Gigonomics: The New Workforce Model?

Newsweek published an interesting piece today titled The New American Job: Are freelance and part-time gigs the future? The piece discusses how, in the current economy, a job is not a job using the traditional definition. Work for many has become a pastiche of part-time gigs, project contracts and fill-in freelance work. Here's an interesting quote from Newsweek:

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment was up in December across all fifty states from the previous month and the prior year. Some 2.5 million full-time jobs have evaporated in the last 13 months, contributing to what's being called the "gig economy." But there is a convergence of other, more developed trends at play as well. Tight-budgeted company managers long ago embraced outsourcing to only pay for what they can use. A new generation of workers has 24/7 connectivity, lacks corporate loyalty, and thinks like (if the McCain/Palin contingent will give us back the word) mavericks. Put them together and you get gigonomics.

New York is a good example of what's being seen around the country where (from Newsweek) two thirds of the opportunities created last year were either part-time, temporary or contract based, according to Sara Horowitz of the Freelancers Union, a group which does advocacy work and provides benefits for independent workers. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed giving tax relief to the thousands who actually pay more in taxes because they are self-employed.

Will self-employment stick or is this just the result of our current economic meltdown? Should we be teaching business/self-employment survival skills in our science, technology and engineering classes?

My final question is do we have the broadband infrastructure in place in our country as we shift to this model and compete with the rest of the world? I think most of us realize the answer to this question is no.

Be sure to read the entire Newsweek piece linked here.

Can Seagrass Health Indicate Environmental Stress?

Del Mar College’s Natural Sciences Department has made providing research opportunities to students a priority through the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP), funded by the U.S Department of Education, and has partnered with Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi (TAMU-CC) and other area institutions to give participants hands-on experiences by working with researchers and graduate students.

In this interview, done at the 2008 National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education conference held last October in Washington, DC, Del Mar College student Nicolas Perez discusses work he did in the summer of 2008 related to research conducted by TAMU-CC associate professor of molecular and plant sciences, Dr. Kirk Cammarata. Under the supervision of Dr. Kirk Cammarata, three Del Mar College students were paired with TAMUCC- graduate student mentors and focused on separate research projects related to the study of sea grass health.




You can get more information on Delmar College, TAMU-CC and Nicolas' project here.

I enjoyed talking with Nicolas and all of the other students that attended the conference. I had the opportunity to interview a few more of them and will be posting those interviews here on occasion. If you want, you can see them all now on our Center YouTube channel linked here.

Presentation to STCC School of Engineering Technologies

Today I had the opportunity to present at our Springfield Technical Community College School of Engineering Technologies opening semester meeting. My Technology Update presentation is displayed below.

SET Presentation Jan 2009

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: technology education)

Don't Forget To Submit Your HI-TEC Conference Proposal!

On July 19-22 our National Center for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT Center) will be participating in the first HI-TEC (High Impact Technology Exchange Conference).

HI-TEC is a national conference in partnership with a consortium of National Science Foundation (NSF)Advanced Technological Education centers and projects.

HI-TEC is the first national conference on advanced technological education where both faculty who teach technicians and technicians themselves can go to update skills and knowledge. The conference is the result of the collaborative efforts of ATE centers and projects across the nation and represents the evolution of the long-standing and highly-successful SAME-TEC Conference. Many of you joined us at SAME-TEC last year in Austin and we hope that you will join us again this year at HI-TEC in Scottsdale!

Charged with Educating America's Technical Workforce, HI-TEC will consist of one and a half days of pre-conference workshops and two days of conference sessions and keynote speakers. Attendees will have the opportunity to choose from a larger number of workshops and sessions.

HI-TEC workshops and sessions will cover the following areas:

• Advanced Manufacturing Technologies,
  
• Agricultural, Environmental and Energy Technologies,
  
• Biotechnology, Chemical and Process Technologies,
  
• Engineering Technologies,
  
• Information & Security Technologies,
  
• Learning and Evaluation, and
  
• Micro- and Nanotechnologies
  

In addition, HI-TEC will uniquely explore the convergence of these areas!

Our conferences have always offered opportunities to participate in and learn about leading efforts to advance ICT technical training in the US - this summer it will be even better.

The HI-TEC Program Committee is currently accepting proposals for workshops, sessions and keynote speakers. Proposals must be submitted by January 30, 2009. To review proposal guidelines and to submit your proposal online, please visit www.highimpact-tec.org/program.html.

The Polka Long Tail And The Pittsburgh Steelers

It looks like the Steelers are going to the Super Bowl again but that's not why I'm writing this.

Back in October 2004 Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired Magazine, published an article and referred to something he called The Long Tail. In 2006, Chris expanded on his article and published the book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. In both the article and the book Chris explains how the Internet enables businesses to sell a large selection of goods in small quantities to a large population of customers at minimum cost.

Selling online extends the life of digital content almost infinitely. This makes sense - think about your favorite song or television show when you were a kid. The next time you're at your local WalMart look around - think you'll find that song or every (or even any) episode of you favorite show? Probably not. Chances are you'll find it and will always be able to purchase it somewhere (iTunes, Amazon, etc) on the web - that's the Long Tail.

So back to my title..... what do the Pittsburgh Steelers and Polka music have to do with Chris Anderson and the Long Tail?

In the 1970's my in-laws, polka musicians Happy Louie and Julcia, recorded a song titled The Pittsburgh Steelers Polka. It pretty much sat on the shelf for the past 30 years or so - they'd sell a few albums here and there with the song on it. A little over a year ago Louie and Julcia began putting their songs up on iTunes and more recently Amazon.

Fast forward to today - the Steelers song has gone viral. A search of the Pittsburgh Steelers on iTunes brings The Pittsburgh Steelers Polka up as number one on the songs list. Another search of the "World Genre" Top Ten in iTunes brings The Pittsburgh Steelers Polka up as number 6.

You can listen to a portion of the song on YouTube here.


If you want the whole song you can get it on iTunes here or on Amazon here.

Go Steelers!

Digital TV - Maybe Not Next Month?

I've been writing about the transition from analog to digital television, referred to as DTV, for the last year and a half or so. Here's a refresher.....

Way back in 2005 Congress decided to move to all digital over-air broadcasting to free up spectrum for public safety and make some money by auctioning off the space. Auctions for the spectrum held last year brought in $19.6 billion to the federal government. Congress allocated a little less than $2 billion to provide $40 coupons for digital to analog converter boxes and get the word out to consumers about the change - if you have an analog television and watch over the air your television will not work after February 17 without a converter box.

So far so good - better public safety, some money for the federal government, higher quality digital television and a coupon program for the converter boxes, all with good up front planning.......

Fast forward to last week - on Monday the organization handling the conversion, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said the program had no money left and a waiting list of 1.1 million converter box coupon requests. They also said approximately 13 million of the 41 million coupons mailed out to consumers had expired after 90 days.

Want more? Here's a quote from a piece in the Los Angeles Times:

In a letter Thursday to key members of Congress, John Podesta, co-chairman of Obama's presidential transition team, said the Feb. 17 conversion should be delayed, though he did not specify for how long. But with the incoming administration facing economic and foreign policy crises, it does not want to add a major problem with TV viewing in its first weeks in office.

Podesta cited troubles with the converter box coupon program as well as inadequate efforts to educate the public about the switch, and the need to help elderly, poor and rural Americans prepare for it.

"With coupons unavailable, support and education insufficient and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change to the legislatively mandated analog cutoff date," Podesta wrote.

Podesta said the waiting list for coupons could climb to more than 5 million by early February.

Also..... Obama's economic stimulus package is rumored to include some money for the analog to digital transition.....

Will the February 17 deadline end up being extended? Right now it sure looks like it.

Shoulder Injury = Slow Blog Output

I've had a nasty shoulder injury and it is keeping me from blogging at my usual pace. Most of my writing is done after I get home from work in the evenings. With this injury I'm still working during the day but usually get home, eat dinner and end up crashing. It has really slowed my writing.

I'm working on a piece about President Elect Obama's pick for Kevin Martin's successor at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) - Julius Genachowski. Give me a day or two to finish it up. Hopefully by then I'll be back closer to my normal output.

Thanks.