Group items tagged

This article describes ways in which small independent artisans can fight back against the competition of large megacompanies. Although in Chapter 9 Stanford mentions that independent businesses are negligible in the large scheme of things, I think it is interesting to look at competition from this point of view. Also, upon reading this article, I think that these kinds of more personal purchasing interactions may become more popular in the coming world as Etsy is another online marketplace, similar to ones mentioned by Gratton in The Shift.

Distributed Proofreaders is a website that anyone can join, relating to the idea of co-creation in Chapter 5. OCR software reads the text of old books. People compare the software's output with the image of the original text to correct errors and formatting. Many languages are represented and many regional or other types of communities exist. Link to annotated version: https://diigo.com/04ed2x

An article reviewing the economic effects of outsourcing, measuring both goods and services, since 1963. It also discusses the impact on wages and the employment rate. I chose this article for this week based on the list of "Flatteners" Freidman described, both because they were included in his list and because it seems to me to be an important feature of globalization--that in the ruthless competition of capitalism, there will always be a value in inequality to create the cheapest sources of labour. This is something mentioned very early in the chapter (as related to the moderate poverty of the Soviet system) but I believe it's also important to think about when picturing a world that is increasingly connected and a playing field that seems equally leveled.

This article by Charles Fishman echoes more of what Friedman calls 'Multiple Identity Disorder' in a flattening world. We as individuals are trying to sort out "the tensions among our identities as consumers, employees, citizens, taxpayers, and shareholders." This article pulls the covers off of Wal-Mart, revealing some of the business partnerships they have had with companies like Vlasic, Lovable, Levi Strauss, and MasterLock- and how those companies have lost huge profits, and in the case of Vlasic, gone bankrupt because of their partnership with Wal-Mart. But, says Fishman, for suppliers, "the only thing worse than doing business with Wal-Mart may be not doing business with Wal-Mart". In a flattened world where one company has so much power, suppliers have few options if they want to stay afloat. Wal-Mart is taking its business to foreign companies at an accelerated rate. And as consumers with lower incomes due to the off-shoring of jobs, we also feel that we have little choice: we have to buy the cheapest brand. Seems that the Flattened world has also flattened individual choice.

The September 2014 edition of The Canadian Journal of Career Development has excellent articles on trends applicable to our class in general and specifically "The Shift" text. I recommend reading the article "Beyond Green Jobs: Assessing Sustainability Enhancing Career Options".

Theodre Lewis shows his relevant concern with the impacts of technology on work and jobs which Gratton and Fiedman have elaborated in their books The Shift and The World is Flat respectively. Lewis's imperative voice is that the vocational institutions have to incorporate the technological trends to the traditional concepts of education system in order to make students adaptable to current job market. He pinpoints that those whose who are engaged in career designing or teaching now require to focus "on changing skill needs, changing work, changing jobs, and the role that technology plays in such change, there is need for an ongoing related discourse." This information is relevant to the course contents we dealt with.

I've included this discussion paper with an international flavour that shows the impact of climate change on various sectors across the globe. As stated in unit one, climate change will affect every part of our lives and have an impact on employment in many sectors. The aim of the paper is actually to create employment standards; the most important part is the first ten pages when it describes the potential impact on work. It will help provide a better understanding of the far reaching impact of climate change in the upcoming years and how we can best adapt ourselves.

In this Canadian Living Article, the author describes what he considers to be the top 5 skilled trade jobs in Canada at this time. I think this could come in handy for job seekers looking to explore the skilled trades and I really appreciated that for each of the trade jobs listed, this article linked further sites containing more detailed information.

In the first few chapters of Stanford's book - Economics is for Everyone - he speaks to how Economic Impact is measured in both the private and non-profit sectors in different ways. Having worked for non-profit organizations for a number of years, I was especially curious about how the economic impact of the non-profit sector is measured and found this great resource put together by the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Especially enlightening is the PowerPoint presentation of International best practices for Tracking Economic Impact. Enjoy!

This is a well-research and balanced article from the British magazine 'The Economist". It provides an accurate overview of the status of online learning. It's shortfall is that it is primarily focussed on US data.

The Workforce Planning Board of Waterloo Region has created this document to point out population changes, including changes in the working age population, migration changes, and employment changes for each sector in the last year. According to the document, Real Estate, Crop Production and Animal Production are the top 3 growing industries in the Waterloo Region, while Specialty Trade Contractors, Professional, Scientific and Technical Services, and Management of Companies and Enterprises are the 3 most declining sectors. The 2014 report has not yet been released.

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?

The stereotypical notion of an Indian call centre is fast being outpaced by a growing move to the Philippines. This article states that the shifting jobs from India represents almost 30 Billion dollars in loses. It's interesting to read that when one may think that the jobs shift form North America to Asia, but in reality they also shift from different countries in Asia

In The Shift, we learned that focus on innovation and creativity will continue to grow. This article details what the author believes are the "50 Most innovative communities" in 2014. (One of them includes "Dropbox!") What I really enjoyed about this brief article is that it highlights innovative companies across a variety of industries from Retail to the Automotive industry to Philanthropy.

This article works as one of the best examples to understand the new trends, the global chaining which has extensively been elaborated by Friendman in his book The World is Flat. When the Starbucks face a cost problem in its operational system, the company applied certain improvement steps and made drastic changes: a plan for organization, simplifying the complex, "one world, one logistics system," and earning the company's confidence.

In the Shift, Gratton mentions globalization and the increased shift of jobs overseas. This link (it's actually an audio podcast) speaks to what Gratton states is the increase of jobs to Asia and India and information on this practice. It is interesting that they note that outsourcing does not have to simply be done overseas - a firm can outsource anything if it gives it to another firm - and it also speaks to how offshoring jobs isn't always the best option and can even end up costing the business more money. It also provides an outline of the benefits of sending jobs overseas, but also the benefits of keeping certain parts of the business in country and why large businesses may actually refute what Gratton is proposing .

This article from the National Post talks about five cultural shifts that are changing the corporate workplace. These include the level of trust between employers and employees, the ways in which companies hire and fire employees, the end of the "40 hours work week" and importance of task related work as opposed to time constraints in new young workers, reputation and the need for young workers to find satisfaction and meaning in their work, and demand for corporations to donate a portion of profits to charitable causes. An interesting article that relates to trends in upcoming generations of young workers.

"For career skills, the focus is on performing well enough to produce a result that's meaningful to you. For personal skills and hobbies, the focus is on enjoying the process and having fun. In these instances, the "10,000 hour rule" and the idea of "mastery" can actually serve as barriers to sitting down to practice - if you believe it takes that long to see results, you're less likely to start in the first place. The real priority is to practice enough to get the results you're looking for, not to attain a certain level of status or competitive performance."