!RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
 
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Steve writes:
"Following your own principle (if I understand you correctly) of diversity, every organization needs a few polymaths, but too many and it is likely to lose coherence?" Polymaths attract people that want to be better and do good work. These people and those that work with them live in the space of ideas and accomplishments. In a big organization, the polymaths aren't the ones that need to hire people -- the candidates are standing in line often with their own funding. Then there are non-polymath professorial delegators that need people to do work for them, and individuals with narrow skills that want that work. I think Owen was talking about working in the first situation, and others are remarking on the reality of the latter and how odd it is to drift between the two. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
You may be interested in this piece about Robert Schiller. On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 6:41 PM Steven A Smith <[hidden email]> wrote: I know this is pretty general or vague, and a redux of something I ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
A related anecdote, with an attempt to generalize and hypothesize after: Last year I started working for the Marine Corps, doing data analysis related to hiring and training, and serving on several committees that make high-level decisions regarding hiring and classification testing. One thing that made the position appealing, and which has made the job pleasurable thus far, is that the Marine Corps is seriously strapped for personnel and funding at all times. And by "all times", I mean more than long enough for it to be baked into the personality of the individuals and the organization. Even under the most generous proposed expansions of resources (under a pro-military President and a retired Marine Secretary of Defense) the Corps will still be strapped. Most Marine Corps Generals "wear several hats", meaning that they do 3-5 things for which all of the other services have dedicated generals. And this drifts down to most of the middle ranks of civilian and active duty employees. Thus, though they have to run their searches for civilian employees through the regular government hiring system, in which each job shows a fairly narrow specialty, what they need for almost all of their positions is a polymath, who is comfortable owning a couple of core jobs, and frequently being put into teams doing vaguely related jobs. All of the officers I work with (Captains and Majors) had completely unrelated jobs, before they were ordered to get a masters degree and then work in my Division for 3 years, after which they will go back to their unrelated job. And even then, their Masters training was, at best, peripherally related to the tasks they have now (degrees in Organizational Research or Human Resources Management). Thus, while there is still a strong culture of telling people to "stay in your lane" when things get adversarial, most peoples' "lanes" are much wider than they would be in equivalent organizations. There is also no ability to maintain the illusion that you can get exactly the person you want for any open job, making flexibility a plus. This forces an environment in which 80% and 90% solutions are viewed positively, and in which many tasks are understood as "safe-to-fail" (given proper contingency planning and advanced notice to higher-ups). The situation that I am currently enjoying is an artificial result of being the Marine Corps being a relatively large (~200,000 employee) organization, which lacks independent control over many of the organization's decisions (because the legislature, and the Department of the Navy control many aspects of operations). While I am confident I was a solid first choice for the hiring manager (compared to others who applied to the narrowly focused job announcement), it is somewhat of a miracle that my resume made it through the HR gauntlet to reach her desk. Attempting to generalize from that: Polymaths would presumably be more crucial to a personnel-strapped organization. I'm not sure it matters whether that is normal operating procedure, or if it is due to an unanticipated shortage (e.g., due to unexpected growth, or an unexpected exodus). The inverse of that observation is that silos and narrow specializations would thus seem to be the natural purview of more mature and/or resource rich organizations. (And this fits with Roger Barker's excellent studies of small vs. large organizations, as well as much research since.) However, we all know that is being increasingly challenged in experiments wherein organizations try to see how big a corporation can get while still keeping a "start-up mentality". I suspect that a big chunk of succeeding in such experiments is - somehow - maintaining an environment in which polymaths can be common. As has been well-discussed above, growing bureaucracies have natural tendencies that make it harder for polymaths to get hired. Presumably it is also harder for their contributions to be recognized and rewarded (e.g., recognitions that go to singular contributions, rather than diffuse contributions), and the challenges created by bureaucratic territoriality. It would be interesting to know if any of the start-up-4'eva organizations have put in place mechanisms to specifically counter those HR and reward challenges. One would also hypothesize that the number of polymaths would correlate well with which organizations survived personnel-strapped phases. This requires, even for large, well-siloed organizations, having more polymaths than it seems like you might need under for "normal" operation. On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 10:24 PM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote: Steve writes: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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Eric writes: “Polymaths would presumably be more crucial to a personnel-strapped organization.” I’d discriminate between polymaths and generalists. Generalists are able to move from field to field and contribute in significant ways. Polymaths don’t need
to specialize because they just don’t have bandwidth limitations. Being a generalist is hard work, and organizations of the kind you describe are wise to study how works actually gets done. Unfortunately, a motivated generalist may be forced to pretend to
be specialist to get into a job. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Eric does a good job of describing a case where polymaths (and/or generalists) may be required and both of you are talking about the "sweet spot" (which can be in a high or low dimensional space). In particular, perhaps there's some sort of scaling law at work ... perhaps polymaths/generalists are hubs and specialists are leaves, requiring fewer polymaths in any sub-net.
But I'd like to toss some words at your idea of coherence. First Marcus' distinction would play a role. Polymaths, as long as they're on board with a specific context, look exactly like specialists. Generalists would have fewer specific domains into which they could do a deep dive. So, yes, too many generalists presents a problem for coherence. But too many polymaths may not. That discussion probably conflates the organization vs. sub-organization, though. It seems reasonable to think that a conglomerate (Red Cross or Intel) could have variable coherence depending on the domain of the measure. I used such an argument recently when trying to think about the disaster response of the Feds vs. the local CERT group (in which Renee' participates). The coherence of the Feds is fundamentally different from the coherence of the local CERT group. Either or both could cohere more or less, but even if they both do, the coherence of the super-org is of a higher order than that of the sub-org ... it's like a coherence of coherences of coherences, etc. And that argument may simply be a restatement of the idea that large organizations (with many chances to skim slushy money off the top) will be more tolerant of constituents "following their nose" -- choosing what to work on and when to work on it -- or alternatively, simply being able to maintain interest though their interests are wide. (We don't have to call them "polymaths" or "generalists" ... just people of high variance.) The "serial entrepreneur" becomes an interesting case, I suppose. These are people of high variance, but who don't look for a home. They're like spittle bugs, they abandon their artifacts, move to a new location, and build new artifacts. But the distinction between a "serial entrepreneur" and a nomadic hippie seems like a very thin distinction to me. Only people who fetishize power or money would see a difference. Neither seems employable. Yet they both cohere by some measure. And both (probably) contribute to higher order coherence of various super-orgs. On 03/15/2017 06:34 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: > Following your own principle (if I understand you correctly) of diversity, every organization needs a few polymaths, but too many and it is likely to lose coherence? -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2
Perhaps it's not beside the point at all. P/E normalizes the price based on one frame of mind, which I suppose is whether you can make money off it. Making money implies a time window and some sort of zero sum bucket of money (where P goes out and E comes in). But a more objective (perspective invariant) normalizer might send an entirely different message, particularly one that includes the extent the company is leveraged.
Regardless, from the little I know about it (2 friends who work there and a slew of interviews a decade ago), they have/had very little tolerance for constituents setting their own agenda. My interactions with Google were drastically different. They seemed willing to entertain literally _any_ idea (the overwhelming majority of which are selected against immediately, of course). I chalked this up to their sources of money, which is a type/kind of liquidity. If you have more ways of making money (selling products to rich hipsters vs. advertising to anyone), you'll be more willing to let the constituents try out their own pet project, build their own sub-org. On 03/15/2017 06:05 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > It's beside the point, but Apple has a low stock price. PE < 17. -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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In reply to this post by gepr
G
The difference between the wealthy serial entrepreneur and the impoverished nomadic hippy may just be dumb luck. Ed Angel loaned me THE DRUNKARD'S WALK, which reminded me once again of our romantic tendency to infer talent from success. This is one of the points on which Peirce was very strong. Most effects are random, and the few that are not are very hard to ferret out. N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ? Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 10:19 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled Eric does a good job of describing a case where polymaths (and/or generalists) may be required and both of you are talking about the "sweet spot" (which can be in a high or low dimensional space). In particular, perhaps there's some sort of scaling law at work ... perhaps polymaths/generalists are hubs and specialists are leaves, requiring fewer polymaths in any sub-net. But I'd like to toss some words at your idea of coherence. First Marcus' distinction would play a role. Polymaths, as long as they're on board with a specific context, look exactly like specialists. Generalists would have fewer specific domains into which they could do a deep dive. So, yes, too many generalists presents a problem for coherence. But too many polymaths may not. That discussion probably conflates the organization vs. sub-organization, though. It seems reasonable to think that a conglomerate (Red Cross or Intel) could have variable coherence depending on the domain of the measure. I used such an argument recently when trying to think about the disaster response of the Feds vs. the local CERT group (in which Renee' participates). The coherence of the Feds is fundamentally different from the coherence of the local CERT group. Either or both could cohere more or less, but even if they both do, the coherence of the super-org is of a higher order than that of the sub-org ... it's like a coherence of coherences of coherences, etc. And that argument may simply be a restatement of the idea that large organizations (with many chances to skim slushy money off the top) will be more tolerant of constituents "following their nose" -- choosing what to work on and when to work on it -- or alternatively, simply being able to maintain interest though their interests are wide. (We don't have to call them "polymaths" or "generalists" ... just people of high variance.) The "serial entrepreneur" becomes an interesting case, I suppose. These are people of high variance, but who don't look for a home. They're like spittle bugs, they abandon their artifacts, move to a new location, and build new artifacts. But the distinction between a "serial entrepreneur" and a nomadic hippie seems like a very thin distinction to me. Only people who fetishize power or money would see a difference. Neither seems employable. Yet they both cohere by some measure. And both (probably) contribute to higher order coherence of various super-orgs. On 03/15/2017 06:34 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: > Following your own principle (if I understand you correctly) of diversity, every organization needs a few polymaths, but too many and it is likely to lose coherence? -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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I agree wholeheartedly that the difference between a wannabe serial entrpreneur and an extant one may well be dumb luck. But I don't agree w.r.t. the difference between the nomadic hippie and the serial entrpreneur (wannabe or not). That difference lies in what their nose tells them and which scent they wind up following. It's interesting to me that you tacked on the "impoverished" qualifier ... as if nobody would ever live like a nomadic hippie unless they were forced to by circumstances like lack of money. One of the key points about our homeless problem here in Portland is that a sizable fraction of the homeless _want_ to live outdoors, in the (camping) communities of people they live in. With only self-reporting to go by, we have no real idea whether they really want what they say they want, of course. Would their behavior (statements of want) change if we handed them a basic income? I have no idea. But I think it's worth a few hundred experiments at least. On 03/16/2017 09:51 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: > The difference between the wealthy serial entrepreneur and the impoverished nomadic hippy may just be dumb luck. Ed Angel loaned me THE DRUNKARD'S WALK, which reminded me once again of our romantic tendency to infer talent from success. This is one of the points on which Peirce was very strong. Most effects are random, and the few that are not are very hard to ferret out. -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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Tolstoy, in War and Peace, would heartily agree. George Duncan Emeritus Professor of Statistics, Carnegie Mellon University georgeduncanart.com See posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
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My art theme: Dynamic exposition of the tension between matrix order and luminous chaos. "Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion."From "Notes to myself on beginning a painting" by Richard Diebenkorn.
On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 11:08 AM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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In reply to this post by gepr
For comparison: Google PE > 30 Amazon PE > 170 Netflix PE > 330 Frank Wimberly Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" value="+15056709918" target="_blank">(505) 670-9918 On Mar 16, 2017 10:37 AM, "glen ☣" <[hidden email]> wrote: Perhaps it's not beside the point at all. P/E normalizes the price based on one frame of mind, which I suppose is whether you can make money off it. Making money implies a time window and some sort of zero sum bucket of money (where P goes out and E comes in). But a more objective (perspective invariant) normalizer might send an entirely different message, particularly one that includes the extent the company is leveraged. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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Kinda weird Google is lowest. Puzzle: How can the provider of the world's most popular phone OS not profit from it? Maybe they do but it is small compared to the rest of their work. -- Owen On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 12:31 PM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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PE is a little tricky. It's better to look at it relative to earnings growth. Google market cap is almost 600 billion. If it had the same PE as Netflix, the total value of its stock (i.e. market cap) would be 180 trillion if I calculated correctly. That might be enough to pay the national debt. Frank Wimberly Phone (505) 670-9918 On Mar 16, 2017 3:14 PM, "Owen Densmore" <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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In reply to this post by gepr
Glen -
On 3/16/17 10:18 AM, glen ☣ wrote: > But I'd like to toss some words at your idea of coherence. First Marcus' distinction would play a role. Polymaths, as long as they're on board with a specific context, look exactly like specialists. Generalists would have fewer specific domains into which they could do a deep dive. So, yes, too many generalists presents a problem for coherence. But too many polymaths may not. I think this is a reasonable model, however, I think I attribute another quality to polymaths than has been alluded to here. I've rarely found someone I consider a true polymath to be tractable to the organizations goals... they tend to use their high-bandwidth broad-spectrum abilities to keep their organizations happy (enough) with them, but in my experience, they rarely harness their full skills to the organization they work for. I don't judge that as bad, but it makes me suspect that the discussion here assumes that a polymath will actually be contributing to their full ability to the organization they work for. > > That discussion probably conflates the organization vs. sub-organization, though. It seems reasonable to think that a conglomerate (Red Cross or Intel) could have variable coherence depending on the domain of the measure. I used such an argument recently when trying to think about the disaster response of the Feds vs. the local CERT group (in which Renee' participates). The coherence of the Feds is fundamentally different from the coherence of the local CERT group. Either or both could cohere more or less, but even if they both do, the coherence of the super-org is of a higher order than that of the sub-org ... it's like a coherence of coherences of coherences, etc. I do think that coherence distributes across scale... but I'm not sure of the appropriate language for that concept. > > The "serial entrepreneur" becomes an interesting case, I suppose. These are people of high variance, but who don't look for a home. They're like spittle bugs, they abandon their artifacts, move to a new location, and build new artifacts. But the distinction between a "serial entrepreneur" and a nomadic hippie seems like a very thin distinction to me. Only people who fetishize power or money would see a difference. Neither seems employable. Yet they both cohere by some measure. And both (probably) contribute to higher order coherence of various super-orgs. I suspect that we could look to ecosystems for some analogies to help think about this... just as you reference with spittle bugs? - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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Yes, I would make the assumption you reject. But Marcus probably agrees with you, hence his picking at the self-interested fiefdom-building issue. Since I generally believe people try to do their best, any polymath not committed to their org would work their way out of that org as soon as feasible. People are people, though, and experience forcing contexts on a regular basis. So, it's obviously not binary. Perhaps this is one place age (and other things like family) plays a significant role. I'm not a polymath. But when I was younger, I worked in places where I willingly devoted myself to a few (different, time-sliced) roles, working 60-80 hour weeks. I'll never (be able to or want to) do that again. If I'd had kids or hobbies, I wouldn't have done it then, either. On 03/16/2017 02:25 PM, Steven A Smith wrote: > I think this is a reasonable model, however, I think I attribute another quality to polymaths than has been alluded to here. I've rarely found someone I consider a true polymath to be tractable to the organizations goals... they tend to use their high-bandwidth broad-spectrum abilities to keep their organizations happy (enough) with them, but in my experience, they rarely harness their full skills to the organization they work for. I don't judge that as bad, but it makes me suspect that the discussion here assumes that a polymath will actually be contributing to their full ability to the organization they work for. -- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
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Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
As far as I know google gets a bunch of money from their skunk systems. addsense, and... renting what they build to others. They get (for example) their WebBuilding tools, and Google Pages, Brickly, Cloud, and their (popular?) Google IO startup assist basically lets someone borrow their staff and hardware. Google asks for at least 10-15% off the top and then another 5-8% per a AcmeCo Microwave and Transmagrafier or what ever the place is building. And as far as I know they give away some part of the code but not all of it so their's a bit of fee to rent that as well. Backup and other underhood systems have a small (onetime) fee etc So they possibly don't worry about making much (if any) from somethings (their OS is litterally free and somewhat OpenSource.) where as the email is freeish but if you want more cloud space than 13-14 gigs they give away it's 25? 30? a month and up for companies that need instant to the pixel backups. Etc. As a concrete example they basically started the now popular Niantic Labs. who make very popular games. But those games keep tabs where you go so as google (or anyone else) that's making AI, Maps, etc can get much better info. They charged niantic a bit to get going rent their hardware and staff. On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 3:14 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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In reply to this post by Nick Thompson
And will remain un-filled for years while "trumpism exists": On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 4:55 PM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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The numbers for tech jobs are all over the place. The one that I have heard most is 1.5 million, but I have also seen everywhere from 500k to 3 million. Most of the theories of why this is not because of Trump, but because of issues with education. There are not enough people in education teaching people technology, because people can easily go and get 1.5x to 3x their salary in the private sector. For example -- Uber gutting Carnegie Melon's Researchers: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached I sit on the board of the Python Software Foundation. I am putting together an RFP with others to fund educational initiatives in Python. It will be coming out later this month or next month. -Jackie P.S. Side note about education and python... In Guido's (creator of Python) proposal to Darpa to fund the development of Python for educational purposes, he references Logo as a great tool, but limited. That was 2001. The same year that Netlogo was created (if I have my years right). On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 4:47 PM Alfredo Covaleda Vélez <[hidden email]> wrote:
Jacqueline Kazil | @jackiekazil ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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One consequence of the present situation that will have long term consequences is even though the amount of research funding in CS is high, universities are having trouble attracting high quality graduate students, the next generation of educators. Although this situation has little to do with trumpism, there have been serious consequences of foreign students and researchers being denied visas. As the universities in other countries such as China and Singapore continue to improve, the future does not look good for technology education here.
Ed ____________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon
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Cross-pollinating threads, as a >50 year old somewhat technical person, I and my clique have trouble getting and keeping these "tech jobs" because they are too focused on short-term objectives and tightly pigeon-holed skill sets. I can almost universally get many of these jobs (or at least land multiple interviews) simply because I'm slightly literate in ~10 to 15 programming languages. Most of my clique isn't quite as lucky, being rooted in (brain damaged by!) one or 2 of them in the same paradigm. But even if I take one of these jobs, it quickly becomes mind-numbing; I get bored and move on.
So from my (anecdotal) perspective, all 4 of the perspectives (Michio, CMU, the private sector companies doing the poaching, and anyone who succumbs to "the myth of the objective") are all suboptimal. Pamela seems to have identified a critical element, at least for people in my ¡category! One person barely inside my clique, though ~5 years younger, took a job at SRI. I interviewed one of his mentors there and, although the model *seems* good, they're similarly plagued with the grant-writing burden Eric(S) and Pamela mention. The same seems similar at a company, here called Galois. It looks to me like people are promoted *out* of R&D and into business. If you have even the slightest ability to land funding, that becomes your job, to the detriment of any actual R&D you may have done if you hadn't had your head crushed in an avalanche of budgeting documents. So, to me, the problem seems less about education and more about the lack of societal infrastructure that supports actual *work*, in contrast to fiefdom building and busyness. And if that sounds socialist, I'm OK with the label. My transformation from libertarian to socialist is complete. 8^) On 1/11/19 2:54 AM, Edward Angel wrote: > One consequence of the present situation that will have long term consequences is even though the amount of research funding in CS is high, universities are having trouble attracting high quality graduate students, the next generation of educators. Although this situation has little to do with trumpism, there have been serious consequences of foreign students and researchers being denied visas. As the universities in other countries such as China and Singapore continue to improve, the future does not look good for technology education here. > [...] > >> On Jan 11, 2019, at 7:26 AM, Jacqueline Kazil <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> The numbers for tech jobs are all over the place. The one that I have heard most is 1.5 million, but I have also seen everywhere from 500k to 3 million. >> >> Most of the theories of why this is not because of Trump, but because of issues with education. >> >> There are not enough people in education teaching people technology, because people can easily go and get 1.5x to 3x their salary in the private sector. For example -- Uber gutting Carnegie Melon's Researchers: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached <https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached> >> >> I sit on the board of the Python Software Foundation. I am putting together an RFP with others to fund educational initiatives in Python. It will be coming out later this month or next month. >> >> -Jackie >> >> P.S. Side note about education and python... In Guido's (creator of Python) proposal to Darpa to fund the development of Python for educational purposes, he references Logo as a great tool, but limited. That was 2001. The same year that Netlogo was created (if I have my years right). >> >> On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 4:47 PM Alfredo Covaleda Vélez <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote: >> And will remain un-filled for years while "trumpism exists": >> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgsVE2RBto8 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgsVE2RBto8> >> >>[..] >> >> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:04 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote: >> >> Dear Friammers, >> >> >> >> There are apparently a MILLION tech jobs going un-filled in the US – hence the panic in the tech industry concerning the immigration purge. Would this be a time for members of this list to consider seeking a better job? Or, at least, to ask for a job? >> >> Or demand that your boss let you work remotely and move here to Santa Fe where the coffee is good, the air (usually) clean and where you are never more than ten minutes from the head of a hiking trail? >> -- ∄ uǝʃƃ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen
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Re: !RE: A million tech jobs unfilled
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Reacting to Glen's comments: of that million tech jobs, how many are really necessary. Speaking only within the context of software development, I am certain that 70-90 percent of existing jobs and unfilled jobs could be eliminated.
We have known since the seventies that some individuals are 10-100 times more effective than average. The idea of how to identify and support "high performance teams" has periodically taken center stage in the profession - only to be shot down by management and HR. [Robert Glass, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering.] If these individuals could be freed from constraints imposed by HR — e.g. paying people by category / job title — constraints imposed by formal methodology; constraints imposed by cumbersome frameworks; and, most importantly, by constraints imposed by unexamined assumptions made back in 1951 about application software; the need for tens of thousands of developers would be possible. Alan Kay believes that the trillions of lines of code 'out there' could be reduced by 2-3 orders of magnitude. 80-0% of software budgets go to maintenance. Think about how many "developers" could be eliminated if there millions of lines of code instead of trillions. Of course we would need an educational system capable of educating people, both knowledge and skills, that transcend the purely technical and that is highly unlikely. davew On Fri, Jan 11, 2019, at 5:04 AM, ∄ uǝʃƃ wrote: > Cross-pollinating threads, as a >50 year old somewhat technical person, > I and my clique have trouble getting and keeping these "tech jobs" > because they are too focused on short-term objectives and tightly > pigeon-holed skill sets. I can almost universally get many of these > jobs (or at least land multiple interviews) simply because I'm slightly > literate in ~10 to 15 programming languages. Most of my clique isn't > quite as lucky, being rooted in (brain damaged by!) one or 2 of them in > the same paradigm. But even if I take one of these jobs, it quickly > becomes mind-numbing; I get bored and move on. > > So from my (anecdotal) perspective, all 4 of the perspectives (Michio, > CMU, the private sector companies doing the poaching, and anyone who > succumbs to "the myth of the objective") are all suboptimal. Pamela > seems to have identified a critical element, at least for people in my > ¡category! One person barely inside my clique, though ~5 years younger, > took a job at SRI. I interviewed one of his mentors there and, although > the model *seems* good, they're similarly plagued with the grant-writing > burden Eric(S) and Pamela mention. The same seems similar at a company, > here called Galois. > > It looks to me like people are promoted *out* of R&D and into business. > If you have even the slightest ability to land funding, that becomes > your job, to the detriment of any actual R&D you may have done if you > hadn't had your head crushed in an avalanche of budgeting documents. > > So, to me, the problem seems less about education and more about the > lack of societal infrastructure that supports actual *work*, in contrast > to fiefdom building and busyness. And if that sounds socialist, I'm OK > with the label. My transformation from libertarian to socialist is > complete. 8^) > > On 1/11/19 2:54 AM, Edward Angel wrote: > > One consequence of the present situation that will have long term consequences is even though the amount of research funding in CS is high, universities are having trouble attracting high quality graduate students, the next generation of educators. Although this situation has little to do with trumpism, there have been serious consequences of foreign students and researchers being denied visas. As the universities in other countries such as China and Singapore continue to improve, the future does not look good for technology education here. > > [...] > > > >> On Jan 11, 2019, at 7:26 AM, Jacqueline Kazil <[hidden email]> wrote: > >> > >> The numbers for tech jobs are all over the place. The one that I have heard most is 1.5 million, but I have also seen everywhere from 500k to 3 million. > >> > >> Most of the theories of why this is not because of Trump, but because of issues with education. > >> > >> There are not enough people in education teaching people technology, because people can easily go and get 1.5x to 3x their salary in the private sector. For example -- Uber gutting Carnegie Melon's Researchers: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached <https://www.theverge.com/transportation/2015/5/19/8622831/uber-self-driving-cars-carnegie-mellon-poached> > >> > >> I sit on the board of the Python Software Foundation. I am putting together an RFP with others to fund educational initiatives in Python. It will be coming out later this month or next month. > >> > >> -Jackie > >> > >> P.S. Side note about education and python... In Guido's (creator of Python) proposal to Darpa to fund the development of Python for educational purposes, he references Logo as a great tool, but limited. That was 2001. The same year that Netlogo was created (if I have my years right). > >> > >> On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 4:47 PM Alfredo Covaleda Vélez <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote: > >> And will remain un-filled for years while "trumpism exists": > >> > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgsVE2RBto8 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgsVE2RBto8> > >> > >>[..] > >> > >> On Sat, Mar 4, 2017 at 3:04 PM, Nick Thompson <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote: > >> > >> Dear Friammers, > >> > >> > >> > >> There are apparently a MILLION tech jobs going un-filled in the US – hence the panic in the tech industry concerning the immigration purge. Would this be a time for members of this list to consider seeking a better job? Or, at least, to ask for a job? > >> > >> Or demand that your boss let you work remotely and move here to Santa Fe where the coffee is good, the air (usually) clean and where you are never more than ten minutes from the head of a hiking trail? > >> > > > -- > ∄ uǝʃƃ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove |
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