Profiles of Future – The world is too small? or Is it?

Welcome to October 2021 edition of the IX^thvolume of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We recapitulate that the 2021 theme for the IX^thvolume of our Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs is Future of… as the basis for Creating and Maintaining Sustained Success.

Our topic for the discussion for the month is – The Profiles of Future – The World without Distance

Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible by Arthur C. Clarke – originally appeared in 1962, is an anthology of essays written by Arthur C Clarke during the period 1959 – 1961. Since it was concerned with ultimate possibilities, It has under gone two revisions, in 1971 and 1999. As such the latest 1999 revision does not contain several portions of the original text.

I plan to take up a more detailed look at the book in some time next year. For the purpose of our present episode, we will briefly take a look at some of the predictions Arthur C Clarke has to make about the Future of Work (in 2050) and a few representative current views. –

Arthur C. Clarke Predicted the Future of Remote and Flexible Work in 1964 By Jennifer Parris – With regards to remote working, Arthur Clarke believed that almost any skill, from executive or administrative, to even physical skills, would be possible to perform remotely, regardless of distance. This sentiment shows that Clarke already envisioned the workplace to be a mobile one, not one reliant upon people being together in an office to perform their jobs.

For a more comprehensive look at how working from home came to be (starting with the hunter-gatherers as the earliest at-home workers!), read FlexJobs post on’ “The Complete History of Working from Home.”

Here are some more additional readings on the subject:

BBC Horizon is a widely acclaimed TV show of BBC, One of the episodes of that show, in 1964, presented Artur C Clarke’s predictions of the future. Here is that episode:

BBC Horizon (1964) with Arthur C. Clarke –

(Part 1 of 2)

Part 2 of 2

[Note: BBC Horizon Collection – 512 Episodes – can be accessed at https://archive.org/details/BBCHorizonCollection512Episodes

The big debate about the future of work, explained

3 myths about the future of work (and why they’re not true) | Daniel Susskind

New Profiles of the Future: The World in 2050 and beyond, with Lord Martin Rees

How do we find dignity at work? – Roy Bahat and Bryn Freedman | Ted Salon” Zebra Technologies

Roy Bahat wondered, what was AI doing to the people whose jobs might change, go away or become less fulfilling? The question sent him on a two-year research odyssey to discover what motivates people, and why we work. In this conversation with curator Bryn Freedman, he shares what he learned, including some surprising insights that will shape the conversation about the future of our jobs.

How will we earn money in future without jobs? – Martin Ford | TED 2017

We now watch ASQ TV, wherein we refresh our viewpoints about–

Intelligent Automation for Quality Professionals – Christy Mazzarisi, Global Quality Officer, Rational Vaccines, explains intelligent automation and how a project she recently completed digitally transformed an organization.

We have taken up one article from Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems this month

Productive Failures – Failure can provide the seeds for success.- In a productive failure, you do not achieve your objective, but you come away with new knowledge that will increase your chances of future success. A non-productive success occurs when you achieve your objective, but you are not sure what you did right. You can build on productive failures. You can’t build on non-productive failures….The more productive failures experienced, the more you’ll learn….When bad things happen, first think, “Darn, that is really disappointing.” Then quickly think, “How can I turn this into something useful?”

‘From the Editor’ (of Quality Magazine) – by Darryl Sealand, we have –

Serendipity, A Meaningful Connection? – Serendipity is “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” – a happy coincidence or more like a “meaningful connection.” ….. It is something like listening a song for the first time and catching that meaningful lyric, or the emotion of a melody, that spoke to you in that very moment….. Quality hopes to provide with that same sense of serendipity…………….

I look forward to your views / comments / inputs to further enrich the theme of Future of… as the basis for Creating and Maintaining Sustained Success.

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.