Pink demonstrates that free agents are a large and growing share of the work force. He describes some of the economic forces contributing to this phenomenon, but he finds that free agents themselves explain their reasons for leaving the corporate world in psychological terms: a desire for freedom, authenticity, accountability, and flexible concepts of success.Pink shows that free agents have their own unique perspectives and solutions to such challenges as security, workplace relationships, career advancement, and work-family balance. For example, he describes the way that peer networks are providing the type of career support that formerly came from within large corporations. Whether you like it or not, the gravitational forces between individuals and large corporations are weakening. In the future, how will business be re-organized? How will the economy function? Daniel Pink asks the big questions, and he comes up with a lot of fascinating answers. I expect Free Agent Nation to become the most talked-about nonfiction book of the year.