Community Service for Government Aid?

The collapse of the housing market left many American homeowners facing foreclosure. President Obama's $75 billion mortgage-relief plan, announced in February, is intended to help up to 9 million U.S. homeowners. Yet, the idea of the U.S. government giving away tax dollars with no strings attached has drawn much criticism.

Public service could be required of homeowners as a condition for receiving federal aid, although they should not be compelled to repay any tax dollars they receive, says University of Illinois law professor Michael LeRoy. By making a positive contribution to society, they'll be stretching taxpayers' dollars even further.

LeRoy outlines his ideas in a recent paper entitled "The Inequality of Sacrifice - Reducing Moral Hazard for Bailed-Out Homeowners: The Case for Compulsory Community Service."

There are numerous historical precedents for mandatory public service dating back to the eighteenth century, LeRoy points out. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, mandatory public-service work is a far cry from "involuntary servitude," as some critics have claimed. As far as the service requirement goes, he tells THE FUTURIST, "I suggest that bailed-out homeowners work for 200 hours on a Habitat for Humanity program - or similar civic-minded projects in their communities."

Although it may seem like it at first glance, this proposal isn't intended to punish the victim. Besides, LeRoy argues, at least part of the blame does in fact lie with those who gambled with the housing market. There are precedents for these requirements. Also, much federal aid (such as welfare) tends to come with strings attached - if it comes at all. LeRoy asks, somewhat rhetorically, "If homeowners get hundreds of dollars per month in mortgage assistance, why don't low-income renters get a government subsidy?"

But just as no-strings-attached debt relief is criticized as unfair, so, too, would be a blanket work requirement. For example, it could be argued that the amount of public service required should be adjusted depending on how much money a homeowner receives from the government. Yet if that were the case, then working families in high-cost areas saddled with so-called "jumbo loans" could contend that the law unfairly punishes them.

Another possible drawback of the public-service model is that it could interfere with work obligations, child care, and job searches.

LeRoy suggests that legislators and policy makers take his suggestion as a starting point and debate these matters earnestly, with the goal of working out the details and finding the best possible arrangement.

- Aaron M. Cohen

Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, www.uiuc.edu.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

The Future World of Work: A Gen Xer’s Perspective

Wall Street Journal columnist Alexandra Levit parses today's and tomorrow's job market for new grads.

For those of us who are members of generations X and Y, (see note) the future I always dreamed about is coming up fast. Our careers are relatively young, and for those still in college, they haven’t even begun yet. But already, technology is changing so quickly that we can easily imagine future work lives that barely resemble the ones we lead today. As our baby-boomer parents age, we will become the leaders in an increasingly complex world.

If we want to create thriving, sustainable careers that will easily withstand the turbulence of the next few decades, we must anticipate the qualities of the future work world. Here are a few ideas based on my own experiences and my conversations with other workplace experts.

• Who we’ll be working with: In the coming decades, the baby boomers will start retiring from their management positions in droves. We will have to contend with the “brain drain” from those who leave the workforce, boomers who remain employed underneath us for money or personal fulfillment, and a large influx of immigrants.

• Who we’ll be working for: In the last decade, as American companies have laid off millions of workers, the ideals of job security and employee loyalty no longer apply. In the knowledge-driven economy of the future, large organizations won’t be needed to create value and our livelihood won’t be connected to a single corporation. We’ll work for much smaller organizations that outsource everything but the business’s core area of expertise, and more than half of us will eventually become contingent workers, employed part time or as freelancers or consultants.

• Where we’ll be working: We’ve already seen the model of everyone at the same place, at the same time, begin to disappear. Now that we can be connected regardless of our physical location, work activities will be distributed across central offices, remote locations, and community locations. The typical eight-hour workday will be spread across a 14 plus-hour window to allow us to attend to needs at home and work with colleagues abroad.

• How we’ll be working: Our future workplace will be one of constant change, innovation, and skill upgrading. Work projects will begin with one set of goals, but will reinvent themselves over and over again, so we’ll be forced to think on the fly. Workers at all levels of the organization will be responsible for devising creative strategies, and cross-functional teams will be assigned for individual projects.

• What we’ll be working on: Future employers will rely on individuals who are willing to work the flexible hours and can leverage the latest technologies associated with an Internet-oriented, nonstop marketplace. Technical skills will only increase in importance, and as organizations continue to flatten, people in all areas of the business will be responsible for administrative skills like budgeting, hiring, and operations. From Generations X and Y, the leaders, organizations will expect individuals who understand human behavior, can engender cooperation, and can bring out the best in workers.

Sounds like an exciting time, doesn’t it? I think I’m going to look forward to “going to work” in 2025.

About the Author

Alexandra Levit is a Wall Street Journal columnist and the author of Success for Hire (ASTD Press 2008) and the forthcoming New Job, New You (Random House, 2010). She speaks to organizations around the globe about generational workplace issues. Web site www.alexandralevit.com .

*Note: demographers William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their book Generations, define Generation X as the cohort born between 1961 and 1980, and Generation Y or the Millennial Generation as being born from 1980 until the early 1990s.

Futurist Bookshelf

Blue Collar and Proud of It: The All-in-One Resource for Finding Freedom, Financial Success, and Security Outside the Cubicle by Joe Lamacchia and Bridget Samburg. HCI. 2009. 420 pages. $15.95.

We do our youth a disservice when we tell them they have to go to college to be successful, says landscaping-company director Lamacchia. As a successful entrepreneur who never went to college, he testifies that there are many gratifying and exciting career paths one can find without a four-year degree and the mountain of student-loan debt that goes with it. Moreover, these careers are necessities, he argues: Our society is facing shortages of skilled electricians, plumbers, construction workers, and other traders precisely because we have pushed all our young people into college and white-collar professions.

Lamacchia describes the many opportunities available for those who want to explore blue-collar professions and the resources available to them. “White-collar” readers are welcome, also—it’s never too late to change direction!

Bringing in the Future: Strategies for Farsightedness and Sustainability in Developing Countries by William Ascher. University of Chicago Press. 2009. 328 pages. Paperback. $27.50.

There are good ways to promote long-term thinking in society, and there are not-so-good ways, says economics and government professor Ascher. He identifies demonstrably effective approaches that government officials can take to encourage their citizens to save money and to refrain from high-risk behaviors, spur businesses to maximize productivity while refraining from pollution and resource waste, and prompt communities to undertake more “self-help.”

Ascher further describes the strategies that successful nongovernmental organizations employ to raise public interest in their causes, and the role they should play in encouraging reform of the economy and government. Not all “farsighted” actions are workable, however, according to Ascher. Leaders have to determine what will be most effective in given circumstances. He describes the psychology behind actual human decision making and some general guidelines that can help leaders plan accordingly.

Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in the Age of Turbulence by Philip Kotler and John A. Caslione. AMACOM. 2009. 206 pages. $25.

Businesses need new approaches to dealing with uncertainty, argue marketing professor Kotler and business strategist Caslione. Traditionally, they say, a business would devise one strategy for prosperity and a Plan B—e.g., staff cuts, price slashes, and draw-downs in product development—for periods of recession. Not only will this old approach not work anymore, but it will also be hazardous to a business’s long-term viability. Companies will only prosper if they can manage both risk and opportunity simultaneously and continuously.

The authors present a comprehensive system for achieving this, with tools for making one’s business more responsive to change and more able to act decisively, react quickly, withstand stress, and rebound from setbacks. They demonstrate how companies such as Friendly’s, McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, and Royal Dutch Shell successfully applied their methods. And they show how others, including Starbucks, Citicorp, and Chrysler, suffered losses by adhering to the old playbook.

Climate Change: Simple Things You Can Do to Make a Difference by Jon Clift and Amanda Cuthbert. Chelsea Green Publishing. 2009. 91 pages. Paperback. $7.95.

Anyone can curb climate change, according to environmental consultant Clift and freelance writer Cuthbert. They present a comprehensive guide to decreasing the carbon footprint of everyday activities. In concisely written, illustrated chapters, they list suggestions for heating and insulating a house to reduce energy usage; ways to use less electricity while cooking, refrigerating food, or washing dishes; and overviews on new solar and wind generators that can be installed on household rooftops. Looking beyond the home, they show how readers can minimize the carbon impact of their shopping, transit, and vacation travel.

The Day We Found the Universe by Marcia Bartusiak. Pantheon. 2009. 337 pages. Hardcover. $27.95.

The universe may have begun with a big bang, but landmark scientific discoveries about the universe only come about after many little bangs, according to science writer Bartusiak. She tells the story of Edwin Hubble’s discovery that our universe is at least trillions of times bigger than the Milky Way, and the subsequent observation by Albert Einstein that the universe is actually expanding.

Neither man’s epiphany bolted out of the blue. Their epiphanies became apparent only after thousands of hours of toil by many lesser-known contemporaries: Vesto Slipher, Georges Lemaitre, and Milton Humason, and others who worked alongside Einstein and Hubble and helped make the two celebrities’ final, historic conclusions possible. Bartusiak recounts these researchers, their personalities, their theories, and the process of scientific discovery in which each one played a part.

The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. Random House. 2008, reprint 2009. 252 pages. Paperback. $15.

Some of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time came about because of chance events. Some of Hollywood’s best-acclaimed screenwriters attribute their big breaks not to genius, but to luck. And stock markets boom and bust due to myriad, and seemingly unrelated, occurrences.

The world around us is abuzz with randomness, says physicist Mlodinow. This is disconcerting to us humans, because we’re innately wired to look for simple explanations and to craft mental models of how things work. Our minds have a hard time accepting chance, and we tend to panic and make poor decisions whenever chance confronts us.

We can learn to cope with chance, says Mlodinow. He identifies the “principles” that govern chance and how it plays out in business, economics, leisure, medicine, politics, sports, and other areas of human life. He maps the thought processes that we tend to undergo when chance confronts us, and the ways we can improve them.

Future: A Recent History by Lawrence R. Samuel. University of Texas Press. 2009. 244 pages. $45.

No one knows what the future holds, but that’s never stopped Americans from guessing, says cultural historian Samuel. He concludes that American culture has historically been preoccupied with the future, in part because its people tend to assume the future will be better than the present: Human ingenuity and technology will create a tomorrow of abundance, leisure, unlimited progress, and urban utopias. From time to time, though, deep apprehensions of social, economic, and political turmoil have made manifest in the cultural psyche, too.

Samuel draws from each era’s popular movies, music, television, academic literature, high-school and college textbooks, and the hundreds of predictions from its leading futurists to show how perceptions of the future have evolved over time and been shaped by both watershed socio-political events and the advancement of information technology.

Globesity: A Planet Out of Control? by Francis Delpeuch, Bernard Maire, Emmanuel Monnier, and Michelle Holdsworth. Earthscan. 2009. 180 pages. Paperback. $34.95.

“Obesity epidemics” are sweeping industrialized and developing countries across the globe, according to science journalist Monnier and public-health nutrition researchers Delpeuch, Maire, and Holdsworth. They cite studies that indicate dramatic upswings in obesity in North America, Europe, Japan, and even many developing countries, such as India and the countries of Oceania. By 2030, the authors project, more than half the world’s population might have excessive bodyweight.

These alarming trends are not simply due to individual lifestyle choices, the authors argue: They have their roots in underlying socioeconomic causes within the world’s agricultural and food production-and-supply systems. The authors retrace the history of the obesity trend, the factors that are exacerbating it, and the actions that societies can take to reverse it.

Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. Harvard Business Press. 2009. 340 pages. Hardcover. $29.95.

If seven cardiac patients hear their doctors say that they must change their lifestyles or they will die, only one patient will actually change, according to professional-development professor Kegan and professional-services consultant Lahey. The authors assert that change is extremely difficult, be it on the personal or the organizational level, due to ingrained thought patterns that discourage us from abandoning the status quo.

But we can overcome the anti-change impulses with the right strategies and, in so doing, unlock our true potential. Kegan and Lahey describe ideas and practices for fostered meaningful discussion and effective group problem solving. These methods have worked for the leaders of a national railway in Europe, an international financial-services company, a leading American technology company, a U.S. labor union, and many other organizations.

Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong by Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen. Oxford University Press. 2009. 275 pages. $29.95.

Within the next few years, the world will suffer a catastrophe brought about by a computer system acting independently of human oversight. Thus predict bioethicist Wallach and cognitive-science professor Allen. They worry that as robots gain more thinking capacity, the likelihood increases that some of them might use it against us.

Robots administer the daily operations of electric grids and stock markets. Designs are under way for robots that will care for the elderly and disabled, or patrol military borders and fire at targets without instruction. Such tasks will inevitably require robots to make moral decisions. Can we trust that they will do what is right?

For our own safety, Wendell and Allen argue, we should begin work now on installing moral principles in these smart machines. They describe the frameworks of potential machine morality, its current limitations, and how we might overcome them to develop workable software.

The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times by Scott D. Anthony. Harvard Business Press. 2009. 210 pages. $25.

Just because a company has less revenue does not mean it should expect to have less growth or less product development. Innovation can flourish in even the toughest of economic climates, argues innovation expert Anthony. The downturn of the past year strikes him as a uniquely fertile environment for innovation as companies, consumers, and communities are all seeking new ways to live well with less.

Businesses can succeed in this environment, but only if they master the art of “disruptive innovation,”—learning to innovate more quickly, cheaply, and with less needless risk. Anthony presents guidelines for developing and practicing these needed skills day to day: determining which expenses to cut and which ones to maintain, pursuing smart and strategic experiments, motivating creative minds in the workplace, increasing innovation productivity, and segmenting markets to successfully reach value-seeking customers.

The Skeptical Economist: Revealing the Ethics Inside Economics by Jonathan Aldred. Earthscan. 2009. 281 pages. $12.

Economics and ethics are inseparable, whether we acknowledge it or not, says economics professor Aldred. He criticizes orthodox economic theory for its presumption that economics is purely a measure of how things are, not how they should be.

To the contrary, Aldred argues, all economic theories and polices draw on a view about how we ought to live and what we should value. But most economists go too far, in his opinion, by trying to measure the value of life purely in monetary terms—a policy is “right” because it “maximizes profits” or “wrong” because it is “anticompetitive.”

Aldred sets forth a new economics backed by an ethical framework that affirms quality of life, not just efficiency and output. His framework overturns many classic economics assumptions, such as the belief that more economic productivity equates with more happiness, that taxes are always wrong, and that people will always opt for that which is most profitable to them.

Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey Miller. Viking. 374 pages. $26.95.

What would our prehistoric ancestors say if they saw our frenetic buying and spending habits? Evolutionary psychologist Miller ponders this question, and concludes that they might think we are crazy.

We have much in common with them because we are not a “materialistic” society; we make purchases to impress other people, not to own things, Miller notes. This is a carryover from our cave-dweller days, when we lived in small groups in which status and image determined whether or not one might survive, impress friends, attract mates, and raise a family.

But the marketplace of our world is a far cry from the simple subsistence that cave dwellers knew. We are hypersocial beings, not semi-social beings like they were. Our consumer pressures to keep amassing the socially accepted items contrasts sharply with their slow-paced foraging for life’s necessities. Miller examines contemporary advertising, consumer spending trends, and the top-selling products, and he deciphers what they all say about us and our evolutionary development as Homo sapiens.

Threats in the Age of Obama edited by Michael Tanji. Nimble Books LLC. 2009. 212 pages. Paperback. $20.51.

The Obama administration will need to muster as much independent and diverse thinking as possible to confront new threats to U.S. national security very unlike those that his predecessors faced. In a series of essays edited by retired Defense Intelligence Agency officer Tanji, authors call for a reevaluation of how analysts and scholars today study and approach terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and transnational organized crime.

The essays explore the particular issues in which the updated thinking will be useful: missile defense systems; the spread of infectious diseases; the prospects for Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan, each of which has or is developing the capacity for a nuclear weapons arsenal; and dangers posed by the rapid expansion of the “infosphere.”

Urban Design: Health and the Therapeutic Environment by Cliff Moughtin, Kate McMahon Moughtin, and Paola Signoretta. Elsevier. 2009. 262 pages. Paperback. $53.95.

Humans have aspired for millennia to create cities that afford their residents “therapeutic environments” in which residents enjoy health and well-being, according to planning professor Moughtin, psychotherapist McMahon Moughtin, and human-geographer Signoretta. But therapeutic environments will require much more planning and upkeep in the future, they argue, due to shifting demographics and strained ecosystems.

The text explores theories of health and well-being, and the ways that cities throughout history strove to realize them. The authors discuss present-day urban blight; and contemporary understandings of the relationship among mind, body, and nature. They encourage planners to consider the organic relationship between a city and its bioregion, the relationship of a home to its neighborhood, and the needs of individual families. They conclude with examples of communities in which therapeutic environments are a successful reality.

What Color Is Your Parachute? 2009: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers by Richard Nelson Bolles. Ten Speed Press. 407 pages. Paperback. $18.95.

Every year since 1975, career coach Bolles has been producing updated versions of his comprehensive guide for finding jobs. This 2009 edition takes stock of the shake-up in the worldwide job market in 2008 and the ways it has radically changed job hunting.

Millions more adults are now out of work, Bolles notes, and the competition for new jobs is historically fierce. But he cautions against giving up. With a proactive attitude and some up-to-date strategies, he says, job seekers can become gainfully employed.

Bolles identifies the kinds of jobs that are available now, the five best ways to hunt for a job, how long you should expect your job search to take, the first thing you should do if your job search is taking longer than expected, what to do if you cannot find any jobs in your field, and how you can stand out above the vast sea of other applicants.

With Purpose: Going from Success to Significance in Work and Life by Ken Dychtwald and Daniel Kadlec. William Morrow. 2009. 288 pages. $25.99.

Can we find meaning in our senior years? Is it possible to experience personal growth and revitalization in a time of life that most people associate with decline? Gerontologist Dychtwald and reporter Kadlec enthusiastically answer “yes” to both questions and encourage readers to make the most of the longer lives that medicine and health practices have given them.

Speaking autobiographically and philosophically, they explain the role that your talents can play in making your post-retirement life fulfilling, satisfying, and meaningful. By using your time to help others, deepen your own relationships, and make a difference in the world, you can construct your own vision of purposeful aging as you make your “Golden Years” into years of examination, self-discovery, and achievement.

Healing Habitats

By Aaron M. Cohen

Urban Design: Health and the Therapeutic Environment by Cliff Moughtin, Kate McMahon Moughtin, and Paola Signoretta. Elsevier. 2009. 262 pages. Paperback. $60.95.

Facing climate change, resource depletion, peak oil, and global migration, urban designers are challenged to create sustainable environments that contribute to the overall well-being of those who inhabit them.

This fifth book in Cliff Moughtin’s Urban Design series focuses on the design concepts that will guide humanity to a more sustainable future, promote mental and physical health, and create or provide a sense of community. Like the first four volumes in the series, it speaks clearly and eloquently to professionals working in the fields of urban planning and urban design.

Moughtin and his co-authors argue that environmental health directly impacts individual and communal health — both mental and physical. This poses a problem for those living in densely packed, highly developed urban areas. A decreasing quality of city life reduces health and life expectancy, regardless of a city’s size. Yet, due to poor planning, the two typically go hand in hand: As cities expand, the overall quality of life decreases.

Moughtin notes that “current thinking on sustainability in urban development, which promotes compact and high-density cities, goes against research findings on the adverse effects of urbanization on mental health.” He argues that it is not only possible but imperative to mix urban and rural development. Throughout the book, he shows why such settlements will ultimately be more sustainable than compact, high-density urban areas.

The book opens with a case study of the Sanctuary at Epidaurus in ancient Greece, a remotely located healing center that mixed entertainment and hedonistic pleasure with spiritual rejuvenation and exercise. Here, Moughtin begins to build a case for a holistic approach to urban planning in which social, environmental, health, and other concerns are understood as being interconnected.

Leaving ancient Epidaurus, the reader enters contemporary Havana. Poor, noisy, crowded, Epidaurus’ opposite in many ways, Cuba’s capital city nonetheless boasts progressive health, education, and rural development policies that Moughtin characterizes as being “centered on the well-being of the individual while emphasizing care for the environment and the need for sustainable development.” Especially notable are the government-sanctioned urban gardens throughout Havana. “Economic necessity has seen the need to introduce nature into the Cuban urban environment,” Moughtin writes. “It has taken the form of intensive gardening being practiced on every free (unused) piece of urban land.” Urban agriculture and community gardens contribute greatly to a community’s ability to be self-sufficient and self-sustaining.

Another case study is New Lanark, the eighteenth-century Scottish model city constructed by factory owner and social reformer Robert Owen with the well-being of the burgeoning industrial workforce in mind. Moughtin characterizes the town as the “successful realization of a vision to provide dignified living conditions for workers in an idyllic natural setting.” The founder of the cooperative movement, Owen believed that environment affected individual character as well as community well-being and hoped to improve the living and working conditions of both urban and rural working classes. New Lanark, which boasted a central green space, was both self-sustaining and sustainable long before those terms gained their present meanings.

Bridging the unlikely gap between Robert Owen and modern suburbia is another forward-thinking, cooperative-minded factory owner, William Lever, who designed the garden village of Port Sunlight in 1888 near Liverpool. Like Owen, Lever also understood that workers’ collective health and happiness led to greater productivity and, ultimately, a more successful business. Moughtin points to Lever’s Port Sunlight as “the foundation for the garden city and the garden suburb, inspiring the suburban developments from the 1930s and the post–Second World War new towns.”

The final section of the book focuses on using the knowledge gained from earlier examples to find the best possible ways to design therapeutic environments that can help offset climate change and also promote general health. It emphasizes the oft-forgotten distinction between neighborhood and community, and the importance of being part of a community to an individual’s overall well-being. The authors also discuss current theories such as bioregionalism (ecologically defined communities) and show how economically self-reliant ecovillages can preserve the nature and culture of the region.

One of the most intriguing metaphors that the book presents is “urban metabolism.” Moughtin argues that cities should have a “circular metabolism” that more closely resembles that of the natural world — a healthy living being. Instead, cities have a linear metabolism: “The city consumes goods, energy and food at high rates, then pollutes the environment heavily with organic wastes, noxious fumes and inorganic wastes,” Moughtin writes. Drawing on systems dynamics, Moughtin advocates designing a city that can function as a self-sustaining closed system, rather than one that operates as a more rapacious open system.

The book ends with a tour of a model city that idealistically points the way toward the future: Freiburg, Germany, “Europe’s solar city,” is leading the way with its emphasis on sustainable development and ecological preservation.

Those in the field will find this to be a highly readable, lavishly illustrated text. Among the many valuable lessons contained within its pages is one conclusion that bears repeating: Ecological co-housing and other intentional forms of community are what may ultimately best sustain us, mentally and physically.

About the Reviewer

Aaron M. Cohen is a staff editor for THE FUTURIST and World Future Review.

No Natural Resources? Lucky You!

Roger Howard presents plausible scenarios regarding the geopolitical dangers of peak oil. Equally plausible scenarios could envision some positive impacts, because countries dependent on natural resources are often poor and undemocratic, while countries dependent on human resources are often rich and democratic.

Countries with natural resources invest in resource development. State wealth derives from royalties rather than from taxes paid by citizens producing products and services. No social contract between governed and governors is created. In contrast, countries without natural resources must invest in their citizens in order to generate national wealth. This establishes a social contract between taxpaying citizens and government and leads to the creation of independent worker and managerial classes as well as a significant higher education system. The components of constitutional democracy thus evolve.

Countries dependent on human resources tend to democratize fairly quickly (in historical terms) since they require constitutional protections of real and intellectual property, transparency, and freedom of human initiative. The examples of South Korea and Taiwan come to mind. Fifty years ago, both could have justifiably been termed fascist dictatorships. Today they are constitutional democracies — perhaps not on a Western model but still a long way from dictatorship. Autocratic Singapore has also had to democratize.

Even communist China has developed extensive entrepreneurial and managerial classes and has legislated guarantees regarding personal and corporate property. It is also increasingly coming in line with international standards of intellectual property. Once standards of due process and objective law “infect” any part of a legal system (usually beginning with property rights) the “infection” spreads throughout the rest of the system and concepts of human and civil rights follow quickly (in historical terms). Competition for natural resources generates instability; competition based on trade requires stability.

Let us turn to specific oil-producing countries. First, it seems obvious that Norway, Canada, and Mexico will neither invade their neighbors nor implode. Howard’s forecast of implosion, domestic unrest, and aggression against neighbors is most likely to be realized in Iraq and Nigeria.

Indonesia has recently left OPEC and become an oil importer. This seems to have had a stabilizing effect (regionally and locally) rather than the opposite. As oil production has plummeted, Indonesia has grown more democratic, with stronger constitutional protections and transparency. This is because Indonesia’s economic development now depends on increased trade of industrial products and services in the global economy. In other words, Indonesia must follow the same path as the other Asian economic miracles.

Russia has immense natural resources besides hydrocarbons. It also has highly educated human resources. Russia needs regional stability to retain China as a market for natural resources. It also needs good relations with the European Union as a market for both natural resources and the products and services generated by Russia’s human resources. Russia will need growing direct and indirect foreign investments, requiring constitutional protections and transparency — something that oil and gas revenues obviated. This will reinforce internal stability and democracy and thwart the instinct for foreign adventures.

Venezuela’s potential instability because of a substantial decline in oil revenue could be a positive: It could result in a return to the values of a middle-class democracy. As petrodollars decline, the extravagant waste of allowing the professional and managerial classes to bleed out of the country will no longer be an option.

The development of the European-Mediterranean Free Trade Zone should be a major factor in neutralizing the loss of oil revenues for Algeria and Libya. The Zone itself will act as a driver for the liberalization of all the regimes it encompasses.

All the smaller Gulf States have been proactive in diversifying their economies for more than a decade. Trade, tourism, and international corporate hubs now comprise an ever-growing portion of national economies in this region. Managerial and entrepreneurial classes have developed. International standards of transparency and legal protections for property have become the norm. Tourism has created a cosmopolitan element that is subversive to reactionary aspects of local culture — especially in regards to gender. Small populations require the employment of more educated women in the economy. Currently the gender proportions in local branches of American universities are 3 to 1 in favor of women. All this bodes well for internal stability and good relations with neighboring states as oil revenues decline.

Saudi Arabia is insular in every sense of the word. It will probably turn inward under a fundamentalist regime but will avoid regional adventurism. The small Gulf States will still be protected by American military power, and Jordan will be protected by Israel. The Saudis would have little of value to gain by invading Yemen or Aden.
By Tsvi Bisk
Iran is a 3,000-year-old cosmopolitan civilization with a substantial educated middle class. Half its population has been born since the Islamic revolution. Many educated urban youth want to sustain good relations with the West. And, as strange as it might sound, Iran is a functioning constitutional republic run by democratic mechanisms. The political means of self-correction theoretically have been in place.

I would suggest that the disappointed expectation to honor its own constitutional principles is the driving emotional force behind the recent citizen uprising. But the power of petrodollars might enable the mullahs to suppress this citizen uprising. So, as Tom Friedman has suggested in a recent article in the New York Times, the best way the West can support the democratization of Iran is to liberate both itself and Iran from dependence on petrodollars. This might enable Iran to make the transition from oil thuggery to civilized citizen of the global community.
About the Author

Tsvi Bisk is an American Israeli futurist. He is the director of the Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking (www.futurist-thinking.co.il) and contributing editor for Strategic Thinking for THE FUTURIST magazine. He is also the author of The Optimistic Jew: A Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century (www.maxannapress.com/index-9.html), which is available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers. E-mail bisk@futurist-thinking.co.il.

Opening Up the Shut-Down Learner

By Rick Docksai

The Shut-Down Learner: Helping Your Academically Discouraged Child by Richard Selznick. Sentient Publications, www.sentientpublications.com. 2009. 160 pages. Paperback. $15.95.

Four out of every 10 American students in elementary school today might give up on learning well before graduation time, according to school psychologist Richard Selznick. They will disconnect from teachers, tune out of class, and simply “shut down” as students. In The Shut-Down Learner, Selznick tells parents and teachers what they can do to re-engage them.

“The shut-down learners that I have known are incredibly talented and misunderstood. Sadly, many of them are casualties of school,” Selznick writes.

Selznick has counseled thousands of young people with learning challenges. Almost all of his patients share two common traits: high visual-spatial skills — i.e., strength in “hands-on” activities — and poor language skills. They are adept at building, painting, and exercising outside. But standard classroom instruction is “deadening” to them. They get restless, easily distracted, and fail to follow through on assignments and exercises.

“Laziness and low motivation are not the main culprits — they are the byproducts of years of frustration,” Selznick writes.

As one example, he shares the experience of Catherine, whose mother scheduled an appointment with Selznick. He recalls:

“Catherine loved doing all of the spatial and hands-on activities, such as making puzzles, building block designs, and drawing pictures. In contrast, when it came to doing more of the letter- and language-related activities, she became much more fidgety and restless. I had to help her to stay on task and not give up readily.”

Shut-down learners constitute about 40% of the U.S. population, says Selznick. We often diagnose them with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or dyslexia and prescribe them medications. Selznick is not anti-medication, but he cautions against thinking that medications alone will solve the problems. Shut-down learners have additional emotional and psychological needs. The first step is to discover why a child is exhibiting “shut-down” behavior, learn what makes him or her tick, and note his or her strengths.

Parents need to give intense structure, supervision, and support to children with learning needs. Parents must congratulate any small achievements and maintain an encouraging tone, Selznick advises. Outside tutoring can also help.

Selznick urges teachers to provide remedial education for shut-down learners in small classes or in one-on-one settings. The lessons would be supplemented by classes steeped in lively visual and spatial exercises.

“Building, creating, taking things apart and putting them back together will keep them connected much more than sitting in seven excruciating classes a day of academics,” Selznick writes.

Growing numbers of teachers today say that they struggle to sustain the attentions of many of their students. Selznick’s text is very timely, offering teachers and parents educational tools that could better engage children of many backgrounds and learning types.

About the Reviewer

Rick Docksai is a staff editor for THE FUTURIST and World Future Review.

Radical Measures to Save Species

Climate change isn't just a human problem; it could also dramatically alter the habitats - and limit the survival prospects - for many already fragile species of flora and fauna, warn scientists. Salvation strategies once thought too radical are now under serious consideration, according to the National Science Foundation.

"Managed relocation," also known as "assisted migration," involves deliberately moving species to new habitats that they can easily adapt to when their own have become inhospitable. Such measures have been considered - and ruled out - in the past, but now are on the table thanks to new scientific protocols developed to help decision makers know when, where, how, and which species to relocate.

"It is becoming overwhelmingly evident that climate change is a reality; and it is fast and large," says working-group co-leader Jessica Hellmann of the University of Notre Dame. "Consequences will arise within decades, not centuries, so action seems much more important now than it did even five or 10 years ago." In other words, doing nothing has become the riskier choice in many cases.

Historically, slower-paced climate change has allowed species to adapt, either by evolving or by relocating. But now, climate change is accelerating, potentially trapping species in uninhabitable locations. In addition, obstacles such as cities and other human developments stand between threatened populations and their best alternative homes, the researchers note.

How can scientists be certain that introducing a species into a new enenvironment will both succeed for that species and not produce undesirable consequences for the environment? The short answer is, they can't. However, "we can make informed predictions with stated bounds of uncertainty," says David Richardson of Stellenbosch University in South Africa. The history of intentional and accidental species introductions has taught scientists to carefully evaluate potential impacts of such dramatic interventions.

The researchers' goal is to develop an effective tool for calculating the risks, costs, and tradeoffs of a relocation. Stakeholders will then have a scoring system based on multiple criteria.

"The tool takes advantage of the fact that, although science can't tell us exactly what will happen in the future, it can tell us how likely a favorable result is - useful information for decision makers," says NSF program director Nancy Huntly.

- Cynthia G. Wagner

Source: National Science Foundation, www.nsf.gov.

[Sidebar]

Tortoise poised at the edge of Athens, Greece, illustrates a race for survival against rapid climate change.

Running from Homelessness

Many organizations help homeless people by giving them food and shelter. But one group is now trying a radically new approach.

Back On My Feet, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit, sets homeless youth and adults on a path to recovery by having them jog three times a week. Back On My Feet hopes that this regimen can boost not only the runners’ physical health, but also their confidence and personal well-being.

“We use running as a vehicle to show individuals they are capable of accomplishing anything, but it’s not going to happen overnight — it takes hard work, dedication, and perseverance,” according to the organization.

Back On My Feet organizes homeless people into teams of 10–25 runners, who follow designated routes. Attendance at every workout is mandatory during the six-month program.

“Through running, we create a community of love, hope, trust, friendship, encouragement, and support that allows positive decision making for all our members,” the organization maintains.

Runners who complete two months with a 90% attendance rate can enroll in educational classes, job training, and job placement. Those who reach six months are eligible for grants to help with apartment, education, or job-related expenses.

Of 139 current runners, 39 have already secured jobs. In addition, 23 runners have secured housing and 25 have enrolled in new school or job-training programs. And of those runners who were smokers when they enrolled, 63% quit or suppressed their smoking.

And their outlooks on life tend to brighten. Many runners say their self-esteem has improved and they’ve become more excited about the future, more disciplined, and more productive in their daily lives.

“It’s very encouraging to get out there and run, plus I’ve lost up to 35 pounds,” says Claudel Edwards, a runner who completed six months of the program. “I want to find housing and just get healthier.”

Running as a team makes it more likely that the participants will continue running after they complete the program, according to Jeremy Jordan, a Temple University assistant professor of sports and recreation management.

“Being part of a community hopefully leads to sustained physical activity for the folks that are in Back On My Feet,” he says.

Jordan and other Temple researchers are conducting an 18-month study of the Back On My Feet runners to determine how the exercise program is benefiting them emotionally.

“I guess that simply put, Back On My Feet establishes that somebody cares, and I think for a lot of the members, they have not had that,” he says.— Rick Docksai

Sources: Back on My Feet, www.backonmyfeet.org.

Temple University, www.temple.edu .

The Cinematic Singularitarian

Scene: A movie theater on the west side of Manhattan during the Tribeca Film Festival. The audience teems with hip New York film students eager to see the world premiere of a new documentary. They’re joined, unexpectedly, by computer scientists, geneticists, and futurists from Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. The lights dim. After a brief opening, inventor Ray Kurzweil appears on the screen, looks squarely into the camera, and says, “I’m never going to die.”

So began the world premiere of Barry Ptolemy’s Transcendent Man, a feature-length film that chronicles Kurzweil’s ideas on the future of technological innovation. Chief among his forecasts: In the next 30 years, humans will use genomics, nanotechnology, and even artificial intelligence to escape death.

“Soon, we’ll be able to reprogram the underlying process of biology,” Kurzweil told THE FUTURIST after the screening. “We’ve mapped the genome; we’re making exponential progress in reverse engineering it. We can design new genetic interventions and test them with computer modeling. These breakthroughs are at an early stage, but because medicine is an information technology, it will progress at an exponential rate. If I were to say to you, 'One day, you’ll have nanobots in your bloodstream and they’ll be keeping you healthy from the inside,' you might respond that that sounds fairly futuristic. But we’re already doing experiments in animals with first-generation nanodevices that are blood-cell sized.” For instance, a team at Sandia National Laboratories is working to implant individual red blood cells with DNA, proteins, or drugs via a machine with molecularly small parts.

With the 2005 publication of his fifth book, The Singularity Is Near, Ray Kurzweil became an international phenomenon. His ideas have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, FOX News, CNN, and hundreds of newspapers, magazines, and networks. Transcendent Man follows Kurzweil as he discusses his ideas with various glitterati, including Star Trek star William Shatner, musician Stevie Wonder, and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Technology watchers like Wired founding executive editor Kevin Kelly also make appearances in the film to discuss — and dispute — Kurzweil’s ideas.

“We’ll have immortality one day, perhaps in 300 years,” says Kelly.

“The reason many people, including some futurists, have a myopic view of the future is that they think linear; the actual nature of information technology is exponential. The linear perspective is intuitive; the exponential perspective is historically accurate. The computation in a cell phone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful than the computer I used as a student. That’s a billion-fold increase in price performance,” Kurzweil told THE FUTURIST.

“Part of being a futurist is looking back,” director Ptolemy remarked. “He’s looking back at trends that have happened since the dawn of the universe. It fascinates me. I don’t know why, exactly. Human potential, what we can do, is fascinating to me.”

Kurzweil’s relationship with his late father was key to Ptolemy’s vision. At one point during the filming, Kurzweil confessed that he hoped to use artificial intelligence to bring his father back in the form of an interactive avatar. Even after hearing Kurzweil speak hundreds of times, the announcement was a surprise to Ptolemy. “That was the first time he’d expressed that idea on film,” he said.

“He’s really still the only person who was close to me who has died, but that was enough to really make me aware of just what a tragedy death is,” said Kurzweil.

Transcendent Man is Ptolemy’s first film, which he co-produced with his wife, Felicia, after Kurzweil’s ideas moved him. “I read The Singularity Is Near and when I was done with the first chapter, it was a movie,” he said.
About the Author

Patrick Tucker is the senior editor of THE FUTURIST magazine and director of communications for the World Future Society.

Kurzweil’s latest book, with co-author Terry Grossman, is Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever (Rodale Books, 2009).

The Global Talent Crisis

By Edward Gordon
The Futurist, September-October 2009

Contrary to popular opinion, there are plenty of open jobs. What's missing are candidates with skills.

We are in the midst of a global job and talent upheaval, the most remarkable of any job and talent change since the Industrial Revolution and encompassing every aspect of the global economy.

The dawning of a new industrial age, a period characterized by a growing need for highly skilled technical workers, is driving this revolution. From now through the next decade and beyond, this need will grow at an unrelenting pace. This new age will require the reinvention of the education-to-employment system. Simply put, we need to prepare more people for jobs that are now being created by an ultra-high-tech economy. In the United States alone, this high-tech age could spur the economy to a GDP of $20 trillion per year by 2019 (Congressional Budget Office estimate), compared with a little over $14 trillion now. But progress is not guaranteed, and the bounties of success will not be evenly distributed.

In the United States, the official unemployment rate is projected to top out at near 10.5% by 2010. Factoring in the number of people too discouraged to even look for work or file for unemployment, and the number of people working part time who wish to work full time, that figure now approaches 15%. Some 9 million people in the United States only have part-time work, up 83% from a year ago. Part-time workers account for almost 20% of the workforce. That number, too, will likely go up by next year. There will be jobs in 2010, but highly skilled and educated workers will have an easier time in a highly competitive environment.

This is a familiar refrain; we've been hearing alarms about the skills gap for years. But if ever there was a time to get serious about helping workers acquire the right skills, this is it.

Clearing the Decks: What Today's Downturn Means for Tomorrow's Job Market

Over the last 10 years, the real U.S. economy did grow. Unfortunately, too much of the wealth created was based on short-term financial speculation all around the globe and the manipulation of exotic financial instruments. The tech-based U.S. economy failed to invest enough longterm resources to educate the nation's youth, preparing them to work in the next wave of emerging science, technology, engineering, or mathematically based (STEM) jobs.

While much attention has been focused on how many millions of lowskill U.S. jobs have been outsourced, little notice has been paid to how many millions of high-pay, high-skill tech jobs have been outsourced to Europe, Japan, Singapore, or other countries with well-educated labor pools. Meanwhile, U.S. businesses are importing STEM talent from abroad using H-1B visas to keep the nation's tech-based economy operating.

The United States has outsourced advanced technological production, design, and management capacity. Also, many U.S. industries have become over-reliant on H-1B "specialty occupation" visas to import workers from overseas. However, over the next decade, U.S. companies will have trouble building new high-tech factories in high-skill counties like South Korea, Japan, or Germany, because their workforces will have begun shrinking. In fact, many countries will probably bring more production into the United States if they can locate communities that have developed appropriate hightech workforces.

At the same time, U.S. firms will still seek to use H-1B visas to bring engineers, technicians, and other professionals from China and India into the United States. Multiple studies have shown that China graduates about 600,000 engineers each year, but only 60,000 are educated at world standards. India graduates 400,000 new engineers each year, but only 100,000 are educated at world standards. The quality of educational institutions in India and China vary greatly, as they have not yet established the standards comparable to the United States for college/university accreditation. As the Chinese and Indian economies move up the high-tech value chain, they will have increasing difficulty supplying their own talent needs. Hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals are returning home from the United States and elsewhere. They are starting new tech-based businesses or taking advantage of rampant wage inflation driven by skilled worker shortages across China and India.

These trends mean that U.S., European, and Japanese firms will have increasing difficulty importing enough talent over the next decade. In the United States, business will lobby the government to increase the availability of H-1B visas. There simply will not be enough people to fill all the high-skill/high-wage jobs that are going to be vacant around the world.

Meanwhile, U.S. society has pushed many of its best and brightest students and mature workers into finance-related jobs that fed a massive short-term speculative bubble. Many other Americans have ended up in low-pay/low-skill service jobs because thousands of American schools are of substandard quality.

In Search of Technical Talent

Today's U.S. employment picture is extremely muddled. In early 2008, when U.S. unemployment was at 5.6%, 3 million jobs remained vacant (i.e., jobs advertised for six months or more that remain unfilled). The vast majority of vacant jobs are STEM related. They require a good high-school education, plus specialized postsecondary career education, two-year or four-year college degrees, one- or two-year college occupational certificates, or a two- to three-year apprenticeship education.

By May 2009, U.S. unemployment had jumped to 9.4%. However, with more than 14 mi l l ion unemployed, more than 3 million jobs were still vacant, according to Manpower. An analysis of unemployment by education levels helps show why. The unemployment rate for high-school dropouts was 15%, contrasted to 10% for high-school graduates, 7.7% for those with some college, and 4.8% for those with a bachelor's degree or higher.

Manpower's 2009 Talent Shortage Survey also reported that 30% of the world's employers are still facing a talent showdown. Tig Gillion, chief executive at Adecco, another staffing company, agreed that many business sectors were still hiring new people to fill STEM jobs. A Fortune magazine report highlighted firms that had openings for specific positions, including Boeing, Google, Genentech, Cisco Systems, Ernst & Young, Booz Allen Hamilton, KPMG, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and many U.S. hospitals.

What Do the Labor Shortages Look Like?

After the current recession ends, there will be a growing job crisis around the world due to these talent shortages. Demographic trends in the United States, Europe, Russia, and Japan show a drastic reduction in the pool of new highly skilled workers, due to low birthrates and massive retirements. As the global need for talent grows, even China's and India's educational systems will not be able to produce enough qualified graduates for themselves, let alone act as safety valves for the rest of the world. But the heart of this issue is the seldom understood fact that the education-to-employment system worldwide is badly out of date. The United States and most other nations are not producing enough graduates with the kinds of technical, communications, and thinking skills needed in the twenty-first-century workplace.

Without drastic talent creation changes between 2010 and 2020, the United States will experience a major talent meltdown, with 12 to 24 million vacant jobs stretching across the entire U.S. economy. Businesses will leave the United States searching for scarce talent wherever they can find it. The U.S. economy will stagnate or shrink. For example, in the late 1990s, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) wanted to build a new high-tech plant. They looked at locations in California and Texas, but company officials felt that the communities they investigated could not produce enough qualified entry-level technicians for their needs. The company went to Germany, built a plant near Dresden in 1999, and added a second in 2004. Germany was a good fit for AMD because of the high technical standards of Germany's dual education system.

The picture of the U.S. economy that emerges is of abundance and poverty: abundance of labor, poverty of talent, and economic pain everywhere. To prevent a chronic job imbalance and a true economic catastrophe, the United States needs to reinvent its talent-creation system.

The Three Forces Driving the Talent Shortage

There are three socioeconomic forces driving us to a talent showdown: demographic declines in many industrialized nations, a skills gap because students and incumbent workers are not receiving the education and training needed for hightech employment, and a cultural bias against undertaking the rigorous educational preparation needed for scientific or technical employment.

* Global demographics. Throughout the industrialized world, birthrates are very low and the proportion of baby boomers retiring is very high. This is a particularly important issue in western Europe and parts of Asia. Replacement-level fertility (on a national level) is generally considered 2.33 children per female, but can be higher in countries with a significant infant-mortality rate. The CIA World Factbook estimates Germany's fertility rate now to be 1.4; Italy's, 1.31; Russia's, 1.41; Japan's and South Korea's, 1.21. This means that the working-age populations in these countries will shrink and have to support higher and higher numbers of retirees.

Shifts in generational values are magnifying the impact of demographic declines. Generations X and Y don't have the same ethos regarding work as their parents did. The baby boomers seemed to live to work and shop. They put up with long hours in exchange for big salaries. That's changing. Many boomers are looking to work less hard as they age, although many may be forced to delay retirement due to declines in investments and pensions. Generation X in particular is more interested in obtaining a good work-life balance. Women are graduating from institutions of higher learning at higher rates than are men, and many want time off to raise children. They want to work at home, flex hours, sabbaticals, and job sharing, but they also want pay parity with men. Many companies are having trouble dealing with those issues.

* The skills gap. Since the original publication of A Nation at Risk in 1982, reports continue to be issued about serious deficiencies in American education. In this age when some form of postsecondary education is a requirement for all but low-wage, low-skill jobs, the overall U.S. highschool dropout rate continues to hover around 30%. Even more alarming, the average high school graduation rate in the 50 largest U.S. cities was 52.8%. In a 2005 survey, 60% of American manufacturers reported that even those high-school students who did graduate were poorly prepared for entry-level jobs.

According to a 2008 Alliance for Excellence in Education report, only half of the 1.4 million twelfth graders who took the ACT tests were ready for college-level reading. Some 42% of public community college freshmen and 20% of freshmen in public four-year institutions need to take remedial courses in basic skills such as reading, writing, and math. Moreover, only 25% of Americans who begin postsecondary education ultimately obtain a full college degree. This is the lowest "survival rate" in any of the major developed countries.

* A cultural bias. A bias exists against gaining the education and training required for science and technology jobs, but not against technology itself.

What's truly amazing is the number of people who love technology - iPods, iPhones, laptops, Twitter, podcasts - but due to cultural reasons, they don't acquire the training to design, repair, or manage the technology. This is now true even in Japan, where they call this phenomenon "the flight from science." Even the tech-driven German economy in 2008 was experiencing a shortage of 75,000 engineers to fill vacant positions.

The baby boomers' formative years were marked by the Cold War arms race and by the space race. The National Defense Act funded a variety of math and science programs in elementary and high schools as well as higher education career programs. This, in turn, supported a major expansion of science and technology across the entire U.S. economy. NASA put men on the moon in 1969 and during the early 1970s; the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. These events brought an end to much of the U.S. government emphasis on technological expansion. The next generation received far less encouragement to consider these STEM careers.

Starting in 2010, 79 million baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) will begin the shift to retirement. As a result, between 2010 and 2020, some technology-based industries will be seeking to replace 100% of their workforces. Overall, 66% of the jobs to be filled during the next decade will be vacancies created by boomer retirements.

Advancing technologies are transforming the nature of occupations. All the skilled trades and many installation and repair positions now require the use of advanced technologies that continue to evolve at a rapid pace.

The number of new technologies introduced over the next decade will likely be equal to those invented over the last 50 years. Yet the current breakdown in the global talent-creation systems does not bode well for the future.

Rebuilding the Talent Pipeline

If between 2010 and 2020 the U.S. education-to-employment system remains unchanged, the United States will see increasing numbers of people, even degreed individuals, with poor job prospects.

Can this gloomy scenario be avoided? Businesses, educators, and unions will all have to play a far more active role in expanding the proportion of highly skilled Americans to fill this widening STEM talent shortfall, and attract new businesses into every American community. The problem demands much broader investment by large and smaller businesses through updated career education systems formed in partnership with other community leaders.

At the national level, the U.S. Congress can encourage these community investments by allowing businesses to depreciate investments in training and education, just as they now depreciate investments in plants and equipment. This will encourage a significant increase in employee training, particularly for entry-level jobs. Businesses will also have an incentive to invest in career information and education programs in community elementary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions to rebuild the shattered education-to-employment pipeline. Currently, U.S. businesses invest around $53 billion annually in training and education. This could grow to $100 billion if such initiatives prove successful.

Across America, numerous community- based organizations (CBOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been at work for more than a decade expanding business- education partnerships. They have mobilized the broad participation of chambers of commerce, unions, parent organizations, workforce boards, economic-development organizations, professional and trade associations, and other community groups. In Santa Ana, California; Fargo, North Dakota; Danville, Illinois; Mansfield, Ohio; and in many other communities, these local CBOs and NGOs are now making significant local investments to reinvent the local and regional education-to-employment systems. They have helped businesses stay competitive through worker retraining and elementary/ secondary/postsecondary career-education programs. These CBOs and NGOs are rebuilding talent pipelines and helping to attract new businesses offering higherwage, higher-skilled jobs for their communities.

The long-term goal of these CBOs and NGOs is very simple. They seek to change the education and training systems in their own communities and then the mandates in their states so that all elementary, high school, and postsecondary schools will be able to offer the educational and training programs that realistically support a knowledge economy.

The global talent showdown will affect entire economies, and it will be felt by everyone. We must all be part of the solution.

The Future World of Work: A Gen Xer’s Perspective

Wall Street Journal columnist Alexandra Levit parses today's and tomorrow's job market for new grads.

For those of us who are members of generations X and Y, (see note) the future I always dreamed about is coming up fast. Our careers are relatively young, and for those still in college, they haven’t even begun yet. But already, technology is changing so quickly that we can easily imagine future work lives that barely resemble the ones we lead today. As our baby-boomer parents age, we will become the leaders in an increasingly complex world.

If we want to create thriving, sustainable careers that will easily withstand the turbulence of the next few decades, we must anticipate the qualities of the future work world. Here are a few ideas based on my own experiences and my conversations with other workplace experts.

• Who we’ll be working with: In the coming decades, the baby boomers will start retiring from their management positions in droves. We will have to contend with the “brain drain” from those who leave the workforce, boomers who remain employed underneath us for money or personal fulfillment, and a large influx of immigrants.

• Who we’ll be working for: In the last decade, as American companies have laid off millions of workers, the ideals of job security and employee loyalty no longer apply. In the knowledge-driven economy of the future, large organizations won’t be needed to create value and our livelihood won’t be connected to a single corporation. We’ll work for much smaller organizations that outsource everything but the business’s core area of expertise, and more than half of us will eventually become contingent workers, employed part time or as freelancers or consultants.

• Where we’ll be working: We’ve already seen the model of everyone at the same place, at the same time, begin to disappear. Now that we can be connected regardless of our physical location, work activities will be distributed across central offices, remote locations, and community locations. The typical eight-hour workday will be spread across a 14 plus-hour window to allow us to attend to needs at home and work with colleagues abroad.

• How we’ll be working: Our future workplace will be one of constant change, innovation, and skill upgrading. Work projects will begin with one set of goals, but will reinvent themselves over and over again, so we’ll be forced to think on the fly. Workers at all levels of the organization will be responsible for devising creative strategies, and cross-functional teams will be assigned for individual projects.

• What we’ll be working on: Future employers will rely on individuals who are willing to work the flexible hours and can leverage the latest technologies associated with an Internet-oriented, nonstop marketplace. Technical skills will only increase in importance, and as organizations continue to flatten, people in all areas of the business will be responsible for administrative skills like budgeting, hiring, and operations. From Generations X and Y, the leaders, organizations will expect individuals who understand human behavior, can engender cooperation, and can bring out the best in workers.

Sounds like an exciting time, doesn’t it? I think I’m going to look forward to “going to work” in 2025.

About the Author

Alexandra Levit is a Wall Street Journal columnist and the author of Success for Hire (ASTD Press 2008) and the forthcoming New Job, New You (Random House, 2010). She speaks to organizations around the globe about generational workplace issues. Web site www.alexandralevit.com .

*Note: demographers William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their book Generations, define Generation X as the cohort born between 1961 and 1980, and Generation Y or the Millennial Generation as being born from 1980 until the early 1990s.

Tomorrow in Brief

"Smart" Turbine Boosts Wind Power

Wind energy may become more-efficient, economical, and reliable thanks to "smart" turbines under development at Purdue University and Sandia National Laboratories. Sensors embedded in the blades monitor the forces exerted on their surface, signaling changes in wind conditions. The blades' built-in flaps—similar to the wings of an airplane—enable the turbines to be adjusted for optimal performance. The system will also send feedback to operators in order to prevent damage from sudden, potentially catastrophic winds, as well as track the blades' conditions—vital for predicting fatigue and enabling engineers to develop more-resilient turbines.

Source: Purdue University, www.purdue.edu .

Soap Sniffer Monitors Hygiene

The same type of sensors that tell the cops you're tipsy could also tattle on you if you fail to wash your hands in the restroom. Hand washing is vital for avoiding the spread of germs and is particularly critical in hospitals, restaurants, and other places with "hands-on" workers. A monitoring device developed at the University of Florida detects sanitizer or soap fumes given off from people's hands, offering real-time monitoring of hygiene compliance. The mere presence of the soap-sniffer could improve compliance by being a compelling reminder to workers to wash their hands.

Source: University of Florida, www.ufl.edu .

WordBuzz: Fewer Dirty Words in Movies

Profanity in teen movies is on a long-term decline, report researchers at Brigham Young University. In fact, teens attending popular G, PG, and PG-13 rated movies now will encounter less than half as many swear words as their parents did 25 years ago.

Films directed to the teen market in the 1980s averaged 35 instances of profanity, compared with 25 in the 1990s and 16 in the 2000s.

The researchers do not offer an explanation for the trend but suggest that the influence of media watchdogs and parent groups may have succeeded in pressuring filmmakers to keep it clean for the kids.

Source: Brigham Young University, www.byu.edu .

Contracts for Family Caregivers

Many older people anticipate that their adult children will eventually provide some sort of care for them, financially or otherwise. But when the time comes, the adult children are often unaware of this expectation and unprepared to fulfill it. Now, more families are turning to caregiver agreements—financial contracts to care for sick or aging relatives, according to University of Illinois law professor Richard L. Kaplan. Though many people may bristle at the idea of formalizing family responsibilities, precedents may be seen in such phenomena as prenuptial agreements. As costs rapidly deplete life savings, it is becoming more critical to plan for each generation’s financial and health needs and to resolve potential problems in advance, says Kaplan.

Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, www.illinois.edu .

Eyeglasses as Data Dashboard

An interactive chip on the lens of your eyeglasses will not only display information for you, but also track your eye movements and interpret commands such as “scroll” or “next.” Because the image is actually projected on your retina, it appears to be several feet in front of you, so you won’t go cross-eyed trying to read what’s on the lens. Developed by researchers at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems, the data eyeglasses could offer a lightweight alternative to bulky head-mounted displays and data goggles for hands-free interactivity.

Source: Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems, www.ipms.fraunhofer.de .