I hope you’ll be as intrigued as I am by this article. The changes we’ll see in work in the next decade will be exciting and expanding. Here’s a taste.
Matching Life Experience With New Careers
By ELIZABETH POPE
HEALTH navigator? Conflict coach? Pollution mitigation outreach worker? These emerging jobs aren’t household terms yet, but they are a natural fit for older people looking for new career opportunities, said Phyllis Segal, vice president at Civic Ventures, a nonprofit research group based in San Francisco.
“Many of today’s new encore careers build on multiple work and life experiences, so they are a good match for older adults who’ve spent decades in the workplace,” Ms. Segal said. To help older workers upgrade skills for such jobs, she added, community colleges, online degree programs and intensive workshops are expanding training and fast-track certification programs.Jobs in health care, education, government and nonprofit organizations are likely to grow in coming years because of an aging population, pending retirements and demographic changes, said Barry Bluestone, a labor economist at Northeastern University.
What's Fun Got to Do With It?
This past weekend I had the good fortune to attend an independently organized TED (Technology Entertainment Design) event in Manhattan Beach. TED is all about Ideas Worth Spreading; you can find more about this at TED.com. While I learned so much during this one day event, I’ve found myself talking about a particular presentation about play and fun and see how this ‘plays’ out in work – mine, my clients’, and my 13 year old son’s.
Michael Shore, VP of Worldwide Consumer Insights at Mattel Inc. presented valuable research about what fun means to a wide cross section of kids, summarizing this with 10 Expressions of Fun. I’ve been measuring my sense of fun against these. And, after presenting this list to my video playing obsessed son, understand more about what he gets from these games, and appreciate more what we’re all really after. In fact, fun is absolutely key to a satisfying career. Check yourself against these 10 Expressions of Fun. How much are these a part of your work and life?
Innovation, Change, Bring It On
Needed: Urban Innovation Hot Spots
Cities should become living innovation labs, says Saul Kaplan. Only then will we come up with bold system changes that work
By Saul Kaplan
I have been asked by Living Cities, a philanthropic collaborative of foundations and financial institutions, to participate in an upcoming economic development roundtable, Changing the Trajectory of an Urban Economy, taking place in Detroit on Mar. 5. Organizers asked each of the participants, public and private-sector leaders from across the country, to provide an answer to the following question:
Given your experience, what are the most “game-changing” ways to use $100 million-plus to change the trajectory of an urban economy?
In other words, if I were given a free hand to use $100 million-plus of grants, what would I do? Here is my answer. I suggest that we turn cities into innovation hot spots.
We are playing defense based on old industrial economy rules and systems. We must play offense to create a 21st century innovation economy in which all citizens can fully participate. A new national economic development conversation should bubble up from cities.
Cities should be living labs. If cities become innovation hot spots, new investment and jobs will be created. We need ongoing R&D for new transformative models and systems. Developing a 21st century innovation economy depends on it and would also enable solutions for the big system challenges we face, such as health care, education, workforce development, and energy sustainability. These are system challenges that will not be fixed with incremental tweaks. We must design, demonstrate, and deploy new system approaches to these challenges. And the solutions should be coming from our cities.
Keeping in touch with those working friends pays off…
Internal Hires, Referrals Were Most Hired in 2009
By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN
Last year, employers filled more than half of job openings with existing employees, a new study to be released Friday shows.
Internal transfers and promotions accounted for an average of 51% of all full-time positions filled in 2009, down from 39% in 2008 and 34% in 2007, reports CareerXroads, a staffing-strategy consulting firm in Kendall Park, N.J. Survey respondents included 41 companies that employ a combined 1.8 million U.S. workers. Last year these firms collectively filled 176,420 positions.
For the 49% of jobs that were filled with external recruits, referrals accounted for the most hires — 27% — and about the same number as in 2008. On average, these yielded one hire for every 15 referrals received. Meanwhile, company Web sites and job boards accounted for 22% and 13% of external hires, respectively.
Choosing Life
I’m currently reading Awakening Joy by James Baraz & Shoshana Alexander. They include this poem in their inspiring book and it seemed fitting to add this to my blog on Valentine’s Day.
Choosing Life by Danna Faulds
The downward spiral starts.
Self-doubt and darkness
vie for center stage, while
I, the passive, drowning
one, waiting for my demise.
Just as I sink beneath the
waves of my despair a
thought arises. Why go
there? I’ve made this
trip a thousand times,
and it leads nowhere.
