While Ms. Sullivan did nothing disruptive while in the Governor’s presence other than send this tweet, she is being accused of being disrespectful in a rather ad hoc ergo propter hoc  way.  (after this, therefore because of this).   Ms. Sullivan is currently choosing not to apologize, and I strongly support her free speech rights, especially since she is at the age when she can begin to vote and take place in public discourse as an adult.

The really interesting question this whole incident is the free speech versus regulated speech argument, hitting at the heart of an  age-old debate about whether free speech rights apply in the school house or at school-related functions.  While the Supreme Court has stated many times that students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door,  the school does have leeway to balance free speech with educational objectives.  This means, for example, that schools can reasonably restrict kids from wearing clothing with provocative language that may be disruptive to learning.  The most recent school speech case,  Morse v. Frederick may apply here.  In that case, Students had displayed a sign saying “Bong hits 4 Jesus” in front of their school when the Olympic Torch Relay was passing by.  The sign was confiscated by the principal and the student responsible for it was suspended.  The case wound up in the Supreme Court, where, in a 5 to 4 decision, the action of the principal was upheld as a reasonable enforcement of the school’s policy not to encourage illegal drug use, and that these policies also included students who were on field trips or other approved social events.

While Ms. Sullivan was clearly on a school sponsored event, her speech was not disruptive at the time, and did not inherently violate school policy other than using her cell phone during school hours.  But it is the content of her message, not the method by which it was communicated, that is being punished, making it much more likely that Ms. Sullivan will prevail if this matter ever goes to Court.

What I think is most important about this, however, is the need we all have to begin to teach kids at every age (and adults as well) what it means to be a good digital citizen.  We are doing virtually nothing (in the aggregate) to teach our kids about how to use new communication channels appropriately, and that digital communication like tweets can have a bigger impact on their lives than they realize.  For Ms. Sullivan, who is likely applying to colleges, will this event become something that makes her a more attractive candidate or less?  Will her handling of this issue lead to applause or a reputation of being a troublemaker?  the jury is out, but one thing is for sure- one snarky tweet may change this young girl’s life whether she’s ready for it or not. The lack of guidance provided in the vast majority of school districts to students on digital citizenship issues at any level of schooling will likely lead to more of these issues coming to the fore rather than less.

If we learn anything from Ms. Sullivan’s incident with her school and Gov. Brownback, I hope it’s that we can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to the power of social media and the effect it has on people.  We need to begin to prepare our kids to live in a world we ourselves are still adjusting to- where your fifteen minutes of fame or infamy may come at any time, for almost any reason.

Now, as I’m driving down the road, I think how many times I could be getting other things done, make audio memos, and the like, while having Siri there to help. The fact that Siri has a bit of an attitude only makes me want to use this tech more. It’s like having a helpful but snarky friend with you- wait, isn’t that why I have teenagers?

This has been going on for a long time…

Back when I was in middle school, using an Apple II, I spent a ridiculously long time programming an interactive psychologist program called “Eliza” into the computer. There were books of code in basic, and you could essentially type these into the machine and re-create programs, for free. Eliza was one of them. Yet even though I knew all of her responses and a few that I added on my own, having the computer interact to your comments and suggestions seemed just a little magical. It was like Twitter in some ways- ask a question or make a silly statement, and you get a one line, snarky response back. What’s not to love?

Now Eliza can talk back, orally, with Siri.

This made me think that what we’re really doing here is falling in love with our gadgets. We’re making emotional attachments, and they’re even stronger when the gadget can respond to you as a human. There’s a great article from the New York Times last summer about folks who fall in love with their GPS voice
- and that this isn’t uncommon. One of the best passages was:

Dr. Nass’s research shows that humans respond to machines as we respond to human beings. We talk back to them, get angry at them. But men and women respond to machines differently. Dr. Nass conducted a study of people playing automated blackjack in which the dealer had the ability to express happiness when the player won and sadness when the player lost. The dealer could also express those feelings for itself.

“Here’s the great result,” Dr. Nass said. “Women like it best when the dealer cares about both parties, or neither. They want a relationship with the machine. But the men like it best when the machine cares only about them. When women hear this, they say, ‘Duh!’ ”

This research helps explain my attachment to my GPS. Unlike my wife, my GPS voice is completely subservient. She gives me something I want and doesn’t ask anything in return. All I have to do is plug her in every now and then and she’s happy.

Siri just helps us along a path where we’re already programmed by nature to go- to have a social relationship with the things we interact with. We want to have someone take care of us- like the GPS while driving at night- and then not, when she’s becoming a nag and you know there’s a more efficient way to get across town. It’s like having a mother/best friend/girlfriend you can turn off when you want to- something I don’t think many of us could try in real life, and certainly not over the Thanksgiving dinner table.

That’s probably the reason why some products succeed and some don’t- the ones that help us, are reliable, and then get out of the way and let us go on about our business- these products encourage and thrive with emotional attachment, while others – the ones we struggle to make work- don’t.   Notice how Apple has people literally falling in love and anthropomorphizing almost everything they make, but I’ve never heard of anyone falling in love with their Zune or their PC in quite the same way.  That’s not to take sides in the Mac vs. PC wars, but just to say that PC’s don’t thrive on affection and attachment- they are more like hammers- there to get the job done, where Macs seem to inspire more feelings, for a number of reasons.

And if you still doubt that interactivity is fundamentally changing the way we feel about gadgets, look at this video about a one year old and a magazine versus an iPad:

And this one of Morris Lessmore, a new interactive book app:

The game has changed again, my friends. The future is all about emotions, interactivity and delight.

And as a special treat for those with a sense of =ironic humor….

(For my kids and their love of Portal, watch the Gladios/Siri video below)

First Things First: The Entitlement Problem

There are many people all across our culture who feel privileged and entitled. They look at anyone providing them with a service as being somehow less than themselves. Caitlin Kelly’s book “Malled” and numerous other pieces across the web show how poorly most people treat each other. I’d even note the way Rep. Joe Wilson shouted out at the President in 2009 an example of how we treat each other with a lack of respect, even those in high office. It’s disgraceful.  I have seen and heard parents talk about teachers in a less than respectful way.

I’ve also heard teachers complain that there are parents who treat them like “the help” and insist that their child would be more successful if the teacher would just do their job, whatever that is supposed to mean.   I’ve heard parents complain about grades. I’ve heard teachers talk to kinds in ways I would never talk to my own as well, and I’ve seen parents overstep the bounds on many occasions.  But how should parents, kids and teachers interact regarding school issues?

In our book, The Differentiated Instruction Book of Lists, Jenifer Fox and I talk about the role of parents in education.   We list the following ten things parents should do to help support teachers and help their children get the most out of their education:

1. Allow kids to do their own work. Helping your child means pointing them in the right direction for research.  Having supplies on hand for posters and projects.  being there to answer questions or clarify something your child does not understand.  Going much beyond asking your child questions to get them to think deeper about a subject, ar giving them study advice and assistance, and you risk making the project yours and not your child’s.  This may improve a child’s grade on the final project, but you’re doing more harm than good, because what you are really telegraphing to the kid is that they are not competent to do their own work, and you don’t trust them to handle their own work-not a good thing at all.

2. Practice skills when you can. Helping your kids review things like spelling words or math facts helps to reinforce the learning they did during the day.  This is great help and you can actually turn this into a game, or practice in the car, while getting dinner ready- otherwise down times.

3. Ask for Help when you Need It.  I know it’s been a long time since I was an eighth grader, so if my kid is having problems with an assignment and can’t grasp what the teacher wants, or I’m not sure what they are supposed to be learning, ask.  A simple email or note to the teacher can be all it takes to clear up any confusion.

4.  Be a Mindful Communicator. Sometimes kids or families have bad days or are going through stressful situations.  Take the time to let your child’s teacher(s) know, as appropriate, what’s going on so they, too, can be a bit more understanding and try to work with your child rather than exacerbate issues with school pressure.  Most teachers I know appreciate the openness and will try to make deadlines more flexible given extenuating circumstances.

5. Respect Teachers and the Academic Hierarchy. If someone didn’t like the job you did at work, I think you’d want them to tell you first before ratting you out to the boss.  Likewise, try to solve any problems, conflicts or communication issues with teachers first before going to the head of the Department, Division or Principal. You’re not keeping secrets, but you are working the situation out directly, and teachers will respond better than if you go straight to the principal with every little complaint or issue.

6. Give Compliments when Appropriate. Teachers don’t hear things like “John was really excited about the project you’re doing in class” or “My child is really enjoying your class” as often as they need to.  Positive feedback goes a long way to helping teachers feel appreciated, and makes their job easier, and hence makes your child’s experience in their class a bit better as well.

7. Do your part as well- Send your kids to school prepared. Every kid forgets homework from time to time, but do your best to check in with your child, review grades online periodically, make sure homework is being done, and the like so you know your child is on track, and head off problems before they escalate.  No one wants the calls on the last three days of the marking period asking if the student can do extra credit to make up for poor grades, or to hear complaints about bombed tests when there’s not much that can be done.  Making sure your kid shows up to school well rested, fed and ready to go every day makes each teacher’s job a little easier.

8. Make sure your students view school as not only their job, but an opportunity. Some kids view school as their 8-3pm job, when in reality, it’s an opportunity to learn, grow and build a foundation for the rest of their lives.  They need to learn how to learn as well as master facts, and be intellectually curious about things.  Help your kids see school as a privilege and an opportunity rather than a chore they have to endure.

9. Encourage Exploration outside of the Classroom. At home, on the internet, at local museums, parks and the like, there are opportunities to enrich your child’s learning and tie things together with what they are earning in school.  If a child is learning about physics in science, talk about things like momentum, gravity and the like at the playground; take them to a science museum; talk about nature while walking through a park.  Practice math and fractions while baking cookies- try doubling the recipe or halve a recipe and let your child do the math required.  Have them write letters or emails to relatives, and cards on holidays.  Any way you can help your child see connections between what they are learning in school and what they do in “real life” will help them stay engaged in school.  educators call this “enrichment”, I call it teaching life skills and putting school in context.

And lastly-

10. Don’t be a helicopter. A child’s success in school is not a proxy for the job you are doing as a parent.  It’s their success or failure, not yours, and they have to own what they have (or have not) done and achieved.  Micromanaging your kids will lead to resentment and some real problems with rebellion come the teenage years, as well as keeping your child dependent and feeling incompetent.  the more you gradually assist your child in solving their own problems before intervening, and standing on their own, the more  independent they will become over time.  And I know I want my kids to eventually leave and live their own lives, but it happens gradually over time, not magically when they turn 18.

Later this week, I’ll include some pointers for teachers and administrators as well.  But in the meantime, remember that you have a great responsibility to be a positive force in the lives of not only your children, but in their school and community.  Use your powers wisely and for good.

Education is under fire from all fronts these days, in part because we all know, in our hearts, that kids are having experiences and learning things that often fail to connect up to their daily world- what is taught is not always placed into a larger context to help kids make meaning. The fault for this lies with politicians, parents, teachers and kids alike. Everyone is responsible in part-and here’s 5 issues that are part of the fundamental reasons schools are having issues:

1. We don’t make the process of education and its end goals transparent. How many times did you sit in class and wonder- what am I ever going to use this stuff for? This seems irrelevant to me. How many times did you ask a teacher this question, and they also seemed to lack a good answer? For example, sitting in geometry and learning to do proofs seemed particularly pointless to me as a student- after all, Pythagorus figured out his theorem by 495 BC, so “reinventing the wheel” and proving it again seemed pointless- we have agreed for almost 2,500 years he’s right, so, what’s the point? What I failed to understand then, and what teachers failed to give me was the larger picture. What they were “really” teaching me were things like logic, checking your work against that of others, proving that something was true and not taking it on faith, on top of the basics of geometry which is incredibly useful in everything from physics, to putting carpet in your house, to perfecting your goal kick in soccer. The proof and logic taught work in a subject area, even forming an argument or building a case for any position you have. I think if I had known more about why this elementary skill would be important later, and how it was a building block towards other things, I might have had more patience and interest with it.

2. We don’t let kids in on the secret-It’s as much about the process as the product. School serves many purposes, including as an incubator for citizens. (A point well made by Jeff Jarvis in the video below.) School is as much about learning social skills, getting along with others, even obeying a boss and delivering assigned work on time- as it is about the subject matter itself.

3. We forget to make it relevant. History, for some, seems arcane and not particularly “useful” as a subject area. Yet our current war in Afghanistan and the wars in the Middle East grow largely out of both cultural and geographic issues that have been problems for centuries, and weren’t helped by the way Countries were divided up after World War II and the end of Imperialism. But if you don’t understand things like tribalism, religion, culture, and the history of “who owned what and whom when” then what’s going on lacks the important context necessary to even begin to find a solution. Politics and history are much more intertwined than many a high school student might realize, but if we can’t help them connect the dots, why should they be patient when we tell them “this will be relevant some day.” When exactly is “Some day”?

4. Life and technology are changing faster than we can research its effectiveness. There was an article in the New York Times that decried whether technology expenditures were showing the rise in test scores that would “prove” that the tech was enhancing education. There were several folks who defended the spending on tech despite the fact that test scores were flat, for a variety of reasons, making very valid points. However, the problem is the question is framed incorrectly.

Kids will need to know how to use computers and digital tools now and in the future. How they learn to do this most effectively we may still be trying to work out. All of the new tools available are also new for many teachers, meaning teachers and students are learning together. This side by side learning experience is different from the traditional sage on the stage method of teaching, and it makes many teachers uncomfortable, because they don’t feel like they have sole control of the knowledge in the classroom any more. But while that makes teachers feel threatened, I look at this as one of the best things to happen to education. It means education is becoming, mor ethan ever, an exploration of the unknown. Teachers can help model what it’s like not knowing, making mistakes, not being perfect, and help students accept their own imperfections and that the underlying point of education is exploring and learning. With learning changing from being a linear to a semantic process, I’m not sure educators have much of a choice in this, but they will have to be comfortable with not owning all the knowledge in the room.

5. School is still the best way to collaborate and learn with fewer real world consequences. While I think more schools need to do real and meaningful project-based learning projects which can help their communities, let’s wait on this for a moment. Students have accountability in the form of grades, but largely, their work in school does not support the family financially. The same pressures of “perform or be fired” that permeate the workplace doesn’t apply in school. As a result, students and teachers should be more free to explore boundaries, make mistakes and experiment. Even in research institutions, scientists have goals and benchmarks they must meet that aren’t always the same pressures kids have in school, where learning and playing can be more in sync. Teaching kids how to collaborate with others, work together with others strengths to come up with exciting, new ideas and ask more in depth questions about “what if” and “Could we?” should be a major part of school, because it’s a major part of life. We need to teach kids to have a hacker mentality and to solve novel problems, rather than just rework problems already solved by a generation of students beforehand, unless it’s in service of building fundamental skills, like the Pythagorean theorem example I gave above.

Jeff Jarvis gave a great TEDx NY ED talk I’ve included, talking about school and possible models for school. While I think aggregation of knowledge and best lectures are fantastic, I think the fundamental relationship between teacher and student, student and student, and the trust they need to develop in order to explore, learn, make mistakes, and try again are fundamental to learning. Teachers have it all over parents, in some ways, because a kid wants to please their parents so much, they often are afraid to be as open and honest about success and failure as they can be with a relative stranger. Likewise, they sometimes respect strangers and their expertise much more than that of parents. (Who hasn’t had a kid, as young as second grade, say “Mrs. XYZ knows more about this than you do, Mom.” despite the fact that we have lots of life experience, too…)
Schools should be incubators for our kids. Incubators of ideas, incubators of information, incubators of citizens, incubators of society. It should be a place where ideas nurture and grow, not where conformity rules. But we’re going to have to come to grips that we have to change alongside the change, and we don’t have time to wait for the data to come in. We have to look at the preliminary, short term data and the big picture of our beliefs to make the changes our kids need now, not 5 or 10 years from now, where catching up will be impossible.

We know we need to do it. It’s time to find the will to bite the bullet and make it happen. Now.

Let’s step back from education for a minute.  Let’s pick on me.  I know there are many ways to build a website, and build a web presence.  I tend to use WordPress, because it’s fast, easy, does what I want, and by using templates, you can get a working website up that’s sufficient for most folks, without having to learn certain programs or a whole lot of code.  However, this also leaves me with only an elementary understanding of the code and the parameters of the website.  As long as I can work within the rules preset, I’m great.  Once I want to go outside those parameters, I’m going to be lost, and need someone else to help me.  This is something that bothers me, and I’m trying to design a way to start teaching myself code, so I have a better foundation on how to fix it myself rather than rely on others to do it for me.

In essence, I know just what I need to and no more, but my curiosity is slowly driving  me to learn more.

How many things are we making it very easy to do without learning anything more than the surface?

Short cuts are awesome.  And it’s true you don’t need to know everything about transistors to work a computer.  But when it comes to education, is it really too much to ask to have teachers understand child development and a bit of social and developmental psychology?

The problem with not understanding child development and developmental psychology as a teacher is you may not understand things such as how children think and learn differently than adults.  You might not understand the ages and stages kids go through based on their brain development.  In fact, recent functional magnetic imaging studies show that changes in brain development in childhood line up with the behavioral ages and stages Piaget theorized about through his observational studies. Vygotsky, who the proto-teacher said she could read about later, talks a lot about the Zone of Proximal Development,  which deals with giving a child enough of a challenge that they are encouraged to learn, but not so much challenge that the task is too difficult and causes discouragement.  It would seem to me that far from being irrelevant, having these basic learning cornerstones, at least conceptually, would be a great aid in helping a teacher teach a kid to read.

Let’s take an example from when my kids were learning to read.  My first son struggled more with “breaking the reading code” than my second child.  In order to get him more excited about learning to read, I collected all of the kid books in the house, organized them from the easiest to the harder books, and set up a game.  For each book the child read aloud to me, he got points.  Points could be converted, as he saw fit, into various rewards that gradually got bigger over time.  The “locus of control” was solely the child’s, and he could decide when and where we read.  As it turns out, this home designed reading program, instituted at the right time,  worked wonders.  It took advantage of the Zone of Proximal development- just like video games, the child could progress to the next level when he was ready; it was designed as a positive reinforcement system driven by the child not an external force, a highly motivating scenario if you’ve read any B.F. Skinner.  And, for a skills-based thing like reading, where once the skill is acquired,any  decline in motivation after removing a reward system is irrelevant- the child can’t forget the skill once it’s mastered.

By knowing a bit about social and developmental psych, I could figure out a system that would really help my child learn how to read.  Without they knowledge, I’m hunting in the woods for solutions, and have no basis for choosing one method over another, nor do I have the ability to analyze which program might work better than the other.

I understand why we all get focused on the easiest and shortest path to success.  I like the Magic Guitar for GarageBand too, to create small riffs and tunes, but I don’t think this makes me anywhere near a professional musician.  Likewise, i think teachers should understand not only the subject matter they teach, but to whom they are trying to teach it- and that requires some understanding of how people learn, think and develop over time.  The lack of this foundational knowledge is a large part of why some silly whole have developed in our educational system, and taking a shortcut around this knowledge is more harnful than not.

But if you don’t ever bother to ask the question of WHO is your customer, WHO are you trying to communicate with, and how to best perform that task, but instead only focus on yourself as a learner, aren’t you missing out on the success you could have otherwise?

We should expect teachers to teach students, not subjects.  (Hat tip, Chris Lehmann.)

Education is the hot topic these days.  Whether it’s questioning the economic value of higher education, or making assumptions about whether our schools are failing, everyone seems to have a strong opinion on education.  The bottom line in this debate is that education is all about developing children into productive citizens.

At one time, we used public schools to develop a well educated work force to work in an economy with a manufacturing focus.  We were good at it.  Then we changed our focus to try to ensure every kid, not just the privileged few, could go to college and be employed in service sector jobs.  Now, we’re faced with preparing kids for jobs that may not yet exist, an economy that constantly seems to be shifting, and schools that are forced to guess at what technologies to implement to best prepare kids for a world where their futures are less clear than before.  Will we need to resume manufacturing things here rather than abroad?  What types of workers will we need?  What will the workplace itself look like?  I think some people have a guess (I know I do) but no one can guarantee that they’re right.

In a world where the future is uncertain, teaching kids how to use Word and Excel may have limited value, as it applies to those specific programs themselves.  Likely, these programs will be radically different or totally replaced by the time our kids enter the workplace.  However, knowing how (and why) people use spreadsheets, power points, and the like, or how to communicate information clearly in writing- those are important skills.

What we need is to figure out what kids need to learn, and why.  Often, the truth is that they need to learn how to learn and how to study, analyze information, and report the results to others in different ways to make their ideas understood.  Many times this is learning about history and science, literature, and math, but having the knowledge come together in a project where kids can really apply what they’re learning and make it a real, tangible experience.  We have to change things so kids feel the time they are spending in school is valuable, and that the things they learn from the teacher and other students in the classroom is more eye-opening than just reading a book about the subject or seeing a short you-tube video.    The more we can get teachers to even work together and create cross disciplinary projects, the more kids will see how the different subjects in school overlap and relate to each other.  This is the very essence of learning and making meaning, and it’s what we need to do more of in schools at all levels.

By changing the way we assess kids and their “performance” in school towards project based learning, the more kids will have tangible experiences in figuring things out on their own or in groups.  This is what we have to do when we get older, whether you have an office job, fix cars, or simply have to negotiate endless relationships with family members and service people.  We need to let kids find creative solutions to problems and prompts, because problem solving is at the heart of what we need to do every day, along with communicating our insights cogently to others.

There really aren’t many guaranteed jobs for life like there often were for my parent’s generation.  People my age are finding the job market less secure and often pigeon holing, effectively reducing their prospects at finding replacement work rather than broadening their prospects through their experience.  I don’t see this changing any time soon.  And this is why, as much as possible, we’re trying to give our kids experience, either by helping us at home, or through summer camp, or however else we can, in doing real, meaningful stuff.  It means coaching them through different projects, letting them experiment, fail and then retry, changing what they did and moving towards success.  Sometimes it’s about figuring out when to throw in the towel, and when to start from the beginning, no matter how tedious.

Each of these experiences builds in resilience and a willingness to try, even if you aren’t guaranteed results, but looking at the process as an opprtunity to learn something new.

And that’s the real life skill that we need kids to have in order to bounce back and adapt to any situation the future brings.

Part 2:  The Rise of the Individual

Part 3: Implications for Our Kids and the Future

Picture courtesy of Oak Tree Vintage website

This week, I read an interesting story in Newsweek magazine about “beached white males” talking about the number of middle age, middle management types who’ve found themselves without jobs and have had difficulty finding new ones in this recession.  The most interesting point in the whole article was the following paragraph:

In some ways, it was inevitable. Automation isn’t just a blue-collar problem anymore. (emphasis added) Powerful software programs replaced armies of financial officers, accountants, computer-chip designers, even lawyers, who now feed millions of documents into “e-discovery” programs. Job growth in management, technology, and other white-collar professions slowed to nearly zero. The media business has been perhaps hardest hit by technological change. Last year ABC News pink-slipped nearly 400 people—25 percent of its workforce.

The disruption caused by the rise of the internet and of more powerful computers has hit those who thought they were immune from the various rises and falls in the economy.  Here’s an interesting business cycle to look at:

Companies start to feel that they have to look for ways to cut costs and be more efficient.  They are looking for quarter to quarter results, because this is what the guys on Wall Street and the financial press demand.  In order to do this, you start to look at investments in getting rid of recurring costs- and frankly, salaries and benefits are ongoing expenses.  So they begin to look for ways to automate and make certain tasks more efficient.  Let’s look at a few industries effected by the rise of computerized solutions:

- Travel Agents: Except for booking cruises or complex travel, automated online systems ranging from Orbitz to Priceline to Kayak and everyone in between make this process easier, both for the person trying to figure out where they want to go and when, and even for the companies, who no longer have to pay a cost (fee) to an agent who found them a customer.  This has meant airlines spend more money on direct to consumer advertising and loyalty programs, because Joanne at “She Loves Travel” is no longer sending all her folks to you, but that’s the way it goes, I guess.

-Healthcare: The rise of electronic medical records has reduced (and will continue to reduce) the need for front office staff and file clerks in hospitals.  All of the tasks of managing the paperwork and insurance process is largely managed by computer.  They are still working out kinks with teaching doctors to properly “code” visits for billing, but I suspect this will be a course students will have to start taking in med school before long, or at least as a part of their residency training.

-Retail: A number of years ago, when I worked in a small law firm, we did some consulting for the folks that make the automated check-outs at grocery stores, Walmart, and the like.  The issues we were looking at was making sure the machines could be made accessible for the disabled to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  The bottom line is that you could use as many of these machines as possible, as long as you still had the option of having a human to help assist or have a human checkout person to make sure anyone with a disability could still receive service when needed.  So as you see the bulk of the sales and cash register people diminish, you’ll still see one or two around, but mostly that’s about regulatory compliance underneath it all.  The less people involved with checking out, the fewer salaries need to be paid.  RFID tracking helps curb shoplifting, so in the end, all you need is one front end manager and one guard.

-Sales: Websites that are available 24 x 7 and programs like Salesforce can help businesses manage sales and salespeople more efficiently than ever, further cutting down the need for actual humans and eliminating jobs to sweeten that bottom line.

-Inventory Control:  New cash registers help businesses of every size track inventory.  While this may need to be verified a few times a year with an actual physical count to account for loss, theft or “shrinkage”, there’s no longer the same need for every department head to manage all the inventory in a more labor-demanding way- they just look at their print outs, reconcile that with temp help for an actual count quarterly or ven bi-annually, and it’s all done for you.

-Printing: Even back in the early eighties, the small neighborhood printer who did invitations and posters, flyers and business cards, was starting to fade away with the home computer and laser printers, producing great results at a desk top.  While a few big shops remain, engaged in offset multicolor printing on specialty papers, and doing lots of design work, the concept of a local printer is a memory.  So I find it incredibly ironic that Pottery Barn is currently featuring a line of furniture called the “Printer’s Furniture collection” that has the antique look and multiple drawers needed in a print shop.  As another industry further consolidates and automates, its legacy is relegated to a furniture line and faux antique status, along with the

These are just a few examples of how automation, computers and the internet have cut the need for actual humans to do a lot of the work they were trained to do and educated to do over time. The crap has finally hit the fan, so to speak, and this great recession is in part a correction for the disruption caused by the rise of cheap and efficient computing.  The economic crisis provided all sorts of businesses to re-examine what they were doing and ask the hard questions about whether they needed people or programs, and many found programs were much easier to work with, and you didn’t have to work around their moods, vacations, or coffee breaks.  These folks in the middle are much like the telephone pictured above.  They were “classic” models with push button upgrades, but once everyone adopted a cell phone, the need to be anchored to a desk rapidly became obsolete.  Likewise, these folks were trained and inhabited jobs that once were required, but as computers have been able to handle the movement of information much more efficiently and accurately than people, their jobs have become redundant, and finding a new job requiring those same skills at the same salary is extremely difficult.

The next part in this three part series will be based on one of the last paragraphs in the Newsweek article quoted above:

Many of the newly jobless rebrand themselves as consultants. (emphasis added)  The number of so-called independent contractors is up by more than 1 million since 2005, according to Jeffrey Eisenach, an economist at George Mason University. More than one in five of them work in management, business, or finance. Boutique employment agencies are springing up to exploit this labor pool, which is attractive to companies that would rather not shell out for benefits or a 401(k). The New York–based Business Talent Group has a deep bench of BWMs (and some BWFs) for hire, many of them M.B.A.s with two decades of experience as managers, directors, or C-level boardroom players. BTG is on track for record growth this year, says Jody Greenstone Miller, an ex–Time Warner executive who founded the company in 2005. “We want people who treat this type of work as a permanent career,” Miller says. It typically takes executives six to nine months of looking for staff jobs, she adds, before they come around to the idea that no matter what you were before, you’re now basically a full-time temp.

As the economy undergoes a massive shift, the concept of becoming a free agent, independent contractor and/or a “Personal Brand” is something those of us working on the web have been discussing for over 5 years now.  What we’ve learned over that time, and what it means to everyone trying to become more resilient and flexible to the crazy waves of change will be in the next post in this series.

This encapsulates much of what I believe about learning in a nutshell, and I think it’s well worth a look.

Born to Learn from Born to Learn on Vimeo.

Remember how important learning and exploring is to each of us. And let’s try to remember this as we see teachers cringing at what may be huge budget cuts and the loss of their jobs in this tough economic climate. If you think schools are less than perfect now, is the answer really placing more kids per classroom? Is the answer giving all teachers the message they should just do what they’re told to keep their jobs? Or should we be making sure all teachers feel like they can create interactive and enriching classrooms for their students? It’s awfully hard to innovate and get to those higher levels of “Maslowe’s Hierarchy” if the people we expect to do the job are stuck in Maslowe’s basement worried about food, clothing and shelter for themselves and their families.

Gumption, from the Brooklyn SuperHero Supply Store

In order to really make strides, we have to be willing to experiment.  We have to be willing to take risks, and we have to be willing to be wrong and fail.  I know I had tons of this as a kid, but keeping this sense of willingness to make mistakes, knowing things could go horribly wrong, gets harder to maintain as we get older.

The problem with success is that it can make you scared to fail.  Once you’ve done something well, you can back yourself into a corner where nothing other than further bigger and better success seems acceptable.  Yet you only get to future success by keeping that same sense of experimentation and risk alive that you had in the beginning, where everything was an exciting adventure and you really had nothing to lose.  Once you achieve success, you do have something to lose, which can slowly eat away at the “No Holds Barred” attitude which made you successful in the first place.

From time to time, I struggle with keeping the “Go For It” attitude alive.  But I know if I don’t keep experimenting, tinkering, playing, adapting and changing, stagnation can set in.  Experience leads to better and more fine-tuned experiments and a better ability to predict outcomes ahead of time.  But experience can also make us cautious and nervous.  You can get trapped feeling that any failure will lead to embarrassment and humiliation, or feeling like you’ve disappointed others- powerful negative emotions.  But that fear can be paralyzing and hold you back needlessly.  This makes it critical to balance experience and experiments, with an emphasis on Experimentation.

The Definition of Gumption is initiative; aggressiveness; resourcefulness; courage; spunk; guts.  While you can buy it by the barrel at theBrooklyn Superhero Supply Store, it’s really that fire that burns within, and helps you attempt what may seem challenging or maybe even impossible at times.

I’m reminded of this quote from Lewis Carroll I keep in my office:

“There is no use in trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe in impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day.  Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

In order to keep moving forward, we have to keep the dreams alive.  We have to believe what some people may think of as impossible is probably and even easily accomplishable, if we put the right pieces of the puzzle together.  You see companies like Apple and IDEO approach every product from a “What would make our lives better?  If I could have my dream device, what would it do?  What would it look like?  What problems would it solve?”  They have a vision and a dream, and they’re willing to take all the steps necessary to make those dreams come true.  They are also willing to push boundaries and possibly fail, but get back up again and try.

Companies like Microsoft seem to be less willing to experiment and fail.  Their success has made experimentation riskier, but by taking the tried and true path, they don’t seem to be doing anything other than “more of the same” rather than rethinking and developing something truly exciting.  Tried and true is calming.  It seems more secure.  It’s boring, but it can be profitable.   But we are living in an age of rapid change and evolution where taking the tried and true path may actually be the riskiest thing of all.

Becoming comfortable with constant change and risk isn’t always fun.  It can give you stomach aches and sleepless nights at times.  Sometimes I want things to slow down just so I can have a moment to breathe and consolidate, before getting back on the treadmill of change. (This is called vacation and leaving your iphone at home on purpose.)

The rate of change is faster than ever before, and as a result, we have to accept that we have to just make the best decision possible at the time and move on, rather than trying to reach a perfect decision every time.  We need to embrace experimentation, look at life as a big lab for our experiments, and go for it.  We need more gumption, and a little less fear.

I know those are my goals- what are yours?