There are few people alive today who saw “today” coming. I know because our parents, grandparents, and even our great-grandparents (if we’re so lucky) tell us about the “olden days”; they talk about having the first telephone in their community; some of them were among the first families in their neighborhoods to own a car or to have a radio in their livingroom; or they were the first in their family to have a TV or the first on their block to own a color TV.
Imagine being the “first” to have a modern device; one that would “make your life simpler” … or have you already experienced that? PC’s, laptops, cell phones, cell-phone watches? It makes one’s head spin just to keep up!
If you’ve given any thought to how these devices came into existence, you also know how quickly jobs are transforming. Markets are changing so quickly that employers can hardly keep up with the training our employees need TODAY just to meet our 5-Year Goals, let alone the skills and qualifications we’ll need from today’s students so they’ll be ready for our jobs in 5 years.
Take a look at Game-Changing employers like General Electric, General Motors, Lockheed Martin, and NASA, to name of few. What are they researching today and what types of products will today’s efforts produce in the next 5-years? What skills and qualifications do they need in today’s innovators and what skills and qualifications will they want in tomorrow’s producers?
Take a look at the kinds of jobs that might be coming down the pike and ask yourself:
- Are you ready?
- Are your employees ready?
- Are you preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s jobs?
I’m wondering: what other emerging jobs are people seeing that are not included on this list – particularly in government?
At NASA we’re defining skills and qualifications today that will be needed to manage worldwide communications from Earth to deep-Space.
I dream of the day where there is a position in all agencies and at all levels of government for doing two things: First, crowd funding public works projects. For example, a kickstarter campaign for a new neighborhood park, maybe with public funds matching donations and leveraging existing contractors. Second, direct democracy surveys applied to the budget process. I have seen this piloted for school districts and San Francisco is doing the first city-wide trial soon I believe.