Let’s Transform Work. Together.
Open Assembly has revealed plans for the Transform Work Summit, set to be held in the picturesque Boulder, Colorado, at the peak of the region’s vibrant fall season. The event is scheduled to take place from 4-6 October 2023, and promises to be an exciting gathering of thought leaders, innovators, and professionals in the open talent industry.
What Is Transform Work?
Transform Work is the first in-person, global event created specifically for the open talent platform industry, and will showcase best practices and success stories, as well as demonstrate the benefits of using open talent platforms to solve your company’s toughest challenges. You can expect valuable conversations, networking, learnings, and of course, fun in the beautiful mountains of Boulder at the peak of the region’s vibrant fall season.
Background
In 2015, Open Assembly came into being as a community-based organization, encompassing platforms, freelancers, academics and enterprises utilizing open talent. In 2018, the community gained momentum when a small group of pioneers congregated at the Crowd Academy function hosted by Karim Lakhani and LISH (the Laboratory for Innovation Sciences at Harvard). After the event, a few individuals began meeting regularly to converse about the prospects of open talent and develop shared vocabulary and standardized procedures to facilitate the movement’s expansion.
John Winsor, a serial entrepreneur and the founder and chairman of Open Assembly, has employed open innovation strategies in all of his business ventures. He is currently co-authoring a book with Jin H. Paik, to be published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2024, that will delve into how open talent can help solve some of the biggest challenges facing organizations.
As more and more organizations are beginning to realize the potential benefits of implementing open talent strategies, it’s essential to share their success stories and promote its adoption across different sectors. This is the goal of the Transform Work Summit.
Why
We need to Transform Work. An external, independent, open workforce has always been part of the global economy and the digital revolution has made it easier to engage with than ever before. Visionary business leaders know the future is variable and not fixed. They know the next generation demands job flexibility. They understand the trends and have the tools.
Yet, adoption remains a trickle because it strikes fear in the hearts of traditional enterprises, or first attempts fail to be transformative within their organization.
Transform Work will showcase best practices, success stories, and other use cases to demonstrate the benefits of using open talent platforms to potential enterprise customers.
As a community, we need to highlight that the advantages of an open talent strategy are well known—access to a wider network of experts, more testable ideas, reduced development time, and substantial cost savings.
Open talent is the solution. In today’s competitive landscape, organizations must attract and retain top talent. Yet, the talent shortage is a pressing concern for many businesses, and organizations that fail to evolve risk losing out to their competitors. One solution to this problem is open talent, which involves sourcing talent from outside the organization.
What Is Open Talent?
Open talent refers to the practice of engaging with freelancers, contractors, consultants, or even volunteers who are not part of an organization’s permanent workforce to complete tasks or projects.
Open talent enables organizations to tap into a broader pool of talent and access a wider range of skills and expertise, save costs on recruitment and training, be more agile and responsive to shifts in the market, and build goodwill and stronger relationships with their customers, stakeholders and community.
As the competition for top talent continues to intensify, organizations that embrace open talent are likely to have a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining the best people.
How
Transform Work will cover a range of topics that demonstrate how open talent can help organizations solve their biggest challenges:
- How to shift culture within your organization
- How to transform your organization into a scalable networked organization
- How to build an external talent cloud
- How to create an internal talent marketplace
- How to invest in the open talent economy
- How to navigate and overcome obstacles, such as security, compliance, risk, onboarding, data privacy and confidentiality, training and resources.
Session #1 will dive into the current state of the Open Talent Economy, where it’s heading, and why some companies are losing the war for talent. Participants will learn how an open talent mindset can help organizations access a wider pool of talent and overcome recruitment challenges.
In Session #2 attendees will learn how to transform their companies into networked organizations that can quickly scale by tapping into the skills and knowledge of individuals all over the globe.
Session #3 will help organizations create processes that work for them and guide them through the many on-demand and crowdsourcing platforms available in the open talent marketplace. Attendees will learn how to become a center of excellence when it comes to open talent.
Session #4 will focus on building an external talent cloud, including the supporting infrastructure and systems needed to adapt to the new way of working. Participants will learn how to create a corporate culture that is accepting of open talent and how to build an internal talent marketplace that enables the sharing of resources across divisions and silos.
Session #5 will explore attracting investment in the open talent economy, where attendees will learn how to get venture capital for an open talent platform and how to develop a clear and compelling business plan that outlines the value proposition and potential market.
Session #6 will help organizations tap into open innovation challenges to find solutions to specific challenges or problems. This session will provide insights on how to build open innovation capability and leverage open talent for innovation.
Finally, Session #7 will cover the obstacles that organizations may face when implementing an open talent strategy, including security, compliance, risk, candidates’ onboarding policies and procedures, guidelines for data privacy and confidentiality, training, and resources. Participants will learn about risk management, liability issues, and cultural considerations when it comes to open talent.
Transform Work is an exciting opportunity for organizations to learn about the potential of open talent and the many ways in which it can help them win the talent crisis.
Who
Attendance will be limited to 150 qualified enterprise leaders who are navigating how to build a networked organization but are confused as to how to begin. We will invite CEOs, CMOs, COOs, CHRs, procurement directors and middle managers looking to get started or those who are already seeing success and know there is always more to learn.
Don’t miss your chance to harness the power of open talent to drive innovation and make a lasting impact at your organization.
Sponsorship Opportunities
We are seeking partners who want to position themselves as leaders in building networked organizations. This is a massive opportunity for platforms at the intersection of digital services and open talent capabilities to distinguish themselves as leaders in the organizational transformation of work.
For more information about sponsorship opportunities, contact us.
