Generation DIY #GenDIY

Wednesday, 12th September 2012
By Duane Jackson - Founder & CEO
Business
Opinions

First there was Generation X. Then there was Generation Y.

It’d be easy to read the Daily Mail and believe that the current generation is Generation ZZZ, as they’re a lazy bunch of good-for-nothings.

But we’ve seen where that mentality gets us.

Next month, the latest youth unemployment figures will be coming out. I think we can all safely assume what direction they’ll be moving in. The big question of the day will be ‘by how much?’

Globally, almost 13% of young people are out of work, and this isn’t going to change any time soon. Across the Atlantic it’s being reported that many younger people just aren’t bothering to look for employment any more.

This isn’t because they’re lazy or think they’re too good to work, but because many members of the previous generation have either been made redundant, and are actively seeking new jobs, or are staying in work for longer than people ever used to. How can an 18 year old straight out of university be expected to compete with someone who has 20+ years of experience?

All this is indicative of the fact that a fundamental change is occurring. The jobs that have ‘disappeared’ aren’t coming back.

But, at the same time, the number of new business formations is going through the roof. Companies House says 436,000 new businesses were registered in 2011, compared to 385k in 2010. The 2012 numbers will, no doubt, be even higher. And this doesn’t take into account all of those non-registered sole traders.

Increasingly, young people are starting their own businesses. Not sexy ‘let’s hot desk in Shoreditch and take on Facebook’ tech businesses, nor high-growth, high-potential businesses that are going to create hundreds of new jobs. They do, however, give the sole founder a reasonable income and a lifestyle that many of those stuck in the nine-to-five world would envy.

Who needs a job when you can create your own?
They’re doing it themselves.
It’s Generation DIY.

http://www.autodotbiography.com Bryher Scudamore

It isn’t only young people who don’t have jobs – try getting a job when you are over 50. More and more people in their 50s and 60s (me) are starting their own business’s at that age because they have energy, experience and they too need an income. Don’t be ageist, remember older people need help and support as well as young people.

Stu Bradley – Marketing Executive

People in their fifties and sixties still have energy? I’m 24 and I’ve already run out…

I think the great thing about #genDIY is that it’s very egalitarian – you can be a baby boomer and still be a part of it. It’s all about what you do, not how old you are!

http://www.discreetsecuritysolutions.com Nigel

I call it “Flooding the foothills of human endeavour”. As we create machines that do the work that so many used to be needed for, everyone has to up-skill. Some are left behind, and we end up in a situation where with modern comms and systems anyone capable of any mid-range job is capable after a few hours of ANY mid-range job.

You don’t need a team of navvies, you have a JCB operator and a truck driver. You don’t have a fully staffed assembly line because you have 3 robot arms and a pick-and-place machine, which replaces the young women who used to do that assembly work (selected for nimble fingers) who replaced the engineers who used to do actual soldering of discrete parts.

On the other side, you can take a person who has learned up to degree level, set them a fairly complex task, and after a few hours reading online they can probably cope quite well. For a stunning example, look at the “Faking it” shows, where people are taken and in a week turned into a pro at whatever area was selected.

Of course, at the top end we now have systems that can monitor a thousand or more CCTV cameras at once, which means that ranks of CCTV operators are not needed, because machine vision is now “better” than human. And this is something that is repeated all over. And finally, for those things that no computer can cope with, we have Mechanical Turk which breaks the ranks of people down into faceless rote machines, for a small profit.

Sorry, but it is only going to get worse… We spend ages coming up with machines that can think properly, and yet mock the few people who can already.

In a few more years, even Ph.D holders will be finding it hard to compete with free computer software. A decade after that? You’ll be hard pushed to find a human working for any large business in a technical or other role, unless things change.

So yes, millions will start businesses, but most of those will fold within a year, and that rate will only increase.

http://www.tpcon.co.uk Karl Melkerts

This sounds like the start of the Terminator…..

http://www.reconverse.com Jamie

Very good post. Kids should be encouraged at secondary school level to explore small business ownership as a viable way to make a living.
http://www.revenizer.com Phil Rogers

Excellent post. The good news is that technology companies from KashFlow to Etsy are making it easier to succeed as an entrepreneur. You can start small and part-time then see where it goes. Agree that it is not a generational thing. It’s about unleashing human creativity whatever your age. The assembly line and people were never a good match. More people starting their own businesses means more innovation, more diversity and more economic freedom. Making business ownership the new normal seems like a pretty good goal.
http://companycheck.co.uk Alastair

Agree completely. We have 2 recent graduates.

Both work hard and take an interest in what we are doing. No one has to answer emails from the boss at 23:00 but they do – because the drive and energy is there to succeed.

I think the biggest issue is those who ‘feel’ stuck. There is not enough help out there to give people oomph and realise they do have a choice.

Govt. initiatives are probably not the way forward to achieve this because the very people who devise these have no concept of what is required to help peole become sole traders, start up a Ltd etc.

Govt. would achieve far more by helping businesses train and employ young people.

Generation DIY #GenDIY

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