12 features of supporting social collaboration in the workplace — from Learning in the Social Workplace by Jane Hart

Excerpt:

I am often asked how to support social collaboration in the workplace. As I showed in my recent blog post, there are some big differences between learning in an e-business and learning in a social/collaborative business.

So it is not just about adding new social approaches or social media into the training “blend”, supporting social collaboration is underpinned not only by new technologies but by a new mindset.  In other words, it means ..

 

What students want to do vs. the jobs the economy has to offer — froom anniemurphypaul.com

Excerpt:

What happens when students want to learn is different from what the economy wants them to do? Should students (and their parents) even pay attention to such projections, since the needs of the workplace seem to be changing so fast?

 

The middle class falls further behind -- part of the perfect storm for higher ed in the US

 

From DSC:
Along with a host of other trends, this is a piece of the perfect storm in higher ed. People will find a way to make a living — whether this involves “traditional” higher education or not. From a career development side of things, robotics may make these graphics even more pronounced as jobs move from being done by humans to jobs being done by robots.

Also see:

 

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Addendums:

 

The decline of US manufacturing jobs and living standards — from bbc.co.uk by Jonny Dymond BBC News, Michigan

Excerpt:

For decades America’s vibrant manufacturing sector provided poorly educated workers a bridge to the middle class. But today’s plants need highly skilled workers who know their way around ultra-high tech machinery.

From DSC:
While manufacturing levels are back up, unemployment rates continue (McAfee, 8/8/12 –> “But new manufacturing facilities in America and elsewhere today don’t need large numbers of hard-working-but-unskilled workers; they need small numbers of hard-working-and-highly-skilled ones.”).

I have a feeling the middle class is going to continue to shrink here in America, unless we can reinvent ourselves. But reinventing ourselves requires that people learn about new things — something much more feasible if people like to learn. 

Upon graduating high school, do our students like to learn? Upon graduating college, do your students enjoy learning about new things? If not, how can we make learning more engaging and enjoyable?  That’s imporant these days because there”s no more hopping on the corporate bandwagon for 40 years and then retiring with a nice pension/401(K) plan.  All of us will need to “go back to our drawing boards” many times during our lifetimes now.

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Some sharp co-working spaces

The 20 Coolest CoWorking Spaces in the U.S. — onlinemba.com

Excerpt:

Coworking spaces are a really cool option for a lot of workers that, for whatever reason, don’t really fit in to a traditional office space like startups, telecommuters, small businesses, and especially creatives in search of collaboration. With free coffee and Internet, workspaces, and built-in community, coworking spaces provide a great place to get things done without feeling the isolation of working at home, or trying to overcome the frenetic nature of working in a coffee shop. But some coworking spaces really take things a bit higher, offering gorgeously designed spaces in historic buildings, community events, and even office mascots. We’re really impressed by these 20 coworking spaces, and we encourage you to check them out if you’re in need of a work space in the area.

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The 10 best nonprofits to work for  — from bachelorsdegreeonline.com

Addendum on 8/8/12; also see:

The Avatar Economy– from Technology Review by Matt Beane
Are remote workers the brains inside tomorrow’s robots?

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In warehouses, Kiva’s robots do the heavy lifting – from Technology Review by Verne Kopytoff
Fast pace, low margins have online retailers looking to automation to keep up.

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This Week In Bots: Will robots cause even more human unemployment? — from FastCompany.com byKit Eaton

 

The expanding landscape of tech support opportunities — from parksassociates.com

Excerpt:

The connected home phenomenon – where products and services are linked together to share computing resources and information – is reshaping the competitive landscape among service providers, retailers, and consumer electronics companies.

The lines that defined and separated the different roles for each consumer product have blurred. No longer does a service provider remain the sole provider of communications or entertainment services. A retailer or OEM may have been the primary beneficiary of extended warranty revenues; now, some service providers are offering these plans as part of their premium tech support services. These changes are creating new opportunities to provide tech support services to consumers to help manage/support these devices in the home.

The less glamorous careers: Advice and fact — from by Stephanie Brooks — with special thanks to Kelsey Doyle for bringing this to my attention

Excerpt:

Few children tout that they want to be an accountant or a petroleum engineer when they grow up, even if the expertise required by those jobs make them amongst the highest paying careers. Rather, children have big dreams about becoming actors, artists, or writers with a little bit of fame, animal care workers, and firemen, rescuing babies from blazing houses. Such careers seem glamorous to children, as they are fraught with adventure and romanticism. However, as you get older, you realize that some of your childhood career choices are not as glamorous as they originally seemed. The pay in these career paths often leave something to be desired. It can be difficult to find a legitimate job within the field, with lower demand. Some of the jobs that once seemed heroic only seem dangerous and risky. Adult practicality sets in, steering many college students towards business, marketing, and other fruitful majors with relatively high success rates within the job world.

With the recession, new graduates flounder to find jobs, accepting positions that help them pay their bills rather than fulfill their dreams. However, there are still a brave few that pursue their childhood aspirations. These tough career paths require tremendous personal drive, a touch of luck, and in many cases, the ability to handle failure, excessive stress, and potential pay cuts. The following jobs are just a handful of the most popular career choices strived for by children. Upon further examination, many of them may not be all they’re cracked up to be.

 

Learning in a Digital Age - JISC - 2012

 

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Contents of Learning in a Digital Age -- from JISC in 2012

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Maximizing Millennials: The who, how, and why of managing Gen Y — from onlinemba.unc.edu posted by jherbst

 
Gen Y In the Workplace Via MBA@UNC
Via MBA@UNC Online Business Degree & The YEC

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The Future of Work
When machines do your job — from  TechnologyReview.com by Antonio Regalado
Researcher Andrew McAfee says advances in computing and artificial intelligence could create a more unequal society.

Excerpt:

Are American workers losing their jobs to machines?

That was the question posed by Race Against the Machine, an influential e-book published last October by MIT business school researchers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. The pair looked at troubling U.S. employment numbers—which have declined since the recession of 2008-2009 even as economic output has risen—and concluded that computer technology was partly to blame.

Advances in hardware and software mean it’s possible to automate more white-collar jobs, and to do so more quickly than in the past. Think of the airline staffers whose job checking in passengers has been taken by self-service kiosks. While more productivity is a positive, wealth is becoming more concentrated, and more middle-class workers are getting left behind.

Apple’s revolutionary move into robotic manufacturing — from seekingalpha.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Apple (AAPL) is about to become one of the world’s biggest buyers of industrial robots. The company has announced a 78% increase in its non-retail capital expenditure to $7.1bn. Analysts in Asia and America believe that the size of Apple’s robot purchases could tie up the market for several years, making it difficult for companies such as Samsung (SSNLF.PK), Nokia (NOK) and HTC (HTCXF.PK) to compete.

Up to 700,000 people are employed in China, making products like the iPhone and iPad for Apple. It takes 141 steps to make an iPhone and each iPad will, over the course of the 5 days that it takes to build it, pass through 325 pairs of hands. Although labor only represents about 3% of the cost of building these products for Apple, the wages of Chinese factory workers have been rising at about 15% a year for much of the last decade. Problems managing this workforce have also harmed Apple’s image in a region that has become the most important engine of its growth.

Apple’s move represents an important step in the use of robots in manufacturing. Robots have long been used to build cars, but not so widely used in consumer electronics because these products are more difficult to make.

From DSC:
Some questions that come to my mind:

  • What happens to jobs in this new environment?
  • What needs to happen to people in this new workplace/environment?
  • How do we educate and train students to enter this ever-changing workplace?
  • How can we make STEM-related subjects more approachable and less “weeder” like?

 

 

Establishing Better Collaboration Between the Corporate World and Higher Education -- by Daniel Christian

 

From DSC:
The above article I wrote for evoLLLution.com (for LifeLong Learning) mentions the need for — and the opportunities to build:

  • More streams of content flowing between these two worlds
  • Web-based learner profiles
  • Tools that students can begin using in their collegiate days that they can later tap into long after they’ve graduated
  • Using teams of specialists
  • MOOCs
  • Collaboration between a corporation and an entire classroom
  • and more

 

 

 

FrameOne with mediascape

 

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The 20 best job apps for new grads — from bestcollegesonline.com

 

 

 

 

© 2024 | Daniel Christian