The human resources paradigm of "information economy" is on very shaky ground. Most of what people do isn't very visible, isn't very quantifiable. The feedback

The human resources paradigm of "information economy" is on very shaky ground. Most of what people do isn't very visible, isn't very quantifiable. The feedback to management is crappy. Most people are not passionate about their job in the sense that they are really motivated to do their best. And.. often the most important bits of work require that kind of motivation. Having ideas or whatnot. The kind of work a modern cubicle jockey does (say an advertising account manager at facebook or a social media evangelist at HSBC) actually does require self motivation. All that horrendous "passionate employees" HR is not coming out of nowhere. They really do need passionate employees. There's this tension between discipline and information to managers and motivation. On one hand slacking, on the other useless passionless robots. Orwell's lanyard s just a symptom.