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It’s not often one puts Wayne Gretzky and George Orwell together in the same post, but stick with me on this one.
I heard this morning that Orbitz has a scientist working for them who has deduced that people who log in from Mac’s tend to book pricier hotel rooms than people who log in from PC’s. So now Orbitz shows more expensive options to people logging in from a Mac.
Talk about a job that didn’t exist ten years ago?
Much has been said about the fact that many of the jobs that today’s high school students will do don’t exist today. Earlier this year I wrote that the hot job for 2012 is Online Customer Retention Specialist as websites scramble to hold onto customers who can browse the competition with the click of a mouse. But did you ever think that someone would be tracking and analyzing your buying habits based on your access device?
Wayne Gretzky said one of the secrets of his success, along with lots of hard work, was “skating to where the puck was going, not where it is.” Most hockey players couldn’t anticipate that way, hence his nickname, The Great Gretzky.
To be great at crafting your career, you need to get good at anticipating where the jobs are going (and let’s not have any snide remarks about Bangalore, okay?). What will the economy and businesses demand you know how to do in the future? What will they need you to provide? How will work get done? Will you skate to where the jobs are?
We may not all get to do what we like in the future, but those who want to maintain steady employment will get better at identifying the trends and riding the wave to the next job.
As for Mr. Orwell, I’m not sure I like the fact that I’m not going to see the lowest priced options simply because of the computer I use. It’s a little too “Big Brother-y” for me. It’s sorta like a social media website changing my contact information without asking my permission (but Facebook would never do that, would they?). Orwell was a futurist who foresaw a dark future for a world in which the powers that be had too much information on everyone. So what hot job might he envision for 2013?
Social Media Privacy Consultant?