The way people work was changing long before the COVID-19 pandemic. But, the pandemic accelerated many changes including the employees wanting more flexibility and variety in their work. We continue our episode series on the labor and employment crisis with a conversation with John Winsor (MBA 1986). Winsor is the CEO of Open Assembly and an executive-in-resident at Harvard Business School's Laboratory for Innovation Science. He is working on a new book about the future of work. Winsor believes open talent is the way of the future. 

The VOE Podcast is an extension of Voices of Experience, the signature speaker series at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. Keep tuning in each month for more business insights from Daniels’ alumni voices of experience.
Transcript
Kristal Griffith:               
Hello, and welcome to the VOE podcast.
Jake Jensen:                    
An extension of Voices of Experience.
Amber D'Angelo:           
The Signature Speaker Series at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business.
Kristal Griffith:               
We are your hosts.
Amber D'Angelo:           
Amber D'Angelo.
Jake Jensen:                    
Jake Jensen.
Kristal Griffith:               
And I'm Kristal Griffith from the Daniels Office of Communications and Marketing. We'll be unpacking topics at the intersection of business and the public good with CEOs and other business leaders from the Daniels community. Let's dive in.
Joining me today is John Winsor, CEO of Open Assembly and an executive in residence at Harvard Business School's Laboratory for Innovation Science. While we'll ask John about both of those titles, we are eager to hear about his thoughts on the future of work, since he's writing a book on the topic right now. John is a 1986 graduate of the Daniels College of Business receiving his MBA. John, welcome to the VOE podcast.
John Winsor:                  
Super excited to be here. Love to you. It was definitely formative in my years, especially as an entrepreneur.
Kristal Griffith:               
John, let's start with your background. You have more than 30 years of experience in entrepreneurship and leadership. You've been in charge of innovation strategy, marketing, advertising in the fitness space. Your background is very intriguing and very diverse. So talk a little bit about your journey becoming CEO of Open Assembly and what Open Assembly is.
John Winsor:                   
Open Assembly is essentially the commercial side of the laboratory. Based on the work, the lab's previous name was the NASA tournament lab. So we were focused on solving hard problems for NASA using open talent as a solution. And then I'm writing a new book with the guys at the lab. I'm not sure of the title. I think we're going to call it Open, Agile and Network, kind of the idea of open talent, agile process, and a networked organizations.
Kristal Griffith:               
Let's talk a little bit about this current labor and employment crisis as you know, right?
John Winsor:                  
Right.
Kristal Griffith:              
It's, people cannot find workers, but then workers also seem like they can't find jobs. So it's like a unique situation I feel in time. So talk about I guess, what's going on. What do you see happening in the world? And then it sounds like you and Harvard has some interesting ideas about solving it.
John Winsor:                   
Maybe, we'll see. We'll see if they're relevant. I mean, the world is changing so fast
I think we have to think about how we build organizations, right? And so when you think about the movement from agricultural age to industrial age, it was for a while, it was very much apparent that there were new things that needed to be built, let's just say cars, right? But yet the way work got done, the organizational structure was very firmly rooted in kind of a communal agricultural point of view.