Skills of the future – The Spoken Word

Future job and skills outlook poll

WEF carried out a global poll of 11,000 young people on future skills using u-report platform.

I wish life was a game which came with instructions, but unfortunately we don’t have that roadmap that can tell us exactly what we should do to get to where we want to be.
Praise Majwafi, 22, South Africa

63% believe, given the current economic and social changes, they will have the career that they want in the future?
30% can’t afford training and its their biggest barrier to develop the skills they need to pursue career aspirations.
In Australia, which was a small sample size – don’t know what skills they need came up top.
32% job ready skill program and 28% access to on the job training would make the most difference to achieve their career goals. Thats also reflected in Australia’s small sample.

Its worth checking out the knowledge graphs – you have to create a WEF account for free, as well as easily accessible ureport

#education #skillsofthefuture # #training

Spoken word proposition

The power of the spoken word to cut through the noise and make an emotional, visceral connection.

We live in a world
Awash with information
Where everything
Plays at full volume.
 
Inevitably
To cope
To filter out
All the noise
We put down
Our shutters
Leaving only time
To position
Our proposition.
 
Yet it is my conviction
That many audiences
Appetites are not satiated
They are left craving
More substance.
 
Substance
That delves
Deeper into complexity
That informs
That inspires
That frees the mind
 
Meaningful dialogue
That lifts the shutters.
And sparks action.
 
A connectivity strategy
Emboldened by the use
Of the spoken word
To connect emotionally
Yet retain real authenticity.
 
So if you need
A pitch that resonates
That differentiates you
From the marketplace
That advocates
For just societal issues
 
That simply and eloquently
Explains your
Company’s value proposition
 
In engaging language
Touching the heart
Not just the head
 
Take a chance
If you dare
To set yourself apart
And walk upon
A path of creativity
 
Let’s talk
Let’s help
Find your voice
And tell
Your story.

Storytime

The challenge of finding your voice and telling your story. An kinetic typography animation using the spoken word.

The challenge of finding your voice and telling your story.

Organisations are constantly striving to make the complex simple. How to engage their audience and not miss key information? How to remain authentic and retain the substance of their value proposition?

So many digital animations today have little substance, and though there is a large audience for that, there are other audiences craving something more. Audience drop off rates over time lead creatives and marketing teams down a path creating videos and animations of shorter and shorter duration with less positioning of their topic. There’s a constant tug of war trying to get the balance right. The reality is that there are markets for both and both should be well served with appropriate content. There are other influences such as target audience and media distribution channel that have to be accounted for.

In Australia an analogous example would be mainstream commercial breakfast TV versus Radio National. I would have liked to have said ABC Breakfast TV but unfortunately its adopted a very similar substance light approach as well.

This animation titled STORYTIME uses typographic kinetic animation that starts in a style from Apple’s Blink and then goes off its its own direction. I use a poem I created earlier this year to describe what my business is about, that initially I had set to a typewriter style animation effect but I think this is much better.

I’ll keep exploring the relationship of spoken word, emotion, narratives of substance as well as creativity and technology in my work. I hope you enjoy it to.

Radical Thinking for Equitable Futures

IDEO and Imaginable Futures attempt to provide an accessible global viewpoint on disruption in the education sector and potential ways to mitigate future impact.

IDEO and Imaginable Futures attempt to provide an accessible global viewpoint on disruption in the education sector and potential ways to mitigate future impact.

Unfortunately it’s scope is limited. For example I didn’t see mention of higher education, vocational education or lifelong learning so learning re-imagined, though a worthy browse doesn’t provide as holistic a view of the complex education and employment ecosystems.

Its signals or examples do offer useful anecdotes of how some issues are being addressed. More research, a key part of design thinking, to ensure that it was tackling the right disruptive trends in education would have helped this report considerably.

“Radical Thinking for Equitable Futures” claims heights it simply does not reach but at least its attempted to ask some important questions – how is education likely to be disrupted and can we be better prepared? Its certainly worth flicking through and you’re likely to get something out of it but probably not as much as you hoped.

https://www.imaginablefutures.com/learning-reimagined

Your story matters

Your voice trembling
Meekly in the shadows
A story at the cusp of telling
One that surely
Should be told.

Your voice trembling
Meekly in the shadows
A story at the cusp of telling
One that surely
Should be told.
 
Hidden from plain sight
Yet tantalisingly close
You can almost touch it
Waiting impatiently.
 
Its tugging and picking,
Itching and scratching
Time continues on ticking
Midnight is approaching
The opportunity may close.
 
How to phrase a unique proposition
To decipher complex systems
Societal issues that demand transparency
Demand greater visibility
How to alert of the upcoming disruption
To the unaware and the status quo.
 
How to connect emotionally
With authenticity and honesty
An impatient and cynical audience
Captivate their hearts and minds
While describing the protagonists’ journey.
 
You story matters.
Your voice needs to be heard.

Insider, Outsider

I’m delighted to share this video from CC&C Solutions. It uses storytelling and describe the challenges facing enterprises embarking on digital disruption, architects and skills gap and service providers needing to move up the value chain. It highlights CC&C’s unique value proposition as a global training and advisory firm.

It’s also my first freelancing engagement as I embarked on a portfolio career. I use my love of poetry, narration, creativity, animation and video production to tell their story in what I hope is an engaging way.

We all need to add mastery of storytelling to our armoury as a key skill of the future!

I’m thankful to the wonderful C C and C Solutions team for trusting me and giving me this opportunity.

If you’re interested in telling your companies story in an inspirational, creative and innovative way, then please reach out.

Vocation education sector needs more than new buildings

Its no secret that secondary schools have never been very good at supporting vocational educational pathways into jobs. New vocational education facilities are being built at Seven Hills High School and that’s an important and commendable signal in the change of emphasis by the NSW state government.

The German experience, long a hallmark of a dual education system, shows that there are issues to resolve. [2] Low achieving and migrant students find themselves increasingly marginalised and competing with academically bright students for vocational education places. Female students are often encouraged to undertake courses in care industries instead of higher paid and traditionally male oriented jobs. Metrics and targets for female and low achieving students will help ensure equity.

Students, parents, teachers and employers are all confused by the myriad of options available in a fragmented education sector. Many fail to understand the importance of early decisions. Many simply do not know or are too busy with the day to day to care. How do we reach them? Age appropriate communication and tools to explore pathways, implications of early decisions and future consequences are important adjuncts to providing much needed new facilities.

There’s no silver bullet but an understanding of the issues and risks will help schools navigate their way through Australia’s emerging education sector of the future.

[1] https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/new-vocational-facilities-at-seven-hills-high-school

[2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1024258919898115

Better insights not revolution in the education sector

If 73 senior professors wrote me a letter I would listen as we simply cannot afford to get this wrong.

The governments well intentioned objective is to “...better align Commonwealth funding to emerging labour market priorities, including nursing, health occupations, teaching and IT“.

Surely providing student more data and insights on skills of the future, occupation pathways, employability and revenue potential would surely have been a less drastic starting point? Ultimately better informed students would vote with their feet and we would achieve the same outcome while remaining true to open market principles.

#educationindustry #educationreform #skillsofthefuture

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/general/open-letter-australias-education-minister-dan-tehan-%E2%80%94-signed-73-senior-professors

The road to open badges and microcredentials

Open badges and microcredentials with their focus on competency-based recognition rather than time spent learning will become important foundations for rebuilding our economy and equipping people with the skills of the future. They won’t help institutions to figure out what should be in a course but they standardise a way of displaying it with key metadata including links to evidence.

The highly visual nature of open badges, especially when designed well, gives more faith to future employers on the skills of the badge recipient.

Its still a confusing field.

The following article is a great overview for educators looking to for a practical understanding of this emerging field and ecosystem.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/4529

Kyle Clements, Western Governors University

Richard Edward West, Brigham Young University

Enoch Hunsaker, Brigham Young University

#openbadges #openeducation #skillsofthefuture #digitalbadges #educationinnovation

JobTrainer 2Bn investment

An additional $2Bn for training and re-skilling is certainly a welcome announcement by federal government as well the additional $500M from states. It does require states to sign up to much needed reform – but thats not such a bad thing in an overly complex vocational education sector.

A question remains on course completion rates – how will we encourage people to not just start courses but also successfully complete them. Where courses are completely digital that is less of an issue as production costs are a one off. But if they need online trainers or in location training that can become an expensive issue. So how do we equip learners with the knowledge to pick the right courses, ones they are likely to complete and also provide them viable skills of the future in in demand industries? There needs to be a carrot and not just a stick approach.

Perhaps processes such as those provided by Khan Academy for teachers to monitor progress of student classes gives us a clue on how this can be done at scale?

For professionals looking at short courses – subsidies to global providers such as Linkedin Learning, Udemy, Coursera, Edx, Pluralsight, SkillsShare and others – would be a valuable additional option to locally created short courses. A small monthly sum typically provides access to 1000’s of courses and for large cohorts of self-sufficient people, that’s probably all they really need.

An elephant remain firmly planted in the centre of the room. Training alone will never be enough as people need ultimately jobs. Waiting for industry alone to create jobs will simply take too long and a large pool of unemployed and underemployed already exists. A generation’s talent will be wasted unless more is done.

Coalition to commit $2bn for training if states agree to overhaul of vocational education – The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jul/16/coalition-to-commit-2bn-for-training-if-states-agree-to-overhaul-of-vocational-education