Origin
Today every company and consultancy has a point of view for how to make work better or address the “future of work.” And not surprisingly, they usually suggest their singular solution or perspective as the path to success. Our assumption is that providing a broader Work Forward ecosystem perspective will offer companies the ability to see themselves in the picture and use it as a path for considering their Work Forward strategy.

The beginning
The Work Forward Summit applied a collaborative and co-creative workshop approach to developing ideas and concepts to initiate the Work Forward conversation. First, we explored why we work, landing on a set of key concepts that describe the motivations for work, which included:
- Purpose – Make a better world
- Money – Build wealth; fulfill one’s ambition
- Survival – Ensure subsistence
- Community – Helping others; connecting to/serving a higher cause
- Family – Addressing the needs of the ones we love
- Emotion – Happiness, fun, or love
- Innovate – Inspire creativity

Using this set of traditional work activities as a basis for comparison, we moved on to envision what a Work Forward environment might look like. This wasn’t an exercise in exploring “the future of work.” Rather, we used an activity to describe what a Work Forward world looks like through the lenses of Place (where), Time (when), Approach (how), and Materials (what). The activities of the Work Forward world are always advancing and bettering the “why we work” concepts to help people work better, and therefore, also help businesses work better.
To help build a Work Forward movement and develop a manifesto declaring the aims of Work Forward, the original Summit participants ideated a set of principles to guide us. After individually listing many principles, the participants aligned upon a set of key principles.

To see the first output of the event, the MURAL board summarizing the day’s activities, go to this link. To keep up to date on the progress of Work Forward, or observe or contribute to the conversation, just go to the WorkForward LinkedIn group. How about attending the Work Forward Conference someday?