"Here comes the future" by Flickr user Max Kiesler
As part of the UK’s effort to promote science and science literacy among its populace, the Fast Future consulting firm has developed a list of twenty “jobs of the future,” and released a report detailing their implications.
These are the jobs, according the the report, that “we could be doing” sometime between 2010 and 2030.
Like many futurist efforts, the list is part reasonable, part fanciful, and creates in the reader the sense of amused vertigo one gets from reading decades-old accounts of what 1994 will look like. We are still not driving in floating cars, and no one even in 2000 imagined what Facebook would do to us.
So the list ought to be taken with a grain of salt, though the authors of the study go to great lengths to argue for its validity. However, the list provides an interesting study of what people are thinking will matter and it is a useful exercise to think about what we might add to the list.
Body part maker. Advances in science will make the creation of body parts possible, requiring body part makers, body part stores and body part repair shops.
Nano-medic. Advances in nanotechnology offer the potential for a range of sub-atomic ‘nanoscale’ devices, inserts and procedures that could transform personal healthcare. A new range of nano-medicine specialists will be required to administer these treatments.
‘Pharmer’ of genetically engineered crops and livestock. New-age farmers could be raising crops and livestock that have been genetically engineered to improve yields and produce therapeutic proteins. Possibilities include a vaccine-carrying tomato and therapeutic milk from cows, sheep and goats.
Old age wellness manager/consultant. Specialists will draw on a range of medical, pharmaceutical, prosthetic, psychiatric, natural and fitness solutions to help manage the various health and personal needs of the ageing population.
Memory augmentation surgeon. Surgeons will add extra memory capacity to people who want to increase their memory capacity. They will also help those who have been over-exposed to information in the course of their life and simply can no longer take on any more information thus leading to sensory shutdown.
‘New science’ ethicist. As scientific advances accelerate in new and emerging fields such as cloning, proteomics and nanotechnology, a new breed of ethicist may be required, who understands a range of underlying scientific fields and helps society make consistent choices about what developments to allow. Much of science will not be a question of can we, but should we.
Space pilots, tour guides and architects. With Virgin Galactic and others pioneering space tourism, space trained pilots and tour guides will be needed, as well as designers to enable the habitation of space and other planets. Current projects at SICSA (University of Houston) include a greenhouse on Mars, lunar outposts and space exploration vehicles.
Vertical farmers. There is growing interest in the concept of city-based vertical farms, with hydroponically-fed food being grown in multi-storey buildings. These offer the potential to dramatically increase farm yield and reduce environmental degradation. The managers of such entities will require expertise in a range of scientific disciplines, as well as engineering and commerce.
Climate change reversal specialist. As the threats and impacts of climate change increase, a new breed of engineer-scientists will be required to help reduce or reverse the effects of climate change on particular locations. They will need to apply multi-disciplinary solutions ranging from filling the oceans with iron filings, to erecting giant umbrellas that deflect the sun’s rays.
Quarantine enforcer. If a deadly virus starts spreading rapidly, few countries, and few people, will be prepared. Nurses will be in short supply. Moreover, as mortality rates rise, and neighbourhoods are shut down, someone will have to guard the gates.
Weather modification police. The act of seeding clouds to create rain is already happening in some parts of the world, and is altering weather patterns thousands of miles away. Weather modification police will need to control and monitor who is allowed to shoot rockets containing silver iodine into the air – a way to provoke rainfall from passing clouds.
Virtual lawyer. As more and more of our daily life goes online, specialists will be required to resolve legal disputes which could involve citizens resident in different legal jurisdictions.
Avatar manager / Devotees. Virtual teacher Avatars could be used to support or even replace teachers in the elementary classroom, for instance, as computer personas that serve as personal interactive guides. The Devotee is the human that makes sure that the Avatar and the student are properly matched and engaged, etc.
Alternative vehicle developers. Designers and builders will create the next generation of vehicle transport using alternative materials and fuels. Could the dream of underwater and flying cars become a reality within the next two decades?
Narrowcasters. As broadcasting media becomes increasingly personalised, roles will emerge for specialists working with content providers and advertisers to create content tailored to individual needs. While mass market customization solutions may be automated, premium rate narrowcasting could be performed by humans.
Waste data handler. Specialists will provide a secure data disposal service for those who do not want to be tracked, electronically or otherwise.
Virtual clutter organizer. Specialists will help us organise our electronic lives. Clutter management would include effective handling of email, ensuring orderly storage of data, management of electronic IDs and rationalizing the applications we use.
Time broker / Time bank trader. Alternative currencies will evolve their own markets – for example time banking already exists.
Social ‘networking’ worker. Social workers will help those in some way traumatised or marginalised by social networking.
Personal branders. An extension of the role played by executive coaches giving advice on how to create a personal ‘brand’ using social and other media. What personality are you projecting via your blog, Twitter, etc? What personal values do you want to build into your image – and is your image consistent with your real life persona and your goals?
What about you? What job do you think should be on the list?
Ever since I discovered them, I’ve been fascinated by something called “performatives” in speech. These are statements that inherently change the state of affairs. The classic one is “naming,” as in “your name is. . . .” Before the statement, I did not have a name (or it was different). After that statement, I did. It was the statement itself that gave me the name.
Another one is “I nominate you.” Before I say that, you are not nominated. After I say it, you are. My saying it makes it so.
Performatives came to my mind when I read recently of the woman who got jailed for violating a protection order — by poking someone on Facebook.
"Picture poking Jeff's Video poking me" by Flickr user ogimogi
In trying to explain to the uninitiated what a Facebook “poke” is, the article says:
“Poking is a feature unique to Facebook that conveys no other message but informing a user they have been ‘poked’ by another user.”
This is a kind of performative, although trivial in its meaning.
Social media is filled with such performatives, in fact you could say that this is its currency.
Simply by virtually saying “I follow you,” this makes it so in Twitter. By saying “I accept your friendship,” it’s made manifest in Facebook. I only “like” something after I have said I “like” it.
Social media, in other words, is a semiotician’s playground. Of course this is nothing new, but think about the consequence this has on the so-called real world.
Because there is a land that so many of us occupy, in which performatives hold such sway and power, the very utterance of certain words and phrases (”poke,” “like,” “friend”) can give rise to all manner of effects. Why, I can get arrested!
This is a major shift in social relations, one which we are only beginning to grapple with. It is both exhilarating and frightening to imagine what our social norms will be in ten years, given the trajectory we are on.
Last weekend my band, The West End, played a show and in the midst of it I had just the best feeling. I looked out at the audience and saw that everyone was paying attention, listening to the music. They weren’t distracted by the ball game behind the bar, weren’t playing Liar’s Poker, weren’t embroiled in some animated conversation. They were just listening.
As a performer of original music, I can tell you there is no better feeling.
What’s more, the song we were playing is one of our more . . . unconventional . . . songs. It’s got this beat that’s sort of a cross between a shuffle and a carnival calliope.
The topic is even more unconventional. It’s based on the account of Mary Rowlandson, who was taken captive by Indians during the bloodiest war in North America — King Phillip’s War in the late 17th century. Her tract, titled “The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and collected in the scholarly work So Dreadfull A Judgment, became the archetype of a new form of American writing called the captivity narrative.
At the Rockville Wine and Music Festival
Ever since I discovered them, I have been fascinated by captivity narratives. Puritans saw events in the world as signs of God’s pleasure or displeasure with their amount of piety, and the captivity narratives always have a heavy philosophical underpinning of judgment and retribution. (The scholarly book’s title is taken from a sermon at the time that referred to the War itself as a “dreadfull” judgment.)
So one day I thought I would write a song about this one, taking events, words and phrases from Rowlandson’s own work. And this is the song where I noticed that people seemed to be paying attention. Were they really? I don’t know for sure, but it felt like they were!
I thought, therefore, you might be interested in seeing the lyrics to my captivity narrative song (if you want to hear it, you can listen on my band’s Facebook page).
So Dreadfull A Judgment, by Brad Rourke
Was the tenth of February 1675
King Philip's men they came and they left few of us alive
At length they fell descending on us like a devil's claw
It was the dolefullest day my eyes ever saw
Captured, I was taken left for dead
So dreadful a judgment on our heads
Go or stay they finally made me choose
Now I've returned to spread the news
Eight days come and gone and my baby passed away
That little lamb left me but she didn’t go away
I laid all night beside my darling precious little one
The next day saw my Mary who’d been traded for a gun
Captured, I was taken left for dead
So dreadful a judgment on our heads
They herded me from camp to camp for days
Sold and sold again and sold away
Providence reversed and at last they sent me home
After full a year among the savages alone
But to this day, I recall a woman with some meat
A piece of bear, a boiling pot, good enough to eat
Captured, I was taken left for dead
So dreadful a judgment on our heads
Our punishment is waiting in the hills
He’ll hurl them at our arrogance and will
Note: The photo is from an outdoor festival we played some time ago. I don’t have any photos from this weekend yet. If you are reading this and happened to be there, and happened to snap a photo or two, let me know!
Yesterday Michael Jackson was buried. I have a terrible confession to make: the hoopla around dead celebrities has always left me cold. Perhaps it is my cranky and contrarian nature, I don’t know. But I find myself muttering inwardly, “What did he ever do, really?”
Even the great icons – I’ve always thought that, when you look at their achievements they pale in comparison to political and historical figures.
Robert MacNamara, from webspace of Cal Poly's Dr. Lewis Call
This all came into relief when yesterday’s Michael Jackson funeral eclipsed news of the death of Robert MacNamara. The crank in me went on overdrive. Not that I see MacNamara as a hero or anything – just that his passing seems more geopolitically notable than the death of a pop star.
And yet there was my CNN Breaking News alert: “Michael Jackson’s golden coffin is placed in front of the stage as his memorial service gets under way in Los Angeles.” This is breaking news?
“What did he ever do?” I curmudgeonly asked myself of Jackson, and then I was hit with the answer that made me do a one-eighty.
Michael Jackson, through his music, brought joy into people’s lives around the world.
Robert MacNamara, whose stamp on the international scene is indisputable, nevertheless did not make it into the day-to-day consciousness of most people. (Please note that I am not passing judgment on his actions as a political figure.)
I was filled with remorse as I thought of my snobbery.
Indeed, I realized that the cranky question must instead be asked of the world leaders: “What did they ever do?”
My point is not that Michael Jackson’s accomplishments are greater, or lesser, than other’s. My point is that it is perfectly understandable that we care about and mourn his passing in ways that go far beyond the notice we pay to historical figures. How dare I sneer at that. How dare any of us dismiss that.
Entertainers enter our daily lives. By doing so, they change our daily lives. Historical figures, by contrast, direct events that seem distant. So whose passing do you notice more?
Again, I do not mean to disparage or speak ill of anyone – living or dead. It is this phenomenon that is interesting. I wanted to share this personal epiphany.
I think I finally get it, and it’s pretty simple really: People care about what touches them. And what touches them is what they care about.
You could see Reznor’s initial skepticism, and he even hesitates at one point just before the interview begins . . . and finally acquiesces to go ahead.
Then he gets hit with the first question: “Your business model still primarily involves selling music either digitally or physically. Why haven’t you embraced advertising as a business model?” He pauses, and says, “I don’t usually get asked that.”
What ensues is an incredible, wide-ranging, deep, intelligent, strategic discussion about the place of the artist in today’s media world, along with concrete ideas for what today’s media landscape means for artists today:
(Here is the link if the player doesn’t work above.)
He is in total charge of his brand, understands who it is for and what is best for it, and has useful, real world advice for others who want to negotiate today’s media world.
An example: At one point he compares Arcade Fire’s and Coldplay’s approaches to their digital presence. On the surface, they are similarly Internet darlings. But they actually have opposite strategies — one bottom up, the other top-down. (I won’t say which, watch the vid.) Trent shows he’s thought about this stuff deeply.
Andrea Jarrell asked me if I am waxing so enthusiastic because I was surprised that this rocker had anything of interest to say at all, or whether it was becuase he had good advice. Good question, and it made me think. It’s actually something else: I see this as a useful, concrete discussion of how to negotiate a brand in today’s environment. Other artists and personality-based figures can glean a thing or two from it.
You really ought to spend the 40 minutes and watch.
It is just an incredible interview and I have a new respect for Reznor — whose music I had already enjoyed but now I have a man-crush on his intellect.
As many of my readers know, I write “issue guides” — discussions of difficult public issues designed to elicit small group dialogue. In my work on such guides, sometimes I develop fragments that are useful but just don’t fit into the ultimate publication.
I came across an old passage I wrote that outlines our nation’s difficult relationship with people who are “different.” For reasons of space, it is not going to make it into a publication I am now working on, so I thought I would share it. It’s a good reminder of where we’ve been — and how far we have to go.
An Uncomfortable History
America does not have a good record when it comes to the treatment of ethnic and cultural difference. Slavery of African Americans is perhaps the first thing that comes to mind in reviewing this history. It began as early as 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia, when Africans arrived at the first English settlement in the New World. At that time there was no law yet allowing for the ownership of people as slaves, so they were instead indentured servants. In 1808, importation of slaves was officially banned, but it continued unabated — the slave population in the United States rose to 4 million slaves in the 1860 U.S. Census. Slavery ended officially with the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865.
Slavery, of course, is not the only marker along the path of our nation’s poor treatment of different cultures and ethnicities.
Almost from the outset of the colonization of America, killing of the Native American Indians began. An early example is the genocidal Pequot War of 1637. Hostilities lasted in various forms throughout the westward expansion and lasted until at least 1890 when the western frontier was closed. Thousands of people were killed and whole tribes were forced to relocate as America grew. Many argue that, though the wholesale violence may have ended in 1890, the taking of Native American land and water rights, which continued for years, was just as damaging.
The Mexican-American War ended in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which held that Spanish and Mexican land grants were legitimate. But the immigration of anglo settlers brought about, according to historian Richard Vogel, “widespread oppression that sparked mass exile and repatriation. . . . Besieged refugees abandoned their farms and ranches.”
Later in the nineteenth century, Chinese immigrant labor built one of the key drivers of the settlement of the Western United States – the railroad system – but this influx of Chinese people was ended when the Chinese Exclusion Act placed a moratorium on immigration by any ethnic Chinese in 1882. This act was in force until its repeal in 1943 – at which time an annual quota of 105 was put in place. This quota was not lifted until 1965.
Anti-Semitism – hatred of Jews – has also been a part of our nation’s history. In 1915, it was the lynching by prominent area citizens of Leo Frank in Marietta, Georgia that led to the creation of today’s Anti-Defamation League, an organization that combats anti-Semitism.
And, during World War Two, Japanese Americans on the west coast were forced to relocate in 1942. Those who did not make their own way out — approximately 110,000 – were placed in a number of internment camps. Only in 1976 was the order establishing the camps – Executive Order 9066 – rescinded, though the camps themselves were terminated in 1946. This particular episode was viewed as so shameful that the United States made official reparations in 1988 to all who had been relocated or placed in camps.
All these share in common the taking of what may begin as a simple mistrust of difference – and, over time, turning it into a set of policies and attitudes that together work a grave injustice on one or another culture. Certainly, many newcomers to America or people who were otherwise seen as marginal had a difficult time of it. But, in some cases, this poor treatment became more than that and instead became racism.
The national story of race, then, continues. Many point with pride to the significant strides made in the Civil Rights era and to the praiseworthy expansion of opportunity over the last few decades to include more and more Americans. But others say that this issue of ethnicity and culture continues to be difficult for America — that the same trends that have played out over history are at work today.
Today, in the twenty-first century, decades after the Civil Rights Movement, against the backdrop of a citizenry that is on track to become one in which no ethnicity holds a majority, America remains a nation that has difficulty addressing racial and ethnic tensions.
An important new survey on Americans’ religious behaviors and attitudes was released this morning. The American Religious Identification Survey was first fielded in 1990 and was updated in 2001 and now in 2008.
The survey shows that just about across the board, Americans are less religious today than they were two decades ago. From USA Today:
The percentage of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.
These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.
Of special interest is the “none” category — people who answer they have no religion or spirituality. That share is 15%. From the article:
So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, “the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion,” the report concludes.
Here is a presentation by Barry Kosmin, study director, about the “Nones.”
I recently had an exchange with a friend during which I recalled that at different periods, his energy level on certain issues seemed to go up and down.
Sine Wave
That got me to thinking about my own energy and attention levels. I have long been aware that my effectiveness and energy follow a pretty strong sine wave. It’s not as severe as a bipolar thing — just a sine wave. Sometimes I am way engaged and on top of it . . . othertimes it is a struggle to mark even administrative work off of my to-do list.
No surprise there. I suppose everyone goes in the same sorts of sine waves. But then I got to thinking about the period of my particular wave. I think it is about fifteen days from zero to zero.
In other words, If I start the month at zero (or “neutral”), I’m likely to have a peak of energy around the 7th, get back to “neutral” around the 15th, and then be in the dumps around the 21st.
In my experience, the peak time can be pretty awesome and include prodigious creativity, indeed the whole upper third of that part of the curve is cool. The lower third of the “down” curve is not exactly torture — but I am in trouble if there is something I need to really push on at that time. I get things done, but it is hard to do my best work.
(I know this is similar to biorhythms, but I do not know enough about that to render an opinion. I am just going on my own observations, and leaving the whys for another time.)
All this makes me think a few things:
It would be worthwhile to test this and catalog it. Give myself a “score” every day in terms of energy and effectiveness level, and track that for a couple of months. That will show me (a) whether the hypothesis is right; and (b) what my period is.
If I do have such a sine wave, it might be a good idea to predict the peaks and valleys and jigger my work schedule accordingly.
I assume other people have such a wave — what is their periodicity? If I can figure that out for colleagues, I can more effectively work with them (in the same way that it is helpful to know my own and others’ Myers-Briggs temperaments).
Just in time, too! Most years I spend New Year’s Day writing out my goals for the coming year. This year, for some reason, I did not do that and I have been hankering to get to it. However, I have felt for some time now that my efforts in this regard have been too clever and cerebral — I would create these interlocking systems that, come April, were unworkable.
But my friend pointed me to Cindy Ronzoni’s “vision board” idea. This is really just a posterboard with a bunch of photos or drawings on it, a lot like the collages my daughter often makes. The images are meant to evoke things you want to do in the coming year.
This is obviously not rocket science, but it’s a useful way of looking at the task. Even more useful, though, is a set of questions to ask myself in order to generate the vision board.
Here they are:
Where would you like to vacation this year?
What inspires you?
What would you like to learn this year?
If you want to change jobs this year, where would you like to work?
What are some of your passions?
What have you always wanted to do?
Who inspires you?
What “words” reflect who you are?
Do you want to exercise more or change your diet?
What goals do you have for work?
What financial goals do you have?
Do you want to volunteer and if so where?
What colors depict you or designs?
What kind of relationships would you like?
Is there an item you’d like to buy yourself?
Are there any fears that you would like to overcome?
Any groups you want to join?
Any events to attend this year?
I love these, because they are so concrete and not airy-fairy.
I’ve been staying up late, working into the wee hours, and all day on weekend days, crunching to get a project done. It’s got me thinking about working at home versus working at an office — and how the lines are blurring more and more. My own “work life” is tightly integrated into my “home life” so much so that our household is pretty unusual. But we are also illustrative of what may be a trend. A few years ago I wrote a column for The Christian Science Monitor about this:
As I rise in the early morning, I often imagine a farmhouse in a small, agricultural community, perhaps in Maine 80 years ago. This imaginary farm provides the means for the family’s getting by. The chickens give up eggs; the cows, milk; and the soil, vegetables. Well-tended, the farm generates income at market as well as sustenance at home. It is the economic engine of the family. All hands work at making it run.
Our own house is like that farm, updated for the early 21st century. Instead of milking the cows, I fire up my screen and scan the night’s e-mail. Instead of harvesting the turnips, my wife drafts a new report for a client. Instead of feeding the chickens, the kids could collate a mailing (admittedly a rare occurrence). All of this puts food on the table. And it all happens at home.
I know most people go off to work. But, ours is not some oddball approach to life. The way we live shares similarities with many of the people I see every day. On Sunday, I got a call from my dentist’s office asking to reschedule a Monday appointment. Where does one find help willing to make such a call on a Sunday? It’s the dentist’s spouse — they work together. My local barbershop is run by a husband and wife team who have a back room where their preteen kids spend lots of time. They wander back and forth between “work” and “home” all day long. I know more neighbors whose entire work life is focused at home than I do neighbors who go off on a daily commute. This is too small and idiosyncratic a sample to say there is a trend. But it’s clear that there are many households where “work” has taken on a different meaning, where the lines are blurred and the house itself seems to be the economic engine for the family.
As we hurtle into an uncertain future, it can feel as if we’re going back in time.
Xenophon, “history’s first professional writer” according to one classics professor, was born in Athens around 430 BC. His Oeconomicus is influential. It is a housekeeping manual, a discussion between the immortal Socrates and another man, concerning the best way to keep an estate. In this work, the two agree that it is “the business of the good economist to manage his own house or estate well.” It is from this household care manual that we get the word “economics.” It’s about the inflows and outflows that go into keeping a home. Seen this way, “home economics” is redundant: Economy is about the home to begin with.
The nature of work is changing, business pundits now tell us. Institutions shrink, businesses squeeze ever more cost out of operations, commutes get so long that it becomes a chump’s game. Increasingly people in the “economy” are trading the workaday world for the workaday-at-home world. As the new century began there were more than 18 million such entrepreneurs, according to the US Census.
Since I wrote that, it’s only gotten more that way. Even my friends who have “office” jobs are working at home half the time, and not because they are being driven by Scrooge but because that’s just their work style. Still other friends are starting up home-based entrepreneurial ventures. Another friend who is getting an online news venture off the ground spends what seems like most of her time working at a cafe.
As the economy sheds jobs at a rate of half a million per month, what will a “job” mean? Is this “home economics” just the province of so-called “knowledge workers?” Just think of all those people — ordinary folks, the Wal*Mart world — who have started businesses on eBay.
I wonder if it will see odd, eventually to go off and work at a place instead of work at home. That only the jobs that need a physical presence will be handled that way.
Or, will the pendulum swing back? I’ll confess: throughout my thriving home economics world, I regularly consider shifting and working at an office.
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