Tag: digital economy

Are most of us working on things that no one really needs?

Posted on by philipdodson

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I am sat here reading one of my favourite blogs, by James Altucher, after my mate Seth, who’s blog I read daily without fail, he’s another one who talks my language and makes a lot of sense.

This particular blog was ’10 ways I deal with my own procrastination’ and one of the tips was that if you were struggling to get something started, then just go off and do something else on the list, an easy thing to get you started on the ‘doing’ action again.

So at this point, I broke off and I looked around my coworking space and everyone is sat in front of their Mac, Chromebook, Dell or on their smartphone. I thought ‘What are we all doing?’ – so his tip worked, as I am now writing my own daily blog!! Although I had not been procrastinating on this as such, I never do, as I love doing my daily blog. But my mind was elsewhere today, so I was struggling to get started on stuff, now doing this has got the mind off other distractions and now I am into my flow.

Anyway, back to the point.

We are all mainly creating ‘content’ for others to consume, or creating code for the platforms to place that content on.

There are so many businesses, especially start-ups (aka new businesses), that are building these seemingly wonderful new apps, platforms, content machines and social networks to deliver all this content. Yet what value do they add? Is there a point where we are all just creating content for the sake of it, in this never ending cycle of broadcasting.

Surely it is all just the ’emperor’s new clothes’.

Increasingly in this digital world that we live in, more and more of us are constructing articles, videos, tweets, podcasts and so on for others to view, read or listen too.

This, in turn, inspires them to repurpose this information, add their own take and then send it back out into the ether for others to consume, perhaps even for some of the people who created that very content in the first place.

So is this what life has come to?

Before, people made chairs, tools, cars, clothes, or other physical things that we needed for our day to day lives. Now these can all or will be made by machines with little or no human interaction needed.

This means that an ever increasing number of us will be engaged in daily activity that creates output that is not needed for our day-to-day lives. It may be necessary to get us to consume more of the stuff that we really don’t need, but what value does it add?

Just how many blogs, articles, podcasts, videos, tweets, updates and content can we consume and how much can it really enhance our lives?

The answer is we can only consume so much and more importantly, we will only consume the very best content.

This means that the best content writers will rise to the top, the ones who create something remarkable, noteworthy, different and certainly risky, will succeed, and those who play it safe will fail. I wrote about this recently in ‘The 3 R’s of marketing’.

Sure we need those physical things that are essential to life and it really doesn’t matter whether humans or machines make them, with exception that the human touch will always make something spectacular that the mass production can not. There will and is already niche producers of the physical that are and will flourish.

The same with production of digital things is already and will continue to happen. Mass content is dull and lacking in engagement and imagination, well crafted smart content leads to interaction.

The important thing though about life and what really matters, what makes life the wonderful gift is not what we need, it is what we want, what we desire, what we love.

Sure I need a bed to sleep on, but what I want is a great blog to read, a wonderful piece of art to hang on the wall and admire, a beautiful song to fill my ears, an amazing film to watch, an app that enables me to be more productive and spend more time with the people who matter, an informative newsletter that connects me to things that enable me to have a fuller life.

In a digital world, we can connect to ideas and people all over the world that we would have previously never known or been able to connect with. Used in the right way it enriches our lives.

So let the machines build the mass, and let the humans create the wonderful physical and virtual things that make life a joy.

The best content or app creators will help to enrich our lives and will develop new and exciting things that we have not yet imagined possible.

The key as in everything in life, is to strive to create our very best and then to share it with others. It is all about making connections that we want not about making physical things we need.

Don’t create virtual content or physical things for that matter, that people need, create what they want. If not, then people will not read your blog, listen to your podcast or subscribe to you.

Anyway back to my blog on ways of avoiding procrastination.

Education – it’s a 21st Century fail

Posted on by philipdodson

Education – It’s a 21st Century fail

old school

20% of the jobs today didn’t exist 5 years ago, self-employment is on a global hockey stick growth curve, we’re living through the biggest revolution since the industrial one – a digital revolution.

We’ve moved from an industrial age into a digital ideas economy, there is a rising collaborative sharing economy and there is the ever growing and more powerful connected generation. We have an increasing number of social enterprises and people are looking at life very differently.

People are turning their backs on the old world capitalist model, turning their backs on consumption, turning away from the world order of yesterday.

However, how are we preparing the next generations for this new world, how are we equipping the children of today to face this new age?

By largely serving them up the same old out-dated stuff that has been served up for decades. Education in the developed world is largely failing to prepare our young for the world they will be facing.

Giant state run education factories, preparing children to jump through meaningless government imposed hoops, in a typical party political lead box ticking exercise. That will all be undone and changed in a few years time when the other lot take over the reigns of power.

Then you have private independent schools perpetuating the privileged class as they desperately cling on to a Victoriana Imperial world of times gone by.

The net result is the connected generation of today’s youth are bored, disenfranchised and are being sold woefully short of a proper preparation for their lives ahead. In fact not just the millenials, but I would say anyone who has been educated from 1970 onwards.

We need to move towards smaller community based local schools, we need to start properly bringing the digital revolution in to education.

Prepare them for being self-employed, after all 50% of the working population within 10 years will be. Prepare them to embraace social media and the internet, not try to scare them away from it. They are all using it anyway.

Bring coding in to education, teach them how to set up a company, run one, show them about opening a bank account, pensions, real life things.

Stop filling their heads with a chronological historical route march through time, stop teaching things they can look up on the internet.

Allow them to be truly creative, don’t teach them all the same, work out what they are good at and love doing and then help them to succeed in that.

This is not some utopian fluffy pipe dream – just need to stop party politics and open our minds that doing the same old, same old, will get the same poor results. Use imagination and harness children’s lack of fear and imaginations to create truly amazing things.

Bring in meditation, yoga, wellbeing and other proven things. Bring in partnerships with local businesses and other elements of the community.

Teach them all first aid for example, not by a teacher in a stuffy classroom, but get them to work with St John’s ambulance. FT (food technology), why not take them to a real live restaurant or a bakery to learn from experts.

Half of what they are taught is generic, out dated and to be honest they will never ever use.

Everyone needs a bank account, most will fill in a tax return, have a pension, may run a company, the list of real life practical things to teach is endless, yet none are taught.

Stop failing our society with old out dated rubbish and start teaching them what they need and start allowing them the true freedom to be creative.

I have recently been working with many young students and from all over the world – the theme is common with all, they are not being equipped for the world we live in and the world that is evolving.

Many are doing business degrees, yet they are not being shown or taught the most basic things about business or about being an entrepreneur.

So what to do? we all need to campaign for a change in the system and encourage others to do so. We need to get more integration between business people, community leaders and education.

We need to remove party politics from education and most other aspects to be honest. We need to help young people and give our knowledge and experience to them as business people, get involved in mentoring and coaching.

Things have to change.