(Via Bostonworks) It will pay to be creative, nimble in the 'conceptual age'.Typically an outsourced job is seen as routine, boring & uncreative by youngsters - the equivalent of a manufacturing job to a baby boomer.
In this new age in economic history, - it will elevate those who are nimble and creative. When we moved from industrial economy to the information economy, jobs became more interesting; coal miners were unemployed, tech support centers hired like mad, and secretaries became small-time database operators. Now we're in the early stages of the "conceptual age" in which data will be less important than creativity, and jobs will be more fulfilling.Daniel Pink says, the people who will do best in this economy are those who don't just take and give orders but also move smoothly between boundaries, like the technical guru who understands marketing or the accountant who speaks four languages. "But," Pink warns, "you cannot get a move-smoothly-between-boundaries aptitude test, so a lot of this is about self-discovery."
Here are some traits you need to develop to do well in the conceptual age:
1.Empathy. Think emotional intelligence on steroids. The most empathetic people have the ability to see an issue from many different perspectives. And work that can be done without infused empathy begs to be outsourced.
2.Aesthetic eye. Pink says, "Design sense has become a form of business literacy like learning to use Microsoft Excel. Smart business people should start reading design magazines."
3.Ability to negotiate and navigate. The conceptual age will be filled with possibilities that point to no single truth. Pink says, "People must learn to do something that is not routine, that doesn't have a right answer."
We recently covered on the topic of global innovation.You'll have to be creative to stay employed. But really, who doesn't want to be creative? It's inherently more rewarding to be creative than to be an information You need to learn a set of skills, and then, once you feel comfortable you can ask yourself how you can make it better. Innovation without a basic knowledge in that area is not creativity but dilettantism. Not that dabbling in topics you know nothing about isn't fun, but that lifestyle will not create the kind of value that keeps your job this side of the ocean. To find what you love to do, Csikszentmihalyi recommends exploration
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