The Cyber-Mental Age and You

You are probably already saying, "What? Did I miss something? What does 'Cyber-Mental Age' mean? What kind of new-speak is that?"

Well, if you subscribe to The Herman Group's e-newsletter The Herman Trend Alert and received their January 25, 2012 issue or keep up with Ed Gordon, a futurist/author specializing in career and technical education, you would have heard of the term Cyber-Mental Age. It describes the period we are moving into or living in today — having moved beyond the Information Age.

Several weeks ago we wrote to you about the extreme shortage of qualified job candidates with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills for some five million currently vacant jobs in the U.S. alone. You have to draw your own conclusions about what that means to you and your company but hopefully many of you, as a result of that article, reached out to support the local IISME organization that works relentlessly to help us all bridge this very large gap.

To validate what we were talking about then and what you most likely continue to experience, Ed Gordon and the Herman Group explain some of the reasons for the shortage of STEM skills and suggest some things that are coming to help out. One thing is for certain. We definitely are playing catch-up.

You are going to be hearing much more about STEM programs in the months ahead and we all are going to have to figure out what our roles will be in support of them.

In the meantime check out The Herman Trend Alert and click on Resources for their free newsletter.

Also, don't forget to contact us if you have questions or if we can be of assistance.

Best regards,

Rod