Serendip­ity is a won­der­ful thing.

Office 2.0 Conference logoThrough a lit­tle good for­tune and some vig­or­ous email back and forth, I have been con­firmed as a speaker for the Office 2.0 Con­fer­ence in San Fran­cisco from Sep­tem­ber 5 – 7 2007.

This will be my first trip to the USA (although I’m back less than a month later for a hol­i­day with my wife and daugh­ter), so I’m really look­ing for­ward to it.

Here’s my abstract:

I Am Knowl­edge Worker 2.0, Hear Me Roar

Busi­ness in the early 21st Cen­tury has changed. Along with it, work­ers have changed. No longer tied up in process, mod­ern knowl­edge work­ers need to be syn­the­siz­ers or T-​​shaped or fuzzy or bursty. Or all of these things. They want tools that the IT depart­ment hasn’t approved — and isn’t going to any time soon. They are as demand­ing and insis­tent as those Gen-​​Y kids, yet they aren’t the right age. They want to “con­nect” and “have a con­ver­sa­tion”. They talk about “engage­ment in a com­mu­nity” and want to open the wall to your clients and cus­tomers. Worse yet, they want to be the ones talk­ing to clients and cus­tomers! They refuse to answer email as it arrives. They’re never at their desk. Yet they always get things done and more often than not, they over-​​deliver on their commitments.

They are Knowl­edge Worker 2.0.

How do you deal with these peo­ple? How do you get their man­agers and peers to under­stand they’re not slack­ing off? How do you get them and their thoughts in a place where they can play nice with their more tra­di­tional co-​​workers?

Stephen Collins intro­duces the Knowl­edge Worker 2.0 and offers up some strate­gies and tac­tics for them to deal with their “frus­trat­ing” co-​​workers and for their man­agers and peers to cope with, under­stand and learn from them.

We’re talk­ing about Char­lie here.

So, if you’re com­ing to Office 2.0, or are one of the peo­ple I only know as an avatar that lives in San Fran­cisco, com­ment here or drop me an email and we’ll try to meet up while I’m there.