Daily Archives: August 30, 2008

The Comic Art of Strategic Intelligence Using Nanotech Digital Forensics in Sustainable Business

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that the U.S. economy will add 15.6 million jobs in the decade between 2006 and 2016. But those jobs won’t be evenly split across regions or industries. Many traditional industries, like manufacturing, will see declines. Industries that hire graduates of popular majors in business, social sciences / history, and education may see a rise if the opportunity is there, but may not. But since not every student has the aptitude to be successful in these fields, and since many will ultimately have to take positions outside of these fields of research due to limited jobs in these fields today, it’s hard for a college student these days to pick a major these days that’s likely to land him or her a job.

That’s why it was good to see an article in the current edition of The Futurist on “Majoring in the Unusual” that highlighted degrees in unusual fields from the recent edition of “They Teach That In College?” that might help a new graduate secure a job in an emerging field.

The article highlighted the following five fields as the most eye-catching:

  • Sustainable Business
  • Computer & Digital Forensics
  • Comic Book Art
  • Nanotechnology
  • Strategic Intelligence

… and, in my view, among the most lucrative. Here’s why:

  • Sustainability is soon going to be a necessity. You can follow the doctor and lead the way or get caught up in the tide.
  • Everything is “e” these days. Since you can’t follow someone who never leaves their office, the days of Sam Spade and Dixon Hill are coming to an end. Digital is here, like it or not.
  • Die hards will hold onto books for a long time, but the days of the text-based books are coming to an end as we read more and more on our computers and e-readers. But since e-readers still can’t replicate the texture of art on the page, graphic novel and comic sales are going to stay strong for a while.
  • We love miniaturization … and nanotech, which will be very useful in medicine, is miniaturization to the extreme. It’s true we might accidentally build replicators, but it’s also true that the new large hadron collider might destroy the planet next month, and we built that.
  • Considering that, in the doctor‘s view, most businesses don’t have a lot of intelligence to begin with , there’s always a need for strategic intelligence!