The Economist of September 10-16 has a special report on the Future of Jobs called “The Great Mismatch.”  I commend it to your reading.

I have had many discussions recently about jobs issues.   As I have written before, I see two economies even here in Austin where the tech sector is gasping for new hires while nearly every day brings news of some friend or friend’s child laid off in a non-tech field.   National announcements like Bank of America’s planned disposal of 30,000 workers don’t help the general mood either.

The Economist quotes the McKinsey Global Institute as defining three main types of work:  transformational (physical activity like construction, which has been in long-term decline in rich countries), transactional (like call centers, now subject to displacement by technology and labor arbitrage across borders), and interactional (like consultants and designers who rely on knowledge, expertise, and collaboration with others).   Clearly you are better to position yourself and your children in the latter category if your focus is earning a decent living over your career.

Let me digress here to a recent post by Jason Calacanis, a thoughtful analysis of whether the majority of millennials even have a work-ethic comparable to their elders or will be content with 20% unemployment over their lifetimes.  He questions whether many of them are really worth employing or whether they will have the motivation to achieve in the interactional world.  I recommend this as well.

Back now to the Economist report: Lynda Gratton of the London Business School has written a recent book on the topic at hand, and she brings up the notion that each of us needs to invest in our “social capital” – and she’s not referring to our Klout scores.   She says we need a “posse” of people with similar expertise to whom we can turn when needed, a “big-ideas” crowd to keep us mentally fresh, and a “regenerative community” of family and friends who can keep us emotionally healthy.  

I wholeheartedly ascribe to Ms. Gratton’s theories.   Every entrepreneur tends to build a posse over time that saddles up repeatedly for each successive venture.  That posse includes technically skilled people, investors, advisors, service providers, key leadership team members, and others.  It’s much easier to focus on the business at hand when you are already comfortable with the people surrounding you.   Even individuals with no entrepreneurial aspirations need their own posses to carry them forward through their careers and bring them into interesting and challenging opportunities.  Your posse may change over time, but just having a go-to team can be a huge benefit.

The big-ideas crowd is also important.  Being part of the ATDC in Atlanta and now the ATI in Austin keeps me challenged with the new ideas that appear each day.  I make it a point to go to more academic discussions like the Austin Forum each month, an event provided by the University’s Advanced Computing Center and always focusing on some mind-bending big-picture topic.  And, there’s nothing more interesting in this respect than working with student teams as a mentor in 1 Semester Startup.  They’re building businesses in everything from fashion to isotopes to big data to highly efficient automobiles.

And I’m building a strong regenerative community here in Austin as well.  This is a very welcoming city in all respects.   I miss the men’s locker-room scene with my golf buddies at the Capital City Club in Atlanta, but I have a similar hangout here with characters like “3-Margarita Roy” (story for another time), and a strong network of friends both inside and completely outside of the tech crowd. 

I always enjoy the frequent visits from Atlantans.   Come on out.  The fires seem to be under control, and we seem to be below our 100+ temps now.

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