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Information Exchange Rate

Knowledge Production Rate

Global Trends via 2 Triangles

http://internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Global Internet Rates

Global Population Projections

Economic Growth Slowing

U.S. Personal/Household Income

Tuition v. Income Gap Grows

Law School & (Un)Employment

Grad Students & Food Stamps

U.S. Workers & Benefits

Poverty Level Unrealistic

Lack of Job Security

In Wes Moss Starting from Scratch "If you are putting up with a boring job in exchange for security, you are not as secure as you think. That security which is the main reason most people go to work for a large organization is largely an illusion based on the way things were done 50 years ago."

U.S. Media Corporations

Hyper-connected "Thanks to cloud computing, robotics, 3G wireless connectivity, Skype, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, the iPad, and cheap Internet-enabled smartphones, the world has gone from connected to hyper-connected. This is the single most important trend in the world today and why to get into the middle class now, you have to study harder, work smarter and adapt quicker than ever before.“ Thomas Friedman (August 13, 2011 New York Times)

"Every two days we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003 which amounts to an estimated five exabytes of data.“ former Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Amount of Information

The Democratization of Content The Lexus and the Olive Branch, Thomas Friedman recalls an interview where a TV executive sums up the "democratization of technology by saying the printing made people readers, photocopying made people publishers, television made people viewers, and digitization has now made people broadcasters." The democratization of technology refers to the affordability and ease by which almost anyone with an Internet connection can now record music, publish a book or make a video.

According to a May 2011 report traditional U.S. print title output in 2010 increased 5% despite the growing interest in e-books. Output of new titles/editions increased from 302,410 in 2009 to a projected 316,480 in 2010. The non-traditional sector increased 169% from 1,033,065 in 2009 to an amazing 2,776,260 in 2010.

The Rise of Self-Publishing

The Need for Connectivity - As Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams noted in Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything:

"Technology is ushering us towards a world where knowledge, power and productive capability will be more dispersed than ever before – a world where value creation will be fast, fluid, and persistently disruptive. A world where only the connected will survive. A power shift is underway and a tough new rule is emerging: harness the new collaboration or perish."

The Need for Connectivity

The Skills Gap - In his 2012 publication The Start-Up of You LinkedIn co-founder and chairman, Reid Hoffman writes: "The gap is growing between those who know the new career rules and have the new skills of a global economy, and those who clutch to old ways of thinking and rely on commoditized skills. The question is: which are you? Do you know how to develop a competitive advantage to win the best jobs and opportunities? Can you adapt your career plans as you change or as the people around you change? What are you doing to maintain a diverse mix of professional relationships?"

Skills Gap

The 2012 Horizon Report concluded that technological developments now allow "information to be anywhere and as a result people expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to."

The Anywhere Population

As Thomas Friedman wrote in a January 25, 2012 New York Times editorial: "Being average just won't earn you what it used to. Everyone needs to find their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment. Average is over."

Being Average Is Over

Geoff Colvin echoed such sentiment in Talent is Overrated "Individuals are under unprecedented pressure to develop their own abilities more highly than ever before, apart from anything their employers may or may not do to develop them."

The Need to Develop Your Abilities

In Revolutionary Wealth: How It Will Be Created And How It Will Change Our Lives authors Alvin and Heidi Toffler coined the term "obsoledge" to describe how today's "knowledge has a limited shelf life...and...changes so rapidly that more and more new knowledge has to be learned both on and off the job." The Tofflers also noted that "whether they are aware of it or not, companies, governments and individuals today base more of their daily decisions on obsoledge...than ever before...To deal with today, therefore, we need not only new knowledge but new ways to think about it."

The Need to Think Differently

In its 2010 review of professionalism, researchers at the Center for Professional Excellence (CPE) at York College of Pennsylvania continue to find that students aren't making the grade as professionals in the workplace: a)In 2009, 37.3% of respondents felt that less than half of new graduates exhibited professionalism in the workplace; b)In 2010 that number remained unchanged at 38.2%; c)Nearly 25% of respondents said that professionalism in young workers had decreased, while more than 15% of believed it had increased.

Everyone Is A Professional

Lorin Anderson, who was a student of Benjamin Bloom, updated Bloom's Taxonomy in 2000 and placed Creating at the top of the learning objectives hierarchy as the most important skill for students to learn. Creative is defined as "Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing."

The Need for Creativity

Daniel Pink. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

The Importance of Stories

No Such Thing As Overnight Success

As Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson wrote on Rework "You know those overnight success stories you've heard about? It's not the whole story. Dig deeper and you'll usually find people who have busted their asses for years to get into a position where things could take off. Trade the dream of overnight success for slow, measured growth. It's hard, but you have to be patient. You have to grind it out. You have to do it for a long time before the right people notice."

The Value of Failing

Tim Harford's Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure "The three essential steps that make up the recipe for successfully adapting are a)try new things, in the expectation that some will fail; b)to make failure survivable, because it will be common and c)to make sure that you know when you've failed. To produce new ideas we must overcome our tendency to fall in step with those around us and overcome those with a vested interested in the status quo."

Get Uncomfortable

Big Picture Thinking /Perspective

In The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg writes that "Habits are powerful, but delicate. They can emerge outside our consciousness, or can be deliberately designed. They shape our lives far more than we realize." He goes on to state that Duke University researchers concluded that habits make up approximately 40% of the actions in a given day. In other words only 60% of any given day is filled with decisions.

The Need to Understand Our Habits

In his 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman of "nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it." "Education is an important determinant of income — one of the most important — but it is less important than most people think. When you focus on education you neglect the myriad of other factors that determine income.”

The Focusing Illusion

Your View of Success