MemeMachineGo!

Predicting the future can be a serious exercise based on an understanding of historical processes, extrapolation of trends, and application of well-researched data. Or it can consist of a bunch of self-proclaimed know-it-alls sitting around in a room and saying “So whaddaya think is gonna happen now?”

Not that I have any serious problems with the latter; it provides hours of harmless fun for college undergrads and bored intellectuals. And it makes certain firms an impressive amount of money. The recent sidebar in Fast Company magazine, “Six Jobs That Won’t Exist in 2016”, seems to fall into this category as well. They seem to have come up with a couple of commonplaces, some mistaken conclusions, and some outright blather.

• Bloggers: Pay someone to write snarky comments? Do you think we’re getting paid for this?
  Sure, blogging as a paying job doesn’t have much of a future, except for a handful of media professionals. But bloggers are not going to go away. What other technology allows anyone to be their own publisher, regardless of whether or not anyone reads it?
• Advertising creatives: Talented amateurs making ads for fun and posting them online seem to be better at your job than you are. Bonus: No more “whither the 30-second spot” whining.
  Reality check: you’re a high-level manager at an advertising firm. A Fortune 500 client is considering contracting you for a major national ad campaign. Do you hire some professionals to do the job, or do you search the Web for amateur content that might happen to match the client’s needs? Maybe the job of creating advertising content will be farmed out to consultants in the future, but no way is it going to disappear.
• Auto mechanics: As cars run on software, the grease monkey will need a makeover.
  I’d call this half-true. Yes, the person servicing your car is going to need a lot more knowledge and training on the software side of things, but the mechanical workings are just as important. We may very well see the end of the local corner garage, because more expensive, specialized equipment will be required to service newer cars. I don’t take my Honda Insight anywhere but to the dealership for service, and a lot of old-style auto mechanics won’t touch a newer car for fear of breaking something while trying to fix it.
• U.S. high-tech jobs: But software engineers can always get a job down at the garage.
  Was that a joke? … That was the sound of me not laughing.
  “U.S. high-tech jobs” is such a broad category that any prediction that they’ll all be gone is ridiculous. Yes, you need to go overseas if you want to find cheap software engineers. But engineers and developers aren’t the only ones necessary to make a high-tech project successful. And most American companies have already discovered that management and business analysis skills aren’t as easy to come by in the global market as software development experience.
  Also, there are some projects that are just too complex to succeed just by throwing cheap code-monkeys at them. Developers who can actually think about the problem, and who can be trusted to make decisions about how to solve the problem, are much more rare and valuable than those who just follow instructions like a recipie. Such people could be found anywhere, but American firms are going to find them more easily in the U.S.
• Indian call-center operators: American customer service is rescued from oxymoron status as companies realize that being nice to the people with the money is the only way to win.
  Is it just me, or does that sentence not make much sense?
  
  Overseas call centers are likely to get better at customer service as time goes on. This will probably make some of them more expensive and bring the American call centers back into competition. And like good software developers, customer service reps who can actually think are going to be more valuable no matter where they come from. But the first-line, reading-from-a-script customer service people can come from anywhere, as long as they’re fluent in the language of the customers.
• Gatekeepers: TV schedulers, A&R guys, Wall Street researchers, cool hunters. As punishment, now it’s our turn to ram stuff down your throats. Hope you like Bon Jovi!
  I plead “insufficient data” on this one. I don’t know what the jobs mentioned have in common that makes them “gatekeepers”, or what is meant by “gatekeeper” in this context. And who exactly is doing the talking when they say “our turn”?
  In short, I have no freakin’ clue about this.
  And anyway, when it comes to retro 80’s metal, I prefer Dio.