In my blog post earlier I had written about how the automation tiger is not really as "terrifying" as it seems. Read it here. Let me continue the argument around this
In recent 30 to 40 years computer controlled equipment has substituted wide range of routine work including jobs of book keeping, booking clerks, telephone operators, librarians and at the same time created jobs needing cognitive skills such as computer programming, software engineering.
Generally technology alters the tasks that people do and as a result there is a shift in demand for skills performed. When washing machines became popular in India since 1980's the jobs of washer-men was at stake. But today the difficult job has been sculpted out and numerous laundromats and premium service home delivery laundry services abound. The washer man's job in the earlier form still exists but the "hardship" factor goes on increasing and the "returns" one can get keep decreasing year on year. So it makes practical and economic sense to shift to something different learn a new skill and expand.
I met some of the washer folks at DhobiGhat (Near Mahalakshmi Railway Station at Mumbai) and found that they have expanded into dyeing of textiles, subcontracting several hundreds of dyeing jobs every day to make their livelihood easier. The art of dyeing cloth needed them to re skill themselves and take up the new work.
Thus we see that as technology can shift work from hard work (hand washing by washer-men) to something done much easier through laundromats and large scale automated washers. This happens due to more and more people willing to pay for more expensive services as society progresses. In short it can happen as the economy grows and people become well off and improved standards of living are evident.
Take another example from IT sector.
COBOL as a programming language has been around since the time computers evolved (1960's) and the focus was to automate business. Over the 80's and 90's the shift was towards desktop power and Database (SQL) and Visual Basic became popular, in the 1990's and 2000's internet became popular and shift was on internet / browser related technologies and so languages like Java, ASP.net became more popular... Similarly the years after 2000 saw a thrust on business agility and Service Oriented Architecture started becoming key technologies....Now since last decade we are in the world of mobility and now programming languages like Python, Ruby, Java Scripts are the in thing.
During each shift that the IT industry experienced new technologies replaced part of the demand for older skills. As the shift occurred people had to re-skill themselves, reorient their thinking. (E.g. Shift from procedural programming languages like C or FORTRAN to an Object Oriented Programming Language like Java needed not just a new skill to be learnt but rather a completely new way of thinking about programming) to survive in the long run.
While a new technology continues to expand it does not mean the old simply vanishes overnight. For e.g. COBOL which is no longer taught in colleges today still dominates the world of business computing as there are many systems which still run on COBOL. But the growth of demand for such skills is almost down to a trickle and hence only the best will survive in this technical expertise. This is another reason for those who wish to survive to either be the "Super Guys" or "Super Gals" in their field or shift to something different.
So what this means for those in the corporate world is to understand the evolution of skills in your domain. Look for what is changing, learn and update yourself and continue to stay relevant
I always advise business leaders to ensure that everyone in their teams stays relevant. One of the ways they can do it is to ensure that everyone on their teams has either upgraded at least one level of proficiency on their current skills every 18 to 24 months or added a new skill to their repertoire. Of course 18 to 24 months is more from the tech industry perspective and this time frame varies across industries.
If they haven't either upgraded or moved to a new skill they are likely to face a redundancy sooner or later. So the bottom line is that "Be Relevant to Just Stay Afloat, After that invest in self progress"
Technology changes should not ruffle us but should propel us to newer pathways.
In recent 30 to 40 years computer controlled equipment has substituted wide range of routine work including jobs of book keeping, booking clerks, telephone operators, librarians and at the same time created jobs needing cognitive skills such as computer programming, software engineering.
Generally technology alters the tasks that people do and as a result there is a shift in demand for skills performed. When washing machines became popular in India since 1980's the jobs of washer-men was at stake. But today the difficult job has been sculpted out and numerous laundromats and premium service home delivery laundry services abound. The washer man's job in the earlier form still exists but the "hardship" factor goes on increasing and the "returns" one can get keep decreasing year on year. So it makes practical and economic sense to shift to something different learn a new skill and expand.
I met some of the washer folks at DhobiGhat (Near Mahalakshmi Railway Station at Mumbai) and found that they have expanded into dyeing of textiles, subcontracting several hundreds of dyeing jobs every day to make their livelihood easier. The art of dyeing cloth needed them to re skill themselves and take up the new work.
Thus we see that as technology can shift work from hard work (hand washing by washer-men) to something done much easier through laundromats and large scale automated washers. This happens due to more and more people willing to pay for more expensive services as society progresses. In short it can happen as the economy grows and people become well off and improved standards of living are evident.
Take another example from IT sector.
COBOL as a programming language has been around since the time computers evolved (1960's) and the focus was to automate business. Over the 80's and 90's the shift was towards desktop power and Database (SQL) and Visual Basic became popular, in the 1990's and 2000's internet became popular and shift was on internet / browser related technologies and so languages like Java, ASP.net became more popular... Similarly the years after 2000 saw a thrust on business agility and Service Oriented Architecture started becoming key technologies....Now since last decade we are in the world of mobility and now programming languages like Python, Ruby, Java Scripts are the in thing.
During each shift that the IT industry experienced new technologies replaced part of the demand for older skills. As the shift occurred people had to re-skill themselves, reorient their thinking. (E.g. Shift from procedural programming languages like C or FORTRAN to an Object Oriented Programming Language like Java needed not just a new skill to be learnt but rather a completely new way of thinking about programming) to survive in the long run.
While a new technology continues to expand it does not mean the old simply vanishes overnight. For e.g. COBOL which is no longer taught in colleges today still dominates the world of business computing as there are many systems which still run on COBOL. But the growth of demand for such skills is almost down to a trickle and hence only the best will survive in this technical expertise. This is another reason for those who wish to survive to either be the "Super Guys" or "Super Gals" in their field or shift to something different.
So what this means for those in the corporate world is to understand the evolution of skills in your domain. Look for what is changing, learn and update yourself and continue to stay relevant
I always advise business leaders to ensure that everyone in their teams stays relevant. One of the ways they can do it is to ensure that everyone on their teams has either upgraded at least one level of proficiency on their current skills every 18 to 24 months or added a new skill to their repertoire. Of course 18 to 24 months is more from the tech industry perspective and this time frame varies across industries.
If they haven't either upgraded or moved to a new skill they are likely to face a redundancy sooner or later. So the bottom line is that "Be Relevant to Just Stay Afloat, After that invest in self progress"
Technology changes should not ruffle us but should propel us to newer pathways.
