The Pace Of Change
Let's look at our children as an example. Children starting school this year will be retiring in the year 2071. That's right, 2071. Can you even imagine what the world will be like then? I don't imagine you can, seeing as can't even predict what is going to happen in the next five years. The two major drivers of this change are technology, as we all know, and demography. Current technology is being developed at a rate currently unknown to 99.9% of the population. Innovations are being created a such a rapid pace that obsolescence in products is becoming irrelevant. This enormous rate of change is creating a huge generational gap.
For the most part, people over the age of 30 were born before this technology revolution really started (unless you work in the industry). Thus they have learned to use digital cameras, laptops, smartphones, the ever-evolving internet as adults. This has been like learning a foreign language. It is no accident either. Adults trying to learn this new technology did not have the neural pathways created at an early age that allowed them to adapt to the new language we call technology. Generation Y has.
Researchers have suggested that in the near future, the power of laptops will match the computing power of the human brain. The next logical step is going to be the merging of information systems with human consciousness. As a nation, if we think that the impact that technology has had on the world in the last 20 years has been massive, just wait. Unless you are at the forefront of the technology industry, it is really tough to predict the impact these changes might have.
The other major driver of the rate of change is population growth. We are going to have 9 billion people on the planet earth in 2050. That's 50% more than we have now. The new population will be using technologies that have not yet been invented and will be doing jobs that don't yet exist. The global market will continue to grow and globalization will become ever more prevalent in the workforce. The combination of things that we do know - that more countries and more people are in the game than ever before, and that technology is in the process of changing the game itself as speak - leads us to one inescapable conclusion; we can't know what the future will be like.
Thus, we can only control ourselves, and make the best use of our talents. We must assume that be making ourselves the best we can be, this will make us as flexible and productive as possible. Most successful people don't pursue their passions simply because they wanted a paycheck. They pursued them because they couldn't imagine doing anything else with their lives. If the world were to turn upside down tomorrow, those same successful people would figure out a way to evolve their talents to accommodate those changes. People that have found their passion in life have an organic understanding of how their talents fit a new economy, regardless of the pace of change.
Most people brush away their passions in order to pursue things they don't care about for the sake of financial security. The harsh reality, however, is that the job that you have in order to "pay the bills" will be moving offshore in the near future. Globalization will wipe out any meaningless and unnecessary jobs that we currently do.
More pressing, what about our children? What if we continue to prepare them for life using the ancient models of education? The reality is that most of the upcoming generation will have multiple careers over a lifetime, not just multiple jobs. It is our obligation as parents, friends, teachers, mentors and family to encourage them to explore as many avenues as possible with an eye towards discovering their true passion in life.
When the only thing we know about the future is that it will be different, we would all be wise to do the same. We need to begin to think differently about human resources and about how we develop them if we are to face these upcoming changes.
We need to adapt to the pace of change.
