Did you know there are 5 million jobs vacant?

Bill Clinton was interviewed on NBC's meet the press this Sunday (09/19/10).  During the interview he made several amazing statements. One in particular caught my attention because it relates with what I have been doing for the past 2 years.

Like so many others before him, Bill Clinton has (apparently) realized that the challenges posed by the 30 million unemployed people by the 2008 Great Recession, cannot be solved with today's systems.  The sheer scale of this challenge, transcends existing Learning Management Systems (LMS).

Individuals and organizations need a new system.  A system  that will allow them to do more than acquire new skills and expertise.  They need a revolutionary system that will allow them to:

1. manages their continuous learning
2. make them easy, quick and affordable to find 
3. answer two basic questions: "What do they know?" and "How do they learn?"

To design such system has been my focus over the past two years.  In trying to answer this answer, I along with others, created Olexe.  The end result was a system that enables the knowledge economy.

P.S. You don't happen to have Bill Clinton's phone? :-)

3 Top Things you need to know about the 2008 Great Recession

Accordingly to the International Labor Organization (ILO):

1. Since the beginning of the Great Recession, 30 million people have lost their jobs. There are now 210 millions jobless people (world wide)
   
   
2. Long term unemployment is increasing. Jobs obtained following involuntary unemployment, have lower earnings, which is particular affecting highly educated people.
   
   
3. Over the next 10 years, more than 440 million new jobs will be needed to absorb newcomers into the workforce.

See Dominique Strauss-Kahn's statement (IMF Managing Director) at the 2010 Joint ILO-IMF Oslo Conference: The Challenges of Growth, Employment and Social Cohesion.  It seems "they" are waking up.



3 Top Things YOU need to know to succeed.

1. You need to know that this is NOT a slow down
   
   The Great Depression of the 1930's in the US, eliminated many farm jobs. In the decades that followed, most farmers became industrial workers. More than an unfortunate economic event, the Great Depression represented a structural change in the economy. It marked the beginning of the industrial era.  The Great Recession of 2008 marks the beginning of the knowledge economy. Like the farmers in the 1930s, most of the jobs being lost today, will be permanent.
   
   
2. Your next position needs to be about "problem solving"
   
   Automation and outsourcing have been collaborating towards transitioning our markets from the service to the knowledge economy.  We started by automating and outsourcing the industrial capacity and quickly moved onto services. The Great Recession of 2008 Services was just the final straw that accelerated the unavoidable. In this new economy, you need to be in position of research and development.  If you don't have it yet, or you are not on a path towards it, you need to start... today!
   
   
3. Learn, Document, Publish
   
   To survive in the knowledge economy, you need to find a topic about which you are passionate about, and engage in life long (continuous) learning.  As you learn, you will have to document with great detail what and how you learn, so others can easily find you and engage you.  This is the only way you will be able to compete with the other 600 million people competing for a job.

In case you were thinking that this is too far fetch...(click the link to read the entire article).

P.S. - Unlike government, the entrepreneur community has long picked up on this topic.  New systems were already built to allow you to develop, aggregate and publish your knowledge (Olexe). All you need to bring... is a dream!