A new era is upon us. Call it what you will: the service economy, the information age, the knowledge society. It all translates to a fundamental change in the way we work. Already we’re partly there. (1)The percentage of people who earn their living by making things has fallen dramatically in the Western World. Today the majority of jobs in America, Europe and Japan(two thirds or more in many of these countries)are in the service industry, and the number is on the rise. (2)There are more part-time jobs. More people are self-employed. But the breadth of the economic transformation can’t be measured by numbers alone, because it also is giving rise to a radical new way of thinking about the nature of work itself. (3)Long-held notions about jobs and careers, the skills needed to succeed, even the relation between individuals and employers—all these are being challenged. (4)We have only to look behind us to get some sense of what may lie ahead. (5)No one looking ahead 20 years possibly could have foreseen the ways in which a single invention, the chip, would transform our world thanks to its applications in personal computers, digital communications and factory robots.