7: The Future of Work and Education - A Millennial Perspective

This episode is a little different. A joint experiment. A nebulous mission.

In this inspiring international discussion, I was honored to be joined by two co-hosts: Dawna Jones of Vancouver and Gert Penne of Belgium.

And three guests: Willow Bumby and Lindsey Henwood of Vancouver, and Josh Shaffer of Tampa.

With 6+ participants, spanning 3+ countries, 3 continents, and 3 generations we explored not only the future of work, but also the future of education.

Dawna Jones is the AUTHOR of DECISION-MAKING for DUMMIES. Her book appears on Steve Denning's (Forbes) list of 8 Noteworthy Books for 2014. Dawna is also the host of the “Evolutionary Provocateur” podcast.

Gert Penne, an account executive in the tech industry, is a an Empathic Problem Solver, who takes a principle-centered approach to teaming across cultures, disciplines, and generations.

At the end of a 2-continent, 3-country Skype call, Dawna, Gert, and I found ourselves talking about generational differences globally. With the goal to learn how the next generation sees the Future of Work, we decided to invite 3 Millennials to a follow-up call. This show is that call.

Millennials fall just after the Gen-Xers. They were born between 1982 and 2004.

We were fortunate to have 3 Millennials join us.

Josh Shaffer is an early Millennial, and works for Accenture in Talent Acquisition in Tampa.

Willow Bumby is an iOS Engineer, designer, and writer, as well as a teacher at Lighthouse Labs in Vancouver.

Lindsay Henwood is a User Experience Design Instructor at Red Academy, a rapidly growing Tech School startup in Vancouver.

Two other Millennials joined us virtually.

Lauren Kirmil is a Marketing and Media Specialist and a former technical recruiter in the San Francisco Bay Area. During her extensive travels throughout Southeast Asia she worked as a freelance travel writer.

Grace Liu is a former Outreach Support Officer at the British Consulate in Guangzhou, China. She recently received funding to start a venture in Shenzhen. With the assistance of her NYU professor she also plans to start an NGO incorporating ancient contemplative practices, including meditation.

In this discussion we covered a wide range of topics.

• Distributed workforces and workplace flexibility and the big American offensive to change the workplace.
• Self-responsibility, self-awareness, self-perception.
• Cultural fit: the “techie” mold and the pressure to fit in.
• The dying days of the industrial model, the irrelevant university degree and the rise of bootcamp style education.
• The need to understand the next generation, and the companies which will die.
• The rise of the robots and the growing fear of job loss.
• Capitalism and its schizophrenic booms and busts: do we want an economy based on self-interest or creativity and collaboration?
• Tribalism and the need to belong: do we become global citizens or nationalists?
• Surviving the industrial model and designing the new workplace.
• The need to shift easily into different industries and the costly risk in over-specialization.
• The silliness of our current system and people's inability to work with power.
• And the power coming from the “Millennial values”.