Looking over the horizon

"Time to settle in and put our seat belts on folks. 2024 is now here, and it is going to be a wild ride. If you hate change, better hide in your basement. However, if you embrace change, keeping looking over the horizon. Change is coming and coming fast."   

Saw an interesting YouTube report yesterday. It was about the hot jobs to be had in 2024. Not 2030. Not 2025. These were the hot jobs to have right now. Some I was familiar with - a couple I never heard of before (like, Datafication Manager). Anyhow, this is the trend which will carry us through the rest of the decade (and beyond). Old jobs going away, new jobs being created. 

It gave me pause to wonder about something. Joe Biden is very proud of the "14 million jobs" he has brought back into the country. Okay, I will bite. Let's assume that number is correct. What kind of jobs are they? The "new" type of jobs, or the standard jobs which are slated to go away this decade. Jobs which will be eliminated by technology are only temp jobs. Biden should at least have enough class to tell people that fact.

In Drudge this morning was a story about driverless trucks. Yes, they have been out there for a while now. But they have always had a human "co-pilot", just in case of a problem. The program has been going so well, this year they are going to ditch the human co-pilots. What does that mean? If you are a CDL truck driver, it might be time to look for a different occupation. Drivers are needed right now, but soon truck driving jobs will have gone the way of the Dodo Bird. Trucks will be the first to be autonomic, and then cars. 

I wrote an article earlier that we are teaching our kids the wrong stuff. We are preparing our kids for yesterday's jobs, yesterday's decades. We need to prepare them for tomorrow's jobs. How do we do that, when many of tomorrow's jobs have not even been invented? First off, we need to keep looking over the horizon. Watch for trends. Then we need to teach our kids critical thinking. Intuitive thinking. Teach them how to be nimble and flexible in their planning. I have said this before, this decade, as well as the ones which will follow, will be like nothing we have ever seen before.

Back in the 70's, the first company I worked for employed a "futurist". I first thought this was kind of goofy - to employ someone with such an odd title. However, every time he gave a presentation, it was spellbinding for many (including me). One time, he predicted that every home would have some kind of a home computer. And - maybe later on in the future, we will all have small computers we could carry with us. Like - say what? And now look at us. Computers, tablets, readers and cellphones in just about every house.

By the way, it was just a few years ago, if someone had told you that rockets will be sent up into space to deliver a satellite, and then the booster would return and land itself for reuse, you would suggest that person get a drug test. And now look at companies like SpaceX. This practice is becoming common. 

Speaking of SpaceX, Elon Musk wants to send hundreds, maybe a thousand rocket ships to Mars to deliver supplies for near term settlement. Is this crazy man thinking, or is this today's futurist, telling us what will happen. Stay tuned on this one!

Time to settle in and put our seat belts on folks. 2024 is now here, and it is going to be a wild ride. If you hate change, better hide in your basement. However, if you embrace change, keeping looking over the horizon. Change is coming and coming fast.