This week on The Digital Life, we chat about automation, potential job losses, and the findings in Barclay’s newly released report: “Robots at the gate: Humans and technology at work”.

Technology is reshaping work and the global workforce from agriculture to manufacturing, financing to healthcare, and everything in between. Transformation is coming, maybe more quickly than we think. Routine work is being automated and non-routine jobs that favor human ingenuity and adaptability will make up the core of future employment. Join us as we discuss.

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Robots at the gate: Humans and technology at work

On The Digital Life podcast this week, we chat with guest Mary Ellen Sparrow, CEO of NextShift Robotics, about collaborative robotics and automation. NextShift focuses on developing robots that work in concert with people on the warehouse floor for e-commerce operations. Unlike other automation systems, the company’s technology works within a warehouse’s existing infrastructure, rather than requiring a massive overhaul and build out. Its robots are designed to work in complex and variable environments. For example, they can avoid obstacles, navigating around objects in their path. Join us as we discuss robotic automation, misconceptions people may have about the relationship between jobs, workers, and robots, and the potential of this technology to transform industry in the near future.

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NextShift Robotics

This week on The Digital Life, we chat about design and creative professionals and what the future of work might look like for them. Our special guest on the show is Daniel Harvey, Head of Product Design and Brand at The Dots, a professional network for “no collar’” professionals.

Alongside with the immense power and flexibility that technology can bring, comes an evolution in, not only how we get creative work done, but also why we do it. Values and behaviors are changing among job seekers in creative industries. We see some of this, for example, in the growing emphasis on project work, rather than on continuous employment. Further, with such powerful emerging technologies as AI, will it be possible, eventually, to automate creativity? And if this is the case, will people be able to accept that technology driven output as creative? How will designers and other creative professionals survive and thrive in this environment? It’s critical that we design roles and organizations that make the most of people, while leveraging technology. And, that we properly educate the next generation of designers so they can thrive and compete in the future. Join us as we discuss.

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The Dots
The Dots iOS app

On The Digital Life this week we discuss the future of UX as envisioned in Dirk Knemeyer’s article “Understanding Us: A New Frontier for User Experience” which was published in the recent UXmatters relaunch.

It seems like today is a good time to be a UX professional, but what does the landscape look like professionally, and how is it going to change in the future? In the article, Dirk considers neuroscience, in particular, as an area that UX will both influence and be influenced by, as it converges with the world of science and biotech.

 
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Understanding Us: A New Frontier for User Experience

In this episode of The Digital Life we chat about about digital automation, innovation, and its effects on the economics of the American middle class.

Is the growing contractor economy, as typified by Uber, another signal that the middle class is in real trouble? As a part of her campaign rhetoric, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, is making some hay of the topic. But the concern is very much a real one. The need for meaningful work is an essential one for humanity, and one that increasingly is falling prey to technological change.

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Hillary Clinton vs. The Uber Economy

A Sneak Preview of Hillarynomics

Uber