Book Updates

Digital technology is changing every aspect of our lives from how we conduct business, to securing new clients and finding a job.

Every industry including our children’s education will be impacted by digital technology.

Learning how to manage our digital transformation and understanding the importance of our digital profiles is crucial to staying relevant in the Digital Era.

Our digital profile and real life are now one, everything we have done and everything we will accomplish is digitized.

Recruiters spend hours on LinkedIn and Twitter searching for the ideal candidate.   Schools and colleges are using digital profiles to review applications and determine who is accepted.

Professional and personal reputations have and always crucial in determining life’s important decisions.  Digital technology has digitized our reputations for the world to see.  Both good and bad posts can be viewed by everyone leaving us with less control over what others say and post.

Many believe we are diluting our personal value with each Facebook post.

Your Digital Reputation is your Golden Goose – without the Golden Goose securing new business or landing the job of your dreams will be difficult in the Digital Economy.

Be mindful about the content you post and the friends you circle because in the end – our reputation is all we have.

Related Blog Post:

Digital Profiles Have Made Resumes Obsolete 

Interview with Scott Ewert on How Technology and Creativity Impacts Your Career Options

The Internet and digital technology is disrupting education at all levels.  Just like the publishing and music industries, education is undergoing an evolution.

Today, students regardless of age can learn a wide range of topics beyond the four walls of a traditional classroom.

Our kids think and learn differently than previous generations and have access to more information and collective knowledge than prior Presidents and Heads of State.

What is fascinating about this generation is how they are using this knowledge to launch their ideas early instead of waiting until college or afterwards.

When I was a kid, we had to earn money the old fashion way – babysitting, washing cars or mowing yards. Today, kids can raise money for startup projects on Kickstarter, earn royalties from YouTube videos or resell server rack space. They are tech savvy and can navigate the Internet and Social Media with ease.

Each day, I read about a new iEducation startup that offers alternative method for teaching coding, problem solving and skill building for the next generation. Both Code Academy and Tynker, offer innovative methods of teaching science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

I believe future employment will require a blending of several critical skills: problem solving, programming and creative design. Digitization is spreading across all industries and we know that any job that can be automated will be in the future.   Conversely, we will also witnessing a shortage in highly skilled trade employees.

So how do we prepare our kids for the future?

Progressive schools understand that education must be redesigned to prepare our kids for the future.  Classes are being tweaked so that students learn to solve difficult problems in groups, to find hidden opportunities and to understand the intersection of technology and humanities.

Rethink Education is an investment team that seeks to reinvent education by investing in ideas, people and concepts that will change education. Last month, I visited with Tom Segal who is an Analyst at Rethink Education.

Our conversation was thought provoking as we discussed every aspect of education.  When talking about the team’s vision, Tom stated “we are looking to disrupt across the entire education spectrum with a focus on lifelong learning. We believe in the promotion of good ideas.”

Our conversation moved from disrupting education to taking responsibility of our own career and education needs. Penelope Trunk blogged last year about “Age of Responsibility” which lead to a discussion of how we are entering into a new era where we are responsible for our children’s education and our ongoing career development.

Tom said “purchasing a diploma is no longer sufficient today.  We must all continue to reinvent ourselves and constantly learn new skills.”

Taking education one step further, Rethink Education has backed EverFi; a company that teaches financial literacy to high school students.

Each and every student should have a solid understanding of real life financial skills from knowing how to balance their checkbook to understanding fees assocated with their 401k accounts.  Clay Piggy is another startup that focuses on teaching kids good money management skills.  

In our parents’ generation, having a diploma was a sufficient stepping stone to securing a position for life.  Our generation and future generations will be required to pivot frequently to meet the demands of the changing economy.

Leland Stanford set guidelines for the University that he created.  Education must offer “personal success and direct usefulness in life” that professors must understand the relevance of education.

Relevance of education does not involve excelling at standardize tests.   Relevance matters when teachers and educators offer skills that will meet future business and employment demands.

Other Related Blog Postings

Why Digital Profiles Matter

Digital Profiles Have Made Resumes Obsolete

Last week, I wrote about why our digital profiles matter.  The post included a futurist story that I wrote illustrating the impacts of the Hyperconnected Economy.

Resumes are now obsolete as recruiters and HR Departments use the Internet and social media platforms like LinkedIn to find qualified and talented candidates.   The Internet is also changing how we conduct our job searches and submit profiles for employment consideration.

Creating a unique and powerful digital profile gives you the advantage of being heard above the digital clutter.   Technology is now our competitor for employment not individuals in China or India.

College graduates today face one of the most complex and chaotic employment environment compared to previous generations.  Placement centers are out-of- date and provide obsolete information to college seniors and graduates.  I anticipate that our universities and colleges will undergo a major change similar to the music and publishing industries.   The Internet is changing education; students can access online classes from elementary math to physics at Stanford.

To gain a competitive advantage in the new economy we must have a rememberable digital profile, strong tech skills and diverse professional network.

Last month, I talked with Nathan Green, co-founder of campus2careers.  We discussed his company and all the career services available for college graduates.  Nathan understands the importance of having a rich digital profile.  His company has created a platform that helps college students find jobs that match their goals and personality.

Campus2careers is a community which is different from job posting boards like Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com.  Instead of filtering job postings, campus2caeers matches college students and recent graduates with a wide range of businesses from startups to medium size companies.  Both parties benefit from this service as many small businesses have limited resources and are now able to find qualified candidates.  Students have more career opportunities.

What I like best about campus2careers is that it uses preferences and skill-based matching along with well-crafted digital profiles to match college students to employers.   The algorithms used to match the students is similar to online dating.

So, how do you know if you have a good digital profile?

Social media ranking platforms such as Klout,Kredand Rebel Mouse offer very little insight on how to improve your ranking.   I’m not a fan of Klout because the information and ranking appears to be arbitrary.  According to Klout, I’m an influencer in roller skating and shoes.   Really?

Qnary is a new company with a platform that builds upon the social media ranking sites.  The platform analyzes all your profiles together and then provides a private profile score.  This score is similar to a credit score.   Qnary offers recommendations on how to improve your score.

I created a Qnary account to test drive the platform.  It noted several gaps in my digital profile and how these gaps can be improved.  Qnary’s best feature is that it offers one stop analyzation with recommendations on how to make your online brand image better.

campus2careers is leading the future for helping high school and college students with career development and job placement.

Our digital profiles are important and will continue to have a greater impact on our careers.  To rise above the human capital, we will need to utilize services like campus2careers and Qnary to gain an advantage in this rapidly changing economy.

For full transparency, I have a referral agreement with Qnary.

I would like to share a story with you that will explain why your digital profile matters.  It is a story about the future and where we are headed.

Special thanks to Jeff Gammons for the photo, he was working Friday morning near the Florida Coast.

Spring 2020

Payton Muse runs his robotics business from an Android tablet that is synced to his phone. From the cloud he manages his business and personal life.  He owns two homes one in Berkley, California and a vacation home in Lombok, Indonesia. Payton has not used a desk top computer in six years.

He manages a multi-million dollar company with factories in Asia and Latin American with less than 1000 employees. The majority of his employees are non-human robots; his company uses robots to build other robots for the company’s global clients.

Robotics and technology were new to Payton.  He studied finance at Duke and worked as a securities trader for a large Wall Street firm.  In January 2009, Payton and his fellow co-workers were layoff as a result of the 2008 recession. Payton moved in with his college buddy who also worked in New York City. Seth was an IT specialist for a large company in Manhattan and convinced Payton to change his career.

Payton could see how the Internet was changing everything. He continued to hang out and have drinks with several of his Wall Street friends.  Two friends were quant traders for large institutional hedge funds.  His girlfriend, Sophia, was a social media marketer for a startup company. They would spend hours talking about technology and potential business opportunities.

In 2010, Payton and Seth launched a robotics company.  Payton was the salesman and Seth developed the technology.  Sophia helped Payton and Seth with marketing and social media. She built strong online digital profiles for both as she understood the importance of digital branding and communication.

Payton’s Klout score helped secure the first round of funding and Kickstarter supplied the rest of the capital.  The company used Square for digital payments and interns searched the Internet for apps and services that increased efficiency and saved money.

In 2012, Seth left the company to launch a 3-D printing venture; Payton was one of the initial investors.  Payton and Sophia got married and moved to California.  In 2014, Sophia started working at a think tank to help companies adapt to the new economy.

By 2020, all of Payton’s business and personal needs are managed via the Internet.  His team uses the vast online cloud services to manage every aspect of the business.  He retains campus2careers to handle the company’s recruitment for talented individuals.

Campus2careers uses algorithms to successfully find the ideal employees for Payton’s company and clients around the world.   Candidates are required to have a digital profile for employment.

Payton’s son, Branson, created a digital profile for campus2careers when he was 14.  Branson takes online classes and earns credits and skill badges from different online school platforms.  Once Branson completes the required high school skills he will obtain recommendations from campus2careers to advance his education and skill set.

Many of the universities went bankrupt in 2016 and the U.S. Government took control of several large universities.  For-profit startup educational services were launched to match the growing market need of online education.

Educational services award skill badges to students in all disciplines from accounting to technology.  Employers post skill and badge requirements online for students.  This posting system serves as an initial check list for students.   Certificates and skill badges are posted to the person’s digital profile.

As 2020 comes to a close, our online digital profile has replaced the resume, business card and personal ID cards.   Bank loans, car rentals, hotel rooms and more are booked via our digital profiles.   We use thumb readers to log into Internet to work, pay bills and shop.

Back to February 2013  

For most of us, thinking about 2020 is the last topic on our mind.  We are focused on work, families, grocery shopping and the upcoming Super Bowl.   Even looking back to 2006, can feel like a blur for most of us.   Can you remember life without Twitter or Facebook?

Most of us think of social media as a marketing function or something my sister does at such and such company.   Yet, social media is a disruptive emerging digital technology that is changing how we communicate.  Some thought leaders believe that social media is rewiring our brains.

We must learn to adapt and use these new technologies to our advantage.  Every day I read an article or blog discussing the importance of maintaining your social profile.  Recruiters talk about how they spend hours on LinkedIn and Twitter looking for the ideal candidate.

Back in the Industrial Revolution, individuals built professional reputations and business networks to secure new employment or clients.   Today, social media has digitized our professional reputation for the world to see.  Now, the good, bad and ugly can be seen by everyone and we have less control over what others say and post.

With the digitization of our reputation, creating and maintaining a strong digital profile matters more now than ever before.   By building a strong self-brand we are securing our place on the long tail of the Connected Economy.

To be heard, we all must create a digital self-brand.  Our online and offline worlds have merged and everything is now transparent.   Thomas Chamorro-Premuzic talked about creating a self-brand that rises above the noise of the human capital.   I put my spin on his quote – creating a digital brand is about being a loud unique signal that is artfully crafted to rise above the digital clutter.

Be unique, be an artist.   Check out this artfully crafted digital resume.

 

Last week, Tiffany Sunday was Wintson Edmondson featured guest on CNN 1990 – Project Innovation talk show.

Winston and Tiffany discussed how to develop an idea or dream into a profitable business.  Other topics discussed included the status of the startup community in North Texas and key questions that must be answered before starting a new business.