The Skills Tech Gap -- US Falling Behind

I caught something interesting in this recorded panel of TechCrunch's Techonomy Conference earlier this month: 

About 12.36 in economist Erik Brynjolfsson says that the skills gap between the median worker and the lowest quintile has increased in the last few decades:

That's a familiar disparity to me, but not in a US context, but from China. Chinese Universities are graduating students unprepared for the job market: for the job market that their country has imported with numerous multi-national companies. That's why above a certain skill level companies operating in China must import talent from North America and Europe. in China only 68% of university grads are actually employable. (there's an excellent paper here from Foresight research)

It's interesting that in the UK as well as the US (in which the economists on this Techonomy debate are based) both have high and rising levels of youth unemployment. I know that when I finished my master's degree I was completely unprepared for my job. I had to seek out training courses in simple digital literacy skills.

This is why digital literacy is so important, what education the digital age and the internet can offer. It's important that we rethink education and job training programs. I still think university is important, I maintain it's about the process, about the journey rather than the destination. Nevertheless, simple digital literacy allows us to keep up with technology growth. It's more important because our education systems can't keep up.

 

Why 'Men's Work' is important to me

Last year I covered a conference: the "Mens' Gathering" -- a conference for people interested in or working on something called 'Mens' Work'. It is a movement that asks what a man's role is in the modern world, and how that role manifests itself in societal institutions: home, work, school, the community, what have you.

The resulting article 'Concerning Nigel: The Future of Men' remains one of my favorites.

This week I'm headed to the National Men's Conference in Brighton for research on a future documentary.

Journalists don’t cover a topic unless it’s important to them. Indeed, many journalists become experts on subject areas and even campaigners as they cover topics over a lifetime.

I wouldn’t cover this area if I didn’t have self interest in it, some personal identification within the topic.

But as I came to write this post it’s not that I found that I couldn’t, but that I shouldn’t put all the details here in the open for you. You see, it’s not just my story to tell and the person -- the reason-- this is mostly about is still alive and whilst there’s very little chance you’d probably ever run across him I know that putting that much personal detail online (as much as my life is open to the public on social media) would be extremely uncomfortable for him. So I won’t.

But do feel free to ask me in person and I will tell you.

I’ve also written this post because I know that there are people I will meet today who will go away and want to look for my website and figure out who I am, why I should be wanting to make a documentary about Men’s Work. I wanted to have some kind of answer for them.

Beyond what’s above there’s this: I’m a woman and I’d like to find a partner one day. I need these stories to be told because this is important work that these Men are up to.  I believe in that nothing exists in a vacuum; we are all part of society so of course feminism had an effect on men and not just the one we like to talk about -- rights for women -- but something else, something unintentionally harmful, something we must deal with.

Moreover, what if the still disparity in wages, in rights, what if women have pushed feminism and LGBT community have pushed as far as they can go, what if the answer is this Men’s Work that will take it the rest of the way and finally fully equalise the relationship between genders, between sexualities?

Isn’t that a question worth asking?

But you all expect this from me, by now, right? Because that’s sort of my ‘brand’: make sure you’re asking the right question first, above all.

annlytical: “question everything.”

What I Learned at #chru3

What did I learn at ConnectingHR Unconference yesterday?

Wow! Am I lucky I don't work in an office and have to deal with office politics and beauracracy! I did once, didn't go well; don't really feel like trying it again.

I went for a day of "deep listening" which kind of got thrown out the window first thing when I decided to initiate a discussion on why I was there: using digital storytelling skills (or digital literacy skills) in business.

The reaction was tentatively positive but reservered. In a positive working environment that was beginning to or had already reduced the levels of or the solidity of a hierarchy, it was perceived that it would be accepted, even a good thing. But where hierarchy still reined, with lots of politics, and self-interests and no ownership then it was perceived as something dubious, a bit like "big brother." Sure, I can see that. The last thing I want is to create another case where someone's webcam flicks on by remote to make certain they are at their computer and working.

Two other concerns arose:

1. There is an older generation that just won't do it, any of it. @oraruth laid into me about this and had an excellent suggestion, one that has the potential to create deep, values based relationships between employers and (especially increasingly project-based) workers: mentoring, pairing an old hand with the bright young thing.

N.B. in this case, it is important to work with the old hands to get them to build confidence, as research shows that it's a myth that older people can't pick up new things. Slowness and response time only decrease when you think they should rather than that actually being the case, it's all about confidence in your abilities (see C. Davidson, 2010).

2. The trust/self-awareness hurdle is the first one to be bridged; i.e. the first stage in social media is to realise that what you have to say matters. How do you get someone to realise that?

Any thoughts on that last one? What do we think out there?

 

[image credit: Creative Connection artists drawings; my photo]

I want to thank everyone at the unconference yesterday for welcoming me and for their enthusiasm about my Rethink Work project.

You can download my notes from the day here (.doc file).

We're all post-postmodernists now

This is an excerpt and conclusion from an article on The Prospect website, our post-postmodern, digital age. The author contends this includes making business social, social media merely a tool, hack/maker-spaces for cultural meaning, reassessing health of economies beyond the market; these are all institutions I'm involved in, which makes this article very interesting and something important to consider.

Postmodernism is Dead by Edward Docx

Certainly, the internet is the most postmodern thing on the planet. The immediate consequence in the west seems to have been to breed a generation more interested in social networking than social revolution. But, if we look behind that, we find a secondary reverse effect—a universal yearning for some kind of offline authenticity. We desire to be redeemed from the grossness of our consumption, the sham of our attitudinising, the teeming insecurities on which social networking sites were founded and now feed. We want to become reacquainted with the spellbinding narrative of expertise. If the problem for the postmodernists was that the modernists had been telling them what to do, then the problem for the present generation is the opposite: nobody has been telling us what to do.

If we tune in carefully, we can detect this growing desire for authenticity all around us. We can see it in the specificity of the local food movement or the repeated use of the word “proper” on gastropub menus. We can hear it in the use of the word “legend” as applied to anyone who has actually achieved something in the real world. (The elevation of real life to myth!) We can recognise it in advertising campaigns such as for Jack Daniel’s, which ache to portray not rebellion but authenticity. We can identify it in the way brands are trying to hold on to, or take up, an interest in ethics, or in a particular ethos. A culture of care is advertised and celebrated and cherished. Values are important once more: the values that the artist puts into the making of an object as well as the values that the consumer takes out of the object. And all of these striven-for values are separate to the naked commercial value.

Go deeper still and we can see a growing reverence and appreciation for the man or woman who can make objects well. We note a new celebration of meticulousness, such as in the way Steven Wessel makes his extraordinary handmade flutes out of stainless steel. We uncover a new emphasis on design through making in the hand-crafted work of the Raw Edges Design Studios, say, with their Self-Made collection, objects that are original, informed by personal stories and limited edition. Gradually we hear more and more affirmation for those who can render expertly, the sculptor who can sculpt, the ceramist, the jeweller, even the novelist who can actually write. Jonathan Franzen is the great example here: a novelist universally (and somewhat desperately) lauded, raised almost to the status of a universal redeemer, because he eschews the evasions of genre or historical fiction or postmodern narratorial strategies and instead tries to say something complex and intelligent and telling and authentic and well-written about his own time. It’s not just the story, after all, but how the story is told.

These three ideas, of specificity, of values and of authenticity, are at odds with postmodernism. We are entering a new age. Let’s call it the Age of Authenticism and see how we get on.

What You Should Have Read About the London Riots

Whilst in Berlin recently I had an interesting reaction when it came to my identity. I don't feel American anymore-- on a tour largely composed of Americans with a smattering of Canadians, I couldn't talk to these people. They wanted to commisserate about where we are from and how "weird" everything is in Germany and I couldn't relate at all.

At first I thought I felt British but I have to confess, it's not even Britishness. I feel like a Londoner (and ask any Brit, London is not Britain and Londoners aren't typcially British).

As a journalist I hated missing the riots. I was chewing my fingers in envy and in frustration that the isolation that Central Wisconsin (my US 'home') brings. As a Londoner I also regret missing it because as much as I feel like a Londoner I won't have that collective memory that other Londoners do. As a young female, perhaps I'm lucky to have missed it, not having to deal with fear or danger or lasting anxiety effects of the situation.

As a Londoner I have been apoplextic at the government's self-absolution, using language like 'moral decay' to describe the rioting instead of connecting it with the bleak economic situation made bleaker by their austerity budget and (lack of) social program. 

It has always been that things signify but even more so since Edward Bernays began to shape marketing, since we are identified by our things rather than them identifying us.  What happened and the manner of the rioting is unsurprising to me: in a sense, people self-enfranchised by looting consumer goods rather than basic goods. It is those things that enfranchise us and allow us to participate in society in what we have learned is a meaningful way. Think about it: economic growth is encouraged (now lamented by lack of) consumer spending. Perhaps the second thing governments did after bailing out the banks was to cut a number of taxes and emplored people to go out and buy.

As to white middle class kids participating in the rioting something I think that many have failed to appreciate is this: everything we were raised to believe has fallen apart. There has been a lot of media noise in the UK questioning the purpose of a university education. The opening of the first private, exclusive university within (in much annoyance to me, as I attend an arm of) the University of London doesn't help matters. Even when these kids graduate there are fewer and fewer chances for jobs in an economic system that still mis-measures the health of an economy and perhaps that's the reason it can't produce economic recovery.

In perhaps the biggest irony of the situation, the Tories' "Big Society" remains a good idea and if they had bothered to implement it at all (except for, of course, creating the economic circumstances in for it but not the social structure, institutions, nor regulations) the riots might not have happened.

Here are some links to coverage from the Guardian:

Context to the London Riots that Can't Be Ignored

UK Riots and the Psychology of Looting

UK Riots the political classes see what they want to see (excellent post-mortem on how the riots were/are immediately spun for self-interest and self-affirming existentialism)

UK Riots were product of consumerism says City broker

Recruiting: Documentary Subject

Are you a mobile, digital professional?

Would you like to be in a short documentary film?

I'm looking for a few good subjects for a research-documentary short-film about daily life of a mobile digital professional. 

You:

• live in Berlin
• work from cafés and co-working spaces part of your day
• wouldn’t mind being followed around by a small camera for a day

Would need to be filmed before July 26th. 

The outcome is to be a less than or equal to 3 minute short documentary about the how and why of the way you work.

If interested please use the contact form above or @ me on twitter @ annlytical.

Cheers!

Update on July 22, 2011 by annlytical

I'd like to do the same in a few cities in the UK -- interested?

London beginning September 20th....

future of consumption in increasing digital culture

curated: a convo between myself and @goldengus

(n.b. wanted to use storify but it wasn't picking up all of the tweets)

It began like this: 

Amina Araf al Omari: social media narrative, composite identity, and the Morozov thesis

If Amina Araf al Omari the Syrian gay-girl-blogger is indeed a work of fiction it represents a very interesting case study for social media narrative and composite identity.

Quick recap: Ms Araf is a gay blogger living in Syria. She's struck a very serious chord with a lot of others like her but also abroad. Her fame means that since she's stopped publishing, people have noticed. It also means that if she has been detained by the government or abducted by conservative-extremist Islamists she is obviously in grave danger, and she may therefore have an advantage via international pressure to be released (not that this actually works very often, but...). But she may not in fact be an individual in the first place, her identity might be fiction. Her supposed visual image actually belongs to a Londoner. There is no record of her name. (Read more in the news). Some are beginning to doubt that she actually exists.

The mainstream media are saying well, we need to know so we can move on and focus on people who really need help.

For example, if her identity actually belongs to someone else who has been discovered and is currently facing Araf's dangerous fate.

What would intrigue me is if it's found that her identity is a composite: a group of individuals or a single individual that made a narrative that struck a chord with many people because it represented actual events of several individuals; i.e. an individual representative of what it's like to be gay in Syrian society.

Is that so wrong?

Isn't that how a lot of linear, physical fiction (i.e. books) work?

Let's go back a few years to James Frey's book and following scandal A Million Little Pieces. It topped Oprah's book club list and shortly after she had him on her show it was revealed that the book wasn't all the lived experience of Frey but rather a composite of several individuals. People connected with the story, they had an authentic experience because the experience relayed was authentic. It just didn't only happen to one person. But would they have identitified with it less, had less of an experience? 

That's a discussion but I suspect that the reason the Frey affair was such a row was because people probably wouldn't have 'felt' very differently if it had been a collection of autobiographical stories versus a single packaged autobiography.

Instead of brushing the shared experience with Ms Araf aside-- if it does indeed turn out that she is as a singular individual fiction -- why is it any less reason or any less reasonably an experience that people have had via interacting with her online? Why not draw attention then (as the purpose obviously was) to what it's like to be gay in a socially conservative and autocratic country?

And therein lies the secondary implication: if Ms Araf is a fiction as a singular individual, what does that mean when considering the plight of those that are seen to be dissidents to oppressive autocratic regimes. Regimes, as Evgeny Morozov likes to point out, know how to use social media to target opposition groups, arrest dissident organisers using social media and indeed use their online activities as record against them.

If that's the case, then once again, why brush aside the experience that Araf's singular identity and window on the reality of a lesbian in Syria gave the world?

We might even argue that compositing a digital identity in a narrative structure this way is a very clever and perhaps more realistic way of living out-loud online in certain political circumstances. We might even look as this as a new model of opposition to autocratic regimes.

#thoughtexercise