In a time when so many aspects of our economy appear to be contracting in response to the global economic crisis, the “digital universe” continues expanding at a bewildering pace. We are clearly witness to a time of exponential growth in both knowledge and information. Many claim that science has advanced more in the past 5 years than in the previous 5,000 years. In fact, we now process more information in a 24-hour period than our ancestors processed in their entire lifetimes 500 years ago. YouTube, a company that didn’t exist only a few years ago, now hosts 100 million video streams a day. The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not even exist in 2004. The 25% of India’s population with the highest IQ’s is greater than the total population of the United States. There are more honor students in India than the US has children. China will soon become the number one English-speaking country in the world. The US Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38; and 1 in 4 workers have been with their current employer for less than 1 year. And most challenging of all, our colleges and universities are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, and for using technologies that haven’t yet been invented. And all of this, in order to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet. These are some of the opening considerations that I put forth in a recent article, The Future Workforce – What it Means to Corporate Elearning and Training Directors, a two-issue feature article for eLearn Magazine. Understanding and capitalizing on these trends and developments will be ‘key’ to surviving and thriving in the next decade for corporations and their educational partners.
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