For the past six years, I have been studying, researching, and talking with individuals around the world about the digital revolution.

As an avid runner, I use my runs to mentally digest and sift through all the information I’ve absorbed.  I think about the future, the potential paths we could take and then overlay human behavior to obtain practical viewpoint.

Imagine full automation real-time calibrated advancing AI. 

We’re not ready….nowhere close to being ready.

I’m not the only one thinking this thought either.

Last week, I attended an event hosted jointly by the French-American Chamber of Commerce and the Global Chamber – DFW Chapter.  In Stephane Mallard’s presentation, Artificial Intelligent Will Disrupt Everything; he repeated “we’re not ready” multiple times too.  Mallard provided one of the best and realistic presentations I’ve seen on the topic.

I think about potential employment for my son, who’s in high school.  I think about new markets and businesses that will need to be launched and created.  I envision how we will develop classes and train students and workers for the future.

I mentally twist and turn automation and AI backward and forward to imagine our world I would not recognize now.

Instead of waiting to see what happens, I believe in taking a proactive approach and have learned the hard way, when people say, “Oh, don’t worry about it.  It will all work out okay.” The opposite tends to occur as you are later blindsided.

So, why should we wait? A tech inventor, I know said, “the cats out of the bag” we need to plan now on how to manage this massive disruption that’s about to happen.

Action Plan for AI and Automation 

End Our Love Affair with STEM

STEM helped raise the awareness and increase the number of technology workers. However, we have reached a level where machines are creating software systems and languages internally without human assistance.

Many of the tech programming positions will be automated. Each day AI and robots manage more and more complex human activities from driving semi-trucks to being a personal home healthcare assistant to help your grandmother with her daily chores.

Tech workers of the future will be responsible for managing the IoT or teaching systems and robots how to learn. Imagine a room at Google or another tech center, where tech teachers teach robots, similar to children at a pre-k school, how to learn basic human functions. I believe we will have schools for robots and as they advance in their learning.  Similar to how humans learn now in public schools.

For anyone who has ever taught school, the job demands more skills than reading from a power point presentation.   It requires both a technical and liberal arts background.

Develop New College and Associate Degree Plans for All Forms of Higher Education

Many colleges have already taken this approach and have combined technology with liberal arts (thinking) classes to form ATEC degree plans.  We need to expand these offerings and include required classes in philosophy and ethics.

About once a week I read an article discussing the need for more philosophy majors. I would include history and art as well to ensure we do not make the same mistakes again.

Jeff Selingo has been talking about creating and promoting more career options instead of focusing solely on the four-year college degree route.

Vocational Training Will Be a Necessity

Who will fix our Internet of Things when they crash? A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post that listed possible jobs in the future related to the drone and robotics industry.

We will need individuals to develop a scalable business model for repairing these technologies and serve new undeveloped markets – the need will be there.

In 2016, the FAA issued 23,000 new drone licenses in three months.  Not everyone who purchased a drone will replace it when it crashes.  Think industrial drones for agriculture, construction, and similar industries.

So, who will be the first person to start a drone or robot repair service?

“Your One-Call Robot – Drone Solution” “We’ll Have Your Drone Back in the Air in Now Time!

Call today at 1-800-Fix-MyBot

I believe in the near future we will see more and more businesses open to serve areas we could not have imagined three or four years ago.

Time moves quickly when AI and automation are accelerating at exponential speeds, I would bet the line of acceleration is almost vertical.

We can’t wait longer. Nor can we keep our fingers crossed and think these jobs will magically appear when we need them.

As a former entrepreneur, starting and launching new businesses especially in undeveloped markets is extremely difficult.  However, we must move forward to ensure these new jobs will be available.  If we wait, I doubt will be satisfied with the options.

In the global markets, commodities are bought and sold based on price and availability. People will pay more for higher quality in some situations, but not all.

As we know, commodity prices are always at the mercy of the market. It’s all about supply and demand, this is not new nor do I believe it will change either.

With the rapid acceleration of technology and automation, knowledge workers are a commodity. Keep in mind, automation completely changed factories, and now automation is disrupting higher levels of employment.

For the past five and half years, I have been studying, thinking, writing, and speaking about how technology will transform our economy and society.

Every day, I think about Einstein’s quote “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

His quote guides my thinking because I know we’ll never find a solution if we use the same thought process we used thirty years ago.

Employment advice is the same story. The best way to differentiate your brand at work is to add more value, gain more skills, gain more experience, and take a class. Why do we continue to offer the same advice, while the world is changing?

How much more value can you add to a commodity to make it not a commodity? Think about — that’s what we are saying? Aren’t we? How many tiny features can we add to a roll of toilet paper?

We all know there is not much that separates the commodities we buy every day. Think about how you purchase toilet paper, soap, gas for your car. What makes you purchase one product over the competitor? Is the toilet paper soft, does the soap smell nice, which product is cheapest?

We think about two things when purchasing a commodity. Which products I like best and which can I afford. Not much else. When we’re in a hurry our goal is to grab something from the shelf or click the icon for Amazon Prime Grocery Box.

Side note — Amazon changed how we think about shopping, this, in turn, will change how we think about hiring people. It will; we just don’t know how.

Books and seminars tell us to gain more skills, add more features to our personal brand to make us more attractive on the digital employment shelf.

I don’t want to be soap anymore, and I don’t think you do either.

So, how do we stop being a commodity? I believe when we continue to place ourselves in the market as a commodity, then our value will always be priced on what the market determines.

Always.

While writing this morning, I came across Alex Deckard’s post. From the content, it appears he wrote it several years ago. He succinctly describes the difference between being a commodity worker and being above or as he puts it the 1%.

I like how he framed the question. The only way we move off the shelf is to disrupt our thinking process. I wrote on Tuesday, back a hundred years ago, no one could conceive the new industries between 1880s — 1920s. They were still thinking about how to add more features to a horse buggy.

Read Alex’s post and think how to disrupt your worldview of employment, and toss into the process an entrepreneurial creative perspective. Instead of seeing what is — ask how employment will be profoundly different.

Ask yourself how do I move off the shelf and not be a commodity. Challenge every assumption about your employment, income, skills, features, and experience. Then take a break and give your subconscious time to work on the problem.

Let me know what you discover.

When we think and write about the future – most of the employment job titles are based on tech companies, programming, and STEM. But, in the real world, we’ll need to develop jobs that are not sexy.  

We need workers who will fix our digital worlds when something goes wrong – how do I fix my drone or robot or how do I learn how to use these darn things?  That’s the real world we live in every day.

We know from studying history employment evolves out of need. Back when individuals were driving horse-drawn carriages, they never dreamed of being an automobile mechanic, telephone operator, and electrician.  The jobs created during the exponential growth that occurred between 1880’s and 1920’s was incomprehensible.

To prepare for the immediate future, we need to develop jobs to manage and repair our technologies.  Our goals should focus on educating students and professionals now,  not later.  We need to educate and train individuals because the need exists in the market, we just don’t think about it, yet.

One action is to create different employment pathways for students and adults.  For example, offer vocational training and apprenticeships during high school and after graduation.   Jeff Selingo is a thought leader and has written multiple books on this topic.  Great resource if you have high schoolers at home.

Many of the job titles I created, listed below, exist today.  I believe these industries will continue to change and disrupt B2B, consumer, and healthcare markets.

List of New Employment Opportunities

Drones

Drone mechanic

Drone repair specialist

Drone parts supplier

Drone mechanic shop and on-site service

Drone developer

Drone programmer

Drone software manager

Drone educator

Drone manager

Drone flight coordinator

Drone fleet management for agriculture and corporate uses

Drone recycling

Robotics

As a small business owner, where would you take CP3O and R2D2 to get repaired? 

Robots mechanic

Robots repair specialist

Robots parts supplier

Robots mechanic shop and on-site service

Consumer robots developer

Robot programmer for consumer and healthcare

Robot software manager for B2B, consumer, and healthcare

Robots educator for B2B, consumer, and healthcare

Robots manager – all three segments

Robot customization – pick your style and color.  (Think mass customization of personalized robots)

Robot fleet management for agriculture and corporate uses

Robot recycling

Using drones and robots as a template, these types of jobs could be adapted for virtual reality, augmented reality, and the Internet of Things.

Think – who’s going to fix your Nest or a similar application when it stops talking to your iPhone?

We have professionals working in this field.  However, remember this area will continue to expand as more houses and apartments are built and incorporate the IoT.

 Potential New Practice Areas – Legal, Finance,  and Accounting

Legal – attorneys who focus on determining the status of robots and drones as the digital economy evolves.

Will robots and similar technologies be considered assets or individuals? Will advanced robots with the capability to care for a human, have a different asset value?

During a merger will companies fight over advanced AI robots similar to a divorce – if so, how we established a precedent?

How will accounting and finance determining a value for these new technologies change the legal, finance, and accounting industries?  Or will these industries be automated to the point where the software program determines it’s own value?

We’re at the beginning of another big leap.  To plan for the future and help our children we need to develop means for teaching these skills now.

I believe by 2025 or 2030 the majority of us will earn our income from multiple sources as a digital worker or hybrid worker (Starbuck’s & Uber or similar arrangement).

In this month’s D!gitalist Magazine, by SAP the report stated, “By 2030, 10% of the largest companies in the United States will be virtual corporations with less than 10% of their workers in an office at any given time.” This number could be higher depending upon the speed of adoption of new technologies such as virtual reality.

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Amanda Jones, a recruiter for ThinkingAhead which places top passive talent for leading non-profit organizations.  Her background in recruiting is diverse and her perspective was intriguing.  Amanda’s observations painted a picture of how digital technology and the demands from Gen X and Gen Y are redesigning employment.

Enabling Employees to Work Remotely Is No Longer a Perk it’s a Competitive Advantage

Amanda frequently mentioned the most requested perk from candidates is the ability to work remotely and to have the flexibility to manage their work schedule.

As we talked, Amanda discussed two different types of organizations with almost opposite views of employment.  One model is the digitally structured non-profit. The majority of the executives and employees work remotely with a small staff at the non-profit’s headquarters. These professionals live in different cities across the country. Some non-profits have employees in multiple countries.

This business model is common amount tech-based companies; a good example is Basecamp.

The founders of these non-profits sought to secure the best talent, regardless of location. By providing the option to work remotely, the organizations are able to hire their first and second choice of candidates.

Conversely, the remaining organizations either continue to require all their executives and employees to work from one location. The option to work remotely has to be negotiated by the employee.  For passive talent, the ability to work remotely is the deal break.  Organizations without flexible arrangements experience longer search periods as their selected candidates are unwilling to move.

For organizations to remain competitive in our unpredictable global economy, offering the option to work remotely is quickly becoming a necessity not an added perk.

Rethinking the Structure of Employment

Listening to Amanda talk, I kept thinking about factory workers punching a ticket at the end of the day.  Maintaining this mindset, thinking employees must sit at their community table or cube for 8 hours or more to prove they have earned their pay is inefficient and unproductive.  As Gen X and Gen Y professionals are promoted to upper management, their influence will continue to define work and employment.

Instead of worrying about appearances, organizations and companies must focus on what matters most for building long-term sustainable businesses.

We’re a digital hive of worker bees connected via the Internet.  With the rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence, drones, and robots, new job titles and employment will emerge.

For a minute imagine the future of employment with a digital worker managing drone deliveries for Amazon or an engineer sitting at her kitchen table managing factory robots for multiple companies.

 

 

Of all of the events occurring in 2016, the defining historical event was overlooked.  On Wednesday, January 11, 2017, Thomas Friedman’s article, “Online and Scared” appeared in the New York Times.

He marked in time the tipping point, a point in history when humanity reached a critical mass online.

In 2013, while writing You Posted What!?, I could the see the formation of the Digital Prairie on the horizon.  Research for the book revealed trends and patterns, an early warning of a digital tsunami rushing towards the shore disrupting everything in its path.

We’re all pioneers in the digital economy.

Early settlers grasped the impact of moving a society online and quickly established digital communities.  During the Industrial Revolution, millions of individuals migrated from the farm to the city.

This time is different. Thousands of individuals are left behind, unable to move to cyberspace.

Age does not dictate your status on The Digital Prairie.  Our children and teens can operate the devices more efficiently, yet they do not understand or comprehend the rules digital settlers create on the fly.

Social, employment and government contracts disrupted as the unimaginable becomes the new norm.  Business models of the past are washed away to reveal structures build in the digital realm.

Amazon settles ahead of the crowd to build the ultimate Digital Prairie general store providing a means to purchase everything of need conversely providing an open market for new settlers.

Finding a way to thrive instead of surviving has always been a pioneer’s goal.  Businesses today big and small must search for a new place to settle on the Digital Prairie.  What works today is discarded tomorrow as technological advancements alter our world beyond comprehension, without warning transforming our global community until the next disruption.

Brexit. Virtual Reality. Fake News. Hive micro drones. Self-driving trucks.

What will 2017 Bring?

The first rule for the digital future is to eliminate complacency.  Find a means to always sell to your customers regardless of their location. As customers and clients search for a place to settle on the digital frontier, think of their needs, consider how their behaviors are evolving, and determine how your business will operate as a digital pioneer.