Coworkers of the World, Rejoice!

You, you Coworkers of the World your very selves, yes, you who are assembled together online, you, the very people this is about.

You are the people connected in these words at this moment, virtually here because you want to be connected, because it’s fun.

And, a short paragraph later, you are still here - because you are still having fun reading something about yourself, and maybe even each other.

At any moment, you could disappear, leaving barely a trace, if you so willed. Not an email address, not a URL or even a user name.

You are the Coworkers. You are the connected ones. You are the ones making connections.

You write together, make music together, chat together, you email and blog, you text and twitter. Because you like it. You like the work you do, online, face- even to-face. You like the conversations you co-create, you like working the way you like working with the people you like working, uh, with.

You work the way you like working, where you like working, when you like working, wearing what you like. You work with people the way you like working with people. You like working. You have fun working. You like yourselves.

And even though any one of you could pop, like a bubble, disappear like a magician, you are reliable as rocks, oh yeah, uh-huh. Could hang up. Change avatars. Block email. Instead you are prolifically productive, remarkably reliable. Even though at any time you can any or all of you go pop.

You communicate, you collaborate, you coliberate. You are free and work freely with each other. Each of you freeing the other, each of you making it possible for each of you to work at our best.

You are the new generation, the regeneration of hope for work and worker and workplace. Because you have fun. Because you work better.

You are the workers of the web. You are the Coworkers, Rejoice!

You have the access, you use the access, you create access for others.

You are the workplace. And many of you do it for free. It’s so much fun doing it, so somehow rewarding, and it’s real work, Internet-enabled. You who blog and twitter and share photos, videos, documents, desktops.

So much fun is this workplace that many of you pay to work here.

This way.

Online.

Writing, reading, making intangible things together for each other. Movies and slide shows and blogs and For free. For fun. For real.

So rejoice, I say. Rejoice in your place in the placeless presence. Rejoice. Rejoice. Intrepid, interdependent, international, Coworker that you are.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith