Techno-Creative, the professionals of the future

Year 2012 was a very important year for me. It was a year of “first times”: I started as a teacher in several schools (IED, IAB, IPECC…); I dived deep into the start-up ecosystem; I had the experience of being General Manager of a company that had a turnover of more than one million euros in its first year… And I gave shape to a new concept that marked my way of thinking: Techno-Creativity.

At that time, digital creative agencies needed multidisciplinary profiles that had strategic vision, creative capacity and technological knowledge; but it was very difficult to find them. That’s why we created (although I continued to shape the concept, I took the first steps with Fermín and Jax) a new philosophy whose objective was to train these profiles. In fact, I even gave a TED talk that talked about this concept (I was a child!). That year I didn’t stop “evangelizing”, giving talks and continuing to give shape to these new professional profiles. T-Shaped Talent, Coolhunting, Agile… Concepts that didn’t sound much at that time and were already part of this vision.

Year 2013 was a bittersweet year. On the one hand, John Moravec launched his concept “Knowmad” and his book “Knowmad Society” and validated what I had been talking (me and many other people at that time, eh?) for a year. On the other hand, Moravec consolidated himself as the first to officially publish something along these lines and to establish a milestone. Even so, I continued evangelizing until Mónica and I got together and launched a Master in Techno-Creativity, adding other dimensions such as project management and business strategy. That group of intrepid amazing people were the first generation of “TechnoCreative”. We are talking about 2014.

Although I still teach Techno-Creativity in some schools, such as IEBS, I gave up the idea of writing a book for the sake of not repeating myself, but every time I read new studies on future education, new professional profiles and future skills; more and more I want to write it, with a practical approach, a guide on how to be a “TechnoCreative”, with new dimensions such as thinking like a futurist.

Becoming a ‘knowmad’ is achieved by fostering curiosity, virtual sociability, embracing challenges, not being afraid of failure and understanding that what you do is more of a challenge than a labor obligation. There are many who have already grown up with this attitude towards work, but the great transformation has to come from companies, which will have to abandon rigid organizational models to embrace the functional flexibility offered by this type of workers.

Knowmad, the professional profile most demanded by companies in 2018

Beyond the profiles directly associated with the creation or implementation of digital products and services (data scientists, data analytics, cybersecurity, robotics, etc.), many other professionals will have to differentiate themselves through activities that cannot be automated. Hence the emphasis on developing specific skills such as creativity and capacity for innovation, new ways of working in the digital age and the ability to solve problems in a machine-human environment.

Digital skills: show me the way — KPMG Trends

A recent book that describes these new digital Renaissance wisemen in a different way is “The Neo-Generalist” (2016) by Kenneth Mikkelsen and Richard Martin. They show skills and clues close to the “Techno- Creatives” concept but they also stayed in a very general and descriptive orbit:

The neo-generalist is both specialist and generalist, often able to master multiple disciplines. We all carry within us the potential to specialise and generalise. Many of us are unwittingly eclectic, innately curious. There is a continuum between the extremes of specialism and generalism, a spectrum of possibilities. Where we stand on that continuum at a given point in time is governed by context.

Perhaps next year I will return with the idea of writing the book… Together with Mónica… Who knows… 🙂 Do you think there is any space for new philosophies of talent and innovation, of the professional profiles of the future?

#365daysof #futurism #talent #knowmad #work #day242