Any Major As Long As It's Computer Science

"Any color as long as it's black" was Henry Ford's strategy.  When the time is right to share career advice with my 3 children I will say, "Any major as long as it's computer science."  I won't push them, but will definitely show them the benefits.

Every field needs computer scientists.  You want to go into agriculture, health care, education, art, whatever, they all need  wizards with superpowers. Plus you don't have to program your whole life and the base knowledge will enable you to speak with the wizards.  If fact, I will outline benefits in double majoring in Computer Science and whatever interests them.    

I was recently chatting with the Dean at a highly ranked business school and he said, "If I hear someone say 'Do What You Love' one more time, I'm going to punch them."  Yes, you can enjoy your work.  But the career management process must be aligned with real world demand.

Majoring in computer science could be your path to solving the problems in the world that keep you up at night. 

The Odds Are Always in Our Favor

While I'm not a huge Hunger Games fan, I did see it twice at the theaters in less than a week.  Once with my Dad during our Thanksgiving trip and once on a romantic date with Angie to Southpoint.

"Control" is lesson we must learn as parents, people managers at work, and church leaders.  No one likes to be coersed and I continually learn this lesson as a father when I choose to physically pick up my kids and force them to brush their teeth or whatever task we need to do at the time.  It's a short term fix and taking time to teach them to fish is the better choice.  As Peeta said, "...our lives aren't just measured in years. The measure in our lives are the people we touch around us."     

Coersion is not the way of the Lord.  Obviously there's a stark contrast between President Snow in the Capital and the way our Our Father in Heaven operates.  Here on earth we have agency to choose and God's hand is continually "stretched out still" (Isaiah 9) when we need him.

With the help of heaven, the odds are always in our favor.

"We teach computer science here..."

Lately I've been involved in discussions with educational leaders about the upcoming 1,000,000 jobs gap in computer science careers.

Why we have this gap became clearer on Friday.  I was visiting a high school and asked a teacher if they taught computer science classes in the high school.  He said, "Yes, we teach computer science here.  Mr. Smith he teaches Microsoft Word.  Mrs. Lee she teaches Excel."

We need your help.  This is a boots on the ground effort with Superintendents, Principals, Counselors, CTE coordinators, and Parents all getting pumped to produce more students with "SuperPowers." 

If you are involved in a high school in any way, will you watch the video above starring Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Will.i.am, and Chris Bosh and bring up the discussion with your school administrators?

Why Education?

It's taken me 15 years to realize my professional purpose in life is to solve problems in education.  Why education?  This quote about Jean Valjean from Les Miserables sums it up best.  It's about providing

sustainability for people.  May we all play a role in this great cause.

"He makes the entire region prosperous. There is no pocket so obscure that it didn’t have a little money in it. No dwelling so low that there wasn’t a little joy within it.

Father Madellan made his fortune but a singular thing and a simple man of business did not seem as though that was his chief care. He seemed to thinking much of others, and little of himself."

Minor (don't Major) in Entrepreneurship

You know I'm all about student entrepreneurship.  It takes a very rare breed to start a company as a student or recent grad.  Today I was at lunch with my new Elon colleagues and Sean McMahon stated his opinion that students should major in engineering (or some other practical field) and minor in entrepreneurship.

Why did I do a business major as an undergrad then go get an MBA?  Should have done engineering then MBA if needed.  Actually scratch the MBA.  Use that money for runway to start a company and learn more.

Someone convince me since I'll be consulting my kids with that advice.


 

Email: An Emotional Roller Coaster

We've all done it and it must stop.  Constantly checking our email on a smartphone will be the death of us.  Don't we have anything better to do?  Seriously, we know better.  We know how to be productive.

We just checked it 5 minutes ago and there was nothing.  Why do it again?

Here's why we must stop the madness:

Each email we receive causes some type of good or bad emotion.  I've received encouraging and discouraging work emails when I was at home with the family that affected my mood.  So email is basically controlling our emotional life and we must take back control.

So what do we do instead of check out emails constantly?  Anything.  Memorize a poem or scripture or song.  Meditate.  Have a book handy.  I'm about the finish Outliers and have really enjoyed it.  

Ideas Come From....

The WSJ ran a piece yesterday called "How to Come Up with a Great Idea."  My favorite was....

You Can't Rush the Brain

I don't know where great ideas come from. I am not sure anyone does. I am not even sure how I come up with my ideas. The brain does its thing, and out pops an idea.

While you are waiting for the brain to get its act together, do what you can do. Do the doable. Meet with people, schmooze, have a laugh or two. Build mock-ups and prototypes. At the very least, collect other people's problems. That's always a guaranteed doable.

The deep idea here is that action has a creative aspect distinct from thinking. And thinking need not come first. Mostly it doesn't.

Saras D. Sarasvathy 

Isidore Horween research associate professor of business administration, University of Virginia's Darden School of Business