Career Trends

I found this to also be a great article, that discusses "12 lessons" new businesses can learn by focusing on innovation and creativity. There is also the option at the bottom of the article to explore some of the "trending" businesses in more depth. As well, I recommend, if you have time, to take a peek through the entire website as there's range of quality articles from entertainment, to business and technology trends.

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.

In the Shift it is outlined working from home and the impact on one's daily lifestyle and social functioning. The HuffPost article is a very light hearted "poke" at the challenges of working from home and highlights the impact of taking out the "social" from working in an office environment. Although light, it does bring forth some serious transitions from working in a traditional work environment.

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.

Just the way open source is supposed to work is the subtitle, an accurate reflection of the current state of open source software and the fact that it currently continues to advance in software development in the 21st century.

Labour market information has been central to evaluating the state of our economy and job situation, as well as offering justification for different programs such as the TFW program. This article, although with a political slant, discusses the need for correct information and how the current information is currently skewed and could be better measured in a different way.

Micro-Entrepreneurship is likely to continue to increase in the next few years. This article discusses "7 Good Social Trends that Entrepreneurs" can benefit from including "Crowdfunding" and "Hackathons."

I recently attended a parent student council meeting and the principle indicated that there are a lot of schools paying attention to the works of Dr. Tony Wagner in order to enhance innovation skills within the high schools in Ontario. He also has a book called "Creating Innovators". Really interesting, think I am going to purchase it to read over the holidays!

Economics for everyone mentions the notion of poverty and what it means in reflection to the economy. I came across this article, it's a exerpt from a book that provides a different perspective on being poor and challenges what one may see as the 'social' of poverty.

This bookmark shows through a animated graphic the change in employment rate since 1980. It's interesting to see how the different countries are affected by employment trends, such as the 1980s recession, 2008 recession, stock market drops and other further world events. According to the graphic and the accompanying article, it shows that the US was hit harder than Canada during the 2008 recession but recovered sooner.

In part III, Gratton speaks to the positive affects of the five forces on one's lives. Demographics are mentioned. As mandatory retirement has been abolished in many jurisdictions, the changing demographics of workers living longer and thus having the ability to work longer may have positive and negative effects. This link is a survey of UK firms on the impact of mandatory retirement and the specific qualitative issues that may arise, such as enhancing customer service and employee performance, as well as the difficulties including less 'headroom' for younger workers and performance decline

As we learned in the Shift, having a strong social media presence can be very valuable. This site offers some tips on how to create noteworthy Twitter posts using "Psychology Principles."

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 .

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.