My presentation at the Learning Technologies Summer Forum in London two weeks ago concluded with the advice to help people be more explicit in their work. Leading up to that conclusion, I showed how the nature of work is changing. We are moving into a creative economy, as Gary Hamel says. Customized work, with high task variety, is becoming the norm. Routine work is being replaced by software and robots. Formal instruction cannot keep up with workplace needs, so there is an increasing requirement to support informal learning and the sharing of implicit knowledge. Finally, much of what we produce at work today is intangible.
Here is the video recording: enterprise social technologies, learning & performance
Harold, no question the nature of work is changing.but what do you see are the social and economic implications of the decline of manufacturing and the rise in knowledge based services? Is there scope for everyone in the future to be a knowledge worker or do you agree with Jaron Lanier that we face a polarized future with a much diminished middle class?
More data here:
http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2013/07/carving-out-the-middle-the-risks-from-the-polarization-of-work.html
“At no point was there growth in middle-skilled jobs.”