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Q8 2025? 325

their own relationships with their employers, whatever that might mean by 2025. Certainly it
means a loss of control, one that is readily made public to the world.
In the 1960s, when someone wanted to send a letter to Don Draper at Sterling Cooper,
his or her secretary addressed the envelope to Sterling Cooper and down at the bottom
added, “Attention: Don Draper.” The letter was to Sterling Cooper—and, oh, by the way—also
to Don Draper. Email changed that. Today, someone would send an email to DonDraper@
SterlingCooper.com or even just to Don@SterlingCooper.com. The email address is to a person
first, and then to the company.
Social media changes addresses even further. When Don Draper creates his own blog,
for example, people who respond to Don’s blog only incidentally notice in the “About Don”
section of the blog that Don works for Sterling Cooper. In short, the focus has moved in 50
years from organizations covering employee names to employees covering organization
names.
Does this mean that organizations will go away by 2025? Hardly. Organizations are needed
to raise and conserve capital and to organize vast groups of people and projects. No group of
loosely affiliated people can envision, design, develop, manufacture, market, sell, and support
an iPad. Organizations are required.
So what, then? Maybe we can take a lesson from biology. Crabs have an external exoskel-
eton. Deer, much later in the evolutionary chain, have an internal endoskeleton. When crabs
grow, they must endure the laborious and biologically expensive process of shedding a small
shell and growing a larger one. They are also vulnerable during the transition. When deer grow,
the skeleton is inside and it grows with the deer. No need for vulnerable molting. And, consider-
ing agility, would you take a crab over a deer? In the 1960s, organizations were the exoskeleton
around employees. By 2025, organizations will be the endoskeleton, supporting the work of
people on the exterior.
What all of this means for you is that mobility + cloud + social media will create fascinating
opportunities for your nonroutine cognitive skills in the next 10 years!