The good people at Sterling Commerce were nice enough to invite me to the Innovation Summit they sponsored last week to hear Dan Pink's keynote on motivation. Around 150 business leaders gathered there, but it's the planners who would have loved it.
Pink said this: If you want to drive a writer crazy, tell him a picture is worth a thousand words.
He jumped: Sometimes a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures. Metaphors can clarify, illuminate and explain complicated circumstances (the way no words or pictures ever could).
(Planners cheer!)
So, here's the game changing metaphor, story, example, whatever -
There are a billion people in India.
If just a small percent of them - say 15% - are talented, ambitious, college-educated, ready to compete in the global economy...
That's 150 million people.
More than the entire population of Japan.
More than the entire employed workforce of the United States.
If 85% of India is left behind, they will still have more talented, ambitious, upper class citizens than the entire population of the world's second largest economy and the entire working population of the world's largest economy.
Even better - they're about to become the largest English-speaking country in the world and - through the Internet - they're connected to North America essentially for free.
That's going to have an effect. Now, abilities that are routine can be outsourced or automated. The key phrase here is “abilities that are routine” — abilities that you can reduce to a script or formula. Those kinds of things can now be done cheaper overseas. This includes certain types of accounting, financial analysis, programming, and even certain kinds of law.
If you can write down the steps and get an answer, that's routine.
That work is gushing out of our economy.
And, India isn't even the biggest threat to these routine jobs.
Pink asked: How many of you did your taxes on TurboTax?
At least half the room raised a hand. (Kind of surprising, really, considering how many business owners with complicated financial lives were in the room)
Pink said: All you people have accountant blood on your hands!
It's true - Doing your taxes with an accountant in India (who has a dramatically lower cost of living and who you can communicate with as freely as you would with the accountant in your family tree), saves you, what, maybe half? Using a software program? At least a 95% discount.
Routine is losing its value.
Read more about what is replacing the routine in my continued coverage of Pink's talk:
On WYDiQ: Where innovation comes from
On Brand Liberators: Advice Dan Pink gave me
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