K-shaped economy is how many describe our economy since the pandemic. And most expect the recovery to be K-shaped as well. The reality is that the Michigan economy was K-shaped pre-pandemic. With those at the top doing well, but far…
A little more than a year ago the Grand Rapids Public Museum hosted Outsmarting the Robots: Redesigning education from the classroom to the halls of Lansing. The conference was organized around the question "how do we redesign our system for…
Last week I wrote about "Outsmarting the Robots: Redesigning education from the classroom to the halls of Lansing," an event we co-hosted in October with a number of great partners in Grand Rapids. (Click here for that part 1). Today…
We are constantly besieged with messaging that a liberal arts degree is useless. Maybe even worse than useless: a path to being a pauper or something close. Stuck in low-paying work that leaves you unable to pay off the loans…
All of a sudden there is lots being written about the trend of employers hiring generalists more than specialists. What is so disturbing is the disconnect between this reality and way too many policymakers pushing our education and training providers…
A recent Detroit Free Press article entitled GM's job cuts shift to a new kind of worker needed is worth checking out. It is a pretty dramatic example of the reality that––even for those with STEM degrees (in this case engineers)––the…
Must-read Linkedin column by Heather E. McGowan entitled Preparing Students to Lose Their Job. It is the best description I have read on the need to change the mission of education from one that prepares people for a job to one that…
Terrific Washington Post column on research done by Google on the skills that matter most to its employees success. Big surprise: it wasn't STEM. The Post writes: Sergey Brin and Larry Page, both brilliant computer scientists, founded their company on the conviction…
In my last post, I walked us through the four levels of confidence that are described by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek in their book, Becoming Brilliant. They describe confidence as one of six of the most important capacities…
In 1999 Michigan Future, Inc. did research to identify the pathway young adults in metro Detroit without a four-year degree took to obtaining good-paying jobs. The research involved both focus groups and phone interviews. The core finding of that research…