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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

When I grow up, I want to be a sense maker

Ask a five-year-old what they want to be when they about helping others, who will be the future’s new
grow up. Chances are: ‘machine learning specialist’ heroes?
will not rise to the top of the list. For decades, our
show and tells have been catwalks for classic ”Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s tomorrow’s Super
capitalism, where mini pilots and policemen strut Sense Maker!”
their oversized uniforms for kindergarten audiences. Sense makers are the problem solvers of the business
We’re very comfortable with our kids wanting a world‒ the creatives and critics who are not afraid to try
career as a doctor or a lawyer when they grow up; and fail at offering brave new solutions. They could be
we may even entertain the idea of builder or artists, consultants, design thinkers ‒ builders of our
architect for some years. But, at the end of the day, digital world.
when varsity fees are all paid up, we’re still pulling
our old-school paradigms, like a hood, over our eyes Sense makers are loaded with filters to sift through the
and expecting our kids to have the same jobs that ever-increasing volume of information so that a story,
we’ve had. deeply human, keeps rising to the fore.
Here’s some news for you, Mom and Dad. Little Joanne More than just getting a job, our message needs to
may have to change her career path. be what do you think and how will you make sense of it
all?
The digital age is accelerating at a magnificent rate and
rewriting business as we know it. It’s not hard to be
daunted by it all ‒ especially if your job is all about Humans still do human better
replicating a task at hand. Somewhere in a back room in The ability to listen and engage, to mobilize a common
Hyderabad, we’ve all been warned, hundreds of over- vision, and to springboard instinct into action is deeply
caffeinated techies are working around the clock to intuitive and deeply human. That’s because it’s not so
empower technology to outwit, and eventually replace, much about mastering tech as it is about working with
our human faculties. people. And, according to McKinsey in their 2016

Going, going, almost gone are the jobs we esteemed the Quarterly Report, these are the kind of jobs that won’t
stuff of heroes. But, if robots will soon be putting out fires go out of style, even when the robots come to town.
and transplanting hearts better than people, we’ve got to Activities that involve managing and developing people
ask what on earth should we be doing? If being a hero is make up the lowest category of vulnerability (at 9%
automation potential), while knowledge work that

12 April 2018 - Strategic Social Media & Augmented Reality (AR)