staying relevant

From MIT Technology Review on 4-2-2018

*Only* 14 percent of the world has to worry about robots taking their jobs. Yay?
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has released a major report analyzing the impact of automation on jobs in 32 countries.

Clashing views: In 2016, the OECD said only 9 percent of US and worldwide jobs face a “high degree of automobility.” That was a contradiction of one of the most widely cited reports on jobs and automation, by Oxford researchers Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, who in 2013 said that 47 percent of US jobs were at high risk of being consumed by automation.

What’s new: The OECD’s latest report says that across the countries analyzed, 14 percent of jobs are highly automatable, meaning they have over a 70 percent likelihood of automation. In the US, the study concludes that 10 percent of jobs will likely be lost to automation. An additional 32 percent of global jobs will be transformed and require significant worker retraining.

The big “but”: As the gap between the OECD report and Frey and Osborne’s estimates illustrate, predictions like these aren’t known for their accuracy. In fact, when we compiled all of the studies we could on the subject, we found there are about as many predictions as there are experts.

Also see:

Automation, skills use and training — from oecd-ilibrary.org by Ljubica Nedelkoska and Glenda Quintini

Excerpts:

Here are the study’s key findings.
Across the 32 countries, close to one in two jobs are likely to be significantly affected by automation, based on the tasks they involve. But the degree of risk varies.
…
The variance in automatability across countries is large: 33% of all jobs in Slovakia are highly automatable, while this is only the case with 6% of the jobs in Norway.
…
The cross-country variation in automatability, contrary to expectations, is better explained by the differences in the organisation of job tasks within economic sectors, than by the differences in the sectoral structure of economies.
…
There are upside and downside risks to the figures obtained in this paper. On the upside, it is important to keep in mind that these estimates refer to technological possibilities, abstracting from the speed of diffusion and likelihood of adoption of such technologies….But there are risks on the downside too. First, the estimates are based on the fact that, given the current state of knowledge, tasks related to social intelligence, cognitive intelligence and perception and manipulation cannot be automated. However, progress is being made very rapidly, particularly in the latter two categories.
…
Most importantly, the risk of automation is not distributed equally among workers. Automation is found to mainly affect jobs in the manufacturing industry and agriculture, although a number of service sectors, such as postal and courier services, land transport and food services are also found to be highly automatable.
…
Overall, despite recurrent arguments that automation may start to adversely affect selected highly skilled occupations, this prediction is not supported by the Frey and Osborne (2013) framework of engineering bottlenecks used in this study. If anything, Artificial Intelligence puts more low-skilled jobs at risk than previous waves of technological progress…
…

A striking novel finding is that the risk of automation is the highest among teenage jobs. The relationship between automation and age is U-shaped, but the peak in automatability among youth jobs is far more pronounced than the peak among senior workers.

…
This unequal distribution of the risk of automation raises the stakes involved in policies to prepare workers for the new job requirements. In this context, adult learning is a crucial policy instrument for the re-training and up-skilling of workers whose jobs are being affected by technology. Unfortunately, evidence from this study suggests that a lot needs to be done to facilitate participation by the groups most affected by automation.
…
An analysis of German data suggests that training is used to move to jobs at lower risk of automation.

How Emerging Technologies Are Impacting Industries [Bird]

On 03/31/2018, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Blockchain, bots, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, credentialing, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, engineering, experimentation, game-changing environment, health, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, law schools, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, pace of change, platforms, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, technology (general), tools, trends, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

How Emerging Technologies Are Impacting Industries — from medium.com by Dylan Bird
An analysis on leading strategies leveraging technology

235 emerging technology trends that will influence business, government, education, media & society in the coming year. [Future Today Institute]

On 03/20/2018, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, bots, business, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, disruption, economics, education, education technology, emerging technologies, engineering, experimentation, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, health, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, media/film, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile technologies, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), organizational change, pace of change, platforms, political science, programming, reinvent, robotics, society, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, technology (general), tools, training / L&D, trends, universities, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, workplace, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

2018 TECH TRENDS REPORT — from the Future Today Institute
Emerging technology trends that will influence business, government, education, media and society in the coming year.

Description:

The Future Today Institute’s 11th annual Tech Trends Report identifies 235 tantalizing advancements in emerging technologies—artificial intelligence, biotech, autonomous robots, green energy and space travel—that will begin to enter the mainstream and fundamentally disrupt business, geopolitics and everyday life around the world. Our annual report has garnered more than six million cumulative views, and this edition is our largest to date.

Helping organizations see change early and calculate the impact of new trends is why we publish our annual Emerging Tech Trends Report, which focuses on mid- to late-stage emerging technologies that are on a growth trajectory.

In this edition of the FTI Tech Trends Report, we’ve included several new features and sections:

a list and map of the world’s smartest cities
a calendar of events that will shape technology this year
detailed near-future scenarios for several of the technologies
a new framework to help organizations decide when to take action on trends
an interactive table of contents, which will allow you to more easily navigate the report from the bookmarks bar in your PDF reader

01 How does this trend impact our industry and all of its parts?
02 How might global events — politics, climate change, economic shifts – impact this trend, and as a result, our organization?
03 What are the second, third, fourth, and fifth-order implications of this trend as it evolves, both in our organization and our industry?
04 What are the consequences if our organization fails to take action on this trend?
05 Does this trend signal emerging disruption to our traditional business practices and cherished beliefs?
06 Does this trend indicate a future disruption to the established roles and responsibilities within our organization? If so, how do we reverse-engineer that disruption and deal with it in the present day?
07 How are the organizations in adjacent spaces addressing this trend? What can we learn from their failures and best practices?
08 How will the wants, needs and expectations of our consumers/ constituents change as a result of this trend?
09 Where does this trend create potential new partners or collaborators for us?
10 How does this trend inspire us to think about the future of our organization?

AT&T’s $1 billion gambit: Retraining nearly half its workforce for jobs of the future [Caminiti]

On 03/17/2018, in 21st century, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, leadership, learning, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, professional development, reinvent, staying relevant, surviving, training / L&D, trends, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

AT&T’s $1 billion gambit: Retraining nearly half its workforce for jobs of the future — from cnbc.com by Susan Caminiti

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

AT&T initiated a massive retraining effort after discovering that nearly half of its 250,000 employees lacked the necessary skills needed to keep the company competitive.
Ninety percent of maturing companies expect digital disruption, but only 44 percent are adequately preparing for it.
Despite the federal government’s investment in job-retraining efforts, most are deemed ineffective.

The discovery presented AT&T with two daunting options, explains Bill Blase, senior executive vice president of human resources. “We could go out and try to hire all these software and engineering people and probably pay through the nose to get them, but even that wouldn’t have been adequate,” he explains. “Or we could try to reskill our existing workforce so they could be competent in the technology and the skills required to run the business going forward.”

In a world where technology advances are measured in months, not years, companies selling everything from computers and cellphones to cereal and sneakers are trying desperately to adapt. A recent research report by the Society for Human Resource Management states that nearly 40 percent of hiring managers cite lack of technical skills among the reasons why they can’t fill job openings.

And the message isn’t lost on workers, either. A 2016 Pew Research Center survey shows that more than half of the adults in the workforce today realize that it will be essential for them to get training and develop new skills throughout their career in order to keep up with changes in the workplace.

In fact, according to Willis Towers Watson, 90 percent of maturing companies expect digital disruption, but only 44 percent are adequately preparing for it — and getting the right people to get the work done remains a challenge for most.

…
AT&T’s massive global retraining program — the company prefers to call it “reskilling” — is perhaps corporate America’s boldest response to this war for talent. Known inside the company as Future Ready, the initiative is a $1 billion web-based, multiyear effort that includes online courses; collaborations with Coursera, Udacity and leading universities; and a career center that allows employees to identify and train for the kinds of jobs the company needs today and down the road. An online portal called Career Intelligence lets workers see what jobs are available, the skills required for each, the potential salary range and whether that particular area is projected to grow or shrink in the years ahead. In short, it gives them a roadmap to get from where they are today to where the company needs them to be in the future.

From DSC:
This article is encouraging in at least a couple of ways to me:

A large company is choosing to retrain its employees, helping them to learn and grow — to reinvent themselves and to stay relevant
A large company is recognizing the exponential pace of change that we’re now on. The question is, are we ready for it?

On Change and Relevance for Higher Education — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush and Phil Long
A Q&A with Phil Long

Excerpts:

Mary Grush: You’ve been connected to scores of technology leaders and have watched trends in higher education for more than 30 years. What is the central, or most important concern you are hearing from institutional leadership now?

Phil Long: Higher ed institutions are facing some serious challenges to stay relevant in a world that is diversifying and changing rapidly. They want to make sure that the experiences they have designed for students will carry the next generation forward to be productive citizens and workers. But institutions’ abilities to keep up in our changing environment have begun to lag to a sufficient degree, such that alternatives to the traditional university are being considered, both by the institutions themselves and by their constituents and colleagues throughout the education sector.

…

Grush: What are a few of the more specific areas in which institutions may find it difficult to navigate?

Long: Just from a very high level view, I’d include on that list: big data and the increasing sophistication of algorithms, with the associated benefits and risks; artificial intelligence with all its implications for good… and for peril; and perhaps most importantly, new applications and practices that support how we recognize learning.

“The pace of change never seems to slow down. And the issues and implications of the technologies we use are actually getting broader and more profound every day.” — Phil Long

The number of Americans working for themselves could triple by 2020 — from work.qz.com by Amy Wang

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Americans are as eager to work as ever. Just no longer for somebody else.

According to FreshBooks, a cloud-based accounting company that has conducted a study on self-employment for two years, the number of Americans working for themselves looks to triple—to 42 million people—by 2020.

The trend, gauged in a survey of more than 2,700 full-time US workers in traditional, independent, and small business roles about their career plans, is largely being driven by millennial workers. FreshBooks estimates that of the next 27 million independent workers, 42% will be millennials. The survey, conducted with Research Now, also finds that Americans who already work for themselves are suddenly very content to keep doing so, with 97% of independent workers (up 10% from 2016) reporting no desire to return to traditional work.

From DSC:
With the continued trend towards more freelancing and the growth of a more contingent workforce…have our students had enough practice in selling themselves and their businesses to be successful in this new, developing landscape?

We need to start offering more courses, advice, and opportunities for practicing these types of skills — and the sooner the better! I’m serious. Our students will be far more successful with these types of skills under their belt. Conversely, they won’t be able to persuade others and sell themselves and their businesses without such skills.

Reflections on “Michelle Weise: We Need to Design the Learning Ecosystem of the Future”

On 02/23/2018, in colleges, community colleges, digital learning, disruption, education reform, education technology, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, lifelong learning, marketplaces, microlearning, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online tutoring, open courseware and systems, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, robotics, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, virtual tutoring, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Michelle Weise: ‘We Need to Design the Learning Ecosystem of the Future’ — from edsurge.com by Michelle Weise

Excerpts:

These days, education reformers, evangelists and foundations pay a lot of lip service to the notion of lifelong learning, but we do little to invest in the systems, architecture and infrastructure needed to facilitate seamless movements in and out of learning and work.

Talk of lifelong learning doesn’t translate into action. In fact, resources and funding are often geared toward the traditional 17- to 22-year-old college-going population and less often to working adults, our growing new-traditional student population.

We’ll need a different investment thesis: For most adults, taking time off work to attend classes at a local, brick-and-mortar community college or a four-year institution will not be the answer. The opportunity costs will be too high. Our current system of traditional higher education is ill-suited to facilitate flexible, seamless cost-effective learning pathways for these students to keep up with the emergent demands of the workforce.

…

Many adults may have no interest in coming back to college. Out of the 37 million Americans with some college and no degree, many have already failed one or twice before and will be wholly uninterested in experiencing more educational trauma.We can’t just say, “Here’s a MOOC, or here’s an online degree, or a 6- to 12-week immersive bootcamp.”

We have to do better. Let’s begin seeding the foundational elements of a learning ecosystem of the future—flexible enough for adults to move consistently in and out of learning and work. Enough talk about lifelong learning: Let’s build the foundations of that learning ecosystem of the future.

From DSC:
I couldn’t agree more with Michelle that we need a new learning ecosystem of the future. In fact, I have been calling such an effort “Learning from the Living [Class] Room — and it outlines a next generation learning platform that aims to deliver everything Michelle talks about in her solid article out at edsurge.com.

Along these lines…I just saw that Amazon is building out more cashierless stores (and Walmart is also at work on introducing more cashierless stores.) Now, let’s say that you are currently a cashier. 2-5 years from now (depending upon where you’re currently working and which stores are in your community), what are you going to do? The opportunities for such a position will be fewer and fewer. Who can help you do what Michelle mentioned here:

Working learners will also need help articulating their learning goals and envisioning a future for themselves. People don’t know how to translate their skills from one industry to another. How does a student begin to understand that 30% of what they already know could be channeled into a totally different and potentially promising pathway they never even knew was within reach?

And that cashier may have had a tough time with K-12 education and/or with higher education. As Michelle writes:

Many adults may have no interest in coming back to college. Out of the 37 million Americans with some college and no degree, many have already failed one or twice before and will be wholly uninterested in experiencing more educational trauma. We can’t just say, “Here’s a MOOC, or here’s an online degree, or a 6- to 12-week immersive bootcamp.”

And like the cashier in this example…we are quickly approaching an era where, I believe, many of us will need to reinvent ourselves in order to:

stay marketable
keep bread and butter on the table
continue to have a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives

Higher ed, if it wants to remain relevant, must pick up the pace of experimentation and increase the willingness to innovate, and to develop new business models — to develop new “learning channels” so to speak. Such channels need to be:

Up-to-date
Serving relevant data and information– especially regarding the job market and which jobs appear to be safe for the next 5-10 years
Inexpensive/affordable
Highly convenient

Oh…that should be no problem for people. Just master these 5 peak performance zones.

On 02/23/2018, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, computer science, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, platforms, programming, reinvent, robotics, society, staying relevant, surviving, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
My comments below are not meant to bash anyone at the Institute for the Future (which I really respect) nor at MIT Technology Review, in fact I recently posted an item from the latter organization that I thought was great. But looking at the list below, I can’t help but think, “Oh…that should be no problem! Geez that’s easy! ………NOT!”

As people lose their jobs to AI, robots, bots, algorithms, automation and the like — and try to reinvent themselves — many people won’t have the skills, interests, aptitudes, funding, background/prior knowledge, etc. to carve out their niches, to find out how to build teams that utilize robots and AI, and to make sense of complex systems. How many of us truly understand the world we’re living in these days? No one does.

Again, no problem on mastering these 5 peak performance zones. Easy peazy lemon squeezy. Geeez. (Please hear the intense sarcasm dripping off my comments.)

How unrealistic can we get? It’s like saying, “Everyone can learn to code. No problem.” That’s not true at all, especially given the current state of computer programming. Many (most?) people simply don’t think that way. That’s why programmers are always in demand and they are often highly paid. Why? Because most people don’t want to do it, can’t do it, or choose not to do it.

Please, let’s get realistic.

From the 2/22/18 e-newsletter from MIT Technology Review

The five skills you need for jobs of the future

The Palo Alto-based think tank Institute for the Future partnered with software company Cornerstone OnDemand to produce a report that identifies 15 skills that workers need to succeed in the workplace of tomorrow. They fall into five main buckets:

Make yourself known through reputation management: Carve out your niche and brand across a variety of platforms to distinguish yourself from the crowd.
Master human and machine collaboration: Know how to build teams that utilize robots and AI, as well as humans.
Build your tribe: Personal networks and social connections will take you to the next level in a tech-focused world.
Make sense of complex systems: The ability to be creative and connect the dots between different industries and organizations will be rewarded.
Build resilience in extreme environments: Learn to thrive in more a risk prone society and build yourself new safety nets.

“To be fit for this future, you need to master five peak performance zones. These are the basics of future fitness for everyone. No matter what your own personal mission in life is, these are the workout zones that will get you ready to face whatever comes next.”

Mapping the Trends on Our Doorstep: The Pace of Change Has Changed [Christian; evoLLLution.com]

On 02/19/2018, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, leadership, organizational change, pace of change, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Mapping the Trends on Our Doorstep: The Pace of Change Has Changed — from an article that I did out at — and with — evoLLLution.com [where LLL stands for lifelong learning]; my thanks to Mr. Amrit Ahluwalia, Managing Editor out at evolllution.com and to his staff as well!
The higher education industry has changed significantly over the past decade, and given the pace and significance of change hitting other industries as a result of technological advances, it’s fair to say the postsecondary space is ripe for further transformation.

From DSC:
From the perspective of those of us working within higher education, we see massive changes occurring in the corporate world, and we see innovations and changes also occurring in the world of K-12. Higher education should also be adapting, changing, questioning, and reflecting upon how we can best prepare our students for a rapidly changing workplace.

Below is another interesting item that I believe gives credence to the idea that we are now on an exponential pace of change. Companies are coming and going on the S&P Index…at an ever faster pace.

The 33-year average tenure of companies on the S&P 500 in 1964 narrowed to 24 years by 2016 and is forecast to shrink to just 12 years by 2027 (Chart 1).

Here is the video:

This is the transcript with the original graphs in it.

This is a nice PDF file from evoLLLution.com with the transcript, with some different graphics and some other

This is the type of thing that will be offered in our future learning ecosystems. [Christian]

On 02/16/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, formal learning, future, future of higher education, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, parents/guardians, platforms, reinvent, smart/connected TV, staying relevant, student-related, technologies for your home, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Here’s a quote that has been excerpted from the announcement below…and it’s the type of service that will be offered in our future learning ecosystems — our next generation learning platforms:

Career Insight™ enables prospective students to identify programs of study which can help them land the careers they want: Career Insight™ describes labor market opportunities associated with programs of study to prospective students. The recommendation engine also matches prospective students to programs based on specific career interests.

But in addition to our future learning platforms pointing new/prospective students to physical campuses, the recommendation engines will also provide immediate access to digital playlists for the prospective students/learners to pursue from their living rooms (or as they are out and about…i.e., mobile access).

Artificial intelligence working with enormous databases to build/update recommendation engines…yup, I could see that. Lifelong learning. Helping people know what to reinvent themselves to.

Career Insight™ Lets Prospective Students Connect Academic Program Choices to Career Goals — from burning-glass.com; also from Hadley Dreibelbis from Finn Partners
New Burning Glass Technologies Product Brings Job Data into Enrollment Decisions

BOSTON—Burning Glass Technologies announces the launch of Career Insight™, the first tool to show prospective students exactly how course enrollment will advance their careers.

Embedded in institutional sites and powered by Burning Glass’ unparalleled job market data, Career Insight’s personalized recommendation engine matches prospective students with programs based on their interests and goals. Career Insight will enable students to make smarter decisions, as well as improve conversion and retention rates for postsecondary institutions.

“A recent Gallup survey found that 58% of students say career outcomes are the most important reason to continue their education,” Burning Glass CEO Matthew Sigelman said. “That’s particularly true for the working learners who are now the norm on college campuses. Career Insight™ is a major step in making sure that colleges and universities can speak their language from the very first.”

Beginning an educational program with a firm, realistic career goal can help students persist in their studies. Currently only 29% of students in two-year colleges and 59% of those in four-year institutions complete their degrees within six years.

Career Insight™ enables prospective students to identify programs of study which can help them land the careers they want:

Career Insight™ describes labor market opportunities associated with programs of study to prospective students. The recommendation engine also matches prospective students to programs based on specific career interests.
The application provides insights to enrollment, advising, and marketing teams into what motivates prospective students, analysis that will guide the institution in improving program offerings and boosting conversion.
Enrollment advisors can also walk students through different career and program scenarios in real time.

Career Insight™ is driven by the Burning Glass database of a billion job postings and career histories, collected from more than 40,000 online sources daily. The database, powered by a proprietary analytic taxonomy, provides insight into what employers need much faster and in more detail than any other sources.

Career Insight™ is powered by the same rich dataset Burning Glass delivers to hundreds of leading corporate and education customers – from Microsoft and Accenture to Harvard University and Coursera.

More information is available at http://burning-glass.com/career-insight.

What these firms all have in common are powerful digital platforms that provide the scale and scope to expand into new growth markets and geographies at speeds never before possible.

From DSC:
To me, the item below provides another example of the exponential pace of change that we are beginning to experience:

Corporate Longevity Forecast: The Pace of Creative Destruction is Accelerating — from innosight.com by Scott Anthony, S. Patrick Viguerie, Evan Schwartz and John Van Landeghem

Excerpt/Executive Summary:

Few companies are immune to the forces of creative destruction. Our corporate longevity forecast of S&P 500 companies anticipates average tenure on the list growing shorter and shorter over the next decade.

Key insights include:

The 33-year average tenure of companies on the S&P 500 in 1964 narrowed to 24 years by 2016 and is forecast to shrink to just 12 years by 2027 (Chart 1).
Record private equity activity, a robust M&A market, and the growth of startups with billion-dollar valuations are leading indicators of future turbulence.
A gale force warning to leaders: at the current churn rate, about half of S&P 500 companies will be replaced over the next ten years.
Retailers were especially hit hard by disruptive forces, and there are strong signs of restructuring in financial services, healthcare, energy, travel, and real estate.
The turbulence points to the need for companies to embrace a dual transformation, to focus on changing customer needs, and other strategic interventions.

…
Are Corporations Ready for Increased Turbulence?

Viewed as a larger picture, S&P 500 turnover serves as a barometer for marketplace change. Shrinking lifespans of companies on the list are in part driven by a complex combination of technology shifts and economic shocks, some of which are beyond the control of corporate leaders. But frequently, companies miss opportunities to adapt or take advantage of these changes. For example, they continue to apply existing business models to new markets, are slow to respond to disruptive competitors in low-profit segments, or fail to adequately envision and invest in new growth areas which often takes a decade or longer to pay off.

At the same time, we’ve seen the rise of other companies take their place on the list by creating new products, business models, and serving new customers. Some of the market forces driving these exits and entries include the mass disruption in retail, the rising dominance of digital technology platforms, the downward pressure on energy prices, strength in global travel and real estate, as well as the failure of stock buyback efforts to improve performance.

Every study we could find on what automation will do to jobs, in one chart — from technologyreview.com by Erin Winick
There are about as many opinions as there are experts.

Not exponential change!? Better think again. Per “4,000 sr decision makers across the world, 45% say they are concerned about becoming obsolete in just 3-5 yrs”

On 01/23/2018, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, mobile technologies, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, robotics, society, staying relevant, streams of content, surviving, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

The next era of human|machine partnerships
From delltechnologies.com by the Institute for the Future and Dell Technologies

From DSC:
Though this outlook report paints a rosier picture than I think we will actually encounter, there are several interesting perspectives in this report. We need to be peering out into the future to see which trends and scenarios are most likely to occur…then plan accordingly. With that in mind, I’ve captured a few of the thoughts below.

At its inception, very few people anticipated the pace at which the internet would spread across the world, or the impact it would have in remaking business and culture. And yet, as journalist Oliver Burkeman wrote in 2009, “Without most of us quite noticing when it happened, the web went from being a strange new curiosity to a background condition of everyday life.”1

In Dell’s Digital Transformation Index study, with 4,000 senior decision makers across the world, 45% say they are concerned about becoming obsolete in just 3-5 years, nearly half don’t know what their industry will look like in just three years’ time, and 73% believe they need to be more ‘digital’ to succeed in the future.

With this in mind, we set out with 20 experts to explore how various social and technological drivers will influence the next decade and, specifically, how emerging technologies will recast our society and the way we conduct business by the year 2030. As a result, this outlook report concludes that, over the next decade, emerging technologies will underpin the formation of new human-machine partnerships that make the most of their respective complementary strengths. These partnerships will enhance daily activities around the coordination of resources and in-the-moment learning, which will reset expectations for work and require corporate structures to adapt to the expanding capabilities of human-machine teams.

…
For the purpose of this study, IFTF explored the impact that Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), and Cloud Computing, will have on society by 2030. These technologies, enabled by significant advances in software, will underpin the formation of new human-machine partnerships.
…
On-demand access to AR learning resources will reset expectations and practices around workplace training and retraining, and real-time decision-making will be bolstered by easy access to information flows. VR-enabled simulation will immerse people in alternative scenarios, increasing empathy for others and preparation for future situations. It will empower the internet of experience by blending physical and virtual worlds.

Already, the number of digital platforms that are being used to orchestrate either physical or human resources has surpassed 1,800.9 They are not only connecting people in need of a ride with drivers, or vacationers with a place to stay, but job searchers with work, and vulnerable populations with critical services. The popularity of the services they offer is introducing society to the capabilities of coordinating technologies and resetting expectations about the ownership of fixed assets.

Human-machine partnerships won’t spell the end of human jobs, but work will be vastly different.
…
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that today’s learners will have 8 to 10 jobs by the time they are 38. Many of them will join the workforce of freelancers. Already 50 million strong, freelancers are projected to make up 50% of the workforce in the United States by 2020.12 Most freelancers will not be able to rely on traditional HR departments, onboarding processes, and many of the other affordances of institutional work.

By 2030, in-the-moment learning will become the modus operandi, and the ability to gain new knowledge will be valued higher than the knowledge people already have.

DC: Helping our students in K-20 learn how to learn. Post includes several resources re: metacognition.

On 01/17/2018, in adjunct faculty, adult learning, assessment, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, education, education reform, entrepreneurship, future, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, instructional design, intelligent systems, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, learning theories, lifelong learning, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, neurodivergent/special needs, online learning, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, psychology, staying relevant, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, universities, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
From an early age, we need to help our students learn how to learn. What tips, advice, and/or questions can we help our students get into the habit of asking themselves? Along these lines, the article below,”How Metacognition Boosts Learning,” provides some excellent questions.

Speaking of questions…I’ll add some more, but of a different sort:

How can all educators do a better job of helping their students learn how to learn?
How can Instructional Designers and Instructional Technologists help out here? Librarians? Provosts? Deans? Department Chairs? Teachers? Trainers (in the corporate L&D space)?
How might technologies come into play here in terms of building more effective web-based learner profiles that can be fed into various platforms and/or into teachers’ game plans?

…

I appreciate Bill Knapp and his perspectives very much (see here and here; Bill is GRCC’s Executive Director of Distance Learning & Instructional Technologies). The last we got together, we wondered out loud:

Why don’t teachers, professors, school systems, administrations within in K-20 address this need/topic more directly…? (i.e., how can we best help our students learn how to learn?)
Should we provide a list of potentially helpful techniques, questions, tools, courses, modules, streams of content, or other resources on how to learn?
Should we be weaving these sorts of things into our pedagogies?
Are there tools — such as smartphone related apps — that can be of great service here? For example, are there apps for sending out reminders and/or motivational messages?

As Bill asserted, we need to help our students build self-efficacy and a mindset of how to learn. Then learners can pivot into new areas with much more confidence. I agree. In an era that continues to emphasize freelancing and entrepreneurship — plus dealing with a rapidly-changing workforce — people now need to be able to learn quickly and effectively. They need to have the self confidence to be able to pivot. So how can we best prepare our students for their futures?

Also, on a relevant but slightly different note (and I suppose is of the flavor of a Universal Design for Learning approach)…I think that “tests” given to special needs children — for example that might have to do with executive functioning, and/or identifying issues, and/or providing feedback as to how a particular learner might best absorb information — would be helpful for ALL students to take. If I realize that the way my brain learns best is to have aural and visual materials presented on any given topic, that is very useful information for me to realize — and the sooner the better!

How Metacognition Boosts Learning — from edutopia.org by Youki Terada
Students often lack the metacognitive skills they need to succeed, but they can develop these skills by addressing some simple questions.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Strategies that target students’ metacognition—the ability to think about thinking—can close a gap that some students experience between how prepared they feel for a test and how prepared they actually are. In a new study, students in an introductory college statistics class who took a short online survey before each exam asking them to think about how they would prepare for it earned higher grades in the course than their peers—a third of a letter grade higher, on average. This low-cost intervention helped students gain insight into their study strategies, boosting their metacognitive skills and giving them tools to be more independent learners.
…
More recently, a team of psychologists and neuroscientists published a comprehensive analysis of 10 learning techniques commonly used by students. They discovered that one of the most popular techniques—rereading material and highlighting key points—is also one of the least effective because it leads students to develop a false sense of mastery. They review a passage and move on without realizing that they haven’t thoroughly understood and absorbed the material.
…
Metacognition helps students recognize the gap between being familiar with a topic and understanding it deeply. But weaker students often don’t have this metacognitive recognition—which leads to disappointment and can discourage them from trying harder the next time.
…
To promote students’ metacognition, middle and high school teachers can implement the following strategies. Elementary teachers can model or modify these strategies with their students to provide more scaffolding.
…
During class, students should ask themselves:

What are the main ideas of today’s lesson?
Was anything confusing or difficult?
If something isn’t making sense, what question should I ask the teacher?
Am I taking proper notes?
What can I do if I get stuck on a problem?

…

Before a test, students should ask themselves:

What will be on the test?
What areas do I struggle with or feel confused about?
How much time should I set aside to prepare for an upcoming test?
Do I have the necessary materials (books, school supplies, a computer and online access, etc.) and a quiet place to study, with no distractions?
What strategies will I use to study? Is it enough to simply read and review the material, or will I take practice tests, study with a friend, or write note cards?
What grade would I get if I were to take the test right now?

…

After a test, students should ask themselves:

What questions did I get wrong, and why did I get them wrong?
Were there any surprises during the test?
Was I well-prepared for the test?
What could I have done differently?
Am I receiving useful, specific feedback from my teacher to help me progress?

From DSC:
Below are a few resources more about metacognition and learning how to learn:

Metacognition — from wikipedia.com

Metacognition And Learning: Strategies For Instructional Design — from theelearningcoach.com by Connie Malamed

Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects — from coursera.org

Students should be taught how to study. — from Daniel Willingham
Excerpt:
Rereading is a terribly ineffective strategy. The best strategy–by far–is to self-test–which is the 9th most popular strategy out of 11 in this study. Self-testing leads to better memory even compared to concept mapping (Karpicke & Blunt, 2011).

Study smart | Make the most of your study time with these drawn-from-the-research tips. — from apa.org | from Willingham’s article above

Quiz: how solid are your study skills? — from the American Psychological Association

The Lesson You Never Got Taught in School: How to Learn! — from bigthink.com
Excerpt:
Have you ever wondered whether it is best to do your studying in large chunks or divide your studying over a period of time? Research has found that the optimal level of distribution of sessions for learning is 10-20% of the length of time that something needs to be remembered. So if you want to remember something for a year you should study at least every month, if you want to remember something for five years you should space your learning every six to twelve months. If you want to remember something for a week you should space your learning 12-24 hours apart. It does seem however that the distributed-practice effect may work best when processing information deeply – so for best results you might want to try a distributed practice and self-testing combo.There is however a major catch – do you ever find that the amount of studying you do massively increases before an exam? Most students fall in to the “procrastination scallop” – we are all guilty at one point of cramming all the knowledge in right before an exam, but the evidence is pretty conclusive that this is the worst way to study, certainly when it comes to remembering for the long term. What is unclear is whether cramming is so popular because students don’t understand the benefits of distributed practice or whether testing practices are to blame – probably a combination of both. One thing is for sure, if you take it upon yourself to space your learning over time you are pretty much guaranteed to see improvements.

Addendum on 1/22/18:

Using Metacognition to Promote Learning
IDEA Paper #63 | December 2016
By Barbara J. Millis

Excerpt:

Some Definitions of Metacognition
Metacognition, simplistically defined, can be described as “cognition about cognition” or “thinking about thinking” (Flavell, Miller & Miller, 2002, p. 175; Shamir, Metvarech, & Gida, 2009, p. 47; Veeman, Van Hout-Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006, p. 5). However, because metacognition is multifaceted and multi-layered (Dunlosky & Metcalf, 2009, p. 1; Flavell, 1976; Hall, Danielewicz, & Ware , 2013, p. 149; Lovett, 2013, p. 20), more complex definitions are called for. Basically, metacognition must be viewed as an ongoing process that involves reflection and action. Metacognitive thinkers change both their understandings and their strategies. The clearest definitions of metacognition emphasize its nature as a process or cycle.

Several authors (Nilson, 2013, p. 9; Schraw, 2001; & Zimmerman, 1998; 2000; 2002) narrow this process down to three ongoing stages. The first stage, pre-planning, emphasizes the need for reflection on both one’s own thinking and the task at hand, including reflection on past strategies that might have succeeded or failed. Following this self-reflection, during planning, metacognitive thinkers develop and implement—put into action—a plan. In the third and final stage—post-planning adjustments/revisions—subsequent analysis following implementation leads to modifications, revised decisions, and new future plans. In an excellent summary, Wirth states that “metacognition requires students both to understand how they are learning and to develop the ability to make plans, to monitor progress and to make adjustments” (as cited in Jaschik, 2011, p. 2).

Conclusion: As we have seen, metacognition is a complex but valuable skill that can nurture students’ learning and their self-awareness of the learning process. It is best conceived as a three-step process that can occur through deliberately designed activities. Such activities can take place before, during, and after face-to-face lessons or through online learning. They can also be built around both multiple choice and essay examinations. Immersing students in these metacognitive activities—assuming there are opportunities for practice and feedback—can result in students who are reflective learners.

In-demand skills for 2018 [linkedin]

On 01/11/2018, in business, career development, collaboration, communications, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, leadership, Microsoft, programming, society, staying relevant, student-related, technology (general), workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

The Skills Companies Need Most in 2018 – And The Courses to Get Them — from linkedin.com by Paul Petrone

Excerpt:

Using a combination of LinkedIn data and survey results, we determined both the soft and the hard skills companies need most. And then we provided LinkedIn Learning courses that teach those skills, which we’ve made free for all of January 2018.

Enjoy. Learning these skills will help you stay ahead of change and make the most of all that opportunity in 2018.

Also see:

LinkedIn Data Reveals the Most Promising Jobs and In-Demand Skills of 2018 — from linkedin.com by Rachel Bowley

Excerpt:

As we enter 2018 it’s become clear that the jobs landscape in the United States is changing. How people are thinking about their careers and how they define success is changing. The rise of technology across every industry has created a flurry of new jobs and associated skills (and these aren’t necessarily all tech roles). While we all may take a different approach to reach our own definition of success, we’ve compiled a list of the most promising jobs and in-demand skills, plus a few stand-out trends, to help you get there.

The Trends

You don’t need to be technical to be successful. Despite the prominence of technical jobs and skills, soft skills like management, leadership, and strategy are equally as important. The proof is in the data: we surveyed 2,000 business leaders who told us the soft skills most in-demand are leadership, communication, collaboration, and time management. In fact, 57% of them said these soft skills are more important than hard skills.
Customer is king. As we saw in our Emerging Jobs Report, as a side effect of the technology boom, customer success, marketing, and sales-related jobs are growing quickly. Reaching potential customers and ensuring current customers are successful with your product are both critical for business success.
Technology is here to stay. Year-over-year technology jobs and skills have dominated these lists, and that’s a trend that’s likely here to stay. All jobs are likely going to require some technical skills in the future, so make sure to brush up on the basics.

Learning Ecosystems

AT&T’s $1 billion gambit: Retraining nearly half its workforce for jobs of the future [Caminiti]

On Change and Relevance for Higher Education [Grush & Long]

By 2027: Avg tenure of co’s on the S&P 500 will be just 12 years! DC: To me, another example of the exponential pace of change that we’re beginning to experience

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