Your Job and How Technology Will Change it: Surviving & Succeeding in the New Work World

In the next few years, technology is set to change the way we work beyond recognition. Richard Lieberman, nationally recognised employment and IP expert, explains how every working person in every industry and profession will soon experience profound changes in their work as technology, social networking and virtual communications alter the way jobs have traditionally been performed. Lieberman documents how most people, particularly those over the age of 40, do not fully understand the nature of these changes and are worried about their ability to adapt to future job requirements. Lieberman explains not only what will happen to your job, but more importantly, how you can survive and prosper in the changing work world. While there have been many books about how technology is changing the world, this is the first book to examine how the technology revolution will affect you and your job.

We all know that technology has an impact on our work - cell phones, for example, let bosses intrude on dinners and softball games with queries and demands. But they also let us get away from our desks and go to dinners and softball games knowing that we can respond to an urgent issue, if it arises, from the table or the bleachers.
Richard Lieberman explains the basics and then moves on to a larger set of issues - technology won't simply let us do the old stuff faster, it will change the nature of our jobs.
That's the key value of his book, 'Your Job and How Technology Will Change It';, which is tightly focused on individuals and jobs and completely avoids any rambling utopian visions or detours into topics like big data.
His warning: be prepared to change or face early, unplanned retirement.
Lieberman offers two concrete forces that will continue to bring about change - economics and young employees.
"It is the employees themselves, particularly young employees, who are changing their jobs by collaborating with new technology to be more productive."
Paper serves as a marker - under 40s have little or no paper at their workplaces while Baby Boomers still rely on it.
Emerging technologies - quantum computing, cloud computing, intelligent and inexpensive sensors and augmented reality - are moving into widespread adoption faster than most people had predicted.
In part that is because work enterprises are being pushed by younger staff who, unwilling to abide by standard three-year refresh cycles for Dell or HP desktop computers, bring their more advanced personal technology, such as iPhones, iPads or MacBooks to work, brushing aside protests from corporate IT.
Lieberman says that most corporate leaders think the world of work will not change, but he sees vast changes already happening among people under 40.
The execs may be indulging in intentional ignorance. In a time when young people who are adept at finding information with the click of a mouse or the flick of a finger, supervisors' efforts to assert authority through control of information is increasingly ineffective. And young people, who can flip through information in seconds have little respect for bosses stuck in the age of paper, fax, or even email.
As the nature of work changes, so does its locale.
IBM got rid of 78 million of its 185 million sqare feet of office space by having employees work from home or wherever they happen to be, notes Lieberman. An architectural project management firm he writes about relies on female architects who left traditional firms, and retired architects who like the opportunity to keep working, to run an international business virtually.
Firms that use technology imaginatively will reduce costs, operate more effectively and will attract the brightest and most ambitious young staff.
He offers practical advice for the evolving new world of work which requires new skills and new approaches to colleagues.
Use social networks and learn how to communicate in their fast and informal ways. Develop graphic literacy, learn how to communicate over video with graphics and charts. Try a virtual game like Second Life to enhance skills. Develop multiple job skills, get organized because new social ways of working will also include technology that can monitor employees to see who is working effectively. Learn to use cyberspace tools. Develop a diverse social group because the new world will require working with people of different social and ethnic groups, often in many different countries.
The book is studded with examples of people who have exploited technology to work better, accomplish a lot and earn more. It also has some examples of people who have fallen out of good jobs because they could not, or would not, adapt. It's a practical guide to staying in the former. --Forbes Magazine