Experience, Inc.

CHAPTER 8Collaboration at Work: Humane Technology

There's a popular French bakery in a college town that employs lots of college kids – cashiers, stock clerks, assistant store managers. The lowest position is slicer-bagger.

“It's a boring job,” says Robert, the bakery's co-owner. “But it's an opportunity to get in, see what you might like to do. If you want to learn how to bake, you have the chance to work with our lead baker, a French fellow who's been doing it for 35 years and loves to teach people. Slicer-bagger is a low-paying entry job, but if you enjoy doing it, it's easy to move up and become a baker and earn more money.”

Not long ago, Robert faced a predicament: Should he buy a slicing-bagging machine? “It would take care of all that and pay for itself in a year,” he says. “But then I thought: Is that really what we want to do? Or do we want to have an entry-level job opportunity for new people to grow and learn? It's a great way to get people in the door. If I buy the slicing/bagging machine, then I close the door a bit on finding good people.”

Robert is a rare businessperson.

Nearly every company, it seems, is branding or rebranding itself as a technology company, regardless of the industry sector it appears to belong to – retail, packaged goods, cars, laundry detergent, jelly donuts. In a world in which anything high tech is seen as faster, smarter, more efficient – better – it makes sense to position yourself as one of them; it may do wonders for your stock price, ...