If you are working in IT today what will you be doing ten years from now? For some, the happy answer to this question will be “Nothing. I will be retired.” For twenty two of the twenty seven years that Gary Beach, author of The U.S. Technology Skills Gap: What Every Technology Executive Must Know to Save America’s Future worked at IDG [publisher of Computerworld, Network World and CIO Magazine] the median age of an IT worker was 42. Today the median age of an IT worker is 51.This blog post is not for those of you who will be retired in the next ten years. For those of you who will still be working, I have been examining what IT work will look like in the future.... Read more

When Mozart’s Don Giovanni premiered in Prague in 1787, it was viewed as “modern” music. When Don Giovanni played in Toledo, Ohio in 2013, it was considered “classical”. “Modern” is a moving target. As an anthropologist I am trained to observe evolving patterns of word use, abuse and non-use. Most disciplines [e.g., art, literature, theatre, politics, marketing, and finance] extensively and intensively make use of the word “modern”. For the past twelve weeks I have examined how the concept of “modern” as applied to contemporary leaders is evolving.

At a variety of industry gatherings and from several University platforms I have put students and executives through a variety of exercises designed to tease out modern conceptions of how modern executives should be behaving.... Read more