The Perpetual Apprentice

Once upon a time, what now seems like many years ago, we could learn a skill and it would see us through our lives.

That is no longer true. Our careers now have far more in common with a video game than a plan. Sudden changes, unexpected obstacles, strange doors to knock on to find the key. The necessity for multiple lives.

The decade we are now in will see further major changes. Technology will dramatically alter chunks of the professions and management, as the routines we have historically been paid to manage get automated and no longer need us. Instead, we will be required to understand the system and to spot emerging issues at every level, from the human to the technical, and the perpetual growth engine that relied on the free resources we took from the Earth and which fed our great grandparents, grandparents and parents runs out of steam. We have to find new sources of value.

New opportunities will open up for us. The doommongers will be wrong. They always have been on anything othe…