My friend and Open Assembly (OA) Advisor Steve Rader was furloughed during the recent government shutdown. Steve is the Deputy Director of NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI), a founding member of our Collective, and a guy who’s helped bring open tools like crowdsourcing and a gig mindset to government organizations.

Doctors and patients today are frustrated. I don’t normally talk about healthcare in my blogs, but hear me out because this one does relate to the gig economy and the future of work. The last time I visited my doctor, he had to spend more time than usual entering data into his computer screen and less time face-to-face with me.

I love this time of year. The conversations are full of gratefulness, vulnerability and beauty. I often wonder why we can’t take this tone into the rest of the year. There is, of course, the counter-trend that plays out on the news channels, one of bombastic, testosterone-driven pronouncements.

I posted a blog a few weeks ago called “The Gig Economy is the Economy” in reaction to reading an article about the economies of many African countries. It caused a bit of a stir. In my travels to chase adventure in many reaches of the world, I’ve noticed that the economies where I visit are gig economies.

I heard from a friend recently that she was heading into an eight-day silent meditation retreat. In her note she sent this quote: “In the age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In the age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”