workforce – Looking Forward

June 29, 2017

A Small-Town Tech Program That Enables People To Make A Living

There’s been lots of talk about our transition from an industrial manufacturing economy to a digital economy. Many people have been caught in this transition, just as many young farmers were caught in the transition to the industrial era and ended up filling the slums of rapidly growing cities more than a hundred years ago. While we see low earnings growth in cities and suburbs, this has been especially a problem in small towns and rural areas.

With all the talk about the issue, there’s been very little action considering the size of the problem – particularly impactful programs to help these folks. And those that do exist usually deal with part of the one problem, say training but not placement or the other way around. That problem is in part due to silos that have been created by our laws.

Nevertheless, there are some programs worth watching, expanding and emulating. Digital Works, a non-profit organization which currently operates in Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas is a good example.

This is not about creating more computer programming and other high-level jobs in big cities. Nor does it work on helping low-income people in areas with concentrations of traditional metropolitan city corporate employment, such as the successful Workforce Opportunity Services.

Instead, as you can tell from where they operate, Digital Works focuses on rural areas and small towns with high unemployment – the part of the economy that has been most left behind. As an example, one of their locations is Gallipolis, Ohio, about forty miles from the West Virginia border in southeastern Ohio. At its high point in 1960, almost 8,800 people lived there. The Census Bureau estimates there are fewer than 3,500 people there now.

These are also the places that require residents to travel the most to get to big (or even bigger) cities that have concentrated traditional employment in factories, offices and stores. So being able to make a living, by working digitally, in or near your home opens up all kinds of new economic opportunities.

Digital Works trains local people for contact center work that can be done anywhere there is sufficient Internet connectivity, either at home or at a work center. The goal is that the work pays better than minimum wage, with performance-based raises and promotional opportunities.

Digital Works handles the whole cycle that is necessary for the unemployed – recruitment, screening, training, placement, mentoring, development and retention. (It reminds me a bit of the transitional work programs for urban poor and ex-convicts that I helped run much earlier in my career.) They even work with their graduates to obtain the National Retail Foundation’s Customer Service Certification.

They will create remote work centers in partnership with local governments in those areas where broadband is not yet widely available. It’s worth noting that Digital Works is a subsidiary of Connected Nation, which itself is focused on increasing broadband deployment and adoption.

Digital Works is fulfilling the vision of the Internet as the foundation for expanded economic growth everywhere it can reach.

And, of course, to complete the circle, a large part of their effort is on developing relationships with companies that would pay the people to whom they are giving several weeks of training. These business relationships also ensure that the training provided is what employers are actually looking for – something that is often discussed in other training programs, but not so closely practiced as by Digital Works.

With a more global vision, one of the more interesting people to participate regularly in the Intelligent Community Forum’s activities is Stu Johnson, who directs Digital Works. He has said:

“There’s no other workforce training program that offers what we do—it’s really groundbreaking. We are able to offer employer-customized training to high-quality candidates, job-placement assistance, on-going mentorship, and even advanced training and career development. There is an excessive demand for these types of jobs, and Digital Works is connecting those employers with eager and trained job seekers.”

It is hard to find external studies of programs like this, which operate with little overhead in areas of the country that don’t much national attention. But Diane Rekowski, Executive Director of the Northeast Michigan Council of Governments has noted that

“The best part about this program is that it is free to anyone, and the success in Ohio has shown a 97% placement rate in a paid job upon completion of the training. Whether you are a recent high school graduate or enjoying your retirement years, this is an opportunity to have a flexible career and potential for earning much more than minimum wage.”

Digital Works’ data shows that the program has an 85% graduation rate and that 91% of their placements retain employment for more than a year.

While this program won’t work for everyone, everywhere and it certainly isn’t turning its graduates into millionaires, it is the kind of thing that can make a tremendous difference in real lives as this video shows – https://vimeo.com/150681091

March 3, 2016

New Funding For Libraries

The Metropolitan New York Library Council was invited to take part today in a working conference of the New York State Assembly Standing Committee on Libraries and Information Technology on the digital divide, broadband and especially library funding. We — Nate Hill, Executive Director, and myself as Board president — took the opportunity to address the large and developing problem of how to fund libraries in this century.

We noted that these subjects are all part of a larger problem. Libraries are delivering more and more digital content and services to larger numbers of people, especially those who are on the wrong side of the digital divide or who still need help navigating the digital economy. These increased services require much higher bandwidth than most libraries can now offer, which puts an unfair and arbitrary cap on how well people can be served.

While the need for broadband in libraries and its value to the community is clear, what has been unclear and, at best, sporadic is the financing to make the broadband-based services possible. When legislators only thought about libraries as just another one of the cultural resources for the state, library funding was limited to a piece of cultural funding.

Now that libraries offer a broader array of services and can offer even more in a digital broadband era, the funding should also be more diversified.

• To the extent libraries support entrepreneurs and small business as both location for innovation and “corporate reference librarian”, a piece of the economic development budget should support libraries.• To the extent libraries support students, especially with homework help and after school resources, a piece of the very large education budget should support libraries.• To the extent libraries support workforce development and are the most cost-effective, often the only, way that adult learners can keep up their skills to be employable, a piece of the workforce development and public assistance budgets should support libraries.• To the extent libraries support public health education, a piece of the health budget should support libraries.

There are other examples, but the strategy is clear. Library funding needs to come from a diverse set of sources, just as a good investor has a balanced portfolio and doesn’t have all the money in one stock.

Of course, in the longer run, public officials will recognize the role of the library as the central non-commercial institution of the knowledge age that we are entering. As such, perhaps the permanent funding of libraries should be a very light tax on the commerce going to through the Internet to support the digital public services that are provided by libraries.

To some degree, the principle of basing support for library broadband on telecommunications revenues has been established with the Federal E-Rate program. But the amounts are relatively small and the telecommunications base is traditional phone service, which is diminishing, not the Internet which is growing.

Whatever the source of funding may turn out to be, libraries need a consistent source of funding that grows with the demand for their services in this century.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/140390575384/new-funding-for-libraries]

January 28, 2015

Managing A Global Virtual Workforce

In many of my presentations, I point out that an increasing number of people will no longer have traditional 9-5 jobs in office buildings. Of course, I’m not the only one to observe that the labor market is potentially global and that entrepreneurs who live anywhere can connect with others who have the skills they need to make their businesses successful.

When I say these things, people generally agree – in the abstract – but they seem not to know how they can actually do this. They just don’t know how to start and sustain a global virtual business.

This is a particularly important problem for entrepreneurs who do not live in one of the half dozen biggest metropolitan areas in this country or their equivalent metropolitan areas elsewhere.

With that in mind, it’s worth noting that last year a book was published that can set virtual entrepreneurs on their way. It’s “Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business” by Chris Ducker, a serial entrepreneur based in the Philippines. (He’s also responsible for the slide above.)

Ducker starts by describing the feeling that entrepreneurs have that they must do everything themselves because they can’t find others to help them. And, of course, those who are outside of big cities feel even lonelier. But reminding readers of that feeling is really just the motivation for reading on.

“Virtual Freedom” is essentially a practical handbook for managing a virtual global workforce. It goes into some detail about hiring people, compensating them, managing them, etc. It provides case studies and references to tools that the entrepreneur can use.

It’s interesting that the advice in much of the book applies to management in general, not just management of virtual workforces.

Perhaps managing a virtual workforce forces you to think about management more clearly than when you manage in traditional offices. In those offices, people seem to think they know the rules and patterns of behavior – even when they don’t really know.

Some of the advice is common sense, except we all know that common sense is not so common.

For example, he gives examples of entrepreneurs who were frustrated by the poor quality of those they depended on, until the entrepreneurs realized the problem was, in large part, on their side – a failure to communicate clearly and specifically what they were asking for and a failure to verify this was understood by workers who often came from other cultures. But in the diverse workforce in many countries today, this is an issue even in traditional offices.

Along with communicating clearly, he emphasizes that the entrepreneur needs to think clearly about the tasks that need to be accomplished. After all, when you can’t really look over the shoulders of the people who work for you, the only measure of effectiveness you have is what results they deliver.

Of course, such an approach in a traditional office environment is also a good idea – rather than trying to see if “people are working hard”. It’s easy to look busy. Not so easy to get tasks done and deliver results.

Bottom line: if you want to get a quick course in management of virtual staff, read this book.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/109394419164/managing-a-global-virtual-workforce]

January 9, 2014

Are MOOCs Failing?

There have been recent articles featuring primarily Sebastian Thrun, the earlier leader of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and founder of the company, Udacity, which specializes in developing and delivering MOOCs.

The first was a piece in Fast Company about how Thrun has been disappointed by the experience of MOOCs. This was followed by a more positive piece in the New York Times about changes in MOOCs that are being considered in order to address their failures. The failures turn out to be the small percentage of people who actually attend the full course and the fact that most of them already have degrees.

However, the discussion might be misleading. It not so much whether online courses are good or bad, but how it is very difficult to succeed with a new innovation by casting it as a minor modification of something that already exists. In this case, the idea that online learning should be very much like a typical college course, but just online, may not have been an innovative enough idea. For example, the Khan Academy, which packages learning into ten minute videos that anyone can access, is a much greater change from convention and has also been much more successful.

Indeed, the fact that many in the MOOCs already have degrees maybe should make MOOC developers reconsider their target. Perhaps MOOCs will be much more appealing as a cost-effective means of lifelong learning for those who cannot afford the time or additional money to attend college than for those who would be college students.

In a knowledge age, the biggest challenge is how to provide learning opportunities for all adults – all of whom need to continue to learn.

(Disclosure: While this blog has had previous posts on higher education, it is now more relevant since I was recently appointed to the board of the Westchester Community College. Of course, my views do not represent those of the College now, or as it may turn out, even in the future 😉

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/72768461219/are-moocs-failing]

May 15, 2013

Community Colleges And Workforce Development: What’s Missing?

I had the opportunity this week to participate in a summit run by the Chancellor of the State University of New York on Community Colleges and the Future of New York’s Workforce.

The participants came from both the community colleges and industry. As a group, they represented some of the smartest and most dedicated folks trying to improve the workforce.

The special focus was on STEM and especially advanced manufacturing, represented in New York by the photovoltaic, optics, and fab foundry industries, among others.

Some key takeaways:

While particular job training is useful, the community colleges should not go too far in the extreme and essentially become a vocational education vehicle. The private sector executives noted that it is hard for businesses to predict the next big trend and community college officials are likely to do worse than business executives – so ensure that more general STEM skills and critical thinking are also taught. Many business executives would also admit that their companies are subject to tremendous short-term pressures that should not necessarily overwhelm the long-term foundation that colleges need to provide.

(When I used to speak to college students about the software industry, I would tell them that the most important things they could learn were not any particular computer language, but how to think clearly and how to learn on their on own.)

The economy is global, so the training of students has to include more than a local aspect. Chancellor Zimpher, for example, highlighted the great value of coop working opportunities for students – more than 90% of coop students get jobs, a much higher rate than for others. But she also noted that these coop opportunities could and should take place outside the US.

A good community college will encourage companies – both large and small – to expand nearby. For example, one company with factories in New York and Georgia decided to expand dramatically in New York because of its better community college system.

The jobs out there are more than what is traditionally thought of as STEM-based jobs. There is a large need for welders and auto mechanics, both of which apparently are now computer-based jobs.

What I didn’t hear was also important:

How does this scale? The employers are saying they have many job openings, but are not finding the people with the right skills. The public officials and educators also say that workers will need lifelong learning, not just education when during their childhood or even a once in a lifetime retraining as middle aged adults. In the knowledge economy of this century, learning is a continuing necessity. So how can community colleges help provide this education in a cost-effective manner? It’s worth noting that, while community colleges are less expensive than other kinds of higher education, as they currently operate, they may be too expensive to meet this demand.

What about innovation? Many economists and public officials point out that the key to 21st century economic growth will be innovation. Those people, places and companies that can innovate will be the ones that generate growth. While there is lots of talk about training on specific existing skills, what about helping students to enhance their creative, their innovation skills?

Unless community colleges also fully address these two questions, their well-intentioned plans and diligent efforts will be undermined.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/50517716137/community-colleges-and-workforce-development-whats]

January 9, 2013

Gamification In The Public Sector?

Over the holidays, the New York Times had a story titled “All the World’s a Game, and Business Is a Player” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/technology/all-the-worlds-a-game-and-business-is-a-player.html)

Many of us are familiar with computer games. If not a passion of ourselves as adults, the passion for games is observable among youth.

The article is not about shooting adventure games, but instead what are called “serious games”. In various ways, we’ve seen the private sector use gamification. But the question here is: do even these serious games have a role in the public sector?

The interest in games is based on the observation that people are much more engaged, more motivated and learn quicker in game situations than in more traditional bureaucratic environments. So there have been game designers and others who have tried to apply these “game mechanics” to the public sector.

Actually, this is not new. The Annual Games for Change conference has been around since 2004. At the conference last June, there was even a Federal government caucus.

In 2011, Jane McGonigal, one of the leaders of this movement, wrote the successful book, “Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How they Can Change the World”

But there has been increasing attention to the possibilities, even in the public sector. The newspaper article mentions games for everything from reducing energy waste to the Israeli Defense Forces.

In my own work, I have advised a big state government that was interested in the use of gamification to change the environment and re-motivate its work force.

I’ve also been involved in a strategy to better engage customers of city transit services through gamification. This provides two additional benefits: it establishes a relationship with riders who before were anonymous and motivates the more social of those riders to help build a community of riders who can help improve the overall urban experience.

There are clearly limits to the use of gamification and it is fairly easy to think of situations where even “serious” games would be considered inappropriate. But there is much potential in these ideas that have not yet been realized.

If these are to be used in valuable ways to achieve public goals, then public officials need to take the lead on this movement, rather than watch while this movement gets built without them.

Please pass along examples of such games you’ve observed in practice or your ideas of where games could be used in the public sector.

[http://njacknis.tumblr.com/post/40095139534/gamification-in-the-public-sector]