generational differences

If you doubt that we are on an exponential pace of change, you need to check these articles out! [Christian]

On 09/22/2016, in 21st century, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, business, Canada, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, computer science, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, disruption, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, ethics, Europe, experimentation, faith, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, Google, health, hearts -- matters of the heart, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, India, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, internet, K-12 related, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, marketplaces, Microsoft, mobile technologies, Near Field Communication (NFC), new business models, organizational change, pace of change, platforms, political science, professional development, psychology, reinvent, relationships, religion, research, robotics, society, sociology, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The articles listed in this PDF document demonstrate the exponential pace of technological change that many nations across the globe are currently experiencing and will likely be experiencing for the foreseeable future. As we are no longer on a linear trajectory, we need to consider what this new trajectory means for how we:

Educate and prepare our youth in K-12
Educate and prepare our young men and women studying within higher education
Restructure/re-envision our corporate training/L&D departments
Equip our freelancers and others to find work
Help people in the workforce remain relevant/marketable/properly skilled
Encourage and better enable lifelong learning
Attempt to keep up w/ this pace of change — legally, ethically, morally, and psychologically

PDF file here

One thought that comes to mind…when we’re moving this fast, we need to be looking upwards and outwards into the horizons — constantly pulse-checking the landscapes. We can’t be looking down or be so buried in our current positions/tasks that we aren’t noticing the changes that are happening around us.

‘Anyone who walks into these spaces wants to teach in them’ — from ucalgary.ca by Joni Miltenburg
Instructors can apply to teach in the Taylor Institute’s flexible learning space

Excerpt:

Leighton Wilks noticed a palpable difference when his class moved from a traditional lecture-style classroom to an active learning space. Not only did attendance increase, but students were more engaged and collaborative.

“I see a lot more team cohesion. They’re talking more to each other because they’re sitting with their teams. It’s nice to foster that teamwork throughout the semester.”

Wilks is an instructor in the Haskayne School of Business and teaches a second-year organizational behaviour course in the newly-renovated active learning classroom in Scurfield Hall. He found that the space breaks down the boundary between instructor and student.

“Instead of being up at the front, I’m walking around. I feel I get a lot more questions and get to know the students better, which is important.”

From DSC:
Also see my notes from this year’s Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference.

Creating Great Digital Spaces for Learning — from slideshare.net by Phil Vincent
Professor Andrew Harrison, Professor of Practice at University of Wales Trinity St David and Director, Spaces That Work Ltd., from Jisc DigiFest 2016

21st-century learning environments — from webcpm.com by Kenneth A. Gruskin, Michael Searson

Excerpts:

Pedagogy
Preparation for the 21st-century workforce demands that educators shift the authority for learning to the students. After all, today’s workers are expected to function in collaborative and horizontal environments, as opposed to the “factory” driven, top-down, solitary worker spaces of yesterday. Therefore, contemporary learning environments should lean heavily on collaborative spaces, supported through personalized learning technologies. Good pedagogy encourages student engagement through complex collaborative projects based on real-world problems.
…
Technology
Innovative learning should incorporate a true BYOD (bring your own device) environment that provides opportunities for student-centered learning, beginning with their own personalized technologies — from laptops and tablets to smartphones and wearable devices. This approach leverages student devices and reduces the need for institutionally provided equipment.
…
Supporting Distance Learning
Strategies being used within Unified Communications and Collaboration solutions provide the means to support the involvement of remote participants, whether they are present on the WAN or solely connecting via Internet services. Since these solutions are moving to cloud-based topologies, they are mostly services that individuals subscribe to directly or have access to through campus-based subscription services. These features are also beginning to appear in social media environments, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, so the opportunity for use may become as easy as installing another app in the not-toodistant future.

Engaging students with interactive technologies — from webcpm.com by Bill Nattress

Excerpt:

Wireless presentation, lecture capture, online collaboration and active-learning methodologies all require the ability for any and all participants to engage the installed resources within the facility while they also access their personal content; whether local to their personal devices or within the cloud. With the video tools now available to the consumer, the use of conferencing apps will continue to rise. The environments that engage students and faculty will need to allow for any user to log in and access his or her content and presentation appliances without hurdles or roadblocks. Access to subject matter experts or other individuals will also need to be supported as well. With the deployment of video tools via social media, users will also rely more on their personal accounts for contact management instead of an address book. These changes in workflow are disruptors to the policies that many institutions have put in place as it relates to the BYOD usage surrounding their networks. Success of these communication and education solutions needs the networks to focus on and easily support three key technologies: wireless presentation, collaboration and participation by remote team members.

What Gen Z thinks about ed tech in college — from edtechmagazine.com by D. Frank Smith
A report on digital natives sheds light on their learning preferences.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

A survey of the collegiate educational-technology expectations of 1,300 middle and high school students from 49 states was captured by Barnes and Noble. The survey, Getting to Know Gen Z, includes feedback on the students’ expectations for higher education.

“These initial insights are a springboard for colleges and universities to begin understanding the mindset of Gen Z as they prepare for their future, focusing specifically on their aspirations, college expectations and use of educational technology for their academic journey ahead,” states the survey’s introduction.

Like the millennials before them, Generation Z grew up as digital natives, with devices a fixture in the learning experience. According to the survey results, these students want “engaging, interactive learning experiences” and want to be “empowered to make their own decisions.” In addition, the students “expect technology to play an instrumental role in their educational experience.”

From DSC:
First of all, I’d like to thank D. Frank Smith for the solid article and for addressing the topic of students’ expectations. These messages were echoed in what I heard a few days ago at the MVU Online Learning Symposium, a conference focused on the K-12 space.

MoreChoiceMoreControl-DSC2

I want to quote and elaborate on one of the items from the report (as mentioned in the article):

“There is a need for user-friendly tools that empower faculty to design the kinds of compelling resources that will comprise the next wave of instructional resources and materials,” the report states.

Most likely, even if such tools were developed, the end goal from the quote above won’t happen. Why? Because:

Most faculty simply don’t have the time — they are being overrun with all sorts of other demands on their time (committees, task forces, advising, special projects, keeping up with the changes in their disciplines, etc.)
Even with user-friendly tools, one still needs a variety of skill sets to create engaging, sophisticated content and learning environments. Creating “the next wave of instructional resources and materials” is waaaaaay beyond the skillsets of any one person!!! Numerous skills will be required to create the kinds of learning materials that we can expect to see in the future:
- Information architecture
- Instructional design
- Interaction design
- Videography and creating/working with multiple kinds of media
- Programming/coding
- Responsive web design and knowing how best to design content for multiple kinds of devices
- User experience design
- Graphic design
- Game design
- Knowledge of copyrights
- Expertise in accessibility-related items
- The ability to most effectively write for blended and/or online-based approaches
- Knowing how to capture and use learning analytics/data
- Keeping up with advancements in human computer interfaces (HCI)
- Staying current with learning space design
- How best to deliver personalized learning
- and much more!

This is why I continue to assert that we need a much more team-based approach to creating our learning environments. The problem is, very few people are listening to this advice.

How can I say this?

Because I continue to hear people discussing how important professional development is and how much support is needed for faculty members. I continue to see quotes, like the above one, that puts the onus solely on the backs of our faculty members. Conferences are packed full with this type of approach.

Let’s get rid of that approach — it’s not working! Or at least not nearly to the degree that students need it to. There may be a small percentage of faculty members who have the time and skills to pull some things off here, but even they will run into some walls eventually (depending upon the level of sophistication being pursued). None of us can do it all.

But for the most part, years have gone by and not much has changed. Rather, we need to figure out how we could use teams to create and deliver content. That would be a much wiser use of our energies and time. This perspective is not meant to dog faculty members — it’s just recognizing realities:

One person simply can’t do it all anymore.
Tools don’t exist that can pull all of the necessary pieces together.
Even if such tools existed, they won’t be able to keep pace w/ the exponential rate of technological changes that we’re currently experiencing — and will likely continue to experience over the next 10-20 years.

If we’re going to insist on faculty members creating the next wave of instructional materials and resources, then faculty members better look out — they don’t know what’s about to hit them. Forget about having families. Forget about having a life outside of creating/delivering content. And find a way to create a 50-60 hour work DAY (not week) — cause that’s how much time one will need to achieve any where’s close to mastery in all the prerequisite areas.

Cisco’s John Chambers on the digital era: “It’s the biggest technology transition in history.” [mckinsey.com]

On 03/18/2016, in 21st century, business, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, disruption, entrepreneurship, experimentation, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, internet, new business models, pace of change, technology (general), workplace, by Daniel Christian

Cisco’s John Chambers on the digital era — from mckinsey.com
How significant is the digital era? It’s the biggest technology transition in history, according to Cisco’s executive chairman—and requires a proportional response from companies.

Excerpts:

If you’re a leader in today’s world, whether you’re a government leader or a business leader, you have to focus on the fact that this is the biggest technology transition ever. This digital era will dwarf what’s occurred in the information era and the value of the Internet today. As leaders, if you don’t transform and use this technology differently—if you don’t reinvent yourself, change your organization structure; if you don’t talk about speed of innovation—you’re going to get disrupted. And it’ll be a brutal disruption, where the majority of companies will not exist in a meaningful way 10 to 15 years from now.
…
This digital age is the connectivity of going from a thousand devices connected to the Internet to 500 billion. It will transform business.
…
Business models will rise and fall at a tremendous speed. It will create huge opportunities—probably $19 trillion in economic value over the next decade, incremental above what we’re seeing today. That’s the size of the US economy, plus some.
…
But it will also result in tremendous disruption. And this is where it’s so important…that you either disrupt or you get disrupted.
…
It’s simple to describe, but it really means you’re dealing with intelligent networks—a next generation of the Internet, if you will. But connecting 500 billion devices doesn’t get the job done. It’s the process change behind it. So you’ve got technologies like cloud or mobility and cybersecurity and the Internet of Things that are very important. That’s actually the easy part. The hard part is how do you change your organization structure? How do you change your culture to be able to think in terms of outcomes for your customers? It’s all about speed of innovation and changing the way you do business. The majority of companies will be digital within five years, yet the majority of their digital efforts will fail, which speaks to what a CEO has to do differently.
…
They have to reinvent themselves. They have to reinvent their company. Not stay doing the right thing too long, if you will.
…
Not enabled by technology—technology will become the company.
…
The first step is merely making it an independent group, because if you do it inside your organization, your existing culture will kill it.
…
Companies fail to understand the implications of how quickly this technology will transform their business. And they underestimate what it really means to their economic growth or that of their competitors.

From DSC:
Some graphics come to my mind:

The pace has changed significantly and quickly

ExponentialNotLinearSparksNHoney-Spring2013

From DSC:
This is the world that our students are and will be graduating into. Are they ready to handle this kind of pace? Of exponential — not linear — change? How can we better prepare them to be successful in the future that they will inherit?

17 predictions about the future of big data everyone should read [Marr]

On 03/16/2016, in 21st century, analytics, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, ideas, trends, workplace, by Daniel Christian

17 predictions about the future of big data everyone should read — from forbes.com by Bernard Marr

Excerpt:

Almost everyone can agree that big data has taken the business world by storm, but what’s next? Will data continue to grow? What technologies will develop around it? Or will big data become a relic as quickly as the next trend — cognitive technology? fast data? — appears on the horizon.

Let’s look at some of the predictions from the foremost experts in the field, and how likely they are to come to pass.

Machine learning is a top strategic trend for 2016.

More companies will appoint a chief data officer.

The data-as-a-service business model is on the horizon.

Algorithm markets will also emerge.

PBS’ School Sleuth: The Case of the Wired Classroom <-- A well done, creative, objective, solid discussion of technology in the classroom

On 01/16/2016, in 21st century, active learning, Apple, blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), change, collaboration, creativity, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, education, education reform, education technology, elearning, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, hybrid learning, internet, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning theories, media/film, Microsoft, multimedia, online learning, organizational change, parents/guardians, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, research, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
If you can clear up just short of an hour of your time, this piece from PBS entitled, “School Sleuth: The Case of the Wired Classroom” is very well done and worth your time. It’s creative and objective; it offers us some solid research, some stories, and some examples of the positives and negatives of technology in the classroom. It weaves different modes of learning into the discussion — including blended learning, online learning, personalized learning and more. Though it aired back in October of 2015, I just found out about it.

Check it out if you can!

Also see:

Schools push personalized learning to new heights — from edweek.org
Excerpt:
For most schools, reaching the next level of digitally driven, personalized learning is far from reality. Still, some schools are extending their digital reach in significant and sometimes groundbreaking ways, as the stories in this special report illustrate. They are making moves to integrate a variety of technologies to track how students learn and to use the resulting data to expand the use of hands-on, project-based learning. The goal is to build never-ending feedback loops that ultimately inform the development of curriculum and assessment. Plus, big data and analytics are gradually making their marks in K-12 education. This special report outlines the progress schools are making to use digital tools to personalize learning, but also raises the question: Are they reaching far enough?
.
A Pedagogical Model for the use of iPads for Learning — from higheru.org

Reflections on “Gen Z is about to take over higher education—here’s what to expect” [Malat]

On 01/14/2016, in 21st century, active learning, blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, engagement / engaging students, expectations, experimentation, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, learning spaces, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, participation, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, smart classrooms, strategy, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), trends, universities, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Gen Z is about to take over higher education—here’s what to expect — from ecampusnews.com by Lisa Malat
Survey finds digital natives “Gen Z” set to reshape higher ed landscape with focus on careers, dependence on technology.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Educators take note: it’s time to make way for Generation Z (Gen Z).

In a recent study by Barnes & Noble College, 1,300 middle-school and high school students ages 13-18 from 49 different states shared their attitudes, preferences and expectations regarding their educational and learning experiences. The findings from the study are clear: Gen Z is significantly different than previous generations, and these students will bring both challenges and opportunities for the future of higher education.
…

With Gen Z being a generation of “digital natives,” it stands to reason that the future of educational technology is now. Technology is embraced almost universally by Gen Z. In fact, the students surveyed shared that they are apt to regularly use five different computer tools for their social and educational purposes: laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones and video game consoles.

Unlike Millennials, who have broadly adopted technology, Gen Z has adopted a technology-centric lifestyle. They define themselves in online, digital terms. Gen Z doesn’t distinguish between devices or online territories. It is one continuous, multi-faceted, completely integrated experience – connecting social, academic and professional interests.
…
Gen Z also has different learning style preferences from past generations. While they are very into DIYL (do-it-yourself-learning), these students also embrace peer-to-peer learning, with 80 percent reporting that they study with their friends and classmates. Fifty percent said they enjoy the element of leadership it presents, and 60 percent reported that it gives them the perfect way to exchange ideas and consider new perspectives.

From DSC:
The article/report above prompted me to reflect…

Many throughout higher education are responding to change. But many are not. We aren’t nearly as nimble as we need to be.

I hope that the faculty, staff, boards, administrations, and the heavy-hitting donors at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. appreciate how important it is to be aware of — and respond to — changes within the K-12 world, changes in today’s students, changes within the higher ed landscape, and to changes within the corporate/business world.

We operate in a continuum.

With all of those changes, maintaining the status quo seems to be a dangerous experiment to me. We are not in control. Rather, we all need to adapt and to respond.

DanielChristian-MonitoringTrends

DanielChristian-what-should-our-learning-environments-look-and-act-like

Along these lines, maintaining the status quo shows a blatant disregard of our customers’ preferences — an unwise strategy to take. (And for those of you who don’t like the word customer here, bear with me…because in my mind, any person who pays anywhere near the price of a house to obtain their education has earned the right to be called a customer. Today’s students are paying a heck of a lot more than we did.)

Also, maintaining the status quo seems like a dangerous strategy when we’re talking about recruitment and retention. Remember, we are talking about depending upon the decisions of 18 year olds here.

So as I:

Read the above article and the report that it refers to
Consider the higher ed landscape that continues to encounter new alternatives
Observe that different pathways that are cropping up all the time
See that the federal government is moving towards funding such alternative methods

…I am forced to ask myself, “Given all of this, will maintaining the status quo suffice? Really?“

This report should encourage us to:

Seek to do a better job of pulse checking the K-12 world and the students’ learning preferences coming out of that world — and to develop our responses to those changing preferences.
Pursue more instances of blended/hybrid learning and active learning-based classrooms
Provide a variety of delivery mechanisms to meet our students’ needs — including a solid line up of online-based courses and programs. Students are often having to work in order to get through college, and they need flexible solutions.
Better address our physical learning spaces, which should offer strong/secure wireless networks and means of quickly collaborating via BYOD-based devices.
Continue to invest in selecting and investigating how best to use a variety of educationally-related technologies (something which, in my mind, invites the use of teams of specialists).
(I could, and probably should, think bigger here, but I’ll stop at these reflections.)

I’ll leave you with the following graphic, relaying that often times members of Gen Z tend to prefer active learning-based classrooms:

The jobs that AI can’t replace — from bbc.com by Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee
At the heart of capitalism is the concept of creative destruction. And this phenomenon is turbocharged by technological progress. Innovations from the cotton gin to electricity to the computer have created dramatic changes in the way that we work and the jobs that are available.

Excerpt:

Current advances in robots and other digital technologies are stirring up anxiety among workers and in the media. There is a great deal of fear, for example, that robots will not only destroy existing jobs, but also be better at most or all of the tasks required in the future.

Our research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has shown that that’s at best a half-truth. While it is true that robots are getting very good at a whole bunch of jobs and tasks, there are still many categories in which humans perform better.

Get ready for ‘The Economy Of Things’ — from forbes.com by Veena Pureswaran

Excerpt:

The IoT is not just about smart homes that light up when you arrive or washing machines that text you when the cycle is done. The IoT will turn physical assets into participants in real-time global digital markets. As the Internet of Things continues to turn physical assets into participants in new real-time, digital marketplaces, it’s creating what we describe as a new “Economy of Things.”

These types of assets will become as easily indexed, searched and traded as any online commodity. In fact, such digital marketplaces represent huge economic opportunities for growth and advancement.

Who’s the boss? Hitachi looks to promote artificial intelligence — from blogs.wsj.com by Jun Hongo; with thanks to Norma Owen for this resource

Excerpt:

Hitachi Ltd. is looking to promote artificial intelligence to management.

The Japanese electronics maker said it has developed a new artificial intelligence program that will enable robots to deliver instructions to employees based on analyses of big data and the workers’ routines.

“Work efficiency improved by 8% in warehouses with the new artificial intelligence program, compared to those without them,” a Hitachi spokeswoman said. “The program can examine an extremely large amount of data to provide the most efficient instruction, which is impossible for human managers to handle.”

Hitachi last month unveiled a fast-moving two-armed robot which it says may replace humans in performing basic functions like retrieving items in warehouses.

Tomorrow’s workers want mobile, but are employers ready? — from domo.com
70 percent of future workforce expect a bring-your-own-device culture; value technology perks nearly five times more than a stocked kitchen

Excerpt:

The study, which polled more than 2,000 college students, confirmed what many have assumed: that millennials are a mobile-first generation. Not surprisingly, the survey confirms that millennials spend most of their time accessing the Internet via a mobile device, 46 percent via a mobile phone and 43 percent on a tablet or laptop. Additionally, the report uncovers how much time millennials spend on various mobile activities. More than 97 percent use their phones to send or receive text messages, 96 percent use them to access the Internet, and 68 percent turn to a mobile device to stream music and send or receive pictures.

The findings also affirm how critical it is for companies to adjust to the ever-changing mobile-centric business world in order to attract top talent, which will increasingly be comprised of the millennial generation.

‘Transformer in chief’: The new chief digital officer — from mckinsey.com by Tuck Rickards, Kate Smaje, and Vik Sohoni
The CDO role is changing dramatically. Here are the skills today’s world demands.

Excerpt:

In the alphabet soup that is today’s crowded C-suite, few roles attract as much attention as that of the chief digital officer, or CDO. While the position isn’t exactly new, what’s required of the average CDO is. Gone are the days of being responsible for introducing basic digital capabilities and perhaps piloting a handful of initiatives. The CDO is now a “transformer in chief,” charged with coordinating and managing comprehensive changes that address everything from updating how a company works to building out entirely new businesses. And he or she must make progress quickly.

According to social forecasts in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, the point at which our labor market has more freelancers than full-time employees is between 5 to 10 years away. The growing automation of knowledge work means that, globally, we are expected to lose around 2 billion jobs by 2030. Some of that loss will be softened by new jobs created, but they’re going to be of the low-paid, temporary, variety. Today’s university graduates are facing what has been termed a “high skills/low income” future. The recent rapid growth in “knowledge process outsourcing” — the breaking up of salaried jobs into bid-for tasks, through websites like Elance.com and Freelancer. com — may well be transforming economies of developing countries like India, but it is causing futurists in the west to predict “the end of job.”

— What the Future Economy Means for How Kids Learn Today

The unlikely cities that will power the U.S. economy — from bloomberg.com

Excerpt:

Huntsville is one of a growing number of smaller U.S. cities, far from Silicon Valley, that are seeking to replace dwindling factory jobs by reinventing themselves as tech centers. Across the Midwest, Northeast, and South, mayors and governors are competing to attract tech companies and workers.

How freelancers are fighting for their labor rights — from fastcompany.com by Dillon Baker
In the absence of unions, creative freelancers are finding new ways to work collectively.

Excerpt:

“On average, our members are owed over $10,000 in unpaid invoices and spend 36 hours tracking down each missing payment,” says Freelancers Union founder and labor lawyer Sara Horowitz. She explains that nearly half (44%) of their members report issues in getting paid.

But getting paid on time is just one of the hurdles that the growing independent workforce faces.

For example, the Internet has lowered the bar to entry for professional writing and created more opportunities than ever, which on one hand is good news for entry-level writers, but shrunken profits have also hollowed out freelance rates at many publications.

4 ways to prepare for the workplace of the future — from fastcompany.com by Erin Palmer
Millennials face a much more volatile workplace than ever. Here are four ways to adapt.

Excerpt:

The workplace of the future will be a world of contradictions—which the next generations that enter it will need to master.

Charting a career path in a mercurial workforce means staying focused and adaptive in equal measure. That’s something millennials and their younger generation Z counterparts will need to be able to do more successfully than their elders ever had to.

For now, though, the learning curve still looks steep. A recent study by the online work company Upwork found that despite the millions of millennials looking for work, 53% of hiring managers said that they struggle to find and retain millennial employees.

Today’s leaders have gotten to where they are by adapting to what’s now and what’s next, not blindly clinging to one specific path.

Addendum on 9/15/15:

APIs Are The New FTEs — from techcrunch.comby Gaurav Jain
Excerpt:
A decade ago, a VP of engineering at a startup might have evaluated the resumes of five solid front-end engineers. Five years ago that VP would have looked at GitHub profiles. Today, they are just as likely to evaluate a front-end framework like Ionic, Meteor or Aurelia and build it themselves.

It’s not just front-end options. We’ve seen a massive proliferation in frameworks, libraries and other tools that allow a single talented engineer to do the work of a team.

Companies and products like Heroku, Celery, RabbitMQ, Mandrill, Fastly, Chartio, Chargebee, Shipwire, Docker, Codeship, Rainforest QA, Replicated and Chartbeat have changed the nature of tech development. These are just a small subset of services that replace the work of individuals or entire teams.

WordPress Ate Webmasters
This trend has pros and cons. It will make life harder for those with only mid-tier technical knowledge. Look at what WordPress has done to “webmasters.” The blogging platform turned CMS has colonized the web, and accounts for ~23 percent of Internet traffic.

Beyond Automation [Harvard Business Review; Davenport & Kirby]

On 07/17/2015, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, economics, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, new business models, pace of change, robotics, society, staying relevant, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Beyond Automation — from hbr.org by Thomas Davenport & Julia Kirby

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

After hearing of a recent Oxford University study on advancing automation and its potential to displace workers, Yuh-Mei Hutt, of Tallahassee, Florida, wrote, “The idea that half of today’s jobs may vanish has changed my view of my children’s future.” Hutt was reacting not only as a mother; she heads a business and occasionally blogs about emerging technologies. Familiar as she is with the upside of computerization, the downside looms large. “How will they compete against AI?” she asked. “How will they compete against a much older and experienced workforce vying for even fewer positions?”

Suddenly, it seems, people in all walks of life are becoming very concerned about advancing automation. And they should be: Unless we find as many tasks to give humans as we find to take away from them, all the social and psychological ills of joblessness will grow, from economic recession to youth unemployment to individual crises of identity (*DC insert: See my footnote below). That’s especially true now that automation is coming to knowledge work, in the form of artificial intelligence. Knowledge work—which we’ll define loosely as work that is more mental than manual, involves consequential decision making, and has traditionally required a college education—accounts for a large proportion of jobs in today’s mature economies. It is the high ground to which humanity has retreated as machines have taken over less cognitively challenging work. But in the very foreseeable future, as the Gartner analyst Nigel Rayner says, “many of the things executives do today will be automated.”

From DSC:
* These are the types of concerns I was trying to get at when I asked the question: Which street do we care more about, Wall Street or Main Street?

If the we make decisions solely on the basis of the bottom lines and with an eye solely on shareholders, we could have some major issues to deal with. We must consider the effects of automation on Main Street, not just on Wall Street.

For the employment application for future jobs: Professional hoop jumpers need not apply!

Shocker: 40% of workers now have ‘contingent’ jobs, says U.S. Government — from forbes.com by Elaine Pofeldt

Excerpt:

Tucked away in the pages of a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office is a startling statistic: 40.4% of the U.S. workforce is now made up of contingent workers—that is, people who don’t have what we traditionally consider secure jobs.

There is currently a lot of debate about how contingent workers should be defined. To arrive at the 40.4 %, which the workforce reached in 2010, the report counts the following types of workers as having the alternative work arrangements considered contingent. (The government did some rounding to arrive at its final number, so the numbers below add up to 40.2%).

Agency temps: (1.3%)
On-call workers (people called to work when needed): (3.5%)
Contract company workers (3.0%)
Independent contractors who provide a product or service and find their own customers (12.9%)
Self-employed workers such as shop and restaurant owners, etc. (3.3%)
Standard part-time workers (16.2%).

In contrast, in 2005, 30.6% of workers were contingent. The biggest growth has been among people with part time jobs. They made up just 11.9% of the labor force in 2005. That means there was a 36% increase in just five years.

In the future, employees won’t exist — from techcrunch.com by Tad Milbourn

Excerpt:

Contract work is becoming the new normal. Consider Uber: The ride-sharing startup has 160,000 contractors, but just 2,000 employees. That’s an astonishing ratio of 80 to 1. And when it comes to a focus on contract labor, Uber isn’t alone. Handy, Eaze and Luxe are just a few of the latest entrants into the “1099 Economy.”

Though they get the most attention, it’s not just on-demand companies that employ significant contract workforces. Microsoft has nearly two-thirds as many contractors as full-time employees. Even the simplest business structures, sole proprietorships, have increased their use of contract workers nearly two-fold since 2003.

The unsung heroes of the on-demand economy — from medium.com by Alex Chriss
We need to rethink the notion of entrepreneurship in the on-demand economy and build the tools and infrastructure to support the growing self-employed workforce.

Excerpt:

Enabled by the ubiquitous connectivity and power of smartphones, entrepreneurs are opening shops on Etsy, working as virtual assistants through oDesk, tackling neighborhood jobs on TaskRabbit, or driving on demand with Uber.

This new economy isn’t limited to low-paying gigs either. There are highly skilled professionals with advanced degrees from top 10 schools opting to work for themselves instead of a big firm. Consider the MBAs earning $100-$150 an hour through online consulting firm HourlyNerd or the lawyers making more than that on UpCounsel.

The Handy housecleaner and the UpCounsel attorney share a common characteristic: They’re a business of one.
…
This new wave of entrepreneurs — the self-employed workforce — is accelerating a broad trend we’ve been watching closely for nearly 10 years and started documenting in the year 2007 B.U. –before Uber.

They are part of the massive growth in the number of independent professionals. Full-time jobs with their corporate grab bag of benefits are becoming scarcer by the day. In the near future, working full time for a single company that offers little flexibility or work-life balance will become as outdated as the notion of staying with one company for your entire working life.

New survey: 40% of unemployed have “given up” — from prweb.com
Express Employment Professionals released the results [on May 20th, 2015] of its second annual in-depth poll, “The State of the Unemployed,” revealing that 40 percent of unemployed Americans agree to some extent that they have completely given up looking for work.

Excerpt:

Express Employment Professionals released the results [on May 20th, 2015] of its second annual in-depth poll, “The State of the Unemployed,” revealing that 40 percent of unemployed Americans agree to some extent that they have completely given up looking for work.

That figure, though high, represents a slight improvement from 2014, when 47 percent said they had given up.

The survey of 1,553 jobless Americans age 18 and older was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals between April 7 and 29, 2015, and offers a rare look at the background and attitudes of the unemployed, their approach to the job hunt, who they blame for their current situation, and how they are holding up through tough times.

New self-learning systems will reduce reliance on humans during ramp-up — from wtvox.com by Aidan Russell

Excerpt:

Robots are cracking eggs and making ice cream sundaes. These aren’t just party tricks. The way robots learn to do complex tasks is changing and that has profound implications for the future of manufacturing.

The egg-cracking robot comes courtesy of researchers at the University of Maryland and NICTA, an information and computer technology research centre in Australia. Their robotic system learns processes by watching YouTube videos.
…
It’s not difficult to see how systems like this might be utilised to improve automated manufacturing or bring new automation systems to areas of production that haven’t seen much automation yet. An investment in a single robotic system capable of learning a variety of tasks without specialised programming would be attractive to small manufacturers that do short production runs, for example.

A bot that can learn from watching other people could also fine tune its own actions through trial and error, essentially learning from its mistakes. That’s what researchers at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) in Finland had in mind when they developed a self-adjusting welding system.

Will humans go the way of horses? — from foreignaffairs.com by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
Labor in the Second Machine Age

Our mental advantages might be even greater than our physical ones. While we’re clearly now inferior to computers at arithmetic and are getting outpaced in some types of pattern recognition—as evidenced by the triumph of Watson, an artificial-intelligence system created by IBM, over human Jeopardy! champions in 2011—we still have vastly better common sense. We’re also able to formulate goals and then work out how to achieve them. And although there are impressive examples of digital creativity and innovation, including machine-generated music and scientific hypotheses, humans are still better at coming up with useful new ideas in most domains.

It is extraordinarily difficult to get a clear picture of how broadly and quickly technology will encroach on human territory (and a review of past predictions should deter anyone from trying), but it seems unlikely that hardware, software, robots, and artificial intelligence will be able to take over from human labor within the next decade. It is even less likely that people will stop having economic wants that are explicitly interpersonal or social; these will remain, and they will continue to provide demand for human workers.

From DSC:
Stop right there! Hold on! Those of us working in education or training need to be asking ourselves:

What do these MASSIVE trends mean for the way that we are educating, training, and preparing our learners and employees!?!?

This is not our grandfathers’/grandmothers’ economy and way of life! From here on out, people must be able to adapt, to pivot, to change — and they must be able to learn…continually and quickly. They need to be able to know where to go to find information and be able to sort through the content to find out what’s true and relevant. They need to know under what circumstances they learn best.

Finally, becoming familiar with futurism — looking down the pike to see what’s developing, building scenarios, etc. — is now wise counsel for a growing number of people.

Smart Workplace 2040: The rise of the workspace consumer [Johnson Controls]

On 06/02/2015, in 21st century, business, career development, corporate / business world, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, professional development, technologies for your home, technology (general), vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

New report lays out its 2040 vision of the workplace of the future — from workplaceinsight.net by Mark Eltringham; with thanks to Norma Owen for posting this

Excerpt:

By 2040 knowledge workers will decide where and how they want to work, according to a new report on the workplace of the future by Johnson Controls’ Global Workplace Solutions business. The Smart Workplace 2040 report claims that 25 years from now, work will be seen as something workers do, rather than a place to which they commute. According to the study, work patterns will be radically different as a new generation of what it terms ‘workspace consumers’ choose their time and place of work. Most workers will frequently work from home, and will choose when to visit work hubs to meet and network with others. There will be no set hours and the emphasis will be on getting work done, while workers’ wellness will take priority. Technology will bring together networks of individuals who operate in an entrepreneurial way, with collaboration the major driver of business performance.

Also see:
Smart Workplace 2040: The rise of the workspace consumer — from JohnsonControls.com

Executive Summary
Corporate organizations are still considering the workplace as delivering a strong identity and more than ever as a marketing weapon, creating and sustaining their corporate identity. The intensity of performance level improvements increased significantly over the past ten years, accelerating the pace of work through the combined power of technology and personalized, choice-based software solutions.

The presence of technology in every aspect of our life in 2040 is predominating our way of living. The workplace of 2040 is far more agile, the presence of technology is ultra predominant and human beings are highly reliant on it. Yet the technology is “shy”, not intrusive, transparent, and highly reliable – no failure is neither, not a possibility nor an option:

The home (the Hive) is a hyper connected and adaptive, responsive to the environment and its users, supporting multiple requirements simultaneously
Complex software applications will suggest to users what they should do to maximise performance, not miss any important deadlines, and make sure she allocates enough time for important tasks that are not necessarily urgent
End user services are autonomous, proactive and designed around enhancing the user experience
In an ubiquitously networked world, true offline time is both a luxury and a necessity. Being physically present is perceived as more authentic, a privilege
Adaptive white noise technology makes it possible to have a first rate telepresence session in an open environment
The whole DIY movement is experiencing a tremendous boost – people are literally building their own products, bought through their smartphones using mobile web applications, and printed on demand
Lower costs of energy and unmanned vehicles in combination with high costs of owning your own vehicle, plus high parking costs in densely populated megacities, benefits new sharing regimes.

In the context of the new world of work in 2040, we are contemplating a new world of work in an Eco Campus:

CHOICE: deciding where and how we want to work

ADAPTABILITY: adapting our working pattern to meet private needs and family constraints

WORK: entrepreneurship is the norm

LOCATION: deciding who we work with and how

WORKPLACE: access to “Trophy Workplaces” so going to the “office” is a luxury, a reward

SERVICES: offering real time services, catering to peak demands

WELLNESS: privileging wellness over work

NETWORK: reliance on an extremely wide network of experts to carry out our work

While Corporate Soldiers still remain major actors in organisations, we are seeing a significant rise of entrepreneurial behaviours, transforming employees into a new breed of workers focused on achieving great results through their work activities as well as achieving wellbeing in their private life. Going to “work” is therefore accessible through a complex model of locations, spread across an Eco Campus, accessible less than 20 miles away from home…

Millennials surpass Gen Xers as the largest generation in U.S. labor force [Fry]

On 05/11/2015, in 21st century, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, generational differences, training / L&D, trends, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Millennials surpass Gen Xers as the largest generation in U.S. labor force — from pewresearch.org by Richard Fry

Excerpt:

More than one-in-three American workers today are Millennials (adults ages 18 to 34 in 2015), and this year they surpassed Generation X to become the largest share of the American workforce, according to new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

This milestone occurred in the first quarter of 2015, as the 53.5 million-strong Millennial workforce has risen rapidly. The Millennial labor force had last year surpassed that of the Baby Boom, which has declined as Boomers retire.

Teaching in a Digital Age
A.W. (Tony) Bates
Guidelines for designing teaching and learning for a digital age

The book examines the underlying principles that guide effective teaching in an age when everyone, and in particular the students we are teaching, are using technology. A framework for making decisions about your teaching is provided, while understanding that every subject is different, and every instructor has something unique and special to bring to their teaching. The book enables teachers and instructors to help students develop the knowledge and skills they will need in a digital age: not so much the IT skills, but the thinking and attitudes to learning that will bring them success.

As Tony mentions here, his intended audience is primarily:

college and university instructors anxious to improve their teaching or facing major challenges in the classroom,
school teachers, particularly in secondary or high schools anxious to ensure their students are ready for either post-secondary education or a rapidly changing and highly uncertain job market.

An example chapter:
Chapter 7: Pedagogical differences between media

Why Millennials understand the future of work better than anyone else [Horowitz]

On 04/01/2015, in career development, corporate / business world, digital learning, digital video, entrepreneurship, future, generational differences, multimedia, new media literacies, web design and production, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Why Millennials understand the future of work better than anyone else — from fastcompany.com by Sara Horowitz
We can learn a lot about the future of work from how Millennials are approaching and redefining their careers.

From DSC:
Note the digital media literacies mentioned in the excerpt below — as well as how many times the topic of freelancing comes up:

Excerpt:

I call that traditional view, “Big Work,” and millennials intuitively understand that’s not where the future is. They are, in a sense, the first generation of freelance natives. They’re embracing freelancing in a way no other generation has. And now, they’re the majority of the workforce.

They are generation with markedly diverse interests––they’re into design, tech, activism, the arts, everything. They’ve been told their whole lives that they can and should pursue as many of those interests as they want. The Internet has opened more doors to this generation than any other.

That’s why the idea of a portfolio of work comes naturally to them. They’re doing web design for their mom’s coworkers after they’re done studying. They’re teaching themselves FinalCut and picking up video editing gigs to complement their shift at the bookstore. They’re aiming for a more meaningful work-life, not necessarily what their parents would call a “traditional career.”

That natural flexibility positions millennials to take advantage of this new economy without fear. They are the most likely age group to freelance––38% of millennials are freelancing, compared to 32% of all others, according to a national survey conducted last year by Freelancers Union and Elance-oDesk.

Millennials also expressed by far the most confidence about this new way of working, with 82% of young freelancers saying they’re optimistic about the future of freelancing.

From DSC:
We need to help students out by offering more courses on entrepreneurship, owning one’s own business, freelancing, basic accounting, basic marketing, social networking, etc.

Also see:

The 5 Most Common Mistakes New Freelancers Make — from 99u.com by Brennan Dunn

Learning Ecosystems

Cisco’s John Chambers on the digital era: “It’s the biggest technology transition in history.” [mckinsey.com]

Smart Workplace 2040: The rise of the workspace consumer [Johnson Controls]

Millennials surpass Gen Xers as the largest generation in U.S. labor force [Fry]

Why Millennials understand the future of work better than anyone else [Horowitz]

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