We Are Becoming A Power Skills Economy

Josh Bershin writes that we are becoming a power skills economy.

In other words, automation did not eliminate work at all – it created new jobs, better jobs, and an acceleration of our workforce into what we now call the “service economy.” We are essentially shifting to the right in this model.

💬 Josh Bershin

BTW, in case you are wondering, ‘Power Skills’ is the 'new' name for ‘Soft Skills’. To be fair, it did need a new name. It’s also fair to say that whilst he’s not wrong, he fails to mention that in the last 15 years (where he references 2007) no mention that the average income of people is flat and that real income is declining.

But that's a different opportunity.

Oh - and maybe not so 'new' Josh was talking about this back in 2019 - and gave us a few clues as to what he was talking about, this is one of his graphics.

What Are Power Skills

Here's My Take

1) Becoming? I think it is really more like that we are starting to recognize these skills. They have always been there - and though not necessarily recognised or even understood - I bet if you find successful people in that 'old' economy - they would demonstrate a lot of these traits.

2) Josh is not alone in highlighting these skills and their importance. What nobody is doing is organizing these skills into a taxonomy - much less an ontology. (What's the difference you may ask) Stan Garfield has a very simple explanation)

Taxonomy

Ontology

... except now there is.

More of this to come, but have to say, very excited by a company I have been talking to that has not only done a lot of research into these skills, but also which skills are most important - and why, depending on what you are trying to do.

Not only that, but they are releasing an app that will allow anybody to

  • assess their personal strengths and weaknesses across all skills
  • define which of those skills they should focus on to maximise their ability to be most succesful at what they are trying to do
  • all through a self paced, self directed, learning program.

As I said - more to come. Just to say - the cavalry is on its way.

Featured Image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The Lore Of The Rings

I was delighted to be joined on the People First podcast by Ramsey Avery who is the Production Designer for the Amazon series - Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power.

Wonderful conversation that I know you will enjoy.

Season Three Of The People First Podcast Has Started. This first episode is designed to set the scene … it will take less than 5 minutes of your time.

Find all episodes here, to follow and listen on your player of choice.

Studs writing, thinking and conversations are all People Firsty .. so delighted to share a personal story with you and tell you about his archive.

The Attention Economy

It’s funny how 'xx is the new oil' keeps cropping up … this one is kind of related - but focussed not specifically on data - but rather, The ‘Attention Economy’ ….

"For the better part of the past century, the most important commodity has been oil. Wars have been fought over it — Pearl Harbor was a preemptive strike to secure Japanese access to Indonesian oil — and it elevated desert tribes to the ranks of the wealthiest cohorts in history. But the sun has passed midday on oil’s supremacy. We’ve moved from an oil economy to an attention economy.

We used to refer to an information economy. But economies are defined by scarcity, not abundance (scarcity = value), and in an age of information abundance, what’s scarce? A: Attention. The scale of the world’s largest companies, the wealth of its richest people, and the power of governments are all rooted in the extraction, monetization, and custody of attention."

Some other phrasing that caught my eye and mind …

"If Facebook is Exxon and Netflix Shell, TikTok is fracking king Chesapeake Energy, the rule-breaking insurgent armed with novel extraction methods that threaten the established order.”

"everyone is trying to outTik the Tok”

"MrBeast … most popular video (is) a real-life reenactment of Squid Game, which cost $3.5 million to produce (the cost of an episode of Mad Men). It received 300 million views."

You can read the whole Scott Galloway piece here.

Thinking Allowed

This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.

The People First Podcast

Shout out to SimonWoods for bringing my attention to CastBox … yet another podcast player!

PS - it is an iframe - so you have to go here to see the full ‘beauty’.

Oscar Wilde : “Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” - which is why the poem is important.

newsletter.peoplefirst.business/p/little-…

Published two years and two days ago - written about a man from England that I met in Taupo, New Zealand - and we just got talking.

“It’s not what you know - It’s who you know.”

Exclusive or not, this is one Clubhouse I was happy to leave

I never rated Clubhouse. .. which I wrote even before I had got in - and nothing convinced me that I was wrong even when I did.

🎶 I am starting to prepare for Season 3 of The People First Podcast - and was reviewing some of the greatest hits from Seasons 1 and 2 … stumbling across this gem from a show I did with Scott Schorr. It’s one minute long.

It’s one of my older posts now - but a good reminder …

Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Content

In Sync

No - not the 🎶 pop group - they were 'NSYNC' ... just an acknowledgement of how nice it is to find like minded travelers on the journey.

The quote below found here

“We need to resist the narratives that are frequently served to us by corporations that sell these technologies, that these models of the future are dependent upon the particular technologies that they’re selling, that it’s always some future that is just around the corner that we have to buy into, when in fact the future is already here.”

Featured Photo Credit: Gabriel Gusmao on Unsplash

Unpacking the Potential of Web3 Publishing - Tokens, But How?

Know Your Value So You Can Charge What You're Worth

Artificial Intelligence For The Creative Professional

There are a group of companies springing up that are doing for the written word what Dall-E, MidJourney and Craiyon are doing for images, which is to say - enter some core text and let an AI generate the output.

My mind explodes when I see the 'image' results.

I think ‘meh’ - so far - when I see the 'written' results.

I am pretty sure that the engines are as sophisticated as each other, so I wonder if my reaction is more to do with my own abilities - as in I have NO artistic ability when it come to creating images, but I can - and do write - so my bar is higher?

For more background, you might enjoy this from The Verge;

🔗How independent writers are turning to AI

Note - all of the words you read on peoplefirst.business are not created - or even suggested - but any AI tool. (Can you tell?). 😂

The Billable Hour Is Not Fungible

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone If your time to you is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'

💬 Bob Dylan

With the financial problems ricocheting around the world - I see occasional headlines from 50 years ago.

Three day work week - bad.

Fifty Years Later : Four day work week - good.

I get the subtle shift in the back story, just an observation.

Thinking Allowed

This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.

Where Am I Working?

I am sitting in New Zealand writing this. It started as an idea in my head and was typed into a local file on my computer. I copied it to Wordpress (my blog hosting software of choice) and saved a draft to my People First server.

The words were then sitting on a server in Iowa, USA.

From this point on, as I edit the draft, I am in New Zealand, the words I am editing are in Iowa - where am I working?

By the time you read this post, I will have published and anybody in the world can read it.

Example, a visitor in Kenya pulls up this web site in their browser and these words are 'automagically' read in Kenya.

Question

Where is ‘the work’ done?

  • New Zealand, because that is where I tapped the original words into the computer?
  • New Zealand, because that is where I cut and paste those words into Wordpress?
  • Iowa, because that is where the People First servers are?
  • Where you are reading this because until those words delivered value (you reading them), no work was done.

I ask because once you know where the work was done, you should have an idea on where you should be taxed and arguably where you should be licensed to work.

This conversation doesn’t seem to be a major part of public discourse, because the scenario is an edge case. But for how much longer?

New York has a law that says anybody working IN NEW YORK pays New York Taxes and from that emerges things like the NY, NJ and CT tri-state tax agreement.

“Like all states with broad-based income taxes, New York has asserted the right to tax nonresident income earned within its borders. But unlike most other jurisdictions with significant cross-border commuter flows—such as Illinois and Indiana or Virginia and Maryland—New York has never given nonresidents a tax pass in the form of ‘reciprocity’ with their home states.”

Read More

But if my servers are in Iowa, my customers are in Europe, my bank account is in California and I only live in New York, should I pay New York taxes?

I write more about where we work in this week's newsletter.

Why Non Of My Books Are Available On Audible

Why none of my books are available on Audible is a 'spoken essay' from Cory which will eventually be the only entry he has in the Audible library.

Take a listen to find out why.

The link takes you to a page on his Craphound site, or go directly to 🎙️the podcast

Thinking Allowed

This is a People First post that was originally on the People First domain. It has been moved here as part of my domain consolidation program. It’s a steady and slow WIP as I check each entry, so do please bear with me.

#teamhuman #peoplefirst we’re joined at the hip.