Target Practice Turn
Shooting clay pigeons with a shotgun for the first time is an interesting afternoon endeavor and one that doesn't seem directly applicable as a metaphor for career advice for my college students. "It is extremely difficult to miss, in this game, by being in front," says James Ross, chief shooting instructor at Orvis Sandanona in Millbrook, NY. After listening to Ross, it becomes readily apparent that the hardest part of learning the clay pigeon sport is not the stance, shooting the shotgun, or the speed of the clay pigeon (which usually cruises at around 45 mph). Success, instead, lies within the ability of the shooter to see the clay pigeon, develop a swing in their stance equivalent to the speed of the target--and, then, lead the target. If you aim directly at the clay pigeon you will never hit a single one. By the time the shot from the shotgun arrives at its location, the clay pigeon is gone. It's a moving target. Leading is the only way for success.
Just like leading a clay pigeon, predicting the direction society will progress is equally essential for college students. It is extremely hard to miss employment potential by aiming in front of trends. Some of the top leaders in the digital economy have based their entire careers on staying ahead of trends.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, SpaceX and Chairman of SolarCity, recently considered his time as a college student in 1995. Musk tells The Henry Ford On Innovation project, "When I was in college, I tried to think 'what are the really big problems that face the world, that will most affect the future of humanity?'And the three that I thought the most important were the internet, transition to a sustainable energy economy, and, third, was space exploration."
Clearly, over the years, Musk has attempted to make headway with all of his college predictions. But, perhaps, his natural inclination of being a college student that was constantly thinking outside of the "when is my next exam?" mindset was the true predictor for his continued success.
Likewise, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, in an interview with Silicon Valley startup company accelerator YCombinator, discusses his view of witnessing the early internet culture that lacked person-to-person comradery and how he tried to figure out where to situate himself as a college student. "When I looked out at the Internet in 2004, which was when I was getting started, you could find almost anything else that you wanted," says Zuckerberg. "You could find news, movies, music, reference materials, but the thing that mattered the most to people, which was other people and understanding what's going on with them, just wasn't there." Zuckerberg put all of his effort into meeting an underserved societal problem by creating Facebook. Clearly, this tactic worked out well.
By using both Musk's and Zuckerberg's strategies as successful case studies, a college student can hone in on how to focus toward future leaning problems and resulting solutions. The irony is that these skills of future thinking and foresight are rarely evident in most college curricula.
On Oct. 6, 2016, Pew Research released the new State of American Jobs study. This study is a strong indicator as to where industries, jobs and society will head over the next several years. According to the study, "employment increased 77% (from 49 million to 86 million) in jobs requiring higher levels of analytical skills" and, likewise, it highlights that Americans believe knowledge of computers, social dexterity, communications skills and access to training are keys to success for today's workers.
The Pew study also highlights that Americans believe that the ultimate responsibility for preparing and succeeding in today's workforce falls on each individual's shoulders.
If the brunt of responsibility for career success does, in fact, fall upon an individual's preparation to meet new growth markets, then the last couple of weeks provided a fairly significant glance at future progression.
Michael Abrash, chief scientist at Oculus VR, took the stage during an Oct. 6, 2016 Oculus Connect event to talk about virtual reality (VR), and says, "This is the year that consumer VR finally launched.It is the culmination of a series of amazing and highly improbable events that nobody would have predicted five years ago. And, yet, this is just the beginning. The really interesting stuff is yet to come."
"Virtual reality is the perfect platform to put people first," says Zuckerberg during his Oct. 6 Oculus Connect demo. "It is this feeling of real presence, like you are there with another person or in another place."
Zuckerberg says that there are now more than one million people using VR products and highlights the broad investment currently in progress by adding,"We have Samsung investing in virtual reality, we have Valve and HTC investing in virtual reality and we have Google and others."
Beyond VR, the White House has recently acknowledged new directions of technology embedding with humankind. The White House's October 2016 Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence report says, "Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology have opened up new markets and new opportunities for progress in critical areas such as health, education, energy, and the environment. In recent years, machines have surpassed humans in the performance of certain specific tasks such as some aspects of image recognition. Experts forecast that rapid progress in the field of specialized artificial intelligence will continue."
All of the prior highlight the fact that there are multiple indicators that showcase future growth potential and new industry creation. The next generation of leaders in our digital economy will be able to look at the paths currently in their infancy or new markets created in the wake of growing industries and prepare accordingly. Ultimately, it is important for the next batch of leaders to recognize the Musks and Zuckerbergs of the world aren't incomprehensible figures, but instead, represent calculable paths of accumulated action. And sometimes life is best understood from actions. At least that's what happened to me when I set out one afternoon to shoot clay pigeons with a shotgun and, instead, found a clear explanation on the need for innovation strategy to aim ahead of the curve.