Hi Harold--this is a blast from the past! Although, sadly, I think still true today. And frankly, my feelings that it is the responsibility of individual people to manage their own professional development have only grown stronger in the interim!

I'm seeing stats that say 1/3 of US workers are freelancers and that the hiring of contingent/temporary workers is on the rise in many companies. This means that a big chunk of the workforce will be not be able to count on their companies to provide or support professional development--it will be up to individual workers.

I also believe, fervently, that those workers who take control of their own learning will end up being the most marketable. They can be the most responsive to how skill needs may be changing and focus on developing their own abilities. That doesn't meant that organizations don't need to be focused on that as well, but I am increasingly seeing a world where we need to be managing these things for ourselves.