[TrendTalk] Will this be your future job title?

The impact of our new digital, connected world has seen traditional industries waning and jobs lost - think print media. Brand new services only a few years old have created the 'sharing economy' to challenge business models established for close on a half a century, like the taxi industry, now challenged by Uber; and the hotel industry, challenged by Airbnb.

It used to be we (well, teenage girls mostly), who signed our future married names in lovesick doodles across our school exercise books (it was the 80s, okay!); but now it's becoming common to Google 'rad' future job titles to show we are 'millennial' in our future thinking and planning and, of course, to impress clients that we actually know what we are doing when we throw all those buzzwords and 'digi-dialect' at them.

With new job descriptions in brand new industries, it's become a bit of a parody to come up with the most outrageous title. A social media commentator quipped recently that agencies, having discovered journalists and editors make great content marketing collaborators, would probably call them "Digital Experience Analysts" to resell their skills to clients.

SocialMediaToday looked at some of these new social and digital communications titles and also parodied the "hyper-modern style" pervasive in the industry. Titles such as: 'Idea Inventor', 'Social Media Czar', 'Social Media Rock Star', 'Social Media Swami', Social Media Assassin' (really?!), and my WTF favourite... 'Public Happy Maker'!

©alphaspirit via 123RF

I had the same discussion with a media client this week about how, having shed so many thousands of jobs globally, redundant journalists and editors are desperately scouting around for job titles that enhance their valued expertise and make their skills and experience marketable to other industries.

My advice: your job title should make it clear to people what you do, and speak to what is needed for your brand, and the company that hired you. What matters is what you do, that you are effective and that you enjoy what you do. A title is just that, a title.

Future jobs

What is important in any business strategy discussion going forward, is also understanding how each industry is changing and will still evolve in the future - and putting the right structures and people in place to curate that future.

The reason there is such resistance to new services like Uber from established industries, is because they are a real threat to those established industries which did not see them coming. Consumers have embraced these new app-driven services that enhance their lives and save them money, but those industries that didn't evolve, only see the threat, not the opportunity to meet the needs of the millennial consumer, their current consumer, or future consumers.

There have been a glut of articles written in the past year about 2020-2025 future business models and the new jobs that we could be doing in the future. And in this context, the 'future' is getting closer and closer! For some of us it is now, for others five to 10 years away. What is certain, is that there will be few industries left untouched by this new digital age and we will be transformed as a society by it.

The latest article is by Fast Company in the US, which has gone a little further and looked at '10 jobs that you could have in 2030'. Assuming that is "that we'll even have jobs once the robots take over," quips the mag. Comforting thought.

But for those of us already in the job market, it probably won't be robots that will threaten our careers yet, although those pesky algorithms are playing havoc with our SEO and 'link love', but closed thinking. We will probably all change our job titles several times over in the future, maybe even our jobs.

This is where you should possibly be focusing then, according to Fast Company:

1. Aquaponic Fish Farmer: With fish stocks being out fished and polluted in our oceans, fish farming and vegetable gardening is a good choice for the future so you can at least feed yourself and your community.

2. Garbage Designer: "Uncycling" or reverse design, turning waste product into new products has been around for a while, but minimising our waste as a civilisation will be major science or a design opportunity going forward.

3. Health Care Navigator: To help medical patients understand complex medical procedures which will involve nano-bots and robotic technology going forward.

4. Neighbourhood Watch Officer: To police and watch over all the drones that are predicted to infest our neighbourhoods. And they won't all be from the nutty bird watchers, but also potentially from criminal elements.

5. Nostalgist: Like the retro trend, but a total recreation of the past through design elements, both interior and exterior, for people who don't want to live in the future, but rather in their favourite decade. So maybe keep some of your clutter - it could be worth something someday!

6. Rewilder: A more modern version of an environmentalist or organic farmer because "once environmental damage has wreaked utter havoc on the land, people will have to come in and remediate" says Fast Company. This will include fixing our planetary pollution by ripping up roads and planting more forests, etc.

7. Robot Counsellor: Not for robots, but to aid consumers in choosing the right robot or mediate conflict between humans and robots. Sort of like a Robot Life Coach. Freaky.

8. Simplicity Expert: They will streamline business operations and cut out things that waste time. So it seems there will always be a job for the euphemistic 'consultants'!

9. Solar Technology Specialist: This is one area that South Africa is ahead of the curve - we already have solar-focussed businesses popping up and advising consumers and entire neighbourhoods on switching to solar and prepping for the feared 'Eskom-Armageddon' should we get to total blackout status and lose our grid for a month.

10. Tele-Surgeon: Robotic surgery remotely - already happening.

The cupcake market in my community is rather overtraded, so I'm quite keen on growing herbs and keeping hens. Who's with me?