Which USA do you work in?

http://blogmaverick.com/2012/08/16/which-usa-do-you-work-in/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogmaverick%2FtyiP+%28blog+maverick%29

by taytus • 14 years ago

55 28 14 years ago

blogmaverick.com

raldi• 14 years ago

What's this alternate definition of "pig latin" that he's referring to?

a1k0n• 14 years ago

I'm guessing he's referring to Apache Pig, for doing map-reduce database operations (e.g. joins) in Hadoop. http://pig.apache.org/docs/r0.7.0/piglatin_ref2.html

ptc• 14 years ago

I assume he's referring to Apache Pig's Pig Latin language.

cmancini• 14 years ago

I'd be interested to ask Mark about the tier between "brick and mortar" and "digital." Sometimes even engineers get sick and need a doctor. Or sue each other and need lawyers. Or remodel their home and need a contractor. It's nice when these people are smart, and fortunately many are, even if they never write code. It's still ridiculously hard to get into medical school--our doctors are the kids who got straight As in university. Perhaps that's an extreme example, but there are many industries that do not have "the intelligence sucked out" in a human asset notion, though perhaps in another 10 years big data will write prescriptions.

rdl• 14 years ago

Doctors are protected by a powerful union which slows change, but even medicine has a lot of non-MDs doing more and more (PA, NP, various types of tech, etc.).

Lawyers are a good example -- protected by a (not as powerful) union, but more and more of the "digital" parts of law are becoming free (useful legal advice, services like legal zoom, etc.), or global markets (e discovery, etc.)

netcan• 14 years ago

I think the best way to think about this is rate and direction of change.

Even in these professions that are starting with a high base of smarts in "brick and mortar", the ratio of "digital smarts"/"brick and mortar smarts" is growing. Where are big improvements in diagnosis going to come from? Smarter GPs or smarter diagnostic tools? It doesn't mean GPs will get less smart or that there will be fewer of them, but the ratio is going to grow.

techdmn• 14 years ago

Indeed. We may not have full "Artificial Intelligence" in the short term, but longer term (not much longer) it seems like a bad idea to bet against the computer revolution. There was a time not so long ago when people thought computers would never be better than people at /chess/.

autophil• 14 years ago

True. I'll add that tradespeople like plumbers, electricians and dentists will always have enough work. I'll bet that on average they make more than most programmers do.

Lost_BiomedE• 14 years ago

A huge chunk of dentists will be taken out due to the biology revolution, which has been fueled by computers. Actually, I am really surprised that the dentists have lasted this long.

jacques_chester5• 14 years ago

I'm in the USA that wishes it was in the USA, so it could get access to cheaper everything.

(Which is another way of saying I'm in Australia).

primitur• 14 years ago

Australians should consume less and build more. The Australian nation has got all the resources, why on Earth is an average Australian salivating for the American cool tech and so on, when the stuff is being designed to be cool to "Americans", but yet built with Australian resources in China, in the first place?

Well anyway, as far as the "Australians emulate Americans" thing goes, I hope Australia has a DIY scene akin to the US Maker faires soon enough and so on ..

(Disclaimer: I am Australian. Haven't lived there in years, but I do enjoy a yarn.)

jacques_chester5• 14 years ago

The division of labour enriches all of us.

vacri4• 14 years ago

Would you take the cut in pay that goes along with that?

I have a friend in an Australian software company that is starting to consider outsourcing to the US to cut down on programming costs.

lifeisstillgood2• 14 years ago

Why is this same mistake repeated time and time again

hire expensive programmers who can do the work of twenty

and mostly the do the work of twenty is about building infrastructure, automation and not going down rat holes not to do with ability.

jacques_chester5• 14 years ago

Huh? Programming salaries in Australian hotspots are lower than those in US hotspots.

But the rent is higher, the petrol more expensive, the food more expensive, imported electronics more expensive and so on and so forth in spite of the soaring dollar.

bartonfink• 14 years ago

Vacri - would you mind dropping a line? I'd like to hear more about this friend if you've got a minute.

205guy• 14 years ago

Very interesting article, and a point-of-view I'd never really considered. I had always assumed the "intelligence" that was being added by software was an addition to the existing business processes. I hadn't thought that some of it was originating from and replacing employees.

However, much as the ideas make intuitive sense, I'm having a hard time thinking of concrete examples. How does using Square take away from what Starbucks employees could've brought to the job? Ironically, the only example I can think of is IT work, both helpdesk and sys-admin. Lots of software seems to be replacing the craft of troubleshooting. Good if you have a bad IT dept.; bad if you have a good one.

And finally, I don't think the overlap is complete. A company may automate a lot of things, but there are other things, or even the automation itself where employees can still give valuable input. It may be like the manufacturing in the end: companies come back around to the other intangible values once they see the true cost of only optimizing for the bottom line. Sad that it always takes a whole cycle of outsourcing, downsizing, losing customers, and crappy products/service before the industry comes around and rethinks the strategy.

chmike2• 14 years ago

With square you don't anymore need people who can work as a cashier. This is not just counting money. It means people who won't steal, etc. This is more difficult to find than people who just keep the shop clean, and thus they are more expensive. The consequence is that well eucated people (moral) and intelligent people will move away or be pushed away. (appologize for my bad english. I'm french)

chmike2• 14 years ago

I understand the author had a point to make, but my analysis is diferent. I'm trying to look a little further away in time. We will still need brick and mortar work to be done and we'll have a very stronger pressure on energy optimization. So I'll foresee the next revolution (after digital) as a robotic revolution. That is what I would say to young people. Keep your eyes and ears open on this domain to become the experts in that field.

lifeisstillgood2• 14 years ago

I agree, to an extent, but a robotic revolution is still software eating the world - for example house building.

Robots can currently 3d print in concrete, and the roof stays on, what is hard is the software and architecture to design a window cavity that is printable, functional etc etc, and the software needed for balance, precision location

I think what I am saying is that hardware is only 33% of the robotic revolution - the rest is same as we discuss here

oddthink• 14 years ago

Wow. What an awful read. The topic should be interesting, but this guy comes off as an idiot: basic grammar errors, sentences that trail off into the void, etc.

Required "job skills" classes sound like insanity. What would they teach? A semester of Excel is not a computer science / statistics double-major going to make, nor will a semester of Hadoop help anyone without the background to use it.

Yes, increased use of centralized analytics in large businesses is polarizing the job market. Some things that once required a layer of middle-management to comprehend can now be done directly on the raw data. This is the layer that's at risk.

However, not all companies are big. Some things focus on actual personal relationships. Some things require actual creative output (design, either engineering or artistic). All of that is still around. And none of that will be helped by "job skills" classes.

azmenthe• 14 years ago

First off, This is Mark Cuban, who is in my top 3 list of intelligent public figures and influential enough to me that I definitely feel the need to defend him a bit here.

I think what he meant by "job skill" classes is more along the lines of codeacademy because this is a very direct skill that can be applied instantly to industry problems, whatever those might be.

The author feels that universities should promote these types of resources with some sort of incentive because what's working in the job market now is real applicable skills... something a Business Admin/Liberal Arts major might not have.

Having Javascript on your resume is looking attractive to more and more employers.

Also the premium on personal relationships with employees of a firm is decreasing in the sense that the best customer support relationship I can have is none at all, the product just works.

m1ck• 14 years ago

Both Marks say the same thing one year apart. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190348090457651...

Which USA do you work in?

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