Everyone talks about the Weather ...
Very few do anything about it.
The same complaint could be made about Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
Sooner or later, America needs to get serious about creating the Growth Industries of the Next Century ...
Sooner would be Better -- seeing how the Century is about a 1/10-th Over, already. And Millions upon Millions of our citizens, really need the work, too.
The Last Century had Henry Ford, Franklin Roosevelt's WPA, and Tech Guru's like Gates -- driving the need for ever more workers, to get the Next Important Job Done!
... forging the new Frontiers, despite the nay-sayers. Damn the Cost torpedoes. If we don't Invest in the Future, we will be oppressed by it. Conquered by it. Left in the Dust, by it.
What will be the Mega-Growth Drivers ahead? ... in this Uncertain Century, that like it or not, we will continue to "stumble into" ... prepared or not.
Care to venture any guesses?
There are Trends, and then there are Mega Trends.
The thing that those Trends have in common, is such Trends, usually used to create grand entrepreneurial opportunities, especial for a "worker bee", ultra-productive nation like us. Such American Ingenuity is the stuff of Legends, the world over. ... Back in the day.
“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
-- Robert Francis Kennedy quotes
The Job Creators, need to once again aspire to Great Things, to build that which needs to built, to envision the places that Society (and Humanity) needs to reach. Some day. And then dare to go there ...
Afterall there really IS no shortage of Work that needs to be done -- only a shortage of vision, drive, and Capital, to make those daring Investments in our Common Future. Investments that used to be, just a matter of course, before this Greed-inspired "Age of Uncertainty," settled upon the land.
My Cuff Lists of the 'Opportunity Space' ahead (ie. Economic Niches for Goods and Services). PLEASE feel free to add your additions to these rough "Growth Areas" lists -- which are by no way complete. The work that's needed, is never really done ... now is it?
Mega Trends (these areas will force people to change)
Peak Oil
Energy
Transportation
Communication
High-Tech
Population
Water
Food
Pollution
Environment
Dwindling Resources
Climate Stability
Economic Equality
Education
Trends (more short-term opportunities, implied by Mega Trends)
High-speed Rail Project
Telecommuting sign up boards
Education on-demand, Electronic Libraries, Virtual College
Instant Polls, Instant Search Engines, On-line communities
Green Tech: Wind and Solar and Bio-fuels
Water preservation and production and transport.
Infrastructure restoration, roads, bridges, water, electric, rail, air, fiber optics
Flexible Farming, Crop Rotation, Community Farms, Greenhouses
Sugar Beet Fuels, ala. Brazil and their Oil-free economy
Electric Vehicles
Smart Grids, High Capacity grids
Brownfield Restoration, Pollution Point Source filtering
Wild area restoration and preservation.
Nuclear Decommissioning, or serious revamping
Weapons Decommissioning; How many X's do we need to be able to Destroy the World?
Recycling Science, with Products designed for reuse.
Science R&D, Vanquishing Disease
Health Care that's ubiquitous
Retirement Co-op communities
Knowledge farming
Trend detection and monitoring (ie. A.I. for the benefit of Humanity)
Small Business empowering; including Seed Capital, and an Expert-advice network.
Employee-owned Businesses; including real Profit sharing ...
In short People, finding and living up to their true potentials ... NOT generations Languishing.
Well, I remember, a long time ago when we were routinely taught,
Anything is possible -- we are only limited by the extent of our Dreams and the courage of our Imaginations ...
I miss those days.
Afterall, there IS no shortage of Work that needs to be done ... now is there?
If Humanity is somehow going to "muddle through" the complex, daunting challenges ahead ... as it always has been, for each generation ... back in their days -- then we had start getting busy ... Daylight is burning.