Flexwork is a new idea on how to work together. Not flex working as in knowmadding around, but a way of using people for what they can do best in their talent. Imagine you get an assignment. That assignment has a bundle of restrictions — a fixed tight budget, a really tight deadline and a highly specific briefing. In this case you could probably work best if you assemble a team with the requisite variety and depth to frame and solve a specific client problem swiftly. A team of trained professionals, that that operates as a commando squad. This will make sure you will get the expected level of quality and you meet your deadline. Which makes clients happy. These specialists know how to be creative within restraints. Because they have been trained to do so by doing it a lot — experience.

Now imagine the expectations are the same, only you will have more time. Instead of a week, you get a month. In this scenario you have to make sure that you meet all the objectives. But now we mix. We need a pro but mix with a couple of students. The pro will guarantee the quality, but for one hour of his time we can also put a couple of students to work. By working together, knowledge exchange is a positive collateral damage that just happens along the way. The students build up experience by working together with professionals, working on real assignments and seeing real clients. The professional gets his dose of freshness by working together with young people. The client will get what he asked (obviously a lot more) and can also claim that he supports development of young people, which also looks good in their Corporate Social Responsibility reports. Looks like a win, win, win to me.

How to make this happen? By creating pools at schools where students who want to do real stuff can subscribe to and can also share their skills. And by doing so can be approached to collaborate on projects outside of school. And of course with the full support of the school (and maybe parents).