The 5 top tech skills companies want in new hires right now — from fortune.com by Anne Fisher; with thanks to Ryan Craig for his relaying this resource

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Tim Tully agrees. Chief technology officer at data giant Splunk—whose clients number 92 of the Fortune 100—Tully says that the most important trait IT job candidates need now is “a strong desire to learn.” It might be too broad of a requirement, but consider Tully’s own list of the five most essential tech skills now:

1. Real-time data management
2. Design thinking
3. App development
4. A.I. and machine learning
5. A composite of the first four skills

From DSC:
I’m especially posting this for students who are considering a tech-related career. If that’s you, Tim’s words ring true — you must have a strong desire to learn. And I would add, to keep learning and to keep learning and to keep learning…

If you are in IT, it’s wise to check in regularly on career progress – because staying still for too long could quickly lead to falling behind. (source)

Also, given the pace of change and today’s current marketplace, you need to be ready to be let go and take a right turn (i.e., be flexible and adaptable). You need to have a healthy learning ecosystem built up and maintained — one that will support you over the long haul.  Heutagogy comes into play here. And at least for me, prayer helps greatly here too — as one can easily put one’s eggs into the wrong basket(s) when we’re talking about tech-related jobs.

And for you applying for jobs, don’t get discouraged by those organizations/people who are looking for those “purple unicorns” that Ryan Craig talks about in his Gap Letter Volume II, #4 (i.e., the perfect candidate who meets a ridiculously long list of requirements for the job).

 


Also see:


Below is a relevant excerpt from that report:

 


 

 

5 Things General Counsel Want from Law Firms They Are Not Getting — from linkedin.com by Julie Savarino and from “the excellent presentation at #LegalWeek2020 by ALM Media, LLC, Heather D. Nevitt, James Willer, Gina Passarella, Patrick Fuller & team”

(emphasis DSC)

  1. Direct, straightforward & practical legal advice & guidance they can take to their business leadership.
  2. A team of talented, diverse professionals (not just practicing #lawyers) that bring a wide range of solutions & options.
  3. Innovative technology options & support for legal tech & legal ops.
  4. Proactive communications & monitoring of their business, warnings of potential risks & legal issues & how the firm can support.
  5. Scanning the horizon for what’s coming/developing & future issues that the legal department needs to be aware of & ready to support.


From DSC:

#5 reminds me of the following graphic:

 

 

BIGLAW 2040: What will happen when Gen Z is in charge? — from law360.com by Natalie Rodriguez

Excerpts:

The opportunities that BigLaw has begun offering associates to spend months-long stints working out of international offices will evolve from rare resume brags to almost standard career milestones for those interested in leadership positions.

“If you don’t have global experience, you’re not becoming a CEO anymore, and that’s going to be true of becoming a managing partner. If you want to be a global business, you’re going to have to understand the world,” Wilkins said.

The legal leaders of 2040 will also have to expand their circle — think data technicians, cybersecurity professionals, chief knowledge officers, legal tech and artificial intelligence systems engineers, all of whom are going to play much larger roles in the BigLaw ecosystem in the next few decades.

Addendum on 2/11/20:

The Skills Every Future Lawyer Needs — from law360.com by Erin Coe

Excerpt:

To provide those outcomes and solutions, many lawyers of the future will be responsible for building the systems that replace the old ways of working.

They will become legal knowledge engineers, legal risk managers, legal systems analysts, legal design thinkers and legal technologists, and they will be the ones solving clients’ problems, not through one-on-one advice, but through technology-delivered solutions, according to Susskind.

The challenge for existing lawyers is whether they are prepared over the next 20 years to retrain themselves for these new roles.

 

 

From DSC:
I wonder if this patent — or these types of technologies — might enable remote learners to select/control more of their preferred viewing angles?!

Apple Seeks Patent For AR/VR Video Recording With Multi-angle Playback — from uploadvr.com by Jeremy Horwitz

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

If you’ve watched YouTube streams of conventional 2D videos — such as commentaries on games, TV shows, movies, or trailers — you know that the streams are visually flat: video of the content, sometimes with a person’s face superimposed in the corner for added discussion. But Apple appears set to change that paradigm for augmented and virtual reality streaming. A just-published patent application reveals that it’s been working on compositing multiple streams in a way that could let AR and VR viewers watch streamed content from their choice of angles.

 

From DSC:
This type of thing will be constantly running on a next-generation learning platform — i.e., scanning open job descriptions and presenting the top/”hottest” occupations/skills/employers — but then offering the relevant courses, modules, webinars, local learning hubs, discussion forums, etc. that will teach you the necessary skills (similar to what justwatch.com or suppose.tv provides for the entertainment industry).

 

 

 

Soros urges world leaders to back his $1-billion Global Education Network — from chronicle.com by Dan Parks

Excerpt:

George Soros urged world leaders on Thursday to back his Open Society University Network, a $1-billion effort to integrate teaching and research across higher-education institutions worldwide to solve big problems.

The Central European University, which Soros founded, and Bard College will team up with Arizona State University and other institutions around the globe, according to a news release.

From DSC:
This is not an endorsement of the GEN nor do I have any perspectives to relay one way or another re: George Soros. I just find the idea of a global learning network/platform very interesting…and likely a piece of our future learning ecosystems.

 

Lawyers: Meet the CEO trying to make you obsolete — from abovethelaw.com by James Goodnow
Call it a drive for increased access to the legal system, call it a grab for cash, the legal and business worlds are getting more comfortable with nonlawyers handling issues traditionally reserved for attorneys.

Excerpt:

Mehta and Factor aim to take a bite out of the segment of the legal market that has previously been off-limits to anyone except Biglaw attorneys: challenging, sophisticated contract negotiations and compliance.

Factor’s secret sauce is combining attorneys, nonattorney legal professionals, and curated technology into an efficient package. Factor’s team of hundreds of in-house lawyers oversee nonattorneys specially trained in contract management, compliance issues, and leading-edge technology. The goal, of course, is to bring the cost of even highly complex transactions down to a minimum.

Make no mistake: a new front has opened up in the war between alternative legal service providers and traditional law firms. 


From DSC:

While I don’t think lawyers will become obsolete, the amount of technology being integrated into law firms and throughout the legal realm is definitely on the increase. I don’t see that trend slowing down, but rather picking up steam.

 

The Future of Education Technology (FETC) Conference…What did we learn this year? — from teachercast.net by Jeffrey Bradbury

“I couldn’t believe how many sessions this year revolved around audio or video creation.  I even counted more than 15 sessions that had the word Podcast in them (including mine).”

 

Modular, stackable learning — What it means and why it will transform learning in the workplace — from linkedin.com by Anant Agarwal

Excerpt:

One example is by unbundling the traditional learning “packages” — Associate’s, Bachelor’s, and Master’s degrees — into more manageable learning chunks that are also tied to real career and life outcomes. This is what we call modular learning, and it’s the foundation of all the programs available on edX. Modular learning enables working professionals to learn new skills in shorter amounts of time, even while they work, and those seeking a degree are able to do so in a much more attainable way. They also earn credentials for the smaller modules of learning, thereby garnering value and positive feedback early in the process of advancing towards full degrees. This early positive feedback also increases motivation for learners to persist towards the full degree, if that is their goal.

 

Explore Revit models in VR with Unity Reflect — from by Nick Davis
Unity Reflect makes it easy to bring Building Information Modeling (BIM) data into virtual reality (VR). Learn how you can use the Unity Reflect VR Viewer to conduct immersive design reviews with Autodesk Revit models.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The value of VR in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry is well documented. It provides an unrivaled medium for gathering rich feedback, catching design flaws, and reducing the need for physical mockups. Studies have shown construction professionals are twice as likely to spot design errors when reviewing designs in VR versus PCs.

Today, 60% of AR and VR content is powered by Unity. Unity’s AEC customers use VR for a wide range of use cases, from conducting immersive walkthroughs that help their clients catch errors pre-construction and save hundreds of thousands of dollars on individual projects, to creating immersive training programs that lead to safer job sites.

 

Pearson Bets on Adaptive Learning (Again) With $25M Acquisition of Smart Sparrow — from edsurge.com by Tony Wan

Excerpt:

Smart Sparrow, which provides course-authoring tools for faculty and instructional designers to build adaptive courseware, has found a new home in a much bigger nest.

Last week, Pearson announced it paid $25 million to acquire Smart Sparrow’s technology, in a move that the publisher says will bolster the digital infrastructure that will soon support all its future higher-education offerings.

In recent years, Ben-Naim says his team has been building the next iteration of its adaptive course-creation tool. Called Aero, the platform has been in the works since 2017. And though Aero has not been publicly released or announced, that was the technology that attracted Pearson, he adds.

 

From DSC:
As some of you may know, I’m now working for the WMU-Thomas M. Cooley Law School. My faith gets involved here, but I believe that the LORD wanted me to get involved with:

  • Using technology to increase access to justice (#A2J)
  • Contributing to leveraging the science of learning for the long-term benefit of our students, faculty, and staff
  • Raising awareness regarding the potential pros and cons of today’s emerging technologies
  • Increase the understanding that the legal realm has a looooong way to go to try to get (even somewhat) caught up with the impacts that such emerging technologies can/might have on us.
  • Contributing and collaborating with others to help develop a positive future, not a negative one.

Along these lines…in regards to what’s been happening with law schools over the last few years, I wanted to share a couple of things:

1) An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Benjamin Barton:

The Law School Crash

 

2) A response from our President and Dean, James McGrath:Repositioning a Law School for the New Normal

 

From DSC:
I also wanted to personally say that I arrived at WMU-Cooley Law School in 2018, and have been learning a lot there (which I love about my job!).  Cooley employees are very warm, welcoming, experienced, knowledgeable, and professional. Everyone there is mission-driven. My boss, Chris Church, is multi-talented and excellent. Cooley has a great administrative/management team as well.

There have been many exciting, new things happening there. But that said, it will take time before we see the results of these changes. Perseverance and innovation will be key ingredients to crafting a modern legal education — especially in an industry that is just now beginning to offer online-based courses at the Juris Doctor (J.D.) level (i.e., 20 years behind when this began occurring within undergraduate higher education).

My point in posting this is to say that we should ALL care about what’s happening within the legal realm!  We are all impacted by it, whether we realize it or not. We are all in this together and no one is an island — not as individuals, and not as organizations.

We need:

  • Far more diversity within the legal field
  • More technical expertise within the legal realm — not only with lawyers, but with legislators, senators, representatives, judges, others
  • Greater use of teams of specialists within the legal field
  • To offer more courses regarding emerging technologies — and not only for the legal practices themselves but also for society at large.
  • To be far more vigilant in crafting a positive world to be handed down to our kids and grandkids — a dream, not a nightmare. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

Still not convinced that you should care? Here are some things on the CURRENT landscapes:

  • You go to drop something off at your neighbor’s house. They have a camera that gets activated.  What facial recognition database are you now on? Did you give your consent to that? No, you didn’t.
  • Because you posted your photo on Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and/or on millions of other websites, your face could be in ClearView AI’s database. Did you give your consent to that occurring? No, you didn’t.
  • You’re at the airport and facial recognition is used instead of a passport. Whose database was that from and what gets shared? Did you give your consent to that occurring? Probably not, and it’s not easy to opt-out either.
  • Numerous types of drones, delivery bots, and more are already coming onto the scene. What will the sidewalks, streets, and skies look like — and sound like — in your neighborhood in the near future? Is that how you want it? Did you give your consent to that happening? No, you didn’t.
  • …and on and on it goes.

Addendum — speaking of islands!

Palantir CEO: Silicon Valley can’t be on ‘Palo Alto island’ — Big Tech must play by the rules — from cnbc.com by Jessica Bursztynsky

Excerpt:

Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Alex Karp said Thursday the core problem in Silicon Valley is the attitude among tech executives that they want to be separate from United States regulation.

“You cannot create an island called Palo Alto Island,” said Karp, who suggested tech leaders would rather govern themselves. “What Silicon Valley really wants is the canton of Palo Alto. We have the United States of America, not the ‘United States of Canton,’ one of which is Palo Alto. That must change.”

“Consumer tech companies, not Apple, but the other ones, have basically decided we’re living on an island and the island is so far removed from what’s called the United States in every way, culturally, linguistically and in normative ways,” Karp added.

 

A.I. breakthroughs in natural-language processing are big for business — from fortune.com by Jeremy Kahn

Excerpt:

Over the past 18 months, though, computer scientists have made huge strides in creating algorithms with unprecedented abilities at a variety of language tasks. What’s more, these new algorithms are making the leap from the lab and into real products at a breakneck pace—already changing the way tech’s biggest players, and many other businesses, operate. The Natural Language Processing (NLP) revolution promises better search engines and smarter chatbots and digital assistants. It could lead to systems that automatically analyze—and maybe even compose— legal documents and medical records. But some believe the NLP revolution will do far more.

 

From DSC:
Very disturbing that citizens had no say in this. Legislators, senators, representatives, lawyers, law schools, politicians, engineers, programmers, professors, teachers, and more…please reflect upon our current situation here. How can we help create the kind of future that we can hand down to our kids and rest well at night…knowing we did all that we could to provide a dream — and not a nightmare — for them?


The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It — from nytimes.com by Kashmir Hill
A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images — and “might lead to a dystopian future or something,” a backer says.

His tiny company, Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

 

Excerpts:

“But without public scrutiny, more than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year…”

Clearview’s app carries extra risks because law enforcement agencies are uploading sensitive photos to the servers of a company whose ability to protect its data is untested.

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian