It never ceases to amaze me how fast our world is changing every day.  One of the stories I often tell which really enforces this is one I heard recently at a Cisco Velocity conference in Paris.  During one of the theatre sessions at the end of the conference we were discussing this very topic and the facilitator of the session gave a real life example to the group.

If I remember correctly she was a career mom with a family of four, two boys and two girls.  For years as a rule she would be out of the house first thing in the A.M. and her husband would get the kids off to school.  On this particular day as she described it, her husband was out of town and therefore she was doing the morning ritual with the kids.

The kids as I recall went to a private school and the boys were required to wear a uniform which included a tie.  That morning the first question from her sons was, "Mom can you tie our ties?"  Something that their father had done day in and day out for years without ever giving it a thought.  She froze !  She had never tied a tie in her life nor did she even know where to start.  On top of this she had two young girls to get to school as well.  In her words she said to the boys "you are going to have to figure it out somehow".   A few minutes passed and she noticed the boys were in the living room and very quiet.   She stopped to go in and investigate why the troublesome silence.  To her surprise and eventual delight, the two of them were huddled around a computer and logged on to YouTube, watching a video on how to tie a tie.  Brilliant !  A few years ago they would have been stuck but for today's kids, it's just a way of life.

I had a similar incident a couple years back when I was heading out on one of my first ever salmon fishing trips.  Myself and two customers were heading to the very popular Larry's Gulch lodge in New Brunswick.   I had fished a lot when I was a kid, but my father was always the one who took care of everything so when I got thinking about my upcoming trip I was quite concerned that I wouldn't know how to tie a fly on my line.  A pretty simple task for someone who fished all their lives right?  Not quite.  Within a minute or two it hit me...YouTube !  Within 20 minutes I was an expert.   From that day forward I was sold !

I think by now a lot of people have seen the video`s and slide decks that are out there around where we are headed and how technology is changing rapidly.  Some of them are called `Did you know?` videos and I am sure you can find them on the web at any point.  From these I pulled the two statements that I feel really reinforce what this post is about.

1. The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn't exist in 2004.

2. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist

When you think about how fast the world changes now, you either are scared to death or can`t wait for tomorrow.  Luckily I can`t wait for tomorrow !