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Jobs and Gigs, Piece Work and Contracts, IP Sales and Asset Rental … all different ways to earn an income now - and more readily in the future. But this is diffeent to the ’skill’s needed to do that. And those are definitely different to the character traits best suited to those skills. Lets get talking.
A Response To A Comment On This Weeks’s Newsletter.
Sometimes writing comments just becomes too hard. Or too long. This is in response to a great set of words from Stuart posted on this past week’s newsletter.
Thankyou Stuart.
Eloquent … as always. Agreed … as always. Completing each others sentences … as always!
Re Biden, point taken. The only miners I know (well knew actually) are over in Wales and The North of England - but no doubt Joe will have me beaten hands down when it comes to numbers. Those two regions suffered badly at the hands of UK government policy in the 80s.
The Hill is just one of the news sources that picked up on Biden’s comment. .. and within there’s that word ‘training’ again - very different to ‘learning’, so yes you are so right about language (a People First Tenet), and $5 million for retraining in Appalachia … it really is just a drop in the bucket and does nothing to work out how to rebuild communities.
Just a couple of days ago some long time friends all got together on one of our regular Zoom calls - and mining came up - one of my friends coming from a family of the mines was commenting about the total destruction of communities with the destruction of the mining industry. Now - this is not to say that we should ‘save mining’ … but the law of unintended consequences is definitely writ large. Ever seen Brassed Off? This clip is so poignant, I have adopted it for the People First canon.
Moving on to your Aunt Becky, I (of course) didn’t know her, but that timeline of 60 years ago … is exactly when all that was going on. Not sure if you clicked through to the full analysis referenced in the article. If you did, you will have notice that one entry was actually ‘Telephone Operators’ … more support for the total lack of thinking these people demonstrate when they write these articles.
Regarding Jobs / Work. EXACTLY, that is why one of the People First Tenets is ‘There is NO Future of Work - There is only a Future of Income’ and relates to The Future Of Income that I published in December last year.
In conclusion .. Jobs / Work / Income … is it a pre requisite to have a ‘job’ mean that you are employed by someone else? Let’s add ‘gig’ into the mix. The etymology of ‘job’ is not that dissimilar to gig - hence we have things like ‘job shops’, ‘job production’ . So yes, we need to be real clear as to where we are heading .. so let’s try this on for size.
To live in this world you require an income. For most of us that means we are paid for the work we do. By the hour or for a ‘job done’ (my toilet is now fixed). What we get paid is generally defined by either ‘Time, Materials and Expenses’ OR A ‘fixed price contract’. Full time work tends to be in that latter category … these are your hours … this your salary … job done.
But of course income is also made through clever utilization of assets.
- I invest my money to make more money.
- I translate my personal IP into a product that gets bought … I write a book, create a training program, make a movie ….
- I create a company and pay others to do work that I make a margin on …
Etc etc.
Too many people argue that the future of work is the gig economy … it is not. The gig economy is just another stage to move people off the books / get tasks done for less. Nothing wrong with that … but It’s clear that these low range task driven jobs are being replaced by AI/Bots … what then happens to those people?
That’s where I am heading.
Stage One is definitely understanding two things.
- What the real skills required for the future are
- What the better characteristics and traits in people are for the future.
Observation - the two do get conflated and that is annoying.
Example - If I have a character that includes an insatiable appetite for knowledge, that I am always seeking to discover stuff, that I am always interested …
then the skill of ‘life long learner’ is definitely a lot easier than if I did not have that character trait.
I can learn a skill but my character will manage how (easily) that process occurs.
Stage Two … which of those character traits and skills translate into ‘income’ … which may be a ‘job’ - but in fact might be an alternative income generator, a contract, a gig, an IP sales process … you name it.
You are right … ‘job’ has become a word to mean doing something for ‘the man’ and getting paid. That will still exist in the future - but less than today, being replaced with gigs, contracts, jobbing, piece work, freelance contract etc etc
What I think those jobs might be … that is the week AFTER next’s email
Next week tackles the characteristic and skills I think are important in any of our many futures.
For example, a recurring message from the readings is that ‘good moral code’ and an ‘understanding of ethics’ with a ‘high EQ’ is important in the future … but how do you get paid for that. How does it translate?
Onwards.