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2014 will be a slow period, where a lot of major workplace issues will surface and executives will be scrambling. As more boomers retire and more people work from home, the idea of "work" will start to change. Hiring processes are going to start to shift as more recruiters rely on the Internet and the word "reputation" will become even more important to professionals and companies alike.

This looks like a really interesting website, that features quite a few different articles on work-place trends. This particular article reviews 10 technological developments that have the potential to be "disruptive" to how businesses currently run.

A short article on how to think in terms of a career carillon instead of a single career curve.

Hi everyone! :) This is an interesting article I found on Workopolis regarding workplace trends. It discusses what the authors believe will be some of the "in demand" jobs in the future. This article also links to a similar but useful page (linked below) that discusses some of the jobs that will likely become obsolete in the 10 -20 years. http://www.workopolis.com/content/advice/article/workopolis-2013-research-ten-jobs-that-will-not-exist-ten-years-from-now/

This site takes a different look at work life balance. Although it doesn't address working late hours on personal time, it does offer some interesting ideas.

Advances in technology are causing job destruction at a rate quicker than ever before. Late last year, an essay called Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology estimated that 45% of all current American jobs will be lost to technology within the next two decades.

This article takes a very positive stance on Canada's current offshoring climate. Currently 50% of Canadian companies surveyed are outsourcing at least 10% of their work, creating an industry worth between $2.5 and $3 billion in Canada. But, according to the article, Canadian companies are offshoring not only because of cost efficiency and good productivity, but out of necessity. Apparently there are just not enough Canadians willing or able to fill all of the jobs that IT companies are offering. I have a hard time believing what this article says is true, since it is coming from the vice President of i-Gate Canada himself (one of the most successful outsourcing companies in Canada). I would like to see more research to support his words.

Times have immeasurably changed since the '50s and '60s, but is it for better or for worse? One of the major reasons for all the change in the world is the advances in technology. It is actually quite amazing how far technology has come since 1950, with technology nowadays we have the world at our fingertips. This opinion letter talks about how technology has changed the workplace, the way we learn and our lives in general. Have we become too dependent on technology?

Is there a trade-off between meaning and money? According to the author of this article there definitely is. It is up to the individual to create a life where there is no trade-off and where meaning plays a role in a life well lived.

With my keen interest in social justice, I thought this was a great article to end the year on. This article summarizes much of what I feel about poverty and social justice. Career counselling is very client focused, and poverty is a socially constructed issue, and often the barriers our clients face are external to themselves. At the end the author sites how we must work with the community to make meaningful change for our clients. This is of utmost importance to me.

The P2P sharing site, Pirate Bay, recently was raided by Swedish police, again, for copyright violations. File sharing, whether 'illegal' downloading or corporate information, is one of Friedman's flatteners, allowing free information sharing and information repositories to flourish. The article discusses whether Pirate Bay, one of the world's largest file sharing search sites, will ever come back after such a seizure.

I thought this was a particularly good source to end the term with as it summarizes many of the issues we have been exploring throughout the course

As the globalization trend continues to impact our workforce, there have been many studies and explorations into the preventative strategies for employees to utilize as they continue along their career path. Due to the mass shift towards integration, many individuals have become unemployed because they lack more than one set of skills and knowledge, and do not have a repository of relevant information to rely on. This article provides a few preventative measures for those within the IT industry, but these practices can also be applied to related fields and professions, as it advocates the idea that employees must become competitive and obtain more than 1 specific talent in order to remain ahead of the crowd and stay employed.

I was inspired by Megan Rowe's post to look up information about transistors. Gratton posit that computing power will continue to increase as it ha now, but I had heard that we were reaching a limitation with transistors, so I looked up more information about this possibility. The exponential increase in computing power has already begun to slow down. Link to annotated version: https://diigo.com/03w8c7

On page 216 of the Shift, Gratton mentions that the internet is increasingly being used to help entrepreneurs find funding for their projects. This made me think of something I had seen in passing a couple of times, called 'crowdfunding'. Crowdfunding refers to sites that allow you to raise money for a certain idea, company, start-up etc. These sites charge a fee (usually percentage of money raised) and provide certain services to customers (PR, coaching etc). Some sites allow only certain types of ventures (creative ventures, Bands only, T-shirts only, non-profit/charity only), while others are open to everyone. Sites typically offer a "Keep-Everything" policy (where you keep the money regardless of getting the goal), or an "All-or-nothing" policy (where you only get to keep the money if you reach the goal). This article provides some of the top platforms for crowdfunding, however in my preliminary research I was able to find sites that were not on this list such as "GoGetFunding" and "Patreon" and "GiveForwards". It seems that these sites are popping up all over the internet! Definitely something to keep an eye on!

Written about 10 years ago - around the time of Frieman's book - this article talks about the myths and truths of globalization as it may affect our clients.

This article is an interview with the author. It gives a bit more background about the book and the author. As well, it provides more detail about the author's viewpoint, which is useful for understanding the text. Annotated link: https://diigo.com/071dt2

This is a short article from the Globe and Mail addressing the concerns of "Cloud Computing" in the business world, which is relevant as one of Friedman's flatteners. It also links to chapter three through the second topic in terms of horizontal business where you are able to do more yourself, the same principle is true with cloud computing - more can be done in-house with its use limiting the need for other tech/people.