[At the client’s request, all names and identifying geographic details have been changed.]

 

[The projector starts running. First with some footage of various automotive factories from the turn of the 20^th century to the 1970s.]

They were. Awesome. Colossal. Technological marvels. Cities of industry.

They were the soul. The guts. The beating heart of the American economy.

And for over 120 years, since the 1896 launch of the first auto factory, run by the Duryea Motor Wagon Company, these engines of the automotive industry have created incomes, careers, lives, families and a miracle of a modern country. They also built cars.

But over the decades, the industry changed and the world economy evolved and many of these factories, and the thousands of people who built their lives in them, have had to change as well.

This is the story of the Bannecker Automotive Parts Factory.

[Project now starts showing old photos of Bannecker, from 1920s to 1970s.]

Bannecker wasn’t as big as the giants. It employed under 800 people at its peak in the 1960s. It made custom parts for luxury cars made by other manufacturers. Bannecker was the place you got the extra special seats, wheels, and so on. As one former employee described it, “Bannecker made proud parts.”

Walking through the factory every morning was like witnessing a symphony, with your friends playing the instruments. That’s how one security guard, James Dennison, described it. The ping, rrr-ruh, the buzz, the fush of the welding tools, and along with each sound was a “Hello.” Or “Hey There,” or “I can’t believe my baseball team lost that much.”

Lunch hours were like sessions of Parliament, according to Mr. Dennison. As employees ate sandwiches or bought soup from the cafeteria, they argued brilliantly about film actors, politicians, sports teams and the ridiculous new rock bands.

Lunch hour Parliament would be canceled when seagulls flew over the parking lot and all the employees rushed out to try to protect their cars’ wax jobs.

They also banded together in tough times, collecting money to help friends who were sick, watched over each other’s children. At least two local spelling bee champions tested their mettle before proud assemblages of parents and colleagues in the cafeteria.

And the people who worked here made proud children. At least three doctors, a physicist, and a romance novelist, of all things. It was a proud place.

But the world changed, as it often does. Tastes in customer parts changed. Companies merged and facilities moved to other states, or other countries. This factory slowed, and slowed, and finally was shut down in the early 1980s.

This facility became a place you walked by quickly, whistling loudly, during the day. People dumped old sofas and refrigerators. They painted graffiti. Did drug deals.

Over the decades, Mr. Dennison wrote his own memoir of the factory and of the people he knew. He kept in touch with as many as he could and told stories of the place. One of the people who listened was his grandson Robert.

Robert would later make a name for himself as a contractor, then a homebuilder, then a developer. Four years ago, he and a group of investors would ultimately buy this factory, now abandoned, and then devote themselves to refurbishing this place. They put meat back on the bones of this building, turned it into the modern technology facility it is today. Now, exactly 20 businesses have taken residence here. And today, we will make 21.

Before I go any further, I would like to introduce Mr. Dennison and his grandson Robert, and thank them both for the vision and heart they’ve given this place.

[Mr. Dennison and his grandson both come up and talk for a few minutes.]

I’d like to announce that we are hiring Mr. Dennison as company historian. He will continue the beautiful history of this place by taking down our humble contributions. I look forward to learning all I can from you, Mr. Dennison.

This is what today is all about; starting the next chapter of this facility. And of our company.

We’re here in this new facility for a number of reasons. First, for the excellence of the workspace and its high-tech capabilities. Have you seen our meeting room on the second floor? It’s fantastic. We can grow and do some amazing things here.

We’re also here because I think it will remind us of all the hard work that was done in the past. The lives and the careers. It will remind us that a company isn’t just solid wheels or leather seats, but the people who hitch their dreams together with yours.

And finally, we’re here to launch an ambitious new project, one we’re calling the Perpetual Company. We want to imagine new products and services in artificial intelligence that will expose the genius and the wealth in every employee.

Why did this factory ultimately close? Why did it layoff its workers?

The economy changed. Technologies and industries changed. Customer appetites changed. More than the executives at this company could envision, more than to which they could adapt.

It happens all the time.

But what if the executives had better ways for understanding the economies in which they operate? What if they could better predict demand and adapt production? What if they were able to find new ways to generate value from their employees when production changed?

What if you didn’t need to lay off some many workers anymore?

That is what we are going to try to determine with the Perpetual Company Project, see if we can develop new systems and products that could help companies find value in their employees no matter what happens. And if employees do need to go, develop systems for them so they can build on their expertise, identify every bit of value in what they know and what they have done, and find new ways to market it. Help them develop their own businesses.

A lot. A lot. A lot, and a lot, is said about how artificial intelligence is taking away jobs from workers. Maybe artificial intelligence can help create new jobs, help them create new businesses. Maybe create companies so adaptable that they’ll never have to lay off mass numbers of employees, or shut down entirely, ever again.

That’s our dream, at least. I realize that there is a lot of work, and a lot of new thinking, that needs to be done before we get there. And we’re going to need all of you to help us get there.

Here are some of the areas that we plan to explore.

Language learning systems that help augment inter-office communication. Can communication between colleagues be improved? How can you be certain that your colleagues understand everything you communicated? What if you worked in a messaging system that could actually push you to communicate better? The system would learn from you, and from others, and develop an understanding of your communication style and that of others, and from this understanding give you little nudges on how to communicate better.

“Did you really mean to say this?” the Messaging system would tell you. “Did you mean to say this?” Chatrooms that serve as assistants.

Strategy visualization systems. This would be similar to the language learning systems. What if there was a virtual reality system that would help everything brainstorm better business strategies? If you were better able to envision all the details of a department overall, or the launch of a new product, and maybe even develop little simulations that could help roughly test ideas, all down in an environment that multiple colleagues can see and participate within.

You and I could be standing within a VR representation of this quarter’s business figures or the flowcharts of our operations, and with the wave of your hands, start to play with this representation. Maybe move this part of the process here. Maybe add this production line. You shape it out like they do in science fiction movies.

The third area; expertise augmentation systems. When an employee retires, too often that expertise is lost. The things they learned in school. The things they did at the job at this company, and the ones before. Their different unique experiences. Not just the kinds of products developed or the job functions they held, but the crises, the reorganizations, the management changes. All of those things represent information that could be captured, should be captured somehow, and documented.

How could you do this? Maybe develop a system that helps an employee tell the story of her or his career. With prompts and visual aids, it would ask employees to document their training. They learned this kind of process, this level of math, these sets of concepts. Then it prompt employees to dive deep into each of the jobs they held. The functions and responsibilities and their accomplishments.

Wait, you’re saying. This sounds like a fancy multimedia resume. Yeah. That’s probably what it would start off as. A resume with a lot of bells and whistles. But with each session with the expertise system, the employee would find new ways to better articulate their capabilities: what they know; what they can do; what they have done. And then, the system would use this knowledge and envision the different ways this expertise has fit within the company, and new ways where it can fit in. It could start envisioning new ways of generating value.

Why would you want to do this? Well, firstly, it could help prevent knowledge and wisdom from disappearing when employees retire. It could help with training of future employees. It could help retirees understand their value and help them develop their own businesses when they go on their own. It could help with the building out of departments. It could help with the creation of positions and job titles. It could help companies find new ways to generate value out of employees when business changes, so instead of laying them off, the company can develop new jobs for them.

Wait, you say. This sounds a lot like science fiction now. Some of this stuff is still science fiction, at least for now.

But at the heart of this project stands a very old-time idea, the idea that a company is a family that you create, and that the whole enterprise can commit to helping each employee build the most out of their lives.

Artificial intelligence is not about taking away jobs from people. At least, it shouldn’t be. It should be about generating the most value from everyone. Finding new ways for every person to be engaged in this economy and to develop new things and build new miracles.

And in this place, where hundreds of people built lives and families, we want to show the world our commitment to this idea.

So never again would a place like this go silent.

Now, let’s make some noise.

Turn on the music and let out the balloons. This brand of local ice cream is amazing!

Thank you everyone.