Will Foursquare kill the middle manager?

File under: Boring is Death

I'm reading an article in HBR magazine on "the death of the middle manager".

The technology revolution has brought us a lot—dramatic improvement in what we know about customers and how we interact with them, markedly better information for making decisions, the ability to work through virtual teams scattered around the globe. But its unseen legacy might be something much more fundamental: It has changed the very nature of how people work. One consequence seems clear: The classic job of the middle manager will soon disappear.

Soon? You mean it hasn't already?

Actually, no. Forget Silicon Valley (start-ups), small businesses. bootstrapping. There are thousands and thousands and thousands more still large and extremely large companies and all are littered with middle managers and others whose value is internally focused -- and thus, nearing extinction.

However, despite the HBR proclamation, 'the every nature of work' doesn't necessarily change as fast as it should. For example, think of how few companies, and how many regulations and tax rules, still prevent telecommuting. Still stop new mothers from putting in 18 hours a week. Still rely on traditional forms of conduct, like meetings, project plans, org charts and the like. Problem is, as much as we should escape from the gravitational pull of 20th century management, as much as business needs to be liberated from its past, it's actually hard to achieve. Culture is significant, yes. However, a large part is because the very technology that is destroying markets, creating new business models, and increasing efficiency, possibly making the middle manager a dinosaur, is also fostering uncertainty. The vacuum of uncertainty always breeds bureaucracy, management, hierarchical decision-making in business.

But what if we could drop in a new technology or platform that fills in this vacuum? One that would be better? Cheaper? Funner? Yes, funner.

I wonder if Foursquare, or Gowalla or SCVNGR or some manner of location-based service might fit the bill.

Think about it. If everyone in your company is on a (semi-private) location-based network, work knows where they are. Forget 'face time'. Workers could check in with the swipe of ther iPhone. They could collaborate. What's more, they could compete for rewards (financial and otherwise). Just like we have with existing companies. Departments could compete against one another, or work together. This could be accomplished not via a series of top-down management-sanctioned workflows, but via a richer, more open-ended Grand Theft Auto experience (without the raping and killing, preferably). The business could start with a series of fun, virtual tasks explicity designed to guide a group, or individual worker to achieve some desired goal; be it sales, websit visits, software bug fixes. Similarly, they could lose points for failing to reach the next level of the 'game'. This location-based gaming service could be placed on every worker's smartphone. And it could be designed to be the new middle manager. Check-ins. Getting status. Sharing. Rewards. Punishments. Levels. Points. Badges. Only, with much better, richer data, allowing anyone to see what anyone else is doing at any time, at any place. This may even build greater cross-department interactions.

Like any new virtual game or smartphone location-based service, like Foursquare, even new hires could jump right in and legitimate achievement, regardless of tenure, is what determines the winner. Plus, uncovering pitfalls, sharing power-ups, leaving behind 'breadcrumbs' could make for a leaner, meaner, more hyper-aware corporation. Seems like a nice transition; one allowing the larger business to effectively move from its current management-heavy status, to one that is more disbursed, online, participatory and possibly far more collaborative. What do you think?

I hear people talk about eventually placing a 'gaming layer' onto what individuals do. The big frontier, in my view, is to build this game layer into work. Smartphones plus location-based services like Gowalla and Foursquare may usher this change in once and for all -- and quicker then we might expect. While these location-based services (LBS) start-ups are focused on building an information/virtual/gaming/data layer on top of location, maybe one of them should switch gears. Instead, build that layer on top of a corporation and its mission, then let any worker, anytime, at, yes, any location, check-in and play. Or, if that's too much, the corporation and LBS company can jointly design challenges, rewards, tasks and check-ins (contests and games) exclusively for workers. LBS for marketing, for giving 5% off your next purchase to the first ten to check in is, well, boring. And I'm not convinced that's where the big money is.