Bridges to AI 2025: Five Reasons to Embrace the Next Technological Wave—Now

​Don’t kid yourself. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated executive-level plans for funding automation, and although having grown stale in the last year, these projects are now looking more attractive given the current situation. 
 
This means that the timetable for scaling workforce preparation—acquiring foundational knowledge, reskilling and upskilling—is no longer a 2030 vision, or what many thought might be closer to 2040, but more along the lines of 2025.
 
In just a few short years the disruptive elements of advanced technological change will be felt globally.
 
Here are five reasons to embrace the next technological wave of edge technologies—automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence—now, even if you think you won’t be impacted by automation developments before 2025. 
 
 
Reason #1: Incremental Strategies Surpass Sluggish Plans
 
Evolution works well in most situations, including innovation. Not everything needs to be revolutionary for it to be valuable and to work well. It’s about moving yourself forward, not aiming for perfection. Bottom line, sluggish plans may be worse than no plans at all because they lead you into a false sense of security. You don’t want complacency to blindside you by pretending that the future won’t disrupt how you work and live. 
 
 
Reason #2: Motivation Is Easier When It’s Future-Focused
 
Whether it’s self-motivation, or motivating someone else, the best way to get out of your head is to visualize a future that includes you in the picture. Raise your energy level as you visualize a future that gets you excited—changing careers, applying for a new opportunity, new training, an out of state move—it won’t take long to shift your brain into an exciting call to action. Take the first step that feels like part of your aha moment—you’ll gain momentum from this point forward.
 
 
Reason #3: Futurist Dots Can Be Fun to Connect
 
Many of us enjoyed playing with puzzles as children (and many of you still do!), finding the pieces that fit the edges and the center, trying them out, and the excitement when you completed the puzzle. Would you believe if I told you that connecting dots associated with the future can be just as much fun? You begin with research—qualitative (first-hand observations, interviews, surveys, etc.) and quantitative (historical and current data). These are your puzzle pieces. You’re going to pull together all your research and begin “bucketing” the information. You’re looking for pieces that will fit the corners and the middle and the sides. This is how researchers and analysts discover trends and patterns and make leaps into the future. It can be fun pulling together research where you find the most important story in the data!
 
 
Reason #4: Life Is More Interesting When You’re a Step Ahead
 
Keeping a step ahead of yourself makes life interesting. Staying ahead of the curve keeps you competitive. Edge technologies are advancing—some industries faster than others—therefore, remaining in front of your Personal Inflection Curve (P.I.C.) is both interesting and smart, which is why we cover this in-depth in our online course 30 Days to a Recession-Proof Reinvention.
 
 
Reason #5: Do-ers and Thinkers Can Both Play in the Sandbox
 
Imagine for a moment that you’re the process-oriented, hands-on person and your new work partner is  the analytical, theoretical work partner. How will you collaborate with smart machines in future, a future closer than you think. You might be asked to identify and document aspects of your current job that you would be delighted to offload to your robotic partner. Are there tasks associated with your job that you would like to automate? What would this free you up to do? Where would you want to add new value? Where would you tap your creativity? Now is the time to have some fun capturing these ideas in your journal.

​Go on—give one (or all five!) a try and let us know how you get on.