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January 5, 2005
Jobs in the intangible economy
Today's Christian Science Monitor includes a look ahead, include a story on the future of jobs. According to Dan Pink (echoing comments by Frank Levy and others):
Jobs that depend on routines, jobs that are basically following a set of rules, jobs that you can essentially reduce to a recipe - basic accounting, basic legal research, basic computer programming - those jobs, which used to be the pathway to the middle class, are either being outsourced or automated.
He goes on to say:
An accountant who's just doing basic accounting work is toast. But you can imagine accountants morphing to become broader, financial-life planners, and understanding where their clients are coming from, understanding their true needs, not just crunching numbers, because foreigners can do [that] cheaper, and computers can do it better. [But computers] can't understand someone's dreams; they can't design a compelling experience.
This illustrates the changing nature of the economy. The ability to innovate and to “design a compelling experience” are the important intangible assets. Routine activities -- no matter how technically sophisticated or important -- will gravitate to the cheapest workforce or be automated. Key to non-routine activities is a person's tacit knowledge as well as problem solving abilities. A story in Business Week last March put it succinctly:
As valuable as education is, technical knowledge alone won't cut it, because workers in other countries read the same textbooks. For many good jobs, in fact, education isn't as useful as specialized local knowledge. Lin Stiles, a headhunter in New London, N.H. says that demand is hot for plant managers who can improve a factory's efficiency. A fancy degree isn't necessary. Says Stiles: "We frequently do not have college requirements even for a vice-president for operations."
In the end, the intangible economy is very, very different from the industrial economy's never ending quest for standardization and optimization of routine activities.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at January 5, 2005 10:36 AM
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