A colleague of mine sent me a link to a really great web site called “The Cool Hunter.” Here is how they describe themselves:

The Cool Hunter is an Internet-based hub for the best and coolest of everything. Created and engineered for today’s demanding and discerning pop-culture audience – highly invested in stylistic and cultural trends.

Click here to view the amazing offices spaces from Cool Hunter.

They posted an article along with some great pictures of workspaces from different companies around the world. These companies have taken painstaking efforts to understand what type of work environment will allow their employees to operate at the most innovative and creative level. They have also thought through, or maybe I should say thought past, the assembly line mentality that most corporations still exisit in, from an office space perspective.

Think about it - when we went to school how were the desks aligned? They were perfectly formatted in straight lines and everyone even sat in alphabetical order. We were taught not to step out of line, not to stand out from the crowd. The best students were those who blended in, earned high grades, and high SAT scores. The students who were looked down upon were those who didn’t fit the mold of public education. Anyone who stuck their head up was considered a trouble maker and would not be tolerated. Why does it surprise us that the majority of office environments are nicely aligned rows and cubes? We have been sitting in them since we were old enough to attend school. The only exception would probably be kindergarten, but after that the condition began.

Therefore, when you view a web site like the one I linked to above it is almost baffling to consider working in an environment like that. It doesn’t fit the mold. It doesn’t compute with most of the current workforce.

I have a couple of questions

1. Have you ever worked at a company that had an office environment like the ones featured over at Cool Hunter?

2. Did it really make you more creative? Were you able to be more innovative?

3. What would happen to a company from a staff perspective if they began to impliment very different office environments like Coll Hunter is touting? Would people leave? Would it attract a new type of employee that your company was never able to attract in the past?
4. Can I keep my over-stuffed, high back office chair if I am working at a desk made out of a mini-van?

5. Most importantly will I still have a work enviornment where I can plug in my iPod if it runs out of juice during the work day? As long as that is possible I guess I can live with the mini-van in my office.

6. Since we are all reading about the up and coming labor shortage, will an office environment that promotes an innovative and creative culture attract a younger workforce? Will it attract the millennials that Ryan Healy advocates for over at Employee Evolution? (By the way, I am one of the people he is talking about.)

7. Is the return on investment going to be there if a company spends a boat-load of money on an office environment? How practical is this type of decision for a small company who is bootstrapping their way through life?

8. What type of company is optiimal to consider these radical office changes?

9. How will you measure your workforces improvement by offering such an environment such as this?

I am asking these questions because I don’t have all the answers. Feel free to offer your two sense by commenting on this post. Overall I love the idea of drastically shaking up the office space of companies around America. We live in a knowledge economy and should act like it. We no longer work on very many assembly lines in this country. We deisgn them but we don’t actualy work on them. since that is the reality our office environments should reflect our new way of working. A couple of recomendations for CEOs and interier designers:

1. Office environments don’t need to be uniform

2. They need to foster collaboration, team work, innovation, creativity

3. Fitting the mold in life is no longer cool

4. Being different is in an no longer considered wrong

How much longer can we really stand sitting in these boring cubes?

I recieve Gloria Herman’s email once per week about current events, trends, employment, culture etc…  I have also heard her and her late husband speak on two different occasions.  I do not agree with everything she writes or says about the present or the future but I do like the article she sent out today via her email subscribers.  I felt it was worth publishing here on my blog.  Enjoy!
Also, please become a subscriber yourself to her enewsletter, it is well worth it.
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Herman Trend Alert: Higher Education and Employment 2017  May 9, 2007

The following material is an excerpt from a 1200-word essay provided to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). We were asked to provide a scenario for higher education and graduates’ employment prospects for ten years from now. The full essay will be posted on the NACE web site after their annual conference in early June. Enjoy!

The year is 2017. Virtual worlds engage students early. Employers have established major installations in Second Life and other virtual worlds where the students can work for the employer any hour of the day or night at the organization’s office or hospital. The students love the reality of the game and the employers enjoy being able to “teach” the students their cultures—effortlessly.

Mentors play a substantial role in growth. Now, beginning in ninth grade, students are paired with full-time employees. When, after college graduation, a mentee chooses to come to work for the employer, the mentor receives a substantial financial gift; most employers are paying $5000 to $10,000, because the companies discovered long ago that these mentored young people have a better track record with their firms.

Colleges and universities have found efficiency in numbers. Ten years ago in 2007, we saw the beginning of this trend on the part of colleges and universities to work together to capitalize on advancing technologies and eliminate duplication of efforts. At this point in time, they have created consortia in a wide variety of areas, from forming buying groups to holding career fairs, and even working together on common projects like building national databases of internships and other career resources.

Alumni play a greater role. College alumni working for large organizations converge on campus to recruit the best and the brightest beginning with their freshmen years. The goal is to attract this top talent to work for their employers. Recruiting alumni will use personal music programming and pod casts, as well as other media (not yet invented in 2007) to win over the hearts and minds of tomorrow’s students.

College-employer partnerships thrive. Employers sponsor summer programs for high school students and pay for college in an effort to win over top talent. Students identified early, sometimes feel like they are riding magic carpets that allow them to explore their field(s) of interest, while receiving valuable guidance and financial support. It’s not happening yet, but some employers are even discussing working with fifth grade teachers to identify the most promising students and gain a competitive edge.

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Herman Trend Alerts are written by Joyce Gioia-Herman, a strategic
business futurist, Certified Management Consultants, authors, and
professional speakers. Archived editions are posted at http://www.hermangroup.com/archive.html

I am in Santa Fe, New Mexico this week for a summit on the state of Science and Technology in the United States.  I will have more information to come on this topic but here are some statistics to wet your whistle.

• Only 5% of Hispanic students and 2% of African-American students scored at the proficient level in science, according to the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress.
• US 12th graders ranked 16th in an international science test given to students in 21 countries in 1998.  Just 40 percent of students grasped basic concepts such as the relationship between pressure and volume.
• 68% of parents and 64% of elementary school teachers do not consider themselves to be scientifically literate.
• Currently, almost half of employers report having trouble finding qualified US workers in a wide range of occupations, from engineers to entry-level workers.
• Over two-thirds of employers report that high school graduates are “deficient” in almost all essential workplace skills.
• Business executives ranked education and workforce preparedness as their top concern, ahead of healthcare, energy, global competitiveness, and national security.

I had a very interesting conversation at lunch today with a friend of mine who I now work with and went to college with that sparked an idea that I would like to share.

We had a very intriguing dialogue about how colleges do not prepare students for the real world. My friend went to college for a technical degree in information technology management. He said with his own mouth that he doesn’t remember anything from college nor does he use any of the skills he learned in college. Frankly, I don’t remember much from my classes either.

Do you feel the same way? Are you using the skills you learned in college? Do you remember what you learned? Is it applicable in your day-to-day work?

His feeling about college was they were training him to be a CIO rather than an entry-level employee. Let’s face it; new college graduates are at best entry-level employees. This statement is especially true if students do not have any experience under their belt before they graduate. One of the chapters in my book, The 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Graduated, is titled, Real Life Work Experience Matters More than Textbooks. The basis of the chapter is to illustrate the point to students on how important it is to gain real life work experience before they graduate. At the end of the day academics are not as important as experience when looking for a job. In the technology industry, especially in smaller companies, they expect students to be able to hit the ground running with little training. So, how else are they going to be able to do this outside of have some type of experiential learning?

I think we give far too much credit to young people to know how to do the following:

• Look for a job
• Create a resume
• Write a cover letter
• Articulate what they want to do for a living
• Understand how business works; (since all they have done for the first 20 or so years of their life is sit in a classroom and study)

How can these new graduates, dare I say kids, know how to do any of this by the time they are 20 if all of their attention has been on tests, test taking, homework, and memorization?

Here is my proposal for change within four-year traditional colleges. Adopt the following experiential learning program for their college to ensure their students are workforce ready when they graduate.

Year One: Two semesters of academics
Year Two: Academics in the fall; Co-Op for the entire Spring Semester
Year Three: Academics in the fall: Co-Op for the entire Spring semester
Year Four: Co-op / Academics for the entire year

The schools should structure a co-op program so that all of their students not only get the academics they need to be successful but more importantly the experience that will allow them to apply their academics in the real world before they graduate.

The school should have a team of people who structures agreements with companies in the area who will hire X number of their students every semester so that they have a rolling group of students in their company from that school. That way the students will know and the company will know exactly what will happen and when. This will allow the company to always have projects available for the students to work on and it will allow the school to place their students in willing companies.

Nearly every student I speak to tells me the same thing.

1. They have no idea what they want to do with their career or the degree they just paid thousands of dollars for.
2. They are not sure how to leave the classroom and enter the boardroom. To them it is one big mystery. In fact many of them are plain scared.

In my opinion there are only two ways to combat this confusion
1. Old-fashioned mentoring by industry professionals or
2. Hands-on work for the students before they leave college

If anyone else has any other ideas I would love to hear them. Please email me at justindri@gmail.com

Welcome to the year of Career 2.0!

2006 may have been the year of Web 2.0, but I am confident that 2007 is poised to be the year of Career 2.0. Allow me to elaborate. Starting in 2007 we will see a greater acceptance and adoption of Web 2.0 tools in the human resources world and a great use of these tools by job seekers to communicate their worth to HR professionals. Thereby, creating a Career 2.0 hiring world.

1. Pop Culture Acceptance - I am confident that the Web 2.0 world is going to gain in popularity by the general public in 2007. It is already, and has been, very popular in the tech world and with the early adopters but I feel 2007 is set to be the year of web 2.0. Blogs, vodcasts, podcasts, wiki’s, widgets, social networking, blog communities, RSS, XML, and the like will become more and more common place in our culture.

2. Career 2.0 – What does this mean for career development and workforce education? Since these Web 2.0 tools will be more widely known they will begin to make their way into the hiring practices of HR professionals and the job searching methods of job seekers. We will begin to see more and more HR professionals using thinks like widgets, smaller targeted job boards like Job Thread, blogs, social networking sites, podcasts, wiki’s, Google adwords, text advertising on blogs, and even vodcasts. Likewise, more and more job seekers will begin to use these tools to advance their hiring chances. We already have some great examples in this arena according to a new web site, Blog For Jobs.com. By in large, these examples are few and far between, but throughout 2007 that will all change.

3. Human Resource Need – Many of these tools will take effect because of the upcoming labor shortage. If you read other workforce futurists’ opinions about the future labor force you will find a trend. Most of them are of the belief that there is a fast approaching labor shortage in America. In fact, many of them believe this labor shortage will make the labor shortage in the 90s pale in comparison. Therefore, since there is going to be the beginnings of a great labor shortage companies will need to be innovative in their hiring methods, specifically their sourcing methods. Web 2.0 is in a perfect position to take advantage of the upcoming labor shortage because it can offer solutions to HR managers as a way to help them find qualified candidates faster. There is never a shortage of people in a labor shortage, but a shortage of qualified people.

4. Job Seekers Need – Not only will this labor shortage force HR professionals to be innovative it their hiring practices but it will also force job seekers to be even more innovative in their job searching methods. In the past tools such as online job boards, the newspaper, and company web sites were to major sources of job leads for seekers. That is of course not to mention the large majority of people who found their jobs via referrals. However, even when a candidate is referred to a company via professional networking they still need to show that company how valuable they are and how qualified they are for that position before they would land the job. In the past this has been done strictly via a cover letter and resume. Starting in 2007 I believe we will begin to see more and more movements toward things like video resumes, a greater reliance on job seeker blogs and /or sites that display a persons worth to a company. Since the labor shortage will be great in some industries those people who work in those industries will need to have tools in place to be able to communicate their value to the HR professionals who are looking for qualified talent. Web 2.0 tools will be that delivery method.

These are just a few ideas on how 2007 is poised to be the year of Career 2.0. I will begin to add more and more ways Web 2.0 is going to be Career 2.0 in 2007 over the next couple of weeks.

I felt this was worth posting on my blog. I have been reading the Herman Trend Alert for some time and have posted one other article from them on my blog before so I hope you don’t mind me posting their most recent article. I encourage you to subscribe to their newsletter by jumping over to their site, Herman Group

Justin

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We at the The Herman Group wish you and your personal-, as well as workplace-family a very happy new year. We look forward to continuing to serve you in the months and years to come.

Herman Trend Alert: 2007 Workforce/Workplace Forecast December 27, 2006

Each year at this time, The Herman Group issues its annual forecast. Typically, we have offered an abbreviated version. This year, we offer you our full forecast for the coming year:

1. Job Hopping to Accelerate
Fueled by increasing job creation and the fact that more than half of the United States areas have flipped to being sellers’ markets, dissatisfied workers worldwide with a wider variety of choices will choose to leave their employers in greater numbers. Particularly, younger workers will feel less attached to their employers and have the confidence to jump to another job.

2. Employers Looking for Better Efficiencies
Employers large and small will continue to look for ways to economize and drive more profit to the bottom line. We are already seeing an increasing lack of tolerance for workers who have been resting on their laurels (and/or relationships) for years. Finally, there is a growing awareness of the high cost of employee turnover, and employers worldwide will seek innovative approaches to retention.

3. Older Workers More Highly Valued
Following the lead of a few model employers, public and private sector employers desiring to retain the intellectual capital in their older workers will offer more flexible work arrangements to these workers. This flexibility will include phased retirement, part-time work, and seasonal work (at a significant premium in salary), all with a benefits package that makes it worthwhile to keep working.

4. Employers Will Embrace New Technologies to Do More with Less
Employers are increasingly applying new technologies to increase profits. Examples of this trend include the adoptions of self-check-out in supermarkets and self-check-in at hotels and airports. The development and implementation of these new technologies will require more highly skilled people.

5. Business Communities Will Address their Dissatisfaction with Schools
Employers, dissatisfied with the preparation of recent graduates, will be motivated to take action. An increasing number of community initiatives will address these issues. The effectiveness of these initiatives will depend on the community support of students, parents, and the local school system. Expect to see more mentoring and outreach to youth.

6. Continuing Increases in Training and Development
Employees at all levels will be expected to participate in more training. More employers will require this investment in self-development for the mutual benefit of both parties. Part of the rationale for this increasing investment is employers’ inability to find candidates with the right experience, so they will have to “grow their own.”

7. Offshoring and Reverse-offshoring Will Continue to Increase
Not heeding the experience of other employers or the Gartner Study, some employers chasing the dream of increasing profitability will continue to try offshoring. In the meantime, companies in India and elsewhere will engage in reverse-offshoring, hiring and training U.S. graduates in other countries at foreign local scale.

8. Using Technology and Business Intelligence, Recruiting will Morph
Using more sophisticated technology like virtual video interviews and advanced pre-employment assessments, the Internet will facilitate advances in the technology for recruiting we could only dream about in the past. Through video interviews (see the Herman Trend Alert of January 3, 2007), employers will save hours of interviewing time and enjoy a higher level of EEO compliance. In addition, wise employers will engage leading edge firms to provide business intelligence that will help them make better hiring and salary decisions.
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Herman Trend Alerts are written by Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia, strategic
business futurists, Certified Management Consultants, authors, and
professional speakers. Archived editions are posted at http://www.hermangroup.com/archive.html

Yesterday I was given a large spiral document entitled: Building a Foundation for Tomorrow – Skills Standards for Information Technology; a very long title for a very big book.

The point I want to make in this post is that there is nothing new under the sun.  Solomon really did know what he was talking about in Ecclesiastes.

This report was written in 1997 by the NorthWest Center for Emerging Technologies, Regional Advanced Technology Education Consortium, and Bellevue Community College to determine the skills sets needed for information technology professionals.  The data was collected from over 200 industry professionals. This report was written for one industry but the skills they determined useful for this industry are nearly the same skills other reports deem important for every industry.

The skills they deem as important, back in 1997, for information technology professionals were:

Foundation Skills

Basic skills (reading, writing, arithmetic, etc.)

Thinking Skills

Personal Qualities

Workplace Competencies

Effective workers can productively use:

Resources

Interpersonal Skills

Information

Systems

Technology

Would you agree that these skills are very important in 2006?  We may have different names for these skills today but you get the idea.

This report was issued nearly 10 years ago but the information still holds true.  Even though we have experienced great change in our world since 1997 people are still the same.  We still need people to work in our companies who have strong foundational skills in order to succeed.  You cannot be successful without a good foundation.  The technical skills, the workplace skills can be learned but it is hard to teach someone strong foundational skills.

The old saying still holds true: the more things change, the more they stay the same