Dive into the archives.
- The Working Knowledge Initiative: Giving Ideas Away
Throughout our lives, most of us have heard the expression, “what goes around comes around”— usually as a bitter comment attempting to suggest consolation. Well, it is true. My colleague Annette Clancy of Inter-Actions, is a firm believer in the merits of giving it away: of floating ideas to others, in deepening the conversation, of [...]
- Working Knowledge Initiative: Precarization, yesterday we didn’t have words for it.
Walking my dog earlier this week, I was reflecting on new words that attempt to capture a strange world that colleagues and clients describe everyday. It hits us directly, but is strangely at arms’ length. We read about it on blog posts, in the papers, on tv; but it is vaguely “out there”— without the [...]
- Case Study: A Working Knowledge Initiative Success
“ Its been quite a process with its share of ups and downs, but the business model is consolidated, our aims are clear, and what you’ve helped me to learn about my own strengths and competencies, I couldn’t have dreamed of eighteen months ago.” — C, on his successful use of the “Working Knowledge Initiative” [...]
- Working Knowledge Initiative. Transforming the sunk cost of job loss.
Peter Goodman reports in today’s New York Times that the underemplyment rate– including the jobless and those working part time though desirous of full-time work– has reached 17% of the workforce. That’s up from even a week ago . Pausing for a moment both to reflect on the despair of economic dislocation and to ask, [...]
- Working Knowledge Initiative. Exercise 2 for Reluctant Entrepreneurs.
Eight arguments against trying the Working Knowledge Initiative and one reason for. 1) The premises of WKI are unreliable, untested (by me), and might discount my view of reality. Its something new— I’d prefer the tried and true. There’s nothing really wrong, anyway. Things will get better. I’ll wait to find work. 2) If my [...]
- New Research: “The Anguish of Unemployment” and Midlife Professionals
Just released: a new study called , “The Anguish of Unemployment” from the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University confirms what we’ve been saying all along: Midlife professionals represent about one-third of the unemployed workforce • 32% of the currently unemployed workforce is over 45 years old, evenly divided between men [...]
- Working Knowledge Initiative. Exercise I for Reluctant Entrepreneurs.
“How do I begin to consider even thinking about the Working Knowledge Initiative? How do I begin to wrap my head around an idea like that?” Beginning to consider a life transition to entrepreneurship is a big hurdle. Most of us never consider that we spend much of our lives doing accounting (paying bills, managing [...]
- Curating the Accord Advisory Blog
Taking a page from our own blog, Accord set out this week to review what we’ve written for the last year. The idea was simple: in managing our daily affairs, the projects that are before us, and how these shape our identity over time, something gets lost. It can be likened to baking cookies: you [...]


