What is the future of Work about?

Technical skills alone won’t be enough for career success. It’s much more than teaching people to code. Instead, success will hinge on critical soft skills that humans excel at, and computer may never be able to do.

Soft skills such as adaptability, creativity, strategic thinking, and a collaborative spirit are just as important as technical skills in modern work environments.

This is really nothing new, most likely our recent ancestors would marvel at what we now call ‘work’, how we ‘learn’ it and how we ‘perform’ it. Most likely a similar meme [define] is captured somewhere in the pyramids, perhaps in a graffiti-esque format before systems of writing and transmission were commonplace such hieroglyphs [Wikipedia] and papyrus [Wikipedia] were considered mature or General Purpose Technology [define]. Perhaps this is where the idioms “so let it be written, so let it be done” and  “set in stone” originate from?

Many Things Starts with Our Daily Work

Work is a human endeavor involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result. The output of work, the purpose or result, are artifacts.

Artifacts can be physical objects such as manufactured products like cars, TVs, phones, computers, devices, gadgets, appliances, food, clothing, tools, art, music, film or video, video games, books, cities, buildings, infrastructure, etc.

Artifacts can be non-physical objects including ideas or concepts like new business models or services, recipes, new methods, processes or procedures, formulas for new materials or organisms, contracts, policies, regulations, statutes, equations, computer software, (online) streaming media, gaming, gambling, advertising, search results, security & privacy restrictions, rules, and laws, new global currencies (Bitcoin), new audit, ledger, or tracking methods (Blockchain) etc.

Artifacts can be tangible, intangible, visual and/or audible, analog or digital (digible?). Artifacts come from every human endeavor, domain, and field.

Society governs and compensates efforts and artifacts produced to obtain universal basic needs, such as food, water, shelter, safety, etc. When basic needs are met, higher-level needs, such as physiological or psychological needs, are addressed, such as companionship, fulfillment, community, etc.

Contemporary work, or activity that a person regularly engages in to earn a livelihood, is more than basic survival tasks or duty to provide basic needs. Work takes on a larger meaning than task, assignment, employment, or job. Contemporary work can be viewed as an occupation, skill, talent, vocation, career, calling, expertise, art or science, practice, profession, etc.

Work, whether compensated or not, appears important for personal health, wellbeing, happiness, confidence, self-esteem, self-awareness, identity, direction, growth, goals, meaning & purpose.

Work supports Society in the form of individual, family, and community needs. As such, work is central to Society and directly influences people over their entire lifetime, starting with early childhood development, learning, education, job training, skills development, continuing thru adult life.

Recipe for Work

Work = Technology + Society + Artifacts

Which reads: innovative work combines technology guided with social forces using existing artifacts and outputs new and improved artifacts.

This how the site is structured.

Each ingredient of this simple recipe [define] is intended to be a general approach to categorization, of dynamic, non-prescriptive, non-definitive, common with evolving Internet concepts or topics. An informal neutral approach used to show general equivalence between things, NOT a true mathematical equation [define]. A simple naive [define] way to present related SME opinions, facts, and resources so anyone can learn and decide for themselves.

Avoid sweeping generalizations, cliches, and dramatic buzz words like disruptive, revolutionary etc. Realize few lone geniuses with eureka big bang ideas, but evolution over time combining many small tweaks and improvements, wisdom of crowds, and now changes to how we do research, development and science.

Work is central to almost every activity Society provides and affects all participants. Work is how we fund our community infrastructure such as the education, libraries, parks, government, health, safety, and welfare such as emergency responders such as police, fire, essential services such as water, energy, transportation, etc.

Focus is on the Individual

Fully 1/3 of our lives are consumed by work, 1/3 is non-work, and 1/3 is sleep. The lines are increasingly blurred between work and non-work, and is often referred to as “Work Life Balance” [define], which can be thought of as the state of equilibrium in which demands of personal life, professional life, and family life are equal. Education, learning and acquiring skills take place across these different demands.

Work drives much of what is taught in schools, colleges, universities, and businesses.

As the rate of innovation and technology change increases, it seems that no part of society will be left untouched, especially the education and workforce development sector’s role in preparing people for the future of work.

The future of work and learning—and how these interact—permeate virtually every aspect of Society. However, current systems of education & workforce development, including skills training, is challenged by the rate of innovation.

Past technology eras such as the introduction of electricity, telegraph, automobile, airplane, telephone, television, computers, and Internet, also saw the rapid progression of technology initially open up more questions than answers.

Regardless of location, this basic high-level organization or classification of ingredients of a work recipe translate to higher level municipal, regional, national, and international (global) organization schemes as well. Seem to be universal to many cultures, at least to some degree.

Global research agendas are now being set for the next twenty years and will influence and drive work and technology changes accordingly.

Cyberwork and the American Dream

CyberWork and the American Dream | CyberWork and the American Dream | PBS https://www.pbs.org/video/cyberwork-and-the-american-dream-9dxkw2/

Check out the PBS documentary on ‘CyberWork and the American Dream’ – Microsoft on the Issues
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2019/04/12/check-out-the-pbs-documentary-on-cyberwork-and-the-american-dream/

CyberWork and the American Dream
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/pbs-documentary

CyberWork and the American Dream
https://www.cyberworkdream.com/

https://adobeindd.com/view/publications/eee073b8-eeaa-4c17-a890-8e6572ca17c6/1/publication-web-resources/pdf/CyberWork_Study_Guide.pdf
Cyberwork and the American Dream: Discussion Guide and Lesson Plans

References

https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf
The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?, September 17, 2013

The Future of Employment: How susceptible are… | Oxford Martin School
https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/the-future-of-employment/

The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerization? (html) (pdf), 01 September 2013, University of Oxford (html), Oxford Martin School (html)

The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? – ScienceDirect
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162516302244

Home | MIT – Work of the Future
https://workofthefuture.mit.edu/
The Work of the Future: Shaping Technology and Institutions (pdf)

MIT conference focuses on preparing workers for the era of artificial intelligence | MIT News
http://news.mit.edu/2019/ai-work-future-congress-1122