Information and Communication Technology skills are something I feel passionate about, and it is deeply distressing to have to witness some of Australia's shortcomings in this area.

It's a huge problem we are facing; nothing less than changing the complete fabric of a society – in a very short space of time. But whether or not we can 'manage' this transition will determine – greatly – whether or not Australia is a prosperous country in the future – one which can not only use IT throughout all industries – but can produce IT products and services that the rest of the world want to buy.

And this applies to IT skills the products and services themselves.

The Knowledge Economy

In the past few decades we have undergone an information revolution. At one level we have moved from being a print based society, where books and journals, etc., have been the limit of our record keeping, and storage of information – to computers and digital data systems. And the fantastic explosion and manipulation of information that they represent.

Once a society, which had to be proficient at print, we now have to be a society, which is competent with computers. Understandably, this can create an enormous skills gap across occupations.

Just take teaching for example. We would not have wanted to employ illiterate teachers in a print-based culture; and it is equally unsatisfactory to employ computer incompetent staff in a digital society.

Which means that there are an awful lot of people here who need to be trained; and I just want you to keep in mind that they are all over the age of 25.

And this is the case, right across the professions.

Whether you are an Avon lady who now has to use a web site for advertising and ordering,
or a plumber who needs to access council plans online –
or a CEO
or a politician
or a union organiser
you need to be computer competent to do the job, and to be a fully functioning citizen.

Just as you once needed print literacy for the work place and for living in the industrial era, now you need digital literacy for the knowledge economy – and it's a very different skills base.

Skills Gap

But the introduction of computers isn't about a once-only learning task.

I have a friend who said recently – 'OK! I've learned to do email! Can I stop now?'
And I had to increase her stress levels and inform her that –
No! We are now in the digital age, where technology is changing so quickly, that new things have to be learnt everyday, And that this is another source of the skills shortage – or more accurately, the skills gap.

When more than 75% of the revenue of SunMicrosystems, for example, comes from products that didn't exist two years ago – you can get some idea of the pace of this change. See Jeanne Meister, 1998, Corporate Universities, McGraw Hill p9

And while everyone who works at the company is on a steep leaning curve – so too are their customers who use SunMicrosystem products.

This is why – from now on - we will always have a skills gap. At one level it is quite a healthy sign. It means that companies are forever creating new products, having to start on the new ones even as the old ones are still successful in the market place,

This means that the entire workforce is forever playing catch-up, always being required to learn new skills, to keep up with the latest advances in new technologies. Everyone over the age of 25!

Where learning to learn will be a basic skill; and where those who learn quickly will be the winners.

Learning/ Earning

Learning has become a feature of daily life in a technologically advanced society. (It is often impossible to separate the learning from the work.) And our prosperity as a nation depends very much on how we handle the learning upgrades that are always trying to catch up with the skills gap.

In the industrial age, it was not always necessary, or even desirable, for workers to be active learners. Indeed much of the factory system, and the assembly line, discouraged thinking and learning. And this is one of the most dramatic changes of the knowledge age. For at just about every level now, workers have to use their brains.

While we made goods in a manufacturing society, we have to make knowledge products in a knowledge society. This is sometimes very difficult for my generation to grasp. Accustomed to the physical infrastructure of road and rail, we cannot appreciate that the information infrastructure – the internet – is as much about getting the workers to work and the goods to the global market, as ports and public transport have been for minerals and agricultural products in the past.

But now it is knowledge products, and as Bill Gates well knows, these are the keys to the economic future.

Knowledge workers have to be smart, creative, critical, questioning, and to come up with new ways of doing things better. Every day. -- Which is why the success of business and the future of the nation suddenly depend on the ability of our workforce – over the age of 25 – to be willing learners, and to anticipate changes,

No enterprise can stay with what it knows.

Whether it is Cisco, state government departments, or BHP, every effort must be made to find a new way of creating, organising, manipulating information. This is the competitive edge in the new economy. This is what knowledge products are – inventions, systems, solutions, methodologies; these are the real thing.

And we need a workforce which can meet this challenge. Every adult earner has to be a creative learner if Australia is to be a player – rather than a purchaser.

Work

The shift from the factory system to the knowledge economy, has changed just about every aspect of work. And while there is an infinite amount of work to do – there's no end to the ideas, solutions, services etc. that we can dream up. The work just isn't customarily divided into jobs any more.

One of the most common questions I am asked comes from parents who say that-

Their daughter is about to start university
And has been told
That every job she will ever do, hasn't been invented yet
And that this isn't a very good basis for making a decision
about whether to do psychology or mathematics.

And the only sound advice I can give – is
Think less in terms of a job – and more in terms of a client.

The emphasis now is not on employment – on seeking a job that you qualify for and which you can fit into. The emphasis is on – employability. On having the skills you can sell to a client. In a constantly changing environment.

This creates an unprecedented demand for learning.

And individuals are increasingly responsible for keeping their own skills up to date and work ready. It is a tragedy if there is no Australian education system that provides these services and products.

Quick Time

And how do knowledge workers maintain their skills levels in today's information society?

In the words of Daniel Petre (BOSS, June 2000) – there's no time to send people off to courses these days. You cant stop the work while people go off to learn. It's just not on for them to go to the information: the information has to get to them, in quick time. At their workplace.

This says a lot about changing time. Everyone feels that things are speeding up. That they have to do more, think more, learn more, produce more – and that they have to do it more often and more quickly. And they are not wrong. Time is now playing a different role in our lives.

Time is becoming a precious resource. It's as important to a knowledge economy as raw materials were in the industrial age. Time costs money; it's one thing we can't afford to waste.

Which is why the learning has to be there just when it's required.

Not next year when the academic semester starts.
Not next month when the course is offered.
Not even next week – and after work.
But right now.

Just in time,
Just for the job.
Just for the worker who needs it.
Just for as long as it is in demand.

Such learning products can't just appear. Someone, some place, has to make them. Fast. Which is they won't usually come from traditional educational institutions. These new products and services are the beginnings of an entirely new business. And they will generate a new breed of professional learning managers – who know the value of time.

Recruitment companies are already on the lookout for Chief Learning Officers. Individuals who understand the changing demands of the job, and who are trying to find the learning providers that can deliver - quickly - on site. Often online. This is how the learning business will become part of the futures trading.

You have to be quick.
Quick to anticipate the learning needs. Quick to translate them into a package. Quick to deliver the services and products. And quick to start all over again.

And if there is a message here for the workforce, it is- that you have to be quick to learn. Those who learn quickly will have the greatest employability. This makes learning to learn quickly -- and on the job -- the most desirable asset in any workplace.

Education

And this is the crux.

The reality is, that we don't currently have an education system that is organised to meet these new needs. There is no system for upgrades – across the board – for those who are the learner earners – the professionals we need for a knowledge society.

And while there are countless issues I could raise here, I am going to confine myself to just one. The inappropriateness of the knowledge that we teach in public education system, and the way in which it perpetuates part of the problem of the skills shortage.

Our basic model of teaching and learning is a knowledge-transfer one. We have resourced teachers to know their subject, and our expectation is, that they will then transfer the knowledge they have in their heads – to the heads of the students. And they will test to see whether it got there, by getting the student to recall it, usually under examination conditions.

So that the students are required to feed back to the teacher, the information that is already known. It's a closed circuit system. The cult of the right answer.

And it is of limited value in a knowledge economy. Where it is precisely what is not known - where it is what is new, what is smarter, what is a creative solution – which is the outcome that we should be looking for.

And until we have an education system for the knowledge age – one that is not about what you know – but what you can do with new ideas and solutions – we will have a skills gap on a grand scale – throughout the community.

ICT Skills

And then there are the skills themselves.

No one could suggest that the coverage of the skills shortage makes exciting reading. Quite the contrary. And I suspect that this is one reason that we have a problem. It all sounds so dry and soul-less.

It's like outlining the technical tasks of the old craft typesetter, without any reference to the wondrous possibilities of print, or the joys of literature.

This makes me acutely conscious of the need to talk up the glamour of the industry. And it isn't difficult.

Not so long ago I went to an AIMIA meeting, Australian Interactive Media and Internet Industry to listen to games programmers talking about their work. And I went with quite a supercilious air. I was suitably humbled.

When I heard these – '14 year old boys! ' – talk, I realised I could have been listening to any one of a number of precious writers at a literary festival. For what were these games' boys doing?

They were talking about their art – about refining their code, about working on every 'phrase' so that it was more appropriate, more elegant.

They are writing a new language. Some of it functional, some of it liberating – and some of it worthy of acknowledgement and appreciation. It's just at the moment we – the over 25s – aren't sufficiently educated or literate to be an enlightened or receptive audience. Another skills gap of enormous proportions.

Yet so much about this work could be so glamorous – so desirable. Even to start talking about 'gold collar workers' rather than 'IT', is to promote a more positive image. One which girls might well find attractive!

IT Skills Exchange

This is why the IT Skills Exchange is so vital. I am sure that many of you here have heard of it and the solution that it is offering in the skills market place.

It is a good blend of creativity and ebusiness acumen, which could provide Australia with a leading edge market place for IT skills. Where business can outline its needs – predict shortages – and play a crucial role in the learning futures trading.

Where learning providers – from universities to for profit companies – can check out the 'market research', punt on packages and courses, and provide the new products and services that are in ongoing demand. On a global basis.

Where the IT Skills Exchange itself brings the participants together and helps to create the 'learning system' for the over 25s. Everywhere.

(And in the words of Brian Donovan, if we don't take the initiative and establish our own solution – our learner/earners will soon be logging onto US sites, and undertaking their ongoing skills upgrades with overseas companies – that will be providing the system that we lack.)

Digital Divide

What I have done here is briefly outline the nature and extent of this awesome skills gap – or shortage. And although it affects everyone, I have tried to draw attention to the stark reality that while the greatest need is for the over 25s – we don't have a system set up for them.

And this has social and political implications along with the economic ones.

If our public education system does not resource all the members of our society for the knowledge economy, and their own employability, then the learning products and services that are required will be purchased by those who can afford them and they will come from other places.

They will be delivered online from the American information multinationals, which are increasingly looking to sell their learning packages to Australians who want a skills upgrade. And who have the means to pay for them.

And I conclude on this chilling note:

• In a global economy where employers arbitrage the world looking for the lowest wages, people's pay is not based on whether they live in a rich or poor country, but upon their individual skills. The well educated living in India make something that looks like American wages: while the uneducated living in America, make something that looks like Indian wages. Lester Thurow, 1999, Creating Wealth, Nicholas Brealey, London, p 132
  

Such a scenario for Australia would spell economic and social disaster.