This is a picture of the big trends in employment.  Not pretty. Now ask will there be more or less jobs in Finance in the next 20 years? How about Government?

So where is the opportunity?

It is in the areas that have been hardest hit.

What is the fasted growing sector in food? It is in local food and famers markets. What sector do we worry about the most? Food – many are now seeing that factory food is at the heart of the health epidemic. More and more families are looking for safer and more nutritious food. This can only come from small operations.

10 years ago you needed a million dollars to have a full on recording or film editing studio. Now you can get the same power for free.

Today 3d Printing is where PC’s were 20 years ago. About $2,000 will get you a neat toy. But in 10 years $2,000 will get you what Toyota use for prototyping. You will be able to make almost anything.

When I say almost anything – they are working on food and even body parts right now.

Only a game changer will help us – Become a Maker

In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius. Therefore, everyone needs to find their extra — their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment. Average is over.

Yes, new technology has been eating jobs forever, and always will. As they say, if horses could have voted, there never would have been cars. But there’s been an acceleration. As Davidson notes, “In the 10 years ending in 2009, [U.S.] factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs — about 6 million in total — disappeared.”

And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Last April, Annie Lowrey of Slate wrote about a start-up called “E la Carte” that is out to shrink the need for waiters and waitresses: The company “has produced a kind of souped-up iPad that lets you order and pay right at your table. The brainchild of a bunch of M.I.T. engineers, the nifty invention, known as the Presto, might be found at a restaurant near you soon. … You select what you want to eat and add items to a cart. Depending on the restaurant’s preferences, the console could show you nutritional information, ingredients lists and photographs. You can make special requests, like ‘dressing on the side’ or ‘quintuple bacon.’ When you’re done, the order zings over to the kitchen, and the Presto tells you how long it will take for your items to come out. … Bored with your companions? Play games on the machine. When you’re through with your meal, you pay on the console, splitting the bill item by item if you wish and paying however you want. And you can have your receipt e-mailed to you. … Each console goes for $100 per month. If a restaurant serves meals eight hours a day, seven days a week, it works out to 42 cents per hour per table — making the Presto cheaper than even the very cheapest waiter.”

What the iPad won’t do in an above average way a Chinese worker will. Consider this paragraph from Sunday’s terrific article in The Times by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher about why Apple does so much of its manufacturing in China: “Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly-line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the [Chinese] plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. ‘The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,’ the executive said. ‘There’s no American plant that can match that.’ ”

And automation is not just coming to manufacturing, explains Curtis Carlson, the chief executive of SRI International, a Silicon Valley idea lab that invented the Apple iPhone program known as Siri, the digital personal assistant. “Siri is the beginning of a huge transformation in how we interact with banks, insurance companies, retail stores, health care providers, information retrieval services and product services.”

So what to do? Tom F thinks we all need more education. I think we need to change the game. Start making things ourselves locally – food and all we need. Thy technology is here to help us.

Thousands of us connected in a network making in small batches what we all need. The New Maker Economy.

3D printers will soon be able to make anything

Urban farms will be able to grow 40% of our food

Connect all of this into a network and we have a new economy. This way we harness all the new for us and not for THEM

International investors say capitalism is in crisis, with almost one in three backing radical changes to the system, according to a Bloomberg survey.

As the global financial and business elite gather in Davos for their annual forum, a majority in the Bloomberg Global Poll agree that income inequality hurts the economy and that governments need to do something to address it — ideas at the heart of “Occupy” protests worldwide. Those surveyed also voice reservations about the financial industry’s role in society, with seven in 10 seeing at least some truth in the argument that banks have too much power over governments.

“Capitalism is in crisis because there is a huge and growing disparity in income/wealth distribution in Western economies, and an equally divisive generational disparity,” poll participant Michael Derks, chief strategist for FXPro Financial Services broker in London, said in an e-mail.

“It requires government intervention on an enormous scale, because an economy cannot survive if it does not invest in the younger generation,” Derks said.

More than 70 percent of those polled believe the system is in trouble, with 32 percent saying it needs a “radical reworking of the rules and regulations.” The other 39 percent think the turbulence will ebb on its own, according to the quarterly poll conducted Jan. 23-24 of 1,209 investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers. Fewer than one in four say free enterprise is working as it should.

Seventy percent of those surveyed say Europe’s economic troubles will cause social instability in 2012, including riots or other unrest.

I am encouraged!

I was blown away! In 45 minutes I leaned more about how to look at my business that at any previous time ever.  What Ronda does is to help you “see” things that we all miss because we are too close and don’t ask the best questions about.

If you want to see your business with fresh eyes and see new opportunities that you might have missed I encourage you to give her a call. Very pragmatic very personal – hence her business name “Like nobody’s business” for we are all different.

Here is a link that will tell you more.

Here is a post today that sums up the preparation for the world that is emerging - the world of where you make your living yourself in a network – “The Maker Economy”

Get Your Book Done 101, Fiction Edition: Have you always wanted to be a writer but never had the chance/nerve/great idea that would make it happen? Or do you have that half-started Best Novel Ever stuck away in your closet awaiting the day you have the time/energy/drive to get it done? Join writer Patti Larsen for a day of Get Your Book Done 101, the Fiction Edition.

This full day course offers tips and techniques on how to get started, techniques to improve and polish your writing, exercises to stretch your talent, instruction on outlining and planning right through to completing a novel.

Participants will get the chance to not only come up with and develop an idea, but will gain valuable knowledge on how to proceed with their own great novels at home.

Course cost: $80 (lunch not included)

When and Where: Saturday, February 18 at 9:00am at Queen Street Commons

What to bring: pencil/pen, notebook

About your instructor: Patti Larsen is a middle grade, young adult and adult author with a passion for the paranormal. Her YA thriller series, The Hunted, is available now. The first four books of The Hayle Coven series, Family Magic, Witch Hunt, Demon Child and The Wild are also out now. Her YA paranormal novel, Best Friends Forever, and steampunk series, Blood and Gold, are due early in 2012. She is a full time writer and a part time teacher of her Get Your Book Done101 program. Patti lives on the East Coast of Canada with her very patient husband and four massive cats.

You can find her:

On her website http://www.pattilarsen.com/

On Facebook www.facebook.com/pattilarsenauthor

Her writing blog www.pattilarsen.blogspot.com

Her book blog www.pattilarsenbooks.blogspot.com

On Twitter www.twitter.com/#!/PattiLarsen

On Amazon.com and Goodreads

Saturday, February 18, 2012 9-4

Get Your Book Done 101, Non-Fiction Edition

Do you have a brilliant idea for a self-help book, but have no idea how to get started? How about an amazing memoir you’ve always wanted to create, a family story that’s been begging to be told? Join writer Patti Larsen for a day of Get Your Book Done 101, the Non-Fiction Edition.

This full day course offers tips and techniques on how to get started, techniques to improve and polish your writing, exercises to stretch your talent, instruction on outlining and planning right through to completing your project.

Participants will get the chance to not only explore all avenues of how to tell their particular story, but will gain valuable knowledge on how to proceed with their own project at home.

Course cost: $80 (lunch not included)

What to bring: pencil/pen, notebook

Sunday, February 26, 2012 9-4

Get Your Book Done 101, Business Edition

So you’ve written the Great Novel or the best self-help book ever. Now what? Join writer Patti Larsen as she guides you through the many layers of the publishing industry, with the most up-to-date information available on the rapid changes going on right now.

From the many types of publishing, agents, marketing and more, let her help you make the best choices for your goals and how to achieve them.

Course cost: $50

What to bring: pencil/pen, notebook

Register Here

http://www.peibwa.org/events_details.asp?id=702

Mike Newman from Newman Estate Winery will be at the Commons during the event to showcase his brand new wine offerings. Come by and sample some great wines and see our great facility!

Group Coaching for Youth

Youth Coach Sue Sullivan, CPC will begin holding Group Coaching sessions for Youth.  The sessions will be held at Queen Street Commons.  Topics will be relevant to the issues today’s young people are dealing with in school and society.  Topics will change often and group size is 12 youth per session.  Group Coaching is a forum where youth can come and talk in a confidential and neutral environment about their personal experiences with other youth who may have had similar or different experiences.  Sue will facilitate the conversation, ask questions of the group when necessary, and express insight to the group on what is being said by the group.  Group sessions are kept to 12 youth to maintain an atmosphere which is comfortable for an open discussion.  Due to limited session size it is important to reserve a space for the sessions.  A minimal fee is charged per session. To become a part of the email information network which receives updates on all session information contact Sue through her website www.visiblepathcoaching.ca, by email at info@visiblepathcoaching.ca or call at 393-3893.