There is one thing that the 21st century can promise you, and that would be “Change” …

Change at a pace humanity has never seen before in its lifetime. And this rapid pace of change (other than the change itself) will affect every aspect of our lives, including some of the most fundamental aspects, such as the way we think of our work and career.

This stems from the shift into the information age, led by the relatively general availability of the internet. At a 50,000 foot level, the internet was a game changer for the business world on many levels. At a more direct level, it’s challenging information based businesses such as news, movies, television and music by making all forms of information readily available to the masses, in many cases at no cost. At a more implicit level, it’s been a catalyst for Globalization. Were we are seeing the collapse of international boarders for where business can be done, and products can be sold.

This then forms a perfect storm to disrupt the way business works. Many businesses today, both mature and new, successful or not, are  in ultra-adaptation mode.  Keeping their business model and resources as flexible as possible to any upcoming change that may broadside them.

The workforce is also evolving. Many of the next generation employees that make up the new workforce come from a time that has seen their parents or relatives, after years of dedication to their career and employer, being “let go” due to change. Swearing this will never happen to them, they adopt a new view on their career. One that not only prepares for, but embraces and even takes control of change. They stay in school longer and take on a wide breadth of courses and degrees. When entered into the workforce, they have a sense for change, and are not afraid to ride the wave of skills demand in opportunistic fashion.

This is not to say that this new breed of employee is not productive, innovative, or motivated. In fact it is these qualities that is driving their evolution. As discussed in my previous post, “Entitlement or Enlightenment”, many view this generation as one to have a heightened sense of entitlement, or even refer to them as “spoiled”. When I believe, in fact, that this is merely an adaptation to their environment. And instead it is those judging that are likely bound for extinction. Because the next generation ultra-adaptable business will need to be made up of Super-Dynamic employees.

I believe great artists are made up of part creativity, part artistic skills.

For the latter, my thought is it relies a lot on the brains ability to easily and comprehensively decompose and then reconstruct sensory data. They develop that skill by being great admirers and mimickers of great art… then the creative side kicks in.

Told you it was quick. Will have to find some time to flush this thought out, until then it will remain stuck in my head…

We are entering an age where wars are fought on Facebook and Twitter…

… and where social media challenges social “norms”.

The first thing that popped into my head was my University days, and the Arts & Science program at UofT. But after thinking about it further I tend to see what the author is getting at. When we innovate, we are trying to take things that are based on intuition and turning them into logic. Think of Google search as an example.

Looking at the fastest growing area of innovation today, Analytics. In particular with prescriptive, and even more so with predictive analytics, the objective is to create functions on data in order to prescribe an action or predict behavior. Both today are predominantly dependent on Subject Matter Expertise (SME), which is a combination of skill, experience and ultimately intuition. Yet in more and more areas, analytics software is being designed to replace human expertise.

I’ve always been interested in cognitive science, so I’m curious as to how innovation relates to brain function.

The theory of the structure and functions of the mind suggests that the two different sides of the brain control two different “modes” of thinking (see diagram). The left and right hemispheres of our brain process information in different ways.

Given the Art vs. Scientific modes of the brain, physically divided into two hemispheres. And given the definition of innovation defined above. Could it be possible that the ability for humans to innovate relies on the balance and connectivity between these two hemispheres?

If so, then the development of the corpus callosum, a bundle of axons which bridges and links these two hemispheres, would play a major role in the person’s ability to be a natural innovator. This would however have to be paired with a fairly balanced left-right brain. Right brain cognition would handle conceptualizing abstract thought patterns, then bridge and related them to logical patterns via left brain cognition.

This can also occur in a 3 stage process: analyze an existing logical process or pattern via right brain, bridge to left brain to abstract and generalize the pattern, then redefine a new logical pattern, thereby potentially applying an existing solution in a new innovative way.

I should be feeling my corpus callosum firing as I type this … but until then this will (literally) be stuck in my head.

Ok… here was my dilemma, the my argument for my decision.

Birthday just passed. And I had the choice between the new iPad and the new iPhone 4.

If you had to choose between the two, which would you choose? I decided on the iPhone, and here’s my thinking…

I already do have the iPhone 3Gs, and I must admit, I can’t survive without it. But do I really need to upgrade again?

The iPad on the other hand, I don’t have obviously, but is what everyone says it is… a large iPod Touch. But still very impressive. Would love having the extra real-estate.

I would probably get the low end iPad if  I do get one. Likely the 16GB Wifi model, since this is still the first gen of the product. But that would mean it would sit at home, and used only in the evening or somewhat on the weekend. Even if I had the 3G model, I don’t see myself lugging that thing around with me during the day. Holding it awkwardly in my hand or on my lap as I try to learn to type on its keyboard.

The iPhone fits in my pocket and goes everywhere with me. Yes I already have the 3Gs. But when I upgraded from the 3G, I thought I made a mistake, until I played with my old 3G (which my wife inherited). Let’s just say I couldn’t wait to get my 3Gs back. I’m not too keen on the new features. It’s all about power and speed… and a more decent photography experience (5MP with flash and HD video… yay!)

Ok.. I’m sold.. now to see if I qualify for the HW upgrade… D’oh!

Nearly 83% of Americans surveyed strongly or somewhat agreed that America’s youth feel more entitled compared to 10 years ago, according to a national survey conducted by the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute.

Many blame it on the “On Demand” world this generation is growing up in. Further fed by a generation of over nurturing, large middle-class, well-to-do parents. But is this sense of entitlement a negative trait, or simply evolutionary?

According to Maslow, we naturally aim to achieve each level of the pyramid in order, starting with Psychological, which includes the bare necessities of life like breathing, food, water, etc., to eventually striving to reach a sense of self-actualization.

Abraham Maslow’s Pyramid

Could entitlement stem from a societal achievement of Esteem? According to the same study…

About half of all respondents said America’s youth are more confident, more educated, and have more self-esteem – 53.7%, 57.3% and 55.6% respectively.

Could be… as long as it’s coupled by a sense of respect and responsibility I believe this will be a positive change.

But what will the socioeconomic impact of this evolution be? Specifically to our work environment? Well we see today already that many new employees are more comfortable to change their career several times in their lifetime, unlike our parents and grandparents that may have worked for a single company all their lives. In fact, Generation Y is expected to change jobs about 29 times during their life, with an average job lasting about 1.1 years.  Although this allows employees to align their careers more readily with their evolving interests, resulting in a happier work life. This will obviously put a strain on large, long term projects that require a certain level of steady commitment to be successful. Building agile teams who are certified in their trait and adhering to the growing number of industry standards certainly would help ensure a project continues along its path regardless of change and with minimal impact. But there is something that will be lost in the ways of yesterday: commitment, loyalty, responsibility, are all important in a stable society and an economy. Though that can be argued is a two-way street.

Now to convince my wife of this before my birthday :-)

It’s going to take a bit of time for me to absorb the pros and cons before I decide if I will get one… so far I think my iPhone is enough.

My iPhone has a camera and fits in my pocket. Not sure how often I’d carry around the iPad, and if I do why not my Lenovo X61 Tablet instead? … and it runs flash :)

But it is a cool toy… and I’m a sucker for Apple toys.

Wouldn’t you know it, a few moments later I had RHEL Linux 64-bit server running in a VM on the MacBook Pro. Three diverse OSs running on one machine with very little effort!

Lesson Learned:

• If you installed using an iso image rather than a physical DVD, don’t forget to unmount the image from the virtual CD/DVD drive once done or else the next time you start the VM, it will startup the install if the virtual CD/DVD drive is placed ahead of the HD in startup priority.

You pretty much just need to follow these great step-by-step instructions.

Lesson Learned:

Step 18 needs some clarification. Instead of simply inserting the Mac OS X install CD and running Setup.exe, I needed to first Open folder to view files, then go into BootCamp before running THAT setup.exe.

Otherwise it takes you to the install for Remote install and DVD/CD Sharing.