Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

The Data of Work

By

Michael Schrage in the Harvard Business Review blog:

Where ambitious project managers, team leaders and business unit heads once visited their alma maters to interview top talent, they’ll increasingly be going back to check out their school’s attitude/aptitude/high-performance assessment algorithms. Where organizations once demanded student transcripts, they’ll now demand access to schools’ “advisory engine” software. Ironically, the biggest impact America’s higher education system may have on business is less about the students they educate than the tools and technologies they use to manage them.

What’s happening in higher education assessment today will increasingly define the job and performance reviews of tomorrow. It barely took five years for the iPhone to displace the Blackberry as the corporate mobile device of executive choice. How long do you think it will be before the software used to assess college students will be entrepreneurially transformed into Amazonesque and Netflixed-like services “recommending” whether you deserve a raise or a promotion? Whether the economy improves quickly or sluggishly, the technologies of assessment are going to reshape both your compensation and your opportunities.

Hey Kids, Invent Your Own Jobs

By

Thomas Friedman today in the Times:

It has never been harder to find a job and never been easier — for those prepared for this world — to invent a job or find a customer.

I have a love/hate with Friedman because it kills me the way he turns everything into a catch phrase, but this resonates. Especially the “those prepared for this world” part. The parent in me latches on to that. When I look at my kids, I’m hoping to see entrepreneurs, ready to create and add value and be able to create a living on their guile and grit and passion. Not sure I see that yet. Hoping their mom and I will rub off on them.

But, their schools helpin’ them with that? Uh…notsomuch. They’re preparing them to work for someone else. After all, that’s what they do in class.

By

But authors Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, who have previously written about the younger generation, warn in their new book, “Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America,” that private sector leaders that they too will have a responsibility: “(T)heir leadership paradigm will have to change just as radically as conventionally accepted notions of what drives economic growth. A new type of organizational leadership that matches the values and beliefs of Millennials will be required in order to engage those fortunate enough to have a job in the process of innovation and creativity….”
In other words, watch out. If the economy doesn’t make room for these young people, there’s a very good chance they will find ways to change the economy to make room for themselves.

New Grads Adapt to Job Market Realities | PBS NewsHour | June 8, 2011 | PBS

Another reason we should be giving kids more opportunities for self-direction in K-12…they’re going to need that disposition more than ever.

https://willrichardson.com/but-authors-morley-winograd-and-michael-hais-who/