The Challenge

There is one big difference between Newton’s time and now, and that is the size and the number of the Giants.  Much has happened since he described universal gravitation and his laws of motion and things keep changing at an ever-increasing pace.

All you need to do to intuitively see this is compare your parents standard of living at your current age with your own. Or, you can think about the fact that in roughly a decade cell phones have gone from, well, just phones, that few people had to the smart-phones that have become almost ubiquitous today.  With all of the advances expected in many fields, from bio-tech to big data, and a globalization trend that hasn’t even scratched the surface of its full potential, most signs point toward a continuation of this exponential growth path at minimum, if not an acceleration.

This represents a great opportunity for those willing and able to ride this wave, but like the declining role of the factory worker in our economy over the past decades, and of the agriculture worker before that, the role of today’s knowledge worker is likely to also change and leave another generation of workers without the skills they need to compete.  This has the potential to happen a lot sooner than people think.  Whether it is due to the growth in technology mentioned above or the boom in the supply of knowledge workers throughout the developing world, many knowledge professions and industries will continue to be commoditized right out from under the feet of the average first-world worker.

It will take more to ascend to the shoulders of the giants of tomorrow.  As we effort to climb up the backs of these giants, they keep getting bigger before us.  I believe that the keys to succeeding in this plight will continue to rely more and more on education, the ability to communicate and time management skills.  This is true both for individuals and collectively for the organizations and nations they are a part of.

Education

As the boundaries of science and technology expand, it will take more and more knowledge to further push those boundaries.  A college degree that used to be a differentiator is today no guarantee of employment.  Masters degrees and doctorates are often now the cost of entry to the frontiers of science.  These increased minimum requirements are to some extent evidenced by the increased average age of both first time patent filers and Nobel prize winners over time.

Whatever the level you receive, formal education is really just the beginning.  With the rate of innovation in many industries, simply keeping up with the latest information is a job in itself.  In fact, much of it is often already obsolete soon after one finishes learning it, further highlighting the need to make continued education a core part of your life.  Much of the best knowledge is gained outside of formal educational institutions, but it takes a fair degree of motivation and self-discipline to make the pursuit of that knowledge a regular part of your life.

In a world where capital and labor are abundant (and thus cheap), it is your knowledge, your human capital, that will continue to become the commodity that is most valued.

Communication

An ‘alternative’ to more education is further specialization.  However, as specializations become narrower in focus, the need for collaboration among them increases. Indeed, over the past 30 years, both the average number of contributors listed per scientific paper and inventors per patent has continued to rise.  Looking at the production of almost any product you buy and you will find an array of intermediate products from various companies that went into the creation of that final product you purchased.

Therefore, the value of those that have both the technical knowledge and the communication skills needed to effectively work with others will increase. And by communication skills, I don’t mean basic reading and writing skills or the ability to acceptably get along with people. I mean real emotional intelligence and being a driving force to foster collaboration among many different types of people throughout your team, your organization and the world at large.

The key to discovering the great breakthroughs of the future may increasingly depend on innovators abilities to both do this and to actively cultivate their own personal networks, thus developing their social capital.  This is as true for R&D and product development as it is for growing service based industries of our economy.

Time

Another increasingly important commodity will be time.  It seems like today, as time goes on, we have more and more things we all must cram into the few precious hours we have in each day.  Adherence to my suggestions above certainly doesn’t help the situation. In fact many may agree in principle but can’t imagine having enough time to follow through.

This is why time management skills will be of critical importance. From becoming better at focusing on your true priorities (saying no to everything else), to becoming better at managing and filtering the steady onslaught of information launched in your direction each day, to automating and outsourcing your life where possible, working smarter, not harder is the only way to go.

In a more competitive marketplace, time to market becomes more and more important too, and so this is as true for the individual as it is for the organizations they are a part of.

In Closing

This should not be news for most people reading this.  It is true that such skills have always been important and help to define the success of any worker, in any profession.  However, I believe that the bar will continue to raise at increasing rates and that many individuals, and the firms that employ them, may find themselves without sufficient skills in these areas to compete. For those that are not consciously trying to develop these skills, the time to start doing so is now.

While the prospect of having to continually climb the back of the giants before you may be a daunting one, we all know what’s below the giant’s back, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be relegated to spending my days climbing around down there.

To give credit where credit is due, the basic analogy that you must “climb the Giant’s back” and that that back is getting higher off the ground as time goes on came from a lecture I attended on the Economics of Science and Technology presented by Professor Gerald Marschke of of the State University of New York at Albany.

http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2009/04/20/story10.html

Unfortunately you have to be a subscriber to read the full article.

Either way, this article is one of the first official announcements of us closing our latest round of funding, which was a feat given the current state of the economy.

We are doing this to help build up some readership and raise awareness for Bright Hub so you’re help would really mean a lot.

http://communityserver.com/showcases/

For the full write-up, including a quote from yours truly, you can visit the following URL directly:

http://communityserver.com/showcases/media/bright-hub-inc/

I called Amazon Kindle support tonight, and within 5 minutes, they have agreed to send me a brand new Kindle priority mail and an easy to use, free UPS shipping label to return the old device. All I apparently have to do when I get the new unit is add it to my Amazon account and I will have everything I did before. It was worried I would be massively disappointed (and pissed) if they told me I was SOL and needed to buy a new device, but they where very good, and I am happy once again, looking forward to my mail coming in the next day or so.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/money/your-expertise-is-worth-money-5-sites-you-can-write-for.html

http://mashable.com/openwebawards/home/

http://www.prweb.com/releases/science/technology/prweb1555164.htm

While good money, this total is far from the million dollars this article claims you can earn. However, rather than spend that money, if you where to invest the money you earned each month, you could indeed retire a millionaire due to the power of compound interest.

What is Compound Interest?

Interest in general is money that someone pays to someone else as a fee for borrowing money that is in addition to repaying the money actually borrowed. The amount of interest that a borrower pays to the person lending them the money is usually not a fixed amount rather it is a certain percentage (interest rate) of the of the amount of the money currently owed (principal). This interest ‘compounds’ on a periodic basis, which is to say that it the fee you pay for borrowing the money is added to the current amount owed every certain number of days (every month, quarterly, annually, etc.) . It is sort of like renting the use of the money borrowed. If you are occupying the money, no one else can use it, so the fee is charged on a recurring basis as an incentive for you to pay it back.

For example, if you borrow $100 and have a 10% interest rate that compounds annually, that means that after a year of borrowing the money you would own $10 in interest (100 * 0.10). When compounded to your initial principal ($100), you would now owe a total of $110. After year two, you would owe an additional $11 (110 * 0.10), which would bring the total owed to $121. It is important to note here that the interest that accumulated in the second year ($11) is more than what accumulated in the first year ($10). This is due to the fact that the interest owed is based on the current principal, which was higher after the first year due to the first year’s worth of interest that was compounded to it.

Making Your Money Work For You

When you are the one that is borrowing money, compound interest is not your friend, and you are forced to work for your money. If you are the one lending the money however, compound interest can be a wonderful thing, and your money can work for you in a sense. If you where the lender in the above example, after the first 2 years, you would have earned $21 extra dollars for doing nothing other than letting someone else use your money.

There are many different people you can lend your money to. When you deposit your money in a bank, you are essentially lending your money to them. This is why they often pay you a small interest rate on that money. Banks then take that money that they are borrowing from you and re-lend it to others who then pay them interest. A bank only ever keeps enough money physically within it to ensure that it has enough money to give to people that are likely to request to withdraw it at any one time.

Similar to banks, you too can choose to lend your money to others. By others, I don’t mean other people necessarily; I primarily mean other investments such as the stocks or bonds. Your return on such investments is their compensation to you for letting them borrow your money. While the economy is in the slumps now, over time it is quite possible to get an average rate of return of 10% on your investments.

One Million Dollars Realized

If you where to invest the $10 a day that you earn by writing an article into a collection of investments that averaged a return of 10% per year, at the end of 35 years, instead of having a mere $127,750 dollars, you would have a grand total of $1,088,162.84. If you then stopped working and contributing your $10 a day, not only would you have your million dollars, the interest from these investments alone would produce over $100,000 annually for you to live on. Pretty good for writing just one article per day!

Revenue Sharing As An Additional Annuity

The numbers quoted above only take into account the money paid up front for the article.  In addition to that, Bright Hub pays out a percentage of the revenue generated from ads that are displayed when your article is viewed.  The amount of money generated each month from all the articles written would add even more money to your bank account each month.  If that money where invested as well, it is likely that you would reach one million dollars in a fraction of the time noted above.

Place Bib#  Name                   Age G Rank Swim    Pace  Tran1   Rank Bike    Rate
===== ===== ====================== === = ==== ======= ===== ======= ==== ======= ====
 650    58 Joshua McWilliam        28 M  655   44:11 36:49    4:43  654 3:48:10  14.7

Tran2   Rank Run     Pace  Penalty Final   Div Div     Gen G
======= ==== ======= ===== ======= ======= === ======= === =
7:48  640 3:00:11 13:46         7:45:02  34 M25-29  446 M

Here is a link to all of the official results: http://www.lin-mark.com/MMHALF08.TXT

For the swim, I was physically prepared, however not mentally. Not sure if it was the wet suit or the cold, but I had a real hard time breathing. It was like I only had half my lung capacity, which led me to breathing on the same side after only two strokes, instead of the alternating breathing after 3 I am used to. This lead to me favoring one side, and zig-zagging all over the course. I had to stop a couple times for 10 – 15 seconds to breath as well. Eventually I tried real hard to calm down, go real slow, take deep long breaths each time, and force myself to hold my breath for 3 strokes. That straightened me out and that last half of the swim was much better than the first. All in all though, my time was better than I expected even with that. Not sure if it was the wet suit or the fact that you don’t have to waste time with turns like in the pool.

The bike course I think I was both physically and mentally prepared for. It went well. It was a tough course though. Lots of hills. The toughest thing though was the heat, especially on that back section of the course that is all open. It just bakes you. Definitely need to get better at hills though I think. That and lose weight. I was playing tag with a number of people. They would pass me on the up-hills, and I would then fly by them on the down-hills. If I could get up the hills faster I think it would make a big difference in my time.

My main goal was to finish the swim, and then the bike, under the cut-off time, so I would have 3 hours in which to do the run, and could run/walk if needed. The run is my least favorite part, and I didn’t really train for it. I would have to check the logs, but I don’t think I ran more than 50 miles in the last year. So, I got my goal with the bike, and good thing, because I needed it. I half ran/walked for the first 3 quarters of the run, and then had to walk most of the last quarter as my right calf started locking up. Tami, a friend/co-worker, wound up passing me with about a half mile to go.

Click on the image below to see some of the pics from the event::

2008 Mooseman Half Triathlon (Public)