No assembly required
By Frederick Pilot
October 3, 2025
As information and communications technology tools decentralize and virtualize knowledge work, it challenges knowledge organizations to reconceptualize working. In the pre information economy industrial age, work and education involved assembling: in schools, factories and offices.
Now the office is optional.
Making this conceptual shift has proven difficult for many knowledge organizations. That’s because their leaders often believe assembly is essential for collaboration and teamwork. Hence, they demand staff attendance at least some of the workweek in a centralized, commute in office.
Assembly is no longer needed is when information of all forms is easily shared virtually.
Forced assembly hasn’t gone over well for staff who find themselves going though the motions of assembling, swiping their badges to create a record of attendance. Or sitting in a cube farm and having Zoom or Teams meetings with colleagues in other nearby cubicles – something they could just as easily done without making the commute trip there.