Simon,

About the same time as reading “Rising Elephant” (India’s emerging power status) I also recall some highly rated global banker saying that there was an unstoppable leveling of the playing field going on between developed and developing worlds – mostly notably in purchasing power and per-capita incomes.

Certainly the story since the mid 80s would seems to bear this out – and well told by T. Friedman’s “The World Is Flat”.

However, there are 3 “outlier events” that might put a spanner in this globalization phenomenon:

1- Geopolitical / Financial System upheaval – translating to regional wars or worse.

2- “Peak Oil” and (see #1)

3- Climate Change

Now I’m not a futurologist and won’t go any further than listing the wild cards above that could be played by man or nature. Time will tell.

As far as IT Technical careers are concerned (in the developed world that I know of, UK and Japan), pure technical excellence will still be important but less so than 20 years ago (pre -Net) because of all those other “hungry Netizens with a laptop”.

(And by hungry, I mean hungry to succeed.)

Staying in the game even with tech + soft skills will be a tough act (cost-driven).
Being mobile will help (but see 1,2,3 above!)

And I’m an optimist!

regards
mark mcclure
tokyo

@Mark – fantastic comments! It will certainly be interesting to see how the levelling progresses, as I can’t see benefits of labor arbritrage lasting more than the medium term, which it isn’t by recent evidence. I guess it will come down to commoditization of jobs – if your job that was once a craft becomes a crank-turner, salary will drop, as will your enjoyment (but also stress!). So we have to keep pace with the changes and if you like ‘executive’ positions, then you need to find a job in an industry which is less mature, less defined, or artistic!

Regarding possible career alternatives to IT, Joanne Dustin’s a career coach/consultant in the US and ex-IT executive.

She wrote a short book on IT folks who had made the change – “Life Beyond IT”.

Joanne’s site is here:
http://www.careerlostandfound.com/Life_Beyond_IT.html
and she kindly linked to my review of her book on that page.

Overall, an inspiring read for IT staffers who doubt their ability to make a career change – although it’s fair to point out that a few of the people she profiled chose to stay within IT by moving into a different role or industry sector.

Practically speaking, for those not yet ready or able to leave the corporate/government teat, I think running a blog and dipping a toe into the social marketing melee that the web is devolving into helps teach many of the business and marketing survival skills required by consultants, entrepreneurs and yes, even career high-fliers!

regards
mark mcclure
Tokyo, Japan

@Mark – thanks for the link, I am sure we will find it useful. I think the bloggers/consultants/entrepreneurs (like ourselves!) are breaking the mould of the IT worker by blurring the boundaries between work and non-work (as classically defined)…. for me and you it’s just ‘work’ (put perhaps work with passion!)