This Bear Is Up a Tree

This Bear Is Up a Tree
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The New Untouchables

Check out Thomas Friedman's op-ed today in the NY Times. He writes about the people who are hanging on to their jobs while others are losing theirs. What is the secret Friedman identifies?
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5 comments:

  1. UnknownFri Oct 23, 09:38:00 AM 2009

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  2. UnknownFri Oct 23, 09:40:00 AM 2009

    Secret: Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables — to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers or new ways to combine existing technologies — will thrive.

    I do not agree it is Wall Street's fault. More of society as a whole.

    It sounds like supply and demand. Society is so concerned with getting college grads in and out that they have lost sight of other areas that are important to develop. A Bachelor's is a piece of paper that tells someone you can learn. A Bachelors is about the skills you have obtained like reading and writing - can you communicate? It is helping in furthering our education. When grads are walking across the stage for their degree, I wonder if professors ask themselves "Are they truly ready for the real world?" In college, we are not exactly testing creativity - I do not see much if any at Baylor. Students would like to put more into helping out but it is time consuming with all the other various activities they are involved in. It gets to the point where students tell themselves to focus on getting the job done and move on. We have expectations about how we want to be the next person to improve someone's life but then it because an exhausting process to juggle. In some ways, it is up to us but in other ways, if the teachers and professors do not get excited and put in the effort, students are not going to either. Instead of shipping students in and out, take some time out to see if they are really using their minds for more than just tests and "getting the job done, next" situations.

    In a neuropsychology class at a previous university, we studied education and teaching. We compared and contrasted several school programs from elementary to college such as Bill Gates K.I.P.P. and St. John's University. Each program has a unique style and instead of tests, they have assessments. They must have developed certain skills before they can graduate. The way K.I.P.P. works seems military-ish and I found I was not too fond of the system. Anyway, they were developing new ways to grow innovating, creative children and I have to say, it is working - then again, it depends not only on society turning around but our teachers, and in the end, ourselves too.

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  3. Jordan KruegerThu Nov 12, 06:57:00 PM 2009

    I think to be considered "untouchable" you need to bring something new to the plate. You need to ask yourself the question, What is it that I do that people will want to pay for it? The answer to this question is what sets some people apart from others. Businesses are not just looking for someone who can do paper work, they are looking for something more.

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  4. Justin CWed Nov 18, 10:45:00 PM 2009

    Friedman identifies that the education system needs to start teaching new skills like entrepreneurial along with the traditional reading, writing, and arithmetic. The new “untouchables” are those who are using entrepreneurial skills to create new and efficient ways to perform old jobs and attract more people by combining existing technologies in a new format. The ones who survive in today’s companies are those who are skilled in more than just one area. It is clear that the new “untouchables” are those who use their creativity to invent new ways of completing old tasks.

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  5. Allison BoydFri Dec 11, 10:57:00 AM 2009

    The secret is entrepenuership. The article literally defines it, the finding and making of new ways to do things and creating new markets within the existing ones by the investment of talent. The untouchables are those that adapt and think for themselves, that do more than the rote but can actually move beyond just the material to how it can be done better.
    What is interesting, is Baylor has one of the stronger entrepenuership programs out there. It is interesting that that becomes a direction Baylor has started catering towards within time for this recession. Some say it is harder to start a new company in recession, which is true, but it is easy to find someone who wants you if you can instead better efficient something preexisiting. For those people, demand is in the rise, and they become "untouchable" on the job market.
    I especially noted the description of the number of uneducated (or rather, less educated) jobs that are now being "axed". What technology allowed a mediocre employee to accomplish there is now no room for. Only the best are surviving in their employment league.
    But in correlation to mainstreet, I note the way that different elementary schools in my valley have different rates of attendance. The school next to the cheapest apartments in town has been increasing in enrollement while the school's in the more expensive neighborhoods are decreasing. My mother, a kindergarten teacher, has observed the way that she has less parents with just a highschool education lately as those are the group losing their high pay jobs and having to move to cheaper residences.
    It is sad that so many people are losing the standard of living they are accustomed to, but rather logical that it is those that are living rather above the means their education should afford are going first. Well, more motivation for me to study hard.

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