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At the SteveJobsSchools we are different ... we are here to ignite kids' passions, unleash their inner inventors, encourage out-the-box- thinking and creativity. We are embracing this new digital age with an innovative new school model, designed to equip our students for the 21st Century.

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Lead Learners (teachers) talk about what it is like to teach at Pike Road Schools.

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Innovation is not born from the dream, innovation is born from the struggle. -Simon Sinek

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The job market is the strongest it's been in nearly a decade, and it's poised to maintain that strength throughout 2017. That means that workers can be pickier about where to apply their talents, so when we set out to find America's Best Jobs this year, we sought professions that not only offer opportunity for advancement, but ones that are satisfying as well. Other important factors: pay (how strong it is now, and how fast it's growing) and the overall availability of jobs. We also considered how meaningful or stressful a job is, how difficult it is to get started in a given field, the likelihood of promotions, and, where possible, the ability to telecommute. More

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The job market is the strongest it's been in nearly a decade, and it's poised to maintain that strength throughout 2017. That means that workers can be pickier about where to apply their talents, so when we set out to find America's Best Jobs this year, we sought professions that not only offer opportunity for advancement, but ones that are satisfying as well.

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Last week I was speaking at an event in Istanbul. As usual, once I landed at the airport, I made my way to the customs area where I was greeted by no fewer than 1,000 people in line ahead of me.

Long lines in airport customs is not unusual. But as I waded through this 45-minute process I couldn't help but do some mental calculations surrounding the massive waste of human capital throughout this whole process. Since there were two separate customs areas at the Istanbul airport, my rough calculations came out to well over 10 million man-hours a year wasted at this one single airport.

It's not unusual for governments to waste people's time over what they like to phrase as "the greater good." However, this entire security process will eventually be automated down to a fraction of the time it takes today, eliminating the need for over 90% of all customs agents.

The same goes for TSA-like security agents on the front end of airports. Within the next decade, 90% of those jobs will be gone as well. All of them, automated out of existence.

A recent article in The Economist quotes Bill Gates as saying at least a dozen job types will be taken over by robots and automation in the next two decades, and these jobs cover both high-paying and low-skilled workers. Some of the positions he mentioned were commercial pilots, legal work, technical writing, research and literature reviews, telemarketers, accountants, retail workers, and real estate sales agents.

Indeed, as I've predicted before, by 2030 over 2 billion jobs will disappear. Again, this is not a doom and gloom prediction, rather a wake-up call for the world.

Will we run out of work for the world? Of course not. Nothing is more preposterous than to somehow proclaim the human race no longer has any work left to do. But having paid jobs to coincide with the work that needs to be done, and developing the skills necessary for future work is another matter.

Our goal needs to be focused on the catalytic innovations that create entirely new industries, and these new industries will serve as the engines of future job creation, unlike anything in all history.

I have written in the past about future industries. This time I'd like to focus on many of the future jobs within these industries that currently don't exist. For additional resources about the future of business, learn more about my services as a future of business keynote speaker. Otherwise, feel free to contact me today or check out the Futurati Podcast where we interview the top minds in the world.
Facing the Transition Ahead
Many people are scared of the future. With every science fiction movie that portrays technology as evil, and let's be honest, that's the theme of almost every science fiction movie that's ever existed, it's easy to develop some paranoia about the dangers ahead.

However, much of today's technology is giving us super-human attributes. The same technology that gets blamed for eliminating our jobs, is also giving us capabilities beyond our wildest dreams. We have instant access to friends and family, instant access to answers for almost any question we ask, and instant entertainment if ever we get bored.

We can now think-faster, know-faster, and do-faster than ever before. We no longer end up being the "last to know."

At the same time, every new technology also requires new skill sets for those working in those environments. Here are just a few of the skills that will be highly prized in the future.
14 Hot New Skills
1. Transitionists - Those who can help make a transition.

2. Expansionists - A talent for adapting along with a growing environment.

3. Maximizers - An ability to maximize processes, situations, and opportunities.

4. Optimizers - The skill and persistence to tweak variables until it produces better results.

5. Inflectionists - Finding critical inflection points in a system will become a much-prized skill.

6. Dismantlers - Every industry will eventually end, and this requires talented people who know how to scale things back in an orderly fashion.

7. Feedback Loopers - Those who can devise the best possible feedback loops.

8. Backlashers - Ever- new technology will have its detractors, and each backlash will require a response.

9. Last Milers - Technologies commonly reach a point of diminishing returns as they attempt to extend their full capacity to the end user. People with the ability to mastermind these solutions will be in hot demand.

10. Contexualists - In between the application and the big picture lays the operational context for every new technology.

11. Ethicists - There will be an ever-growing demand for people who can ask the tough question and standards to apply moral decency to some increasingly complex situations.

12. Philosophers - With companies in a constant battle over "my-brain-is-bigger-that-your-brain," it becomes the overarching philosophy that wins the day.

13. Theorists - Every new product, service, and industry begins with a theory.

14. Legacists - Those who are passionate and skilled with leaving a legacy.

Predicting future jobs is an exercise that involves looking at future industries and speculating on ways in which they will be different than the workforce today. Business management, engineering, accounting, marketing, and sales are all necessary skills for the future, but the work involved will also be different.

At the same time there will be many less-obvious positions that will need to be created. This is about those less-obvious positions.

The following is not an exhaustive list, nor do these job titles all have good explanations. Rather, this column is intended to be a thought-generator, an idea-sparker, to help you draw your own conclusions.
Personal Rapid Transit Systems (PRTs)
PRTs like Hyperloop, Skytran, Jpods, and ET3 offer a new dimension in transportation. They operate above the fray, independent of the frenetic energy of today's highways, airports, train, and bus depots. Details here.

1. Station Designers & Architects

2. Circulation Engineers

3. Traffic Flow Analyzers

4. Command Center Operators

5. Traffic Transitionists

6. Impact Minimizers

7. Demand Optimizers

8. Secondary Opportunity Developers

9. Feedback Loopers

10. Construction Teams - PRTs have the potential to become the largest infrastructure project the earth has ever seen, costing literally trillions of dollars and employing hundreds of millions of people. Details here.

Fog nets for harvesting water
Atmospheric Water Harvesters
One of today's most significant breakthroughs is happening in the area of atmospheric water harvesters, being developed by a new breed of water innovators intent on solving one of earth's most vexing problems.

11. Site Collection Lease Managers

12. System Architects

13. Water Supply Transitionists

14. Purification Monitors

15. Impact Assessors
Creating the God Globe
The "God Globe" is intended to be a master command center for planet earth, where we will, for the first time ever, begin to control nature's greatest forces. Details here.

16. Global System Architect

17. Data Integration Manager

18. Inflectionists - Those who can pinpoint the optimal intersection of time, place, and information for change to occur.

19. Fear Containment Managers

20. Privacy Theorists, Philosophers, and Ethicists
The Sharing Economy
The sharing economy is creating some amazing business models around the use of "other people's stuff."

21. Sharability Auditors - People who analyze homes and businesses for sharable assets.

22. Corporate Sharing Managers

23. Opportunity Spotters

24. Impact Assessors

25. Involvement Specialists
The Quantified Self
The " quantified self" is all about building a measurable information sphere around each of us. As we get better acquainted with the Delphic maxim "know thyself," we will become far more aware of our deficiencies and the pieces needed to shore up our shortfalls.

26. Quantified Self Assessment Auditors

27. Data Contexualists

28. Deficiency Analyzers

29. Skill Quantifiers

30. Bio-Waste Optimizers

31. Guardians of Privacy
Future Sports
Sports have become the ultimate form of storytelling. Each contest is a test of the human spirit, with good guys and bad guys pairing off, amidst great drama, as contestants test their limits overcoming adversity, to achieve an unknown outcome. And all of this is happening in real time. Details here.

32. Simulation Specialists

33. Genetic Modification Designers and Engineers

34. Body Modification Ethicists

35. Athlete Qualification Analyzers

36. Cradle to Grave Lifecycle Managers

37. Super Baby Designers

38. Super Baby Psychologists

39. Super Baby Advocates
Commercial Drone Industry
The U.S. Congress has mandated the FAA develop a plan to incorporate drones into national airspace by Sept. 30, 2015. Many in this new industry are chomping at the bit to get started.

40. Drone Classification Gurus - Different laws will apply to different classifications of drone vehicles.

41. Drone Standards Specialists

42. Drone Docking Designers and Engineers

43. Operator Certification Specialists

44. Environmental Minimizers - Sound diminution engineers, visual aesthetic reductionists, etc.

45. Drone Traffic Optimizers

46. Automation Engineers

47. Backlash Minimizers - Ever-new technology has its detractors, this perhaps more than most.

On the path to a trillion sensors
Our Trillion-Sensor Future
Industry experts are now projecting that we will reach 1 trillion sensors in the world by 2024, and 100 trillion by 2036.

48. Sensor Inventors, Designers, and Engineers

49. Data Stream Organizers

50. Failure Point Assessors

51. Data Transmission Optimizers

52. System Anthropologists

53. Data Actuaries

54. Last Milers - People who specialize in bridging the gap between where the data fields end and the user communities begin.

3D printed "mini me" action figure
3D Printing
3D printing was recently named by Goldman Sachs as one of eight technologies destined to creatively destroy how we do business. As an industry making inroads in thousands of different businesses simultaneously, former Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson is famously quoted as saying, "3D printing will be bigger than the Internet."

55. Automation Auditors - Assessing what parts, processes, and systems can be automated.

56. Material Experts

57. Design Engineers

58. Cost Estimators

59. 3Dimensionalists - Those with an innate ability to think three dimensionally.

60. 3D Printer "Ink" Developers

61. 3D Food Printer Chef

62. 3D Printed Clothing Fashion Designers, Material Specialists, and Stylists

63. Organ Agents - 3D printed organs are now being created and are in hot demand.

64. Manufacturing Process Consultants

65. Maintenance Guys

Redefining our relationship with "things"
Internet of Things
Seventy-five billion is the number of devices that Morgan Stanley has calculated will be connected to the Internet of Things by 2020. That's 9.4 devices for every one of the 8 billion people that will be on earth in only seven years. IBM even created a starter kit to help people get started.

66. Locationists - People who specialize in adding the relevance of "place" to our global online communities.

67. Lifestyle Auditors

68. Efficiency Consultants

69. Ownership Network Setup Specialists - Everything people own over a certain value can be tagged, tracked, and monitored.

70. Augmented Reality Architects - Much like the paint we put on houses and the flavorings we add to food, the future will seem boring if our reality hasn't been augmented in some way.

71. Avatar Relationship Managers - As the foibles of humanity enter the realm of autonomous, freethinking avatars, people will find it necessary to both manage and limit the often-dangerous relationships avatars get themselves into.
Big Data
Social media, blogs, web browsing, and company's security systems are all generating enormous quantities of data, and it all needs to be stored, managed, analyzed, and protected.

72. Data Interface Mavens

73. Opportunity Spotters

74. Waste Data Managers - To insure data integrity in today's fast evolving information storage industry, multiple redundancies have been built into the system. Achieving more streamline data storage in the future will require de-duplication specialists who can rid our data centers of needless copies and frivolous clutter.

75. Computer Personality Designers - Talking back and forth to a computer that has a machine-like voice is boring. But being able to download specific "personality packages" will add an entirely new level of engagement for basement-dwellers everywhere.

76. Data Hostage Specialists - Holding people as hostages is very messy. But holding data hostage is a less-risky crime that can be done remotely, and has the potential for far greater rewards.

77. Smart Contact App Developers - Smart contact lenses superimpose information on the wearer's field of view.

The bank of the future
Crypto Currencies & Alternative Financial Systems
In 2008 the entire world was beginning to panic as our global financial systems teetered ever so close to total meltdown. Major banks were either failing or near failure, and the entire house of cards seemed to be one 10-of-Clubs away from becoming a meaningless flat stack in the middle of the table. Out of this growing distrust of banks, Wall Street, and our entire monetary system, the age of crypto currencies was born.

78. Crypto Currency Bankers, Regulators, and Lawyers

79. Currency Adoption Specialists

80. Anonymity Advocates

81. Theft Recovery Specialists

82. Crypto Currency Theorists, Philosophers, and Evangelists

83. Currency Strategists

84. Monetary Exchange Interface Experts

85. Standards Developers

86. Lending Tacticians

87. Seed Capitalists - In the startup business world there is a huge gulf between initial concept and fundable prototypes. This dearth of funding options will require an entirely new profession.

88. Privacy Managers - If you think you have lost most of your privacy already, we've only scratched the surface. We are all terminally human, and as such, we do not always make good decisions. Striking the perfect privacy-transparency balance will require far more than amateur insights. It will require privacy professionals.

89. Secondary Opportunity Maximizers
Micro Grid Conversion
Over the coming years, the national electric grid will be broken into a series of micro grids. Details here.

90. Micro Grid Strategists

91. Mass Energy Storage Developers - We are still terrible at storing energy from one day to the next. Once mass energy storage systems are developed, micro grids become infinitely more viable.

92. System Transitionists

93. Power Conversion Specialists

94. Efficiency Optimizers

95. Benefits Translators

96. Secondary Opportunity Expansionists

97. Backlash Minimizers

3D Printed Houses
Contour Crafted Houses
Many people think of contour crafting as 3D printing for houses, but Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis from the University of Southern California sees it as much more. In addition to it's ability to print an entire house in less than a day, it can be used to eliminate slums, help rebuild areas after a natural disasters, and even build large buildings and luxury homes with custom architectural features that can be changed with only a few clicks of a mouse. Details here.

98. Construction Material Designers

99. Structural Engineers

100. Site Planners

101. Setup Teams

102. Tear-Down Teams

103. Cleanup Teams

Drivers need not apply!
Driverless Everything
Driverless technology will initially require a driver, but it will quickly creep into everyday use much as airbags did. First as an expensive option for luxury cars, but eventually, it will become a safety feature stipulated by the government.

Over the next 10 years we will see the first wave of autonomous vehicles hit the roads, with some of the first inroads made by vehicles that deliver packages, groceries, and fast-mail envelopes.

104. Delivery Dispatchers

105. Traffic Monitoring System Planners, Designers, and Operators

106. Automated Traffic Architects and Engineers

107. Driverless "Ride Experience" Designers

108. Driverless Operating System Engineers

109. Emergency Crews for when things go wrong.
Bio-Factories
Based on using living systems, "bio-factories" represent a new process for creating substances that are either too tricky or too expensive to grow in nature or to make with petrochemicals. The rush to develop bio-factories as a means for production not only promises to revolutionize the chemical industry but also transform the economy. Hundreds of products are already in the pipeline.

110. Nano-Medics - The medical problems most people have can be traced to a single cell or a small group of them. Health professionals capable of working on the nano-level, both in designing diagnostics systems, remedies, and monitoring solutions will be in high demand.

111. Bio-Factory Doctors, Strategists, and Developers

112. DNA Scientists

113. Gene Sequencers

114. Treatment Monitors
Micro-Colleges
The systems used to create colleges centuries ago seems justifiably primitive by today's standards. Learning formulas for nearly every degree are based on hours, one of the least important considerations when it comes to assessing talent. Colleges today cost far too much, and they take far too long. For this reason, a new wave of full-immersion skill training centers, also known as Micro Colleges or ' bootcamps ', has begun to emerge.

115. School Designers

116. Policy Advisors

117. Career Transitionists

118. Goal Counselors

119. Student Relationship Managers

120. Student Mentors, Coaches, and Counselors
Senior Living
With almost 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, the number of seniors who need specialized housing will only increase the need for more options and better solutions.

121. Legacists - Managing people's legacy

122. Lifestyle Housing Designers

123. Aging Specialists

124. Situational Therapists

125. Life-Stage Attendants

126. Memorial Designers

127. Octogenarian Service Providers - As the population continues the age we will have record numbers of people living into their 80s, 90s, and 100s. This mushrooming group of active oldsters will provide a demand for goods and services currently not being addressed in today's marketplace.
Future Agriculture
When people think of farming, they typically conjure up images of a tractor cresting a hill billowing large plumes of exhaust into the air. This image will become a distant memory as automated machines, drones, and swarmbots enter the pictures. As with all industries, there are many micro-forces driving the changes in future agriculture. But there are three dominant trend lines - precision, relevance, and control - that will be driving this industry.

128. Plant-Jackers and Tree-Jackers - Plant and tree alteration specialists, who manipulate growth patterns, create grow-to-fit wood products, color-changing leaves, personalized fruit, etc.

129. Molecular Gastronomists

130. Bio-Meat Factory Engineers

131. Supply Chain Optimizers

132. Urban Agriculturalists - Why ship food all the way around the world when it can be grown next door.

133. Bio-Hacking Inspectors and Security

134. Swarmbot and Drone Operators and Managers

135. Plant Educators - An intelligent plant will be capable of re-engineering itself to meet the demands of tomorrow's marketplace. Plant educators will not work with lesson plans or PowerPoint presentations, but the learning process will be even more effective.

136. Plant Psychologists & Plant Therapists - As we mess with the "minds" of the plants, there will invariably be any number of unplanned reactions.
The Dismantlers
Over the coming years will see a number of industries dismantled, and this will require a skilled workforce of talented people who can perform this task in the least disruptive way. It's easy to spot these industries by their aging systems, facilities, and infrastructure. In many cases they have become unnecessary and unsustainable in the future, and will be scaled back to a fraction of their current size.

137. Prison System Dismantlers - Details here.

138. Hospital and Healthcare Dismantlers - Details here.

139. Income Tax System Dismantlers - Details here.

140. Government Agency Dismantlers - Details here.

141. Education System Dismantlers - Details here.

142. College and University Dismantlers - Details here.

143. Airport Security Systems Dismantlers

144. Airport Customs Dismantlers

Living on the edge of tomorrow!
Extreme Innovation
Outside of the multiple categories listed above are a number of unusual jobs, many still decades away. Here are just a few to whet your appetite.

145. Extinction Revivalists - People who revive extinct animals.

146. Robotic Earthworm Drivers - The most valuable land on the planet will soon be the landfills because that is where we have buried our most valuable natural resources. In the future, robotic earthworms will be used to silently mine the landfills and replace whatever is extracted with high-grade soil.

147. Avatar Designers - Next generation avatars will become indistinguishable from humans on a two-dimensional screen. However, avatars will only live in the computer world for a short time longer. It is only a matter of time before they emerge from the computer and appear as visual beings, walking around among us. Once an avatar goes through the radical metamorphosis from an image that we see on a screen to a three dimensional being that joins us for dinner, carries on conversations with our friends, and serves as a stand-in for us at meetings, we will see work start on an even more realistic avatar, one that we can touch.

148. Gravity Pullers - The first wave of people to unlock the code for influencing gravity.

149. Time Hackers - If we think cyber terrorists are a pain, it will seem like nothing compared to devious jerry-riggers who start manipulating the time fabric of our lives.

150. Clone Ranchers - Raising "blank" humans will be similar in many respects to cattle ranching. But once a clone is selected, and the personality download is complete, the former clone will instantly be elevated to "human status."

151. Body Part & Limb Makers - The Organ Agents listed above will quickly find themselves in a different line of work as soon as we figure out how to efficiently grow and mass produce our own organs from scratch.

152. Global System Architects - Our systems are transitioning from national systems into global systems. Architects of these new global systems will play a crucial role in future global politics.

153. Memory Augmentation Therapists - Entertainment is all about the great memories it creates. Creating a better grade of memories can dramatically change who we are and pave the way for an entirely new class of humans.

154. Time Brokers - Time Bank Traders - Where do you go when you run out of time? Naturally, to the time-bank, and take out a time-loan.

155. Space-Based Power System Designers - At some point, the burning of earth's natural resources for power will become a thing of the past. Space-based systems will capture and transmit power far more efficiently than anything currently in existence.

156. Brain Quants - Where the stock market manipulators of the past meet the brain manipulators of the future to usurp control of marketing and messaging on Madison Avenue.

157. Nano-Weapons Specialists - Many of the weapons of the future will be too small to be seen by the human eye.

158. Lip Designers - If you could have any lips in the world, what would they look like?

159. Earthquake Forecasters - Everything we know about the inside of the earth has been developed through indirect evidence. We have no maps of the center of the earth. We have no accurate diagrams, no understanding of motion, fluidity, or changes happening with any degree of accuracy. While scientists are developing skills to work with nanoscale precision on the earth's surface, the best we can muster below the surface is blindfolded guesswork done with 100-mile precision.

160. "Heavy Air" Engineers - Compressed air is useful in a wide variety of ways. However, we have yet to figure out how to compress streams of air as they pass through our existing atmosphere. Once we do, it will create untold opportunity for non-surface based housing and transportation systems, weather control, and other kinds of experimentation.

161. Amnesia Surgeons - Doctors who are skilled in removing bad memories or destructive behavior.

162. Geoengineers - Weather Control Specialists - We are moving past the age of meteorology and climatology to one where the true power-brokers will wield the forces of nature.
Final Thoughts
In much the same way that the 1985 Apple LaserWriter gave birth to desktop publishing, the 2010 MakerBot's Thing-O-Matic 3D printer gave birth to desktop manufacturing.

Automation is no longer the domain of the elite few, and the quicker we can make the transition to all industries, the quicker everyone can participate.

The list above is just scratching the surface. When we automate jobs out of existence, that doesn't mean there is no work left to do. We are freeing up human capital, and this human capital can be put to work creating millions of new jobs in thousands of new industries.

It will, however, require a whole new level of system thinking to unleash these pent up ambitions.

Please feel free to join in the discussion and weigh in with your thoughts below. Your ideas, comments, and opinions are much appreciated.

Otherwise, you can learn more about my services as a future of business keynote speaker. Contact me me, Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey, if you have any questions or curiosities, and check out the Futurati Podcast.

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162 Future Jobs: Preparing for Jobs that Don't Yet Exist

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Last week I was speaking at an event in Istanbul. As usual, once I landed at the airport, I made my way to the customs area where I was greeted by no fewer than 1,000 people in line ahead of me. Long lines in airport customs is not unusual.

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The world of work has changed dramatically over the past decade. Companies are more global and employee groups more diverse than ever before. Organizational structures are less hierarchical and more collaborative. And today's networked offices are full of technological distractions that would have been unimaginable to the 20th-century manager.

We asked experts in cross-cultural communication, information networks, and the science of attention what specific skills executives should cultivate to tackle these new challenges. Here are their answers.Skill 1: Code Switching Between Cultures

To work well with foreign colleagues, you may have to risk feeling inauthentic and incompetent.

Marco, the Italian COO of a technology company in Mumbai, can't motivate his Indian employees. Anat, an Israeli management consultant working in the United States, struggles to give "American style" feedback. Seungwoo, the CEO of a Korean software firm with a new Shanghai office, has trouble retaining Chinese staffers. All three of these executives should be successful in their respective cross-cultural contexts. They all have what Mansour Javidan, of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, calls a "global mind-set": They are seasoned managers who appreciate diversity and have international work experience. They also have specific cultural intelligence: Marco knows that Indian workers are accustomed to leaders who are more authoritarian than those in Italy; Anat knows that most Americans prefer criticism couched in kindness over the blunt feedback she might ordinarily give; and Seungwoo knows that Chinese bosses tend to be more paternalistic than Korean ones. These three leaders are motivated to use this knowledge; in fact, their professional success depends on it.

So what's holding them back? I've spent the past 10 years studying hundreds of savvy business professionals who were thrust into unfamiliar cultures or who work with foreign colleagues, and I believe that what Marco, Anat, and Seungwoo lack is a very specific skill I call "cultural code-switching"-the ability to modify behavior in specific situations to accommodate varying cultural norms. Code-switching requires far more than the right mind-set, information, and motivation. It requires a capacity to manage the psychological challenges that arise when someone tries to translate cultural knowledge into action.

Executives often feel inauthentic when their behavior conflicts with their ingrained values and beliefs, and doubly uncomfortable when others assume that it is a true reflection of who they are. They may also feel incompetent-anxious and embarrassed about acting in a way so far outside their comfort zone. Deeper down, they may feel frustrated and angry that they had to make changes in the first place. After all, managers don't usually have to adapt their behavior to the needs of their subordinates; most often it's the other way around. Together, these feelings can prevent executives from making a successful code switch, thus imperiling their careers and their companies' success.

The good news is that it's possible to overcome this problem. The first step is to diagnose the challenges you face. In Marco's case, a deep belief in empowering subordinates was preventing him from embracing the top-down, often harsh leadership style that his Mumbai team seemed to need in order to meet deadlines. Whenever progress was so poor that he had to yell out directives, he felt guilty ("I shouldn't treat employees this way!") and ineffective ("I sound ridiculous!").

The second step is to adapt your behavior to reduce your distress. That means making small but meaningful adjustments that are both appropriate in the new setting and true to your own values. It may mean electing behavior that blends elements of both cultures. Marco was able to find a middle ground between his participative European management style and the more authoritarian kind expected in India. He could be significantly more hands-on and assertive without yelling. Anat was able to give feedback better tailored to an American audience while retaining some of her direct, demanding Israeli style.

The third step is to fully appreciate the value of code-switching. One way is to focus on how the desired outcome aligns with your personal goals and values, even if the behaviors themselves do not. Marco knew that adapting his style in India would help him become a more effective global manager, which was very important to him. Seungwoo was able to ease up on his Chinese employees when he reminded himself how important the Shanghai operation was to future growth.

Another way is to view your code-switching from the perspective of the other culture, rather than exclusively through your own lens. Once Marco came to see that his employees actually valued his new management style, it became far easier to practice. Similarly, when Anat learned to appreciate the reasons for giving American-style feedback-her colleagues were hurt and demotivated by criticism delivered without praise-she could more easily change her approach.

Being culturally fluent means being able to enter a new context, master the norms, and feel comfortable doing so. In situations where executives perceive a serious threat to their competence and identity, they often show a strong psychological resistance to appropriate behavior. Learning to be effective at cultural code-switching is the key to becoming a truly global leader.

Andrew L. Molinsky is an associate professor of organizational behavior at Brandeis University's International Business School, with a joint appointment in the department of psychology.

Skill 2: Wielding Digital Influence

As companies become less hierarchical, the effective use of online networks will be crucial to success.

Dharmesh Shah, the founder and chief technology officer of HubSpot, a web marketing company, has an impressive online network: He runs a 216,000-member LinkedIn group for entrepreneurs, hosts a Q&A community for start-ups on Stack Overflow, and has more than 98,000 Twitter followers. But even more enviable than the size of Shah's network is how he uses it. During a recent hiring push at HubSpot, he tweeted about the company's need for talented engineers and quickly received referrals for hundreds of candidates, several of whom he hired. On another occasion, while wrestling with an error-prone program for a new product, he asked his online followers for help. Within hours he received many suggestions, and one person provided instructions for debugging the program.

Most managers today understand how to use online tools to build and expand their networks. It's easy to reach out to industry contacts and colleagues through LinkedIn and Facebook, to follow and be followed on Twitter, and to actively participate in corporate social media initiatives. Less well understood is how managers can use these networks to gather information and wield influence in an increasingly interconnected, collaborative, and less-hierarchical workplace. Shah provides a perfect case study, offering lessons that will help even executives outside the technology industry.

To build an effective online network, you need to focus, as Shah does, on three things: reputation, specialization, and network position. As in the real world, reputation is currency-it's how you get people you've never met to seek you out, give you information, and collaborate with you. In the virtual world you build your reputation by offering interesting content, drawing attention to your web presence, and motivating others to circulate and act on your ideas. Reputation can be assessed using services such as Klout, Identified, PeerIndex, and Empire Avenue, which score you on the basis of how many people you influence, how much influence you wield, and how influential your contacts are. Shah has a Klout score of 80 (on a scale of 1 to 100).

He and other successful online operatives enhance their reputations and expand their networks by focusing on key areas of expertise. Shah's are technology and entrepreneurship-topics that are central to each of his web ventures. Yours might be sales or HR or nonprofit management. Take Barry MacQuarrie, an accountant who set up a community on LinkedIn with the goal of understanding how social media could be used in his profession. It now has 1,800 users, who advise MacQuarrie on that subject. And prospective clients have found him and his firm through the group. Specialization involves demonstrating deep knowledge, establishing links with other experts both inside and outside your organization, committing to learn from them, and being willing to offer relevant information and referrals to others. Google+ and similar tools allow users to create "circles" or communities with shared interests; LinkedIn is fragmenting into specialist groups as well.

Although focus is important, the best online networkers also position themselves as bridges between otherwise unconnected groups. This can increase your influence, because it gives you a chance to identify potential collaborations or conflicts and to accumulate superior information. Shah, who graduated from the MIT Sloan Fellows Program, has access to MIT's student and alumni networks as well as his start-up network. He can act as a broker between student ventures and VCs or between start-ups and talent, and can even find his own angel investment opportunities. LinkedIn Maps and TouchGraph enable users to visually examine their networks for connections, clusters, density, and redundancy.

Good networkers use their contacts as a source of quick feedback on-and even solutions to-work challenges of all sorts. We know a manager at an IT company who took advantage of internal social-networking technology to crowdsource reviews of a contractor he was considering. He discovered that the man had done sloppy work on a few recent projects and so chose not to hire him. If your network is strong, you are connected to well-placed colleagues, suppliers, customers, and fellow executives in your field-a host of experts who can help you at a moment's notice.

Shah's debugging challenge is one example. Consider also Michelle Lavoie, an enterprise community manager at the IT services company EMC, who used her internal blog to tackle an even bigger problem: how to cut costs during the 2008 financial crisis. "Constructive Ideas to Save Money," her 430th post to the network, requested a moratorium on complaints about a controversial change in the vacation policy, offered five positive suggestions, and encouraged colleagues to contribute their own. A year and a half later the post had gotten more than 26,000 views and had generated 364 responses with cost-saving ideas, many of which were implemented. Lavoie gained visibility at every level of the company and ensured that getting EMC through the crisis was an all-hands initiative rather than a top-down edict.

You can also use your network to test proposals and strategies, inside and outside your organization. Float an idea and see how many "likes" it gets. Or direct certain groups of people to an online survey. The feedback might help you persuade a reluctant boss or client to come around to your point of view. These methods of exploiting strong virtual networks are only the beginning. Newer techniques, such as engaging your online contacts in work "games" so that they happily take action in your or your company's behalf, are now coming to the fore.

Soon, we expect, organizations will begin to seek out employees with demonstrably strong online connections and a track record of wielding influence through them. The best networkers will become even more highly valued.

Thomas H. Davenport is the President's Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College and a senior adviser to Deloitte Analytics. Bala Iyer is an associate professor of information technology management at Babson.

Skill 3: Dividing Attention Deliberately

Instead of battling distraction, embrace your brain's proclivity for it.

Seven IBM employees, each in a different location, are on a conference call. As two of them talk over the telephone line, two others chat about the conversation via text messages; another accesses a spreadsheet, trying to answer a question posed earlier in the call; still another Googles a potential competitor; and the last taps out an e-mail to a colleague who is not on the call. Are these employees distracted by 21st-century technology? Or has 21st-century technology empowered them to pay attention in a new, perhaps more natural, creative, and productive way?

We all know the story of contemporary distractions. In the past decade the world has gone from a total of 12 billion e-mails a day to 247 billion, from 400,000 text messages to 4.5 billion, from an individual average of 2.7 hours a week online to 18 hours. We may still sit in offices or cubicles designed to shut out the external world, but the center of our work life is a computer that keeps us connected to that world-to colleagues, customers, clients, family, community, entertainment, and hobbies; to everything we know we should be doing and everything we know we shouldn't.

Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, has shown that modern workers switch tasks an average of once every three minutes. Once their focus on a given task has been interrupted, it takes an average of 25 minutes to return to it. Some say we should try to eliminate those distractions. But I think today's managers are capable of coping with and sometimes even thriving on them.

Mark's research also shows that 44% of the switches cited above are caused by "internal" rather than "external" sources of distraction-meaning that our minds simply wander. We can't blame technology for our failure to focus, because our brains are built to multitask. Close your eyes for five minutes and notice how your thoughts stray, jump, zigzag, and double back. Success in 20th-century factories and offices may have required paying strict attention to systematic tasks and taking those tasks to completion, but that is not a natural way for humans to operate. Perhaps our 21st-century connectedness gives us the freedom to acknowledge this.

Why should we make undivided attention an ideal and cling to it in an environment where it is so hard for us? Why not "unlearn" that skill, as the futurist Alvin Toffler puts it, in order to let our brains work the way they do naturally? In my research on attention, I've come across many tools that help managers eliminate distraction. A productivity application called Freedom lets you block the internet for a specified period, and Concentrate is a service that makes available only those programs you need for a specific task. The former Apple executive Linda Stone, who coined the term "continuous partial attention" to describe our habit of constantly scanning the horizon and never fully focusing on a given task, suggests simply turning technology off.

Such controls on information streams do help some people in some situations feel more focused and productive. But it's not clear that their feelings reflect reality. A study of 300 workers conducted at the University of Melbourne shows that although people who use the internet at work for personal reasons assume it makes them less productive, it actually increases their productivity by 9%. That isn't true for internet "addicts" who use social media to excess. But for those whose minds simply wander between work and play, a break to surf the web can provide a cognitive refresher that improves their performance when they return to the task at hand. This even has its own acronym: WILB, for "workplace internet leisure browsing." Maybe managers will learn to embrace it as a positive distraction that relieves stress and boosts creativity.

Another productivity-enhancing strategy is to deliberately divide attention and harness it, just as those IBM employees did on their conference call. Charles Hamilton, an e-learning strategy leader at IBM, explains that his managers are more engaged in their virtual meetings because of the simultaneous text messaging (which they call "back chatting") that has become standard practice; in fact, when the feature isn't turned on, they start to worry that someone isn't being heard. By encouraging these multiple conversations, managers marshal wandering minds. They also promote more-equitable participation in group calls-people can respond without interrupting-and ensure that the entire conversation flows in an interactive and productive way. Attention is "distributed" more evenly and fluidly, rather than being dominated by one or two loquacious participants who leave everyone else disengaged and distracted.

At the individual level, a good example is the software developer Aza Raskin, formerly of Mozilla and now the CEO of the start-up Massive Health. Raskin knows he can't spend all day, every day focused on only the most important tasks. But he sets limits on his divided attention by using two computers at his workstation and another down the hall. The work he must accomplish is loaded onto the first, most prominent device, with no internet connection. Off to the side is a machine that offers access to e-mail and the web. The third, a short walk away, is linked to Twitter and his blog, with a flashing reminder of the "real" work he needs to do back at his desk. His strategy is to make procrastination difficult but not impossible, because complete focus is beyond his reach-and not necessarily even desirable in today's workplace. Raskin's three computers help him program interruption and mind-wandering into his day.

Not everyone has the same style or requirements for attention, so a good 21st-century manager needs to figure out how to let multimedia work to everyone's advantage. Gazing aimlessly out the window is as important to creativity as logging on to Facebook to view the latest photo of your young nephew and then returning to work in a better, lighter, more productive mood. Research shows that accident, disruption, distraction, and difference increase our motivation to learn and to solve problems, both individually and collectively. The key is to embrace and even create positive interruptions.

In the future, continuous partial attention will perhaps be seen not as a problem but as a critical new skill. And maybe we won't call it multitasking-we'll call it multi-inspiring.

Cathy Davidson is the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University. Her latest book is Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn (Viking, 2011).

A version of this article appeared in the January-February 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Three Skills Every 21st-Century Manager Needs

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The world of work has changed dramatically over the past decade. Companies are more global and employee groups more diverse than ever before. Organizational structures are less hierarchical and more collaborative. And today's networked offices are full of technological distractions that would have been unimaginable to the 20th-century manager.

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Are you able to work effectively in a team? That's the skill employers most want when they are recruiting new college grads. The next most important skill: ability to make decisions and solve problems.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) a Bethlehem, Pa. non-profit group that links college career placement offices with employers, ran a survey from early August to mid-September where it asked hiring managers what skills they prioritize when they hire college grads. Though the survey sample is small-NACE collected responses from just 200 employers-the wisdom is sound. New and recent grads should pay attention.

Despite all the emphasis in the news about the need for computer software and programming skills, the most important qualities employers seek are basic teamwork, problem-solving and the ability to plan and prioritize.

Here are the 10 skills employers say they seek, in order of importance:

1. Ability to work in a team

2. Ability to make decisions and solve problems

3. Ability to plan, organize and prioritize work

4. Ability to communicate verbally with people inside and outside an organization

5. Ability to obtain and process information

6. Ability to analyze quantitative data

7. Technical knowledge related to the job

8. Proficiency with computer software programs

9. Ability to create and/or edit written reports

10. Ability to sell and influence others

The good news for grads: No matter what you have studied in school, whether anthropology or French or computer science, you will have had to learn the top five skills on the list. The trick is to demonstrate that you have those skills through your cover letter, résumé and interview. Think about class projects where you have been a team member or leader and jobs where you have had to plan and prioritize. Describe those skills specifically in your résumé and cover letter.

For instance if you staffed a campus snack bar, say you worked on a team of five people and handled food orders. Or if you worked in the library, include the size of the staff and that you handled requests from 50 students a day at the circulation desk. Even a job as a counselor in a summer camp can involve team work, decision-making and planning. Make sure you spell out those responsibilities briefly but specifically. Say you worked on a staff of 20 counselors, supervised the daily activities of 35 campers and organized group activities.

The survey makes clear that employers want universal skills you can learn across academic disciplines and in any job where you are working with others. The trick is to communicate clearly that you have those skills.

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The 10 Skills Employers Most Want In 20-Something Employees

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Are you able to work effectively in a team? That's the skill employers most want when they are recruiting new college grads. The next most important skill: ability to make decisions and solve problems. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) a Bethlehem, Pa. non-profit group that links college career [...]

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Our 100 Best Companies to Work For 2018 list, in partnership with Great Place to Work, features Salesforce, T-Mobile, Dropbox, and more.

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We will not have work-life balance until we feel safe in the place that we live and feel safe in the place that we work. -Simon Sinek

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BrightSide - Inspiration. Creativity. Wonder.

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Our site is dedicated to creativity. We made BrightSide to help nurture the seeds of creativity found in all of us. We believe imagination should be at the heart of everything people do. BrightSide is the place to find the most inspiring manifestations of this from around the world.

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https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/modernlearners/Modern+Learners+10+Principles+for+Schools+of+Modern+Learning+whitepaper.pdf

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What's the difference between a 19th century model of education and modern day learning?

In the 19th century, workers were all about efficiency and a one-size-fits-all model of work.

Sadly, many classrooms still resemble this kind of factory-style learning.

Learning today looks very different - it involves 21st century skills like creativity and systems thinking.

View our learning theory summaries on constructivist learning and our guides on various learning tools.

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In the 19th century, workers were all about efficiency and a one-size-fits-all model of work. Sadly, many classrooms still resemble this kind of factory-style learning. Learning today looks very different - it involves 21st century skills like creativity and systems thinking. View our learning theory summaries on constructivist learning and our guides on various learning tools.

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Sir Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms

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In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools' dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.