Group items tagged

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.

Here is a website where people can join an on-line "coffee" chat room to discuss and share insights and spark ideas that will "plant the seeds of the future opportunities" We're connecting students, recent grads, and young professionals with leaders and established professionals over a cup of coffee. This site demonstrates the ability to connect with professionals both locally AND globally. What a great idea!

For this weeks last posting I decided to put up something on how how technology is changing people's work lives. This article talks about changing work rules, such as working from home or virtually. It also talks about how in the future computer science and information technology will rapidly grow.

This article reiterates what The Shift argues throughout the section on becoming an innovative connector. It also provides a few helpful tools and ideas for starting, and building your own network, and emphasizes the importance in doing so. Although the article is brief, it provides significant information about how the process of networking works, as well as diminishes the negative views towards the career development tool. The article not only relays different means of establishing networks - suggesting conferences, or contacting former employers, or classmates - but it also includes strategies specific to both the outgoing and shy personality types. It offers sequential goals, in which people branch out and meet 3 new people at an event, but also offers less-threatening options such as meeting only 1 new person at a time. Because the article is on a school website, there are also opportunities to explore the website further, for information unrelated to networking altogether. This article is also a helpful resource for future career research and exploration.

This article helps to reveal the unfilled positions in the US labour market, which has serious implications on the future of American manufacturing. Traditional skills and occupations have decreased significantly in modern society, and there are fewer people interested in obtaining the experience or knowledge to do such jobs.

In "The Shift", Gratton mentions 'the traditional deal at work: to be paid, to consume stuff and bring happiness'. In the future, we need to make choices to live a more balanced life. Our experiences will bring us more satisfaction and happiness than buying things with money. This guide may help us see the benefits of owning and wanting less.

This article reflects the general trend of Westernized countries who at first implement programs and budgets to help protect and conserve their natural resources and species, but after realizing the costs of maintaining such a program, they cut funding and eventually abandon the initial idea altogether. This typically occurs when a government is attempting to privatize areas of the public sector, and has happened to several services and industries within Ontario. This article also highlights the effects of cancelling protective programs for the natural landscape and its resources, as many people who rely on certain natural resource industries are at risk of losing their jobs, as well as those involved with the protection and enforcement of such programs. This specific case deals with the endangered species of Caribou living on a conservation area in Northern Ontario, and their fate lies at the hands of the final outcome of this decision to cancel or continue the level of protection currently over that area. The primary threat is the natural resource industry and their extraction practices, which is potentially fatal for the Caribou species, as the government is more easily persuaded with the promise of financial return over protecting an area that is a natural resource goldmine and its few animal species that inhabit it. There are job cuts and office closures in Ontario's natural resource future, however the extent to which it effects depends on how environmentally aware the government decides to be.

Canada's footprint compared to biocapacity.

This is a recent article published on "Business Insider" in regards to current free-trade negotiations in the Pacific. 

This article talks about people needing to change their view from secure employment to gaining employability skills, as one is likely to change careers a number of times throughout life. It mentions some ideas for a future worker to consider.

This is a short article that I like because it touches on Friedman's Convergence I; the advancement of technology in the workplace and how this can increase productivity.

Waterloo Region Record WATERLOO - In the future, Emily Loberto feels sure that there will be flying cars, even if she has to invent them herself. She wants there to be a cure for cancer. If there isn't one by the time she's older, she wants to help find it. ** Check out this great event that happened at the University of Waterloo this past Saturday to encourage women into the Engineering field. A colleague of mine attended and I'm looking forward to her feedback at work tomorrow. **

Last Tuesday, Tata Motor's Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) opened its first plant in Changshu, China. The luxury car-maker's $1.78-billion Make-in-China push has come a little over a month after Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry confessed to be greatly encouraged under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership to join the "Make In India" programme that, he said, brings together industry and government for crafting a new future.