Group items tagged

I chose this article because Friedman discusses in these chapters how the glob population is exploding and countries such as China and India have populations who are catching up to the Western World in terms of their skills. This article shows how this is already happening as Canada is actively seeking skilled professionals to enter the country to live and work here

This article echos Friedman in touching on how smartphones have converged so many platforms/task/activities that they have changed the way we live and work.

This is a fascinating video that makes you think about future trends in the world of work. It is an insight into the labour market, which is being overwhelmed with automation and technology. A very interesting video!

This is an article written by the CBC (April 2013) reporting the common practice of outsourcing jobs to foreign workers by Canadian banks. It points the finger particularly at RBC and its close relationship to iGate, a foreign IT company, which receives 11% of its revenue from RBC. Canadian Bank outsourcing is kept very private, therefore it is difficult to identify how many Canadian jobs have actually been lost. In 2012, at least 45 Canadian jobs at RBC were lost, and at CIBC, at least 41. This has resulted in fewer full-time positions and the banks have offered very little support for lay-offs.

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. **

The starting premise about Columbus in The World Is Flat bothered me a lot. There were many people who knew the world was round before him. Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras, Eratosthenes and Aristotle calculated and reasoned that the world was not flat - either round or at least a dome. Also, to anyone looking for a ship, the top of a mast appears first over a horizon, like something coming over a hill. It would make sense for people to assume that the world was round. In terms of who 'proved' the earth was round and that you could go all the way around and get back to the same point, Magellan's crew was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1522, definitively 'proving' what many already believed. I've seen repeatedly that Columbus' actual argument was that the world was smaller than people thought, so he thought he could find a sea route from Europe across the Pacific to India. Instead, he ran into what later became the Americas. Hopefully, Friedman will address these issues and will see his viewpoint changed by his experiences in parallel with the Columbus story.

... there's a new trend going on in America: large companies wanting people to work for free. Actually, Versace wants you to pay her.

This program is program developed specifically for gymnastics clubs. It manages classes, fees, and even can keep track of inventory and sales at your front desk. Parents can access this from home and fill in registration information, sign up online for available classes and even make monthly payments without ever needing to come into the gym.

This web-tool was originally a special module of the web tools offered by Tools for Organizations since 2000. However, in 2010 it was released a stand-alone software for scheduling and managing volunteers for events and projects. The system allows volunteers to sign up for hours, once the event is completed the staff member then confirms these hours, and these hours are logged and tracked.

The website Globalization101 is a vast resource covering many topics regarding the globalization phenomenon. The article High-Stakes Testing in particular looks at different educational systems, and how US admissions are undergoing reform, while being compared to other educational system styles. The major link between this article and the first chapter of the World is Flat is the focus on skills, not job titles or location. The new standardized admissions tests will focus on skill development opposed to grades which may level the playing field for people to find internationally connected jobs. 

Constant contact is an online marketing tool. It allows users to create professional looking emails with easy to use templates. It also provides many other tools to incorporate into your emails such as surveys, RSVP's for events, coupons, Facebook promotions and much more.

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.

The Labour Market Information ( LMI) Service helps Canadians find information about occupations and labour market trends and outlooks, including skill or labour shortages and surpluses, and statistics on unemployment rates and the working-age population.

This article explores how, although outsourcing has not reduced the number of jobs available in Canada as much as people once feared, it does however impact the wages available in Canada as companies now have stronger bargaining power.