Weisure World

CNN has an interesting article describing the growing "weisure lifestyle," which is the blurring of work and leisure time. 

Weisure is a term coined by New York Univerisity sociologist Dalton Conley to describe this shift in work-life culture. 

According to Conley, activities and social spaces are becoming work-play ambiguous and work and personal time are blurring together.

He also suggests that many who haven't already abandoned the 9-5 workday for the 24-7 world of weisure will probably do so soon.

The driver the of the weisure world is connective technologies.  Smartphones, the Interenet and social media software like Facebook and Twitter allow people to collaborate with work colleagues while hanging out with friends and family.

Also driving this shift, according to Conley, is that for a lot of Americans work has become more fun.  He refers to this group as the "creative class," borrowing the term from Richard Florida.

This trend is not new.  Not to too our own horn (ok, so we want to toot a little), but several years ago we about "on my time, on my terms management" in an Intuit Future of Small Business report.  Quoting:

"...the adoption of social technologies will allow greater flexibility about when, where and how work is done ... Vacation homes and automobiles will double as offices and increased flexibility will make participation in family activities easier.  While most small business owners will continue to work long hours, they will often be able to pick the times and places that best suit their needs and fit their work-life balance objectives."

Of course we were hardly the first the identify this trend.  The blurring of work and leisure has been discussed for a long time.

But I really like the term "weisure" and one indicator that a trend is moving past fringe groups and becoming common is when it is being picked up by traditional media.

While weisure may or may not make it as a trend name, the blurring of work and leisure appears to have entered the mainstream. 

Comments

[Lennie Rose]

Weisure is sure going to put a kink in all the work life balance stuff - but we are witnessing this same blend of focus at Big Ooga. People want to leverage their valuable time while furthering their careers and building business connections. Then they want to leverage all of it through social media on their own time and terms. It's really quite exciting!

Lennie Rose http://www.bigooga.com/blog