You're Only as Good as Your Last Job

This week I've had the chance to actually speak with people on the events team - have lunch with them in small groups and get some background on their experience and expertise. Its come to my attention that several of the team members are contractors and are not official employees of Google. They are freelance event producers who have a short-term, project-based contract with Google. They use our office space and facilites and have Google email accounts, but cannot attend special meetings that discuss sensitive, private information.

In having a conversation with one team member, I couldn't help but think back to Helen Blair's paper "You're Only As Good As Your Last Job", which focuses on the film industry and the flexible specialization framework to explain recent changes in corporate and market structures in the CCIs. This particular freelancer had been brought onto the events team in May of 2010 to work on our Zeitgeist event for 4 weeks. She was then asked to stay another 4 weeks to work on a different marketing project. This cycle continued for 4 months until they no longer needed her on projects. She took some time off to travel and then was called back for work on Zeitgeist 2011 for 4 weeks. She has currently been at the company for 8 weeks and has no clear distinction of her next project or if/when employment will be terminated (Blair, 2001).

This is a constant theme in the CCIs today where an employee is only as good as the last job they did, the portfolio they've created over time and the network they've made for themselves. It is very individualized and responsibility lies mainly with the employee and not the employer to guarantee work. To quote Blair's article, "People need to continually resecure work and maintain positions within groups and contacts" (2001).