Open Talent: Leveraging the Global Workforce to Solve Your Biggest Challenges

In the new world of hybrid work and AI, one thing is clear: the war for talent is over—and talent won.

With sparsely populated offices and people working from wherever they are, and with AI emerging everywhere in business and dominating headlines, our work lives have undergone a remarkable transformation, seemingly overnight. But the reality is that for years the ever-growing digital wave has been breaking down organizational boundaries and increasing the adoption of open innovation, including the use of crowdsourcing platforms as a talent solution. Now the imperative is clear: adapt to and leverage this new, digitally enabled world of "open talent"—or get left behind.

In this eye-opening, essential guidebook, John Winsor and Jin Paik, with their work at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard, show how the massive reset of the pandemic allowed talented workers everywhere to exit their jobs without leaving the workforce. Now many are freelancing for multiple companies or are starting small businesses, challenging hiring managers as never before amidst a transformed workforce. What's more, talent has more power than ever using platforms such as Freelancer.com, Fiverr, and Upwork, setting their own terms for work: what, where, when, and at what price.

How can companies adapt? The key, the authors argue, is shifting to a more distributed idea and structure of collaborative work. The authors call this a networked organization, where talent is culled from both inside and outside the organization and viewed through a single lens—as a global ecosystem that can be tapped as needed.

With rich stories, keen insights, and an abundance of practical advice, Winsor and Paik provide a new framework and operating model for transforming your organization into a talent-orchestrating, problem-solving machine.

John Winsor is the founder and chair of Open Assembly, the world's leading authority on the open talent economy. He is an executive in residence at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard and the author or coauthor of multiple books, including Baked In: Creating Products and Businesses That Market Themselves and Spark: Be More Innovative Through Co-Creation. He shares his new thinking through his popular blog at johnwinsor.com.

Dr. Jin H. Paik is a cofounder and managing partner at Altruistic, an AI consultancy, and a principal visiting research scientist at HBS. Previously he was the Head of Labs at the Digital, Data, and Design Institute at Harvard and the founding general manager at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Harvard, and NYU.