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The Future and YOU

Manufacturing Isn’t Going Away, Toffler Pointed Out, Any More Than American Agriculture Went Away A Hundred Years Ago

ControlGlobal.com

By Walt Boyes, Editor in chief

A good friend produces a podcast series called “The Future and You,” and I decided to steal the title for this editorial. The future is coming at us fast. In 1970, I read Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock, and it kicked me into overdrive. In 1975, I read the late John Brunner’s novel, The Shockwave Rider, based on Future Shock, and I knew that what I wanted to be was an “encyclopedic synthesist.” I wanted to know as much as I could about everything I could, so I could construct patterns in what I was experiencing. Now, we call that a “futurist.” I’ve been sharing with you the patterns I’m seeing in the future of the automation profession.

Brunner accurately predicted the Internet and a completely interconnected society and invented the concept of the computer worm in The Shockwave Rider. His fictional society looks a lot like ours, with social, governmental and ethical complications that weren’t even on the radar of most people in 1975.

At the recent Rockwell Software RSTechEd event, I was able for the first time to meet and speak with Alvin Toffler. He’s now a subscriber to this magazine. What he and his wife and co-author, Heidi, predicted in 1970 and in their subsequent books has come to pass. The rate of technological change is expanding exponentially, and this change causes societal and economic disruption. We see it every day. We see it in the changes from Toffler’s “Second Wave,” or industrial society, and in his predicted rise of terrorism, to his “Third Wave” post-industrial, knowledge-based society. And, we see it in the changes between the generations that work in the automation field.

Change is accelerating, and our response to it must be correspondingly more agile and rapid, or we’ll find ourselves dancing to the wrong beat.

In his RSTechEd keynote speech, Toffler pointed out that the generations—now two— who have been raised with computers and MTV, multitask natively, while the rest of us are much more linear in our thinking. Other societal changes abound. And just as the rate of technological change is accelerating exponentially, so are the changes in the way we work and the way we live. Just think about what $4- a-gallon gasoline is going to do to the way we work. How close to work can you live, or can you work at home?

Even though the Democratic Party just selected the first African-American to be a major party presidential candidate (a sign of the societal changes since the 1960s), none of the candidates, as Toffler pointed out to me in our chat, has said anything about the changes in the society and the way wealth is created that have come from technology advances. Does that imply that our government is irrelevant or just responding to the wrong stimuli, or both?

We will find out, I assure you. We may not like what we find out, but we most certainly will have to live with it—just as like we might not like the changes in the way we work, or who we work for or where we will have to go to work, but we will certainly have to live with them.

The good news for automation professionals is that we are all deep-knowledge workers, and vital ones at that. We are the knowledge workers who can keep manufacturing working. Manufacturing isn’t going away, Toffler pointed out, any more than American agriculture went away 100 years ago. It is losing jobs due to productivity and globalization, but, as Toffler said, “All we have to do is avoid a few wars…” and we’ll see that tsunami of globalization I keep talking about go all the way around the world, and a rising tide raises all boats. Of course, a tsunami sinks those that aren’t prepared to ride the shockwave.

“See you later, accelerator!”

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More Voices

The Future and YOU
07/01/2008
Manufacturing Isn’t Going Away, Toffler Pointed Out, Any More Than American Agriculture Went Away A Hundred Years Ago

Them as Can, Do
06/12/2008
Informing the Government of the Problem Is Good, but It Might Be Better for ISA to Spend Some Serious Money Doing Something About It

Sometimes You Just Have to Let Go
05/04/2008
ISA Has Decided to Use the Compliance Institutes as a Way to Recover the Lost Revenue from the Dying ISA Show

The Elephant in the Room
03/28/2008
There’s an Elephant in the Wireless Room

Just Because They Haven’t, Doesn’t Mean They Won’t
03/07/2008
At the SANS Conference in January, CIA Representative Tom Donahue Revealed that the Agency Had Documentary Evidence of Attacks on Utilities Outside the U.S. Of Course, If Systems Can Be Hacked Outside the U.S., the Same Systems Are Vulnerable Inside. And the Systems Are the Same.

The Horse with Stripes
02/04/2008
IT Security Professionals Profess to Be “Industrial Cyber Security ," Yet, It Takes More to Function Properly in the Industrial Controls Environment

A Quick Pause for Shameless Self-Congratulation
01/03/2008
Walt Boyes Says: "We're Still Here, and We’ve Created the Best Magazine in the Space"

What’s in a Name?
12/10/2007
ISA Council of Society Delegates votes to rename the society the International Society for Automation.

Get ‘em While They’re Young
11/06/2007
We need to attract new star talent to the automation profession.

What’s It Going to Take?
09/27/2007
The ASM Consortium, and the Center for Chemical Process Safety, ISA, the IEC and other organizations have been out beating the drum for increased operator training and improved alarm management and human-machine-interfaces.

Out of the Automation Box
07/13/2007
ISA announces the S100 Compliance Institute to test and enforce compliance with new wireless standard. The S100 will be avilable to the publin in late 2008.

Take one for the team!
06/01/2007
Organizations that only serve declining memberships are missing the point. The number of automation professionals isn’t declining; it is the number of them who feel the need to be included that’s declining.

Finally playing nice
05/01/2007
Editor in Chief Walt Boyes congratulates the members of the SP100 Industrial Wireless Standard committee for their willingness to compromise in the name of service to the end-user community.

The virtues of simplicity
04/01/2007
If we can design higher level development tools, both hardware and software, all the way down to kids’ toy level, imagine what we’re about to see for design tools for professional automation applications.

Profession development kit?
03/01/2007
For the automation profession to be successful and recognized as one of the most important disciplines in the world, ISA has to reinvent itself as the banner carrier for the automation profession.

Reaching the young crowd
02/01/2007
It’s time the industry develops new content and new ways of delivering it to young automation professionals, the ones who are so hard to find, and who are so leery of joining professional organizations.

Who do we trust?
01/03/2007
Among high-tech industries, surveys show that end users of process automation equipment and systems trust their vendors more than trade magazines, industry analysts and others.

Control is truly global!
12/01/2006
Perhaps you’ve noticed articles in CONTROL and on ControlGlobal.com have become less North America-centric over the past few years. This is intentional, and you can expect the trend to continue.

UCSC and automation education
11/01/2006
There aren’t many schools training automation professionals, but who can blame them for not wanting to do more than a head nod toward teaching the tools and techniques in their science and engineering curricula?

The world according to…
10/13/2006
There may be no going back to the days when people believed that ISA was the voice of the end user, but if it wants to carve out new territory for itself, it needs to put money back into niche groups.

SP50 times two?
09/01/2006
CONTROL Editor Walt Boyes says we need to do more than pay lip service to the idea of user input when it comes to ISA’s SP100 Wireless Standard and proposes formation of a central, unbiased user group.

Vendor vs. vendor
07/03/2006
CONTROL Editor in Chief Walt Boyes issues a challenge to end users everywhere: Tell your vendors to stop playing Spy vs. Spy and participate fairly in standards creation for fieldbus and wireless.

Are the wireless standards stalled?
06/01/2006
At one point, SP100 nearly didn't issue a true standard. Now, HART Wireless is in trouble, too. What’s it going to take to not repeat the SP50 debacle? CONTROL Editor in Chief, Walt Boyes, comments.

Immigrants are us
05/05/2006
We are all immigrants here, and if you look at the contributions made by immigrants to arts, letters, science and engineering in the U.S. over the past 400 years, the amount of innovation is staggering.

End users walk the walk
04/07/2006
There’s been a huge language shift in the industry during the past 20 years which is driving end user nuts. It seems the higher you go up in the automation food chain, the harder it is to describe what you do.

Would you want your kid to do this job?
03/10/2006
Despite a shortage of young engineering professionals, most of us don't want our kids to grow up to work in the automation industry, but what is automation but applied information science?

Institutional knowledge for the future
02/10/2006
Knowledge earned by hard work and experience in process automation is waning at an alarming rate, but there are a few shining lights on the industrial landscape. CONTROL Editor in Chief Walt Boyes comments.

My opinion doesn't count!
01/09/2006
Why do we do the Reader's Choice Awards? Because an editor's opinion doesn't matter, that's why. Read Editor Walt Boyes' column about this year's survey and find out who's the best...according to you!

It's a great time to be an end-user!
12/02/2005
Editor in Chief Walt Boyes says the Big Boys are prepared to buy your loyalty with all sorts of goodies, so keep your price high. It's a buyer’s market out there for the first time in decades. Read why.

How safe is your job?
11/01/2005
Editor in Chief Walt Boyes implores you to watch trends, stay current in your field, and have a backup plan just in case the levee breaks. After all, when it comes to job security, the best defense is a good offense.

Can we make the jump to a wireless plant?
10/10/2005
CONTROL's Editor in Chief Walt Boyes says that if we don't, we won't continue to show the productivity and cost savings we've been able to until now. Read how wireless can affect what you do.

You better know more!
08/28/2005
There is excellent training out there, provided by trainers who aren’t vendors, and don’t have the barely hidden agenda of wanting to sell you stuff.

The summertime blues
08/07/2005
CONTROL Editor in Chief Walt Boyes prepares for another round of User Group Madness meetings and says he’d like to see creation of an unbiased user group run by end users of many different products.

In the future: More, better, cheaper sensors
07/27/2005
According to Editor in Chief Walt Boyes, instrumentation companies are going to have to re-think their design criteria if they are going to make the “lights out” plant of the future practical.

How can we save ISA?
07/01/2005
The resignation of ISA’s third Executive Director in less than six years makes CONTROL Editor in Chief Walt Boyes wonder what ISA has that still matters to the typical process automation end user.

Security is more than hating Microsoft
06/01/2005
In his June editorial for CONTROL, Editor in Chief Walt Boyes believes we are picking unfairly on the security flaws of Microsoft, while ignoring the wider implications of the problem for process automation.

C’mon, vendors, let’s step up!
05/15/2005
ISA has been trying for years to get employers in the process industries to support process automation careers, but it could do a lot more if it had the volunteer involvement it used to have from vendors.