Sample Project: Careers 2030
In 2013-14 I was Senior Foresight Strategist at consulting firm Idea Couture. One of our most visible foresight projects was Careers 2030.
In early 2014 Canadian Scholarship Trust Plan (CST), a Canadian company specializing in educational investments, called on Idea Couture to help them show how radically different the career options of young people could be fifteen years from now. The result was Careers 2030, a website that showcases possible new job choices for kids who will just be becoming adults in that timeframe. I oversaw the foresight study that resulted in the career snapshots, an interesting challenge because we had to look at every social, economic and technological factor that might change the career landscape between now and 2030.
In the video below, Jayar La Fontaine, foresight strategist, Morgan Gerard, Senior Anthropologist at Idea Couture, and I are among those describing possible futures for work and careers.
The project created a mini firestorm of interest; it's a perfect example of how eager people are to have this kind of conversation, and just how far things can go when you let them. Newspaper and web articles as well as TV appearances followed quickly from the publication of the website. Some examples:
- CTV News featured the site;
- io9 called the site "an intriguing piece of speculative work;"
- Yahoo!: Finance excerpted a "top-10" list of jobs from the site;
- Business Insider only put 9 jobs in their list.
Careers 2030 perfectly illustrates the kind of buzz that can be generated by a willingness to engage with the future. I'm proud to have been a part of it.