Friday 4 December 2015

#OEB15 liveblog Future workers and the future

On this last day at online educa berlin, these are my notes from the keynote with Cornelia Daheim, John Higgins, Ioannis Angelis on the topic of future and future work(ers). 

Work or jobs or employment… paradigm shift in work. We all earn our living, with a variety of different models, but the classic work traject of school, job, retirement will be less frequently happening.

Cornelia Daheim
Future of critical future topics, specifically work – non-profit organisation
About 50% are at risk of being automated, since that oxford published report people looked at which type of jobs would might disappear.
We have a high possibility that work in the future will be: we do not have to work. So not in the terminology that we have today.
Experts (who? Conservative professionals) technology will drive change: AI, robotics, analytics…
AI where machines can learn to learn, which affects the face of work.
Industry4.0, but how will this shift affect knowledge.
There is a chance of 25% of 2050… but we might get into a new society, where more machines do the jobs, and a such we need to make a new system.
We need to find a new way of how society can function in the long run when the model is not based on jobs/income.
We need to start thinking about it.
She looked at predictions of 2030. If there is no a major breaks (war…) and demographic evolution continues. If we extrapolate these changes, people might live longer, but this means that you work in a 4 generation team (which is really new). A new way of generations working together. The same is true for more freelance, project oriented work, more international… so here are the new forms that come into play. We need to use new terminology for this new era.
The studies show us that there is a possibility for radical change, but even if we simply extrapolate we already get multiple challenges.


What are the new skills needed

John Higgins
Discovered that in 1831 (Peel) he mused that we might prefer that brittain stays a country of cotton fields, but we will be a land of cotton mills. This is representative for current age, one of the interesting pieces of data: cognitive robotics, AI, but also basic connected things (internet of things)… wave of new technologies, and looking at EU adoption of these technologies, only a limited amount of companies (50%) is picking this up.
It seems to me that the pressure is on to start using all these tools to move with the drive pushed by technology.
He does not buy the idea of hollowing out jobs. There is an interesting piece of McKinsey report that all jobs will need to be able to use parts of these technologies, and will be improved by these sort of jobs. (eg; exo-skeletons to carry objects and/or people – nursing, car assembly)
What sort of skills are companies looking for: three main one’s:
Analytical data driven reasoning: identify different sources of information, and be analytical about them (numerical mostly, draw conclusions from big data)
Not following processes, but understanding the goal of an organisation (details change too quickly, so goal-oriented thinking is preferred).  Curation: how to filter out the massive information you get.
Working in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams: using modern collaborative tools. Eg. The 5 why’s model.
What sort of skills are we going to need? New jobs will appear, so there are changing hard and soft skills that will be needed.


Ioannis Angelis
Our predictions about the future fail frequently as they are built from the presence.
The workplace of the future is significant in this debate. There will be multiple spaces that will offer learning and working spaces. But this means that the virtual reality office will give an immersive experience, which will give us a real feeling of reality. But how will this affect work.
Paradoxical trend that done is better than perfect (in terms of work), so how can technology be used to point people in the right direction.
Digital transformation: two ICT people led the debate: somewhere in that discussion was a topic: we cannot speed innovation down. There are risks: it might endanger us by addiction, tension, virality of data…
Nomad society sees themselves as workers in the future, they can work for anyone anywhere at any time.
We all need to take ownership of our own learning.
Creative adjustment: people will continue to look for the meaning of life, but they will use their own creativity.
We want to be competent and skilful.
Missing in a lot of skill discussions: we all need to be change makers (not project management, but in terms of how we influence humanity). We need to focus on humanity.
Dealing with change is an attitude.
In order to become the worker of your dreams, we all need to slow down.
At the agora, if we take this to the future, the slaves can be replaced by the robots (which to me might sound as some people will not be in society anymore).
  
Aren’t we as workers obstructing the technological drive, as we are unable to change that rapidly? Big systems are extremely slow, but people get happier if they can self-adapt their learning/working.


People resist or adapt to change, which is delivering a balance, but it affects the speed of change or the take up of new options. (inge note: uptake of mobile use).