The New Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution happened in large part because of boiling water. We harnessed steam and powered massive machines that changed the way we built things and went places. Its impact on society was so great that centuries later steam is a major player power generation.

Today we stand at the cusp of technology which is going to affect societal change on a scale beyond the steam engine. My kids incredulously asking "you had to get up to change how many channels?" will be replaced with their kids asking "you had to drive yourself?" and "you owned a car?" in the same tone of disbelief.

Today we have a power grid. Tomorrow we'll be generating individual household power. Today most of us buy all the channels. Tomorrow we'll ALL buy what we want. Today it takes three hours to get to St Louis. Tomorrow it will take under thirty minutes. Flying cars? Probably not - too dangerous & there are much more elegant solutions to solve those issues.

The big question is how is this all going to be delivered? Well, let's start with what doesn't work. 

"20th Century Industry" has a reputation for keeping the status quo. Once a company gets to the size of Wal-Mart there's a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. They lean on their vendors & employees and squeeze every drop of profit out of their business line. Then some internet guy comes along and completely disrupts your business. Now what? 

Contrast that with 21st Century industry leaders, and I have to start with Steve Jobs & Bill Gates. (Yes, I realize they were 20th century guys, but both were ahead of their time.)

Apple & Microsoft have been around for thirty years now, but Steve Jobs used his vision to build great products that have changed the way consumers compute, communicate, and consume media. Gates did the same with a focus on business. Unfortunately both companies have stagnated since their founders have stepped away. 

Rather than continue to really innovate Apple is sitting on fat stacks of cash and releasing product that scores high on my "Meh" scale. Microsoft completely whiffed on mobile & was late to the cloud party to boot. Much like WalMart, Microsoft's bread and butter is a narrow lane (office systems & software) is begging to be disrupted. (G-Suite anyone?)

So how about Jeff Bezos? Now here's a guy who doesn't just want to build a great product or own the office. This is a guy that wants to change the world. 

Amazon isn't just a retailer anymore - Bezos sees Amazon as an economic machine. Maybe in the future we'll all be working for him. He'll pay us in "Bezos Bucks" and everything we buy will be dropped off inside the house by a drone within 30 minutes of our one-click order.

Elon Musk built the first all-electric, fairly autonomous production vehicle. He's like Preston Tucker with billions. Think that rattled anyone manufacturing automobiles?

He also happens to sell roof tiles that generate power. I would speculate that within the decade all new homes will have some kind of solar power generation system, and within the next twenty five years most existing homes will be retrofitted. Green is in baby.

While they're at it, Elon and Jeff both are in a space race. Sure, we put a man on the moon but these guys are looking to colonize the moon and beyond. And they're doing it cheaper and faster than any "capable" government entity.

Those of us in the technology business arget a front row seat to everything above and more, much of which we can't even fathom today. 

In my past life I loved to climb mountains. You'd start at the trailhead with a map and a goal of getting to the top. Today we stand at the trailhead of the New Industrial Revolution. We are still drawing the map, and we can't see the summit. 

We can only dream of the possibilities for generations to come. 

Changes in Quality

After seventeen plus years in the tech business I've learned that if you're not adapting to change you're going to be left behind. I can recall no other time in my time recruiting career where this is true then the shift from manual to automated testing.

The speed at which development leaders have moved quality control strategy was staggering. Demand for manual QA dropped to nearly zero while countless "Software Engineer Development in Test" (SDET) jobs are going unfilled.

The catalyst for this change is clear - manual testing was slowing the process down. As engineers are prone to do, someone in a development shop somewhere wrote a program to perform QA functions. Then someone else made that program better. Before you know it Selenium, Cucumber, JMeter, and a slew of other Quality / DevOps tools were born.

If you like be involved in the entire lifecycle, working with business and technical teams to automate processes that facilitate speed in software delivery there is plenty of opportunity in the marketplace.

If your career has largely revolved around manually testing software, take heart. The skills & passion you have translate to other roles within the development lifecycle such as Business Analysis, Project Management, Product Ownership, and Customer Support & Training.

Technology moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while you're going to miss it. -Ferris Bueller

Liar. Liar.

Pittsburg, KS High School principal Amy Robertson was fired after journalists at the student newspaper discovered her credentials were bogus. Their work was picked up by many major news outlets including Fox, CBS, NBC, LA Time, the Chicago Tribune. The list went on. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands (or possibly millions) of views in social media.

Needless to say, this was a major black eye to the district and a national embarrassment for Ms. Robertson. The district claimed that the competitive nature of hiring school administrators caused them to miss a few check-marks on the background.

No kidding.

As much as I’d love to say this is an isolated incident, it’s much more common than you may think. There’s plenty of other examples of public figures getting caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

Scott Thompson, then CEO of Yahoo!, claimed to hold a degree in Computer Science when in reality his degree was in Accounting forcing him to resign.

Marilee Jones worked at MIT for nearly twenty years, becoming their Dean of Admissions before resigning after being caught lying about her academic credentials.

George O’Leary was hired to coach Notre Dame football after falsely claiming to have a Masters Degree. He doubled-down by claiming to have played football despite never being on a college football roster. Notre Dame fired him.

Even celebrity chef Robert Irvine was fired from Food Network’s “Dinner Impossible” after it was discovered that his claim to have designed the wedding cake for Princess Diana & Prince Charles was false. He simply picked out the fruit used on the cake.

This tactic isn’t just for the rich & famous. Here’s just a sampling of what I’ve run across:

Bogus Credentials. Any employer worth their salt verifies credentials. I will find out that you were not honest about your degree. I will also verify any relevant certifications you claim to hold. You would be shocked at how many times I’ve caught someone red-handed misrepresenting their credentials. If you attended college but don’t have a degree “coursework toward a Bachelor of Science” is truthful, “Bachelor of Science” is lying.

Diploma Mills. The former High School principal claimed to have degrees from unaccredited schools. Many of these “schools” will issue a “degree” when your check clears the bank. If I have any questions about a college I just plug it into this site.

Mis-matched resumes. Years ago when paper ruled this was tough to catch. Today I have resumes from 15 years ago. Just this week I caught a person who did an assignment for us in another office send me a resume with different employers, different dates, with a degree from different schools. Turns out this person was released for cause after only a few months on the job.

Mis-matched people. There’s a disturbing tactic used by a handful of disreputable staffing & solutions agencies when it’s necessary to hire someone without meeting them first. Send a completely bogus resume, have someone that knows their stuff go through the interview process, and then send someone else to work. It’s becoming common enough that there’s a Twitter feed dedicated to outing people.

If you misrepresent your credentials eventually it’s going to catch up to you.

Marilee Jones initially applied for an entry level position at M.I.T. and rather than come clean, she continued the charade as she moved up the ladder. Her resignation letter read in part “I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to M.I.T. 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my résumé when I applied for my current job or at any time since, I am deeply sorry for this and for disappointing so many in the M.I.T. community and beyond who supported me, believed in me, and who have given me extraordinary opportunities.”

I’m sure in hindsight she wishes she would have mustered the courage. She felt painted into a corner with no out. However, there is an out and it starts with courage. You have to muster the courage to come clean. With the right attitude and outlook lying about your background is not the end of the world.

Marilee spent nearly twenty years handling admissions at one of the most prestigious schools in the world. She knows a thing or two about what it takes to get a letter of acceptance and has parlayed that knowledge into a private consulting practice.

Despite not having a Masters Degree or experience as a player, it turns out George O’Leary is a pretty damn good football coach. He continued to coach in both the NFL and at the University of South Florida where he was head coach for over a decade.

Scott Thompson spent four years as the CEO of an online shopping company before leaving last fall to take the CEO chair of a company that provides a student loan management platform that allows employers to help employees pay off their student loans.

Robert Irvine was re-hired by Food Network to host Dinner: Impossible, launched a spin-off called Restaurant: Impossible and is a regular guest on their Iron Chef series. He has used his celebrity to launch the Robert Irvine Foundation which honors the men and women of the US Military. In the Spring of last year he was awarded the U.S. Department of the Army Outstanding Civilian Service Award.

We all make mistakes & do things we regret. Have the courage to come clean, make amends, and use your God-given abilities to do great things.Liar