Workforce, Humanity, and Future Tech

Alexandra Levit, 8x author, speaker, and career expert, interviewed by Trond Undheim, futurist and author. 

In this conversation, we talk about the future of careers and strategic HR. We discuss a recent book by Levit: Humanity Works: merging tech and people for the workforce of the future (2019). Alexandra and I agree that there is lots of work required to integrate tech in the workforce. Paradoxically, it requires hard, human work to adapt to new realities. We then discuss a brand new book penned by myself, Trond Undheim: Future Tech: how to capture value from disruptive industry trends--a framework for understanding tech/society (2021).  We talk about the trends of co-working, remote work, portfolio careers, gig economy, design thinking, workplace culture, experience retail, applied tech skills, the importance of training. We also discuss the future and what that entails for the workforce and for how technology will evolve. 

Having listened to this episode, check out Humanity Works, Future Tech as well as Alexandra Levit and Trond Undheim's online profiles:

• Humanity Works: https://www.amazon.com/Humanity-Works-Merging-Technologies-Workforce/dp/0749483458
• Future Tech: https://www.amazon.com/Future-Tech-Capture-Disruptive-Industry/dp/1398600326
• Alexandra Levit (LinkedIn, Twitter: @alevit): https://www.alexandralevit.com/
• Trond Undheim (LinkedIn, Twitter @trondau): https://trondundheim.com/

My takeaway is that paradoxically, the future of technology is not so much about tech as it is about getting the human part right. We need to train, retrain, and adapt. We will spend more time doing that than actually developing new technology. Also, successful technology requires being in close touch with its prospective users. Failing that, technology fails. The Future of work can be bright for young people if they are proactively explore the opportunities in front of them. Conversely, the world we have already entered rewards creativity and initiative. Without that, any trend, technology or otherwise, will come as an unpleasant surprise.

Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, subscribe at Futurized.org or in your preferred podcast player, and rate us with five stars.

If you like this topic, you may enjoy other episodes of Futurized, such as episode 49, Living the Future of Work, episode 41, The Future of Work, or episode 71, Future Tech - a preview. Keep in mind that so far, there are over 20 episodes of Futurized that tackle the Future of Work, so you may wish to browse more episode using the categories and search function provided on the Futurized.org website.

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