Biznik Book Club: "Free Agent Nation - the future of working for yourself"

<img src="/images/book_covers/fan.gif" height="150" alt="" width="102" />Several of us have been kicking around the idea of doing a biz book club within Biznik recently, and since no one else has yet seized the opportunity, I'll be the first to jump in, claim a date, and throw out the first title for us to read.

Joe Shirley passed on a recommendation to read "Free Agent Nation" from member David Robinson, and the title sounds great, so let's read it, shall we?

For the discussion venue, I've chosen BalMar as our meeting place, because it's totally casual and has fantastic ambience, comfy couches, and an area upstairs where a dozen or more people can talk without interruption over cocktails. If more people than that show up, we can split into smaller groups.

I look forward to you joining me at BalMar on Monday evening, June 26th. We'll have an informal discussion over drinks about the book, and more generally on the subject of how your business can create something more meaningful than a paycheck.

0 Bizniks are attending this event

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  Posted by Dan McComb, Seattle, Washington | Jun 27, 2006

  This book turned out to be fantastic - especially for those of us working on developing Biznik into a thriving hub of indie business - it's like a roadmap for how to create a business networking group that doesn't suck.

  And if the lively discussion we had was any indication, I think Biznik Book Club is going to be a hot event type for the group.

  Biznik Business Networking
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  Posted by Wanda Benvenutti, Seattle, Washington | Jun 27, 2006

  Thanks to Lara and Dan for putting this on! It finally got me motivated to read "Free Agent Nation". Now I have cold hard stats on why working as a free agent makes sense. The event reinforced my belief that we can create community of like-minded people who happen to work in non-traditional ways.
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  Posted by Joe McCarthy, Woodinville, Washington | Jul 07, 2006

  Biznik is definitely an example of what Pink calls a F.A.N. Club (given his categories, I would label Biznik an entreprenetwork). It was great book and a fabulous choice as a first book for the Book Club, so I want to add my thanks to Dan and Lara for proposing the club and the book!

  I particularly liked Pink's discussion of

  • the contrast between a free agent and the prototypical "organization man"
  • the distinction between Taylorism and "Tailorism"
  • the new social contract(s) among stakeholders in the new economy.

  I think Yochai Benkler's book The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom would be a great follow-on, as it takes many Free Agent ideas and mixes it with the growing influence of the open source movement. However, from what I've read of the book so far, the writing style is far denser, it's much longer, and it doesn't have those handy summaries at the end of each chapter. Maybe when the weather turns colder and wetter again...

  While I enjoyed learning about other Bizniks' reactions to the book, and the sharing of personal stories that illustrated themes from the book, I think introducing more structure into future meetings might be helpful. This being Biznik, of course, I wouldn't recommend much structure, but it might be nice to have a few discussion questions or themes circulated beforehand (if there is a discussion leader) to help focus the discussions. Or, as suggested in one set of book club guidelines, "to have each member write down a question before the meeting. Good discussion questions are typically somewhat open-ended and debatable, but are also specific enough to promote a focused discussion."