What We Learned In The New Economy

Boom-Time Buzz: Free Agent Nation is a utopia. The Brand Called You makes you more marketable than ever.
Cold Reality: Free Agent Nation is a jungle. The Brand Called You is the only way to survive.

In the heyday of the New Economy, a sheepskin from Stanford University's B-school was a coupon for a six-figure salary, stock options, and a high-level position at one of the thousands of startups clamoring for young blood. Getting a job meant choosing from a wish list. Today, things are a little different. Even before school starts at Stanford, students take two mandatory classes, one about self-assessment and the other about developing strategies to manage their careers. "We call it career self-reliance," says Andy Chan, Stanford's placement director. "You have to do it yourself."

It may have been Fast Company, channeling Tom Peters, that said it loudest in its August-September 1997 cover story. "You don't 'belong to' any company for life, and your chief affiliation isn't to any particular 'function.' You're not defined by your job title and you're not confined by your job description. Starting today, you are a brand." We also popularized the concept (from writer Dan Pink) of Free Agent Nation--a new, powerful, and subversive economy populated by the self-employed.

Together, these notions came to symbolize the new world of work during the boom. Suddenly, college kids were supposed to have a better feel for this technorave world than anyone with actual work experience; foosball tables, bars, and outsized senses of entitlement became standard office equipment. "When you were hiring people in 1999 and 2000," says Joe Kraus, one of the founders of Excite.com, "people were asking in interviews, 'What are you going to do for me, and how are you going to guarantee me a million dollars?' And you're sitting here going, 'Are you crazy? I hate the idea of hiring you.' "

Ironically, the dramatic downturn has proven the staying power of both concepts--just not in the idealistic ways we imagined. There is most emphatically a Free Agent Nation today. The thing is, not all of the 9.3 million self-employed asked for citizenship: Downsizing turned many of them into refugees. Some of those who left secure, if staid, jobs for the freedom of free agency now find themselves struggling to pay the rent or offering to do the same work for the companies they left--for less money and fewer benefits. The hard reality turns out to be a bit more, um, real. You can run your own business, but it won't always be fun--or lucrative.

As for the Brand Called You, could there be an idea that's more relevant in today's jobless recovery? As of December 2003, there were still 8.4 million people out of work, 1.9 million for more than 27 weeks. In that context, being the CEO of yourself sounds silly only if you still believe that it means special treatment. "Once it was a luxury," says Peters. "Now it's a survival strategy."

Susan McPherson, director of strategic accounts at PR Newswire, would heartily agree. She worked seven years in sales at the company before leaving in 1997 to become a New Economy wanderer, circling the globe for three different companies. In late 2000, she was laid off. "I was devastated," she says. Seeking consulting gigs, she offered her skills to a local food company. They said, 'Sure'--provided she sling hash for them for a month. "I was knee-deep in coleslaw, and I was mortified," she says.

McPherson had stayed in touch with her old colleagues at PR Newswire, making a point of subtly letting them know her accomplishments, and sending gifts on special days and news clippings she thought might be relevant--just because it was good brand management. In 2001, PR Newswire offered her a consulting post that soon became full time. "It was the Brand Me that allowed me to get back here," she says.

Boom-Time Buzz: IT spending has fueled an unstoppable productivity boom that has ended the business cycle.
Cold Reality: Productivity is still strong--and so is the business cycle.

Monitoring your fantasy baseball team on the Internet when you're at work may not be good for productivity, but isn't just about everything else we do more efficient, thanks to the Net? The numbers seem to back that up. After averaging 1.4% annual growth between 1973 and 1994, productivity suddenly went turbo, rising 2.4% annually between 1995 and 1999. Even during the recession, we got more efficient, by 3.0% in 2000, 1.9% in 2001, 5.4% in 2002, and 3.6% through the third quarter of 2003, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.