Obsolete knowledge: Where will millions of jobs come from?

In this clip of then presidential candidate Donald Trump, we hear a distinguished college graduate, a chemical engineer, lament about not being able to find a job.  Trump, in his typical fashion, goes complete off topic for most of the response.  But then he says he'll "bring the jobs back."  In this case, he declares he will get Apple to make its iPhones in the U.S.  Like usual, he gives no details on how he would do that.  But is that the way to create millions of good paying American jobs?

Here's the problem: If Apple did manufacture its iPhones here, they'd probably cost $5,000 each.  Unfortunately, Donald Trump, and most of the old white men in power, are working from "obsolete knowledge."  That's a term coined by the late futurist Alvin Toffler and his wife Heidi.  They called it "obsoledge."  In a world with rapidly changing technology, amazing communication and connectivity, global markets, and cheap labor in many foreign countries, those manufacturing jobs are just not going to come back.  Globalization has already happened, the genie is out of the bottle.  No one is going to completely un-do international trade at this point.

In addition to that, the United States has been moving out of the Industrial Age and into a new age for decades.  Some call it the Information Age.  Some call it the Digital Age.  Some call it the Creative Age.  Whatever you call it, this new era we are entering operates much different than the Industrial Age.  How do I know this?  I've read three of the books by Professor Richard Florida, who did years of research into the changes in how new businesses, particularly tech, form, evolve, grow, and create jobs in this new age.  His first book on the subject, The Rise of the Creative Class, was published in 2002, and became a hit among city planners worldwide. 

Florida found that these tech companies move to where the talented people are, which is much different than old school manufacturing companies.  In addition, since tech workers are creative people, they congregate in places that already have strong creative scenes, like art and music.  These people also congregate in places that are diverse and tolerant of all different types of people.  Some of the top places are the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Austin, Seattle, Southern California, New York City and Washington D.C..  So the tech start-ups flock to those places, because there are a lot of good tech people already there.

As crazy as it sounds, because the leading politicians in most areas are still trying to woo old school manufacturing companies, they're fighting the wrong battle.  They're barking up the wrong tree, because they are busy doing what's always been done, and not bothering to read up on the people studying how business is changing.

Apple, the company Trump names in the clip above, is a product of a creative scene of 70's tech geeks called the Homebrew Club.  Long haired dorks Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak hung out with other nerds, and came up with the idea of an easy to use, personal computer.  The company they started in a garage, Apple, now employs thousands of people and has changed the course of human civilization.  But in 1975, people like Donald Trump and bankers and politicians completely ignored Jobs and Wozniak and their cohorts.  They couldn't see the potential of the weird little box those guys built.

No one will bring the millions of manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. from other countries.  But lots of little creative scenes, spread across the U.S., will create thousands, maybe even millions, of new jobs, while the old white guys in suits are arguing with each other. 

Just to be clear, I wholeheartedly support making anything that's feasibly possible in the U.S..  But going after foreign manufacturing jobs is the wrong plan.  The politicians won't listen, but you can. New jobs come from new ideas.  And new ideas come from groups of highly creative people hanging out, tossing out ideas, and dreaming big. 

You don't have to work from obsolete knowledge.  It's up to you.

Become poem

Skateboarder Chris Miller, Pro-Tec Pool Party, 2009

You must risk

If you're to succeed

For when you grow

Sometimes you bleed

Each must climb

Over the fence

For the only cage

Is ignorance

Each Jedi knight

And Shaolin monk

Evolved from

A lowly punk

Don't get lost

In the world's throws

We must become

Our own heroes

-The White Bear

I wrote this in the mid-90's.  I've written over 500 poems in my life, and lost all of them.  Except this one.  Long story.

Haiku I wrote when I was nine

g

In the grass I lie
gazing at the blue heavens
I lie wondering

-Steve Emig

If there's a deep, underlying theme to my life, that's it... wondering.

Why We Need Creative Scenes

The clip above is a short look at Guy Laliberte', the founder of Cirque du Soleil.  Cirque is one of the many creative scenes I've worked at, and the most amazing.  It's also the best run business I've ever seen.

It's late January of 2017 and tens of millions of Americans need a new and better way to make a good living. 

Our new president and his cronies are going to town to make the U.S. a better climate for multi-national corporations.  They say they're going to bring back "the factory jobs."  They're attacking the problem with a 20th century Industrial Age mentality.  But there's a problem with that, we're no longer in the 20th century and the Industrial Age has ended.  How can I say this?  Am I smarter than the politicians running our country?  No.  (Well...maybe.)  I've just read these books:

Revolutionary Wealth by Alvin and Heidi Toffler
The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida
The Flight of the Creative Class by Richard Florida
The Great Reset by Richard Florida
The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
Free by Chris Anderson
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Tribes by Seth Godin
Linchpin by Seth Godin
CTRL ALT DELETE by Mitch Joel
3@%&*#$!!! Gary Vaynerchuk

I've read these books, and many others, written by experts in the future, economic development, the effect of technology on business, and 21st century marketing.  Because I've read these books and the politicians haven't, I'm working with a much more up-to-date worldview than they are.  If you read these books, you , too, will have a better picture of today's working world than the people running our country. 

The Fortune 500 companies are not going to create the tens of millions of good paying jobs in the United States to replace the jobs they've sent overseas and the jobs taken over by new technology. 

To be brutally honest, we don't even need millions of jobs.  What we need is a way for tens of millions of Americans to do meaningful and fulfilling work, and make a decent living doing it.  Richard Florida says we need to make the service jobs into better jobs.  I agree.  But I don't think that will happen fast enough.

The more I look at the issue of jobs, the more I think that millions of Americans will have to create their own jobs.  And not just "jobs" but meaningful work. 

So where does "meaningful work" come from?  Dreams.  A person, like street performer Guy Laliberte', in the clip above, has a big dream.  He and his performer friends wanted to create a new kind of circus.  That dream led to brainstorming and new ideas.  Then, the magic part... they took action, brave action, and brought the dream into the physical world.  Cirque du Soleil (Circus of the Sun), was born.  A dream in one guy's head was shared with a creative scene.  The scene worked together and pushed each other.  They worked and shared their dream with other creative people in many disciplines.  Progression, as we call it in the action sports world.  Cirque du Soleil now employs about 4,000 people from 40 or more countries, and has 15 or 20 different shows around the world.  One man's idea turned into 4,000 jobs directly, and probably thousands more indirectly.

in the late 1950's, surfers built boards with wheels to surf sidewalks when the waves were flat.  Skateboarding now happens around the world, and employs thousands and stokes millions.
Tom Sims wanted to surf on snow.  He built a snowboard in 8th grade shop class.  It sucked.  But he kept with the idea, and now snowboarding is a worldwide activity, sport, and industry.  Personal computers.  Video cameras.  Cell phones.  Cable TV.  BMX and freestyle.  Video games. Mountain bikes.  Laptop computers. Kite surfing.  Wakeboarding.  The world wide web.  Social media.  Smart phones.  Tablet computers.  Rat rod cars.  Custom motorcycles.  Drifting cars.  Wingsuit flying.  Cross Fit training, Mixed Martial Arts.  The list goes on and on.  These things didn't exist when I was born 50 years ago, and now millions of people make their living in those industries.

This is why we need to build creative scenes.

The common threads in all those things is people with dreams, creative scenes, and hard work.

 The unemployed and underemployed people of the United States don't need more minimum wage jobs.  We need meaningful work that also pays well and contributes to our world.  So... let's get to work.

If you don't have a good job... create your own job.  Build your creative scene.  Progress.  See where that leads.  You may find a good living doing something you enjoy.  You may end up employing thousands of people.  Who knows?  

Got an idea?  Get to work.

Make Money Panhandling #5: Street comedy and performance art

Back in 2010, when I started really learning about blogs, I started a blog called "Make Money Panhandling," just to see if  I could get that phrase to the top of Google results.  It was a total joke.  A photo of me holding the "bikini wax" sign above got over 10,000 page views alone on that blog.  And the blog topped the Google results for a couple years, until I took it down.

Once I wrote a couple of posts, I realized that I had a lot to say about panhandling and homelessness.  I even got contacted by the producer of the John Stossel Show when they did a show called "Freeloaders."  We traded emails and I answered all his questions about panhandling and gave him a bunch of background info on how people wind up in that situation.  In the show, John Stossel himself dressed up (ok, dressed down) and panhandled himself. 

I started panhandling for food money in Orange County, California to simply survive.  I soon found that with a funny sign, I could actually make complete strangers smile or laugh.  Try it some time, it's really not that easy.  I could actually give something to the hundreds of cars going by, even if they didn't give me anything.  I was the homeless guy, but all the people driving to and from worked always looked way more depressed than I felt.

When I wound up panhandling legally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I could stand on the same ramp, day after day.  I actually had fans.  There were commuters and route drivers who told me they looked forward to my signs every day.  You've never thought of panhandling that way, have you?  I've come to see funny panhandling signs as a form of folk art.  The same is true of protest signs.  After a while, I didn't think of myself as a panhandler, I thought of myself as a homeless stand-up comic and performance artist.  Some days I just mess with people, I'd hold a blank sign, or a sign that said, "Don't give to panhandlers," or I'd turn around with my back to people.  A couple times when people rolled down their windows and talked, I gave them a dollar if they seemed to be having a bad day.

As a writer, I've spent my life learning about human nature, and panhandling turned out to be a really educational experience.

Don't panhandle unless you're really homeless or down and out, OK?

Make Money Panhandling #4: Target

One time while I was flying a sign (legally, with a permit) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I had the top Twinkie sign.  Some guy in the second lane yelled.  When I looked over, he hucked a pack of cupcakes at me.  Yum.

These bottom two slogans were on the opposite sides of the same sign.  When cars rolled up, I had the quarter side up.  When someone honked, yelled, or took a photo, I'd turn it around.  I got a lot of laughs with that sign.  But of all the funny signs I tried, the "I see you texting" sign had the most photos taken of it, always by women ranging from about 18 to 45.

Don't panhandle unless you're truly homeless or down and out, OK?

Make Money Panhandling #3: Better off than Britney

After a month of scraping by on the streets, I was getting the hang of things.  In mid-January 2008 I saved up enough money for a cheap motel room and a Chinese dinner.  The motel I stayed in was so sketchy that there was actually an AA meeting at the motel organized by the "permanent" residents.  I put my feet up in the bed, turned on the TV, which didn't have cable, and watched TMZ as I thoroughly enjoyed my Chinese takeout.

As fate would have it, that happened to be while Britney Spears was going crazy, shortly after she shaved her head.  On that particular day, TMZ had footage of Britney coming out of a court appearance, speaking in a bad British accent.  In the middle of all the cameras, a homeless guy walked up and asked Britney for money.  As a seasoned panhandler myself at that point, I thought that was hilarious.  But it wasn't as good as her answer.  "You're probably better off than I am," Britney replied.  I laughed so hard I almost dropped my dinner.  After eating, I pulled my panhandling sign out of my backpack and grabbed my marker.  It read "Hungry and homeless" on the front.  Just to amuse myself, I wrote "Better off than Britney" on the back of my sign.

The next day, I was out at one of the best ramps panhandling.  A group of cars pulled up to the light.  I looked around, no one signaled to give me money.  So I turned my sign around, showing them the "Better off than Britney" side.  Within seconds a guy in the second lane honked.  I ran over and saw it was a big, burly guy with lots of tattoos.  He handed me a five dollar bill and said, "I saw that on TV last night.  Dude, that sign is soooo funny."  I used funny signs the rest of the time I was panhandling.

Don't panhandle unless you're really homeless or down and out, OK?

Make Money Panhandling #2: When technology bites

Of all the funny signs I used panhandling in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the "Lexus" sign above got the best reaction from people driving by.  Even cops rolled up and took photos of it.
 
I went back to taxi driving in 2003, focusing on Huntington Beach, California, but it took me all over Orange County, and occasionally into L.A. County.  But right after I got started again in '03, the taxi company put dispatch computers in our cabs and took out the old radios.  That changed everything, LITERALLY overnight.  The computers were programmed to take rides from the good, veteran drivers, and give rides to the lame ass new guys.  The computers also allowed the taxi company to put an unlimited amount of cabs on the road. 

More cabs meant less business per cab, but our weekly lease stayed the same and gas prices went up.  I knew I needed to escape soon, but just wasn't able to.  I'm just one of the millions of people whose job was destroyed by technology.  So, without drugs or alcohol in the picture, I literally worked my way to homelessness.  To be completely honest, after working so many hours for so long, homelessness kinda felt like a vacation.  Well, except for the constant threat of death or dismemberment by cops, thugs, wild animals, stray dogs, spiders, and snakes. 

Make Money Panhandling #1: When hard work doesn't pay off

Are you looking for a new way to make some money?  Are you a self-starter?  Do you like to work on your own?  Do you like the outdoors?  If you answered "yes," then maybe panhandling is for you.

Back in 2007 after years struggling to get by as a taxi driver living in my cab, I had some serious health problems.  My sluggish lifestyle of working 14 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, led to me gaining over 150 pounds and getting a serious bacterial infection called cellulitis.  The first bout nearly killed me, because I didn't have health insurance, so I just lay in my taxi with a fever of about 105 for five days.  I finally went to the emergency room, and luckily I was covered by some insurance for homeless people.  Three days in the hospital and a week on my boss' couch, and I was back to the crazy taxi lifestyle. 

I had that happen two more times that year, and went straight to the ER both times.  On my last visit, the ER doctor told me that if I kept up my crazy taxi lifestyle of not enough sleep, bad food, no exercise, and high stress, I was going to die.  "In months," he added, "maybe weeks."  After another month in the cab, I decided I needed to quit.  After four years of working 70 to 100 hours a week, paying $550 a week for the taxi and $300 a week for gas, I gave up.  I rolled into the taxi yard, threw my stuff in my backpack, turned in the keys, and walked out onto the streets of Orange County, California with $15 to my name.  I weighed 365 pounds, I could barely walk because of severe athletes foot (which is pretty funny when you think about it), and I expected to die within a few weeks.  I started panhandling for food money, just asking people for change at bus stops or gas stations.  I slept in the bushes.  After a few days, I decided to "fly a sign" as we say in the panhandling business.  A piece of cardboard, a pen I had in my pocket, and an off ramp, and I was in business. 

Don't panhandle unless you're really homeless of down and out, OK?

Finally, all my weird ideas in one blog...

This clip is from the first video I ever edited, called 2-Hip: The '88 Adventure.  It's the contest season video for Ron Wilkerson's 2-Hip King of Vert and this first Meet the Street contest.  Later it became known as 2-Hip BHIP, which is what it's called on You Tube now. 

In the spring of 1988, BMX freestyle pro rider and contest promoter, Ron Wilkerson, decided to put on a bike street contest.  Nor Cal legend Dave Vanderspek put one on a while earlier, but there was no media coverage and a lot of us never heard about it.  But that afternoon, behind a shopping center in Santee, California, a bunch of BMX freestylers and dirt jumpers came together to see what could be done with "street" obstacles.  We'd all been doing this kind of riding on our own for years.  But that afternoon most of the best riders in the world came together to push ourselves and each other.  The BMX freestyle scene of Southern California was trying something new.  What happened behind that shopping center that afternoon changed bike riding forever.  That wasn't the goal, just a cool effect of the day.  I'm proud to say I was there.  I'm the dork ghost riding my bike into the wall.  Much of what happened that day we'd never seen before. 

This is the underlying theme of this blog.  When you get a bunch of creative people together, when you form a scene, cool things start to happen.  Street riding is now a fun activity in both the BMX and mountain biking world, it's a competitive sport, and an industry that has spread around the globe. 

Creative scenes of all types have become a driving force in our economy.  Creative people are not just creating high tech stuff like social media sites, smart phones, and apps, they're creating new styles of art, crafts, music, sports... AND BUSINESSES, AND JOBS.  This is a key part of the 21st century economy that the big business world is largely ignoring (except for tech).  While Washington D.C. and Wall Street fight over how to TRY to bring back millions of manufacturing jobs, it's up to us, YOU AND ME, to create our own jobs. Are you up for that?

I've spent my life in a series of different kinds of scenes, many of them creative, some not.  I've read hundreds of books on related subjects that most people find boring.  In addition to being a writer/blogger/artist, and an old school BMX, skateboard, and TV production industry guy, I'm also a futurist/big picture/macroeconomics geek.  Basically, that means I'm a geek even among the geeks.  I'm OK with that.  My actions sports background and experience in creative scenes has merged with my intellectual geek side, and I realize I need to share what I've learned about creating, nurturing, and building creative scenes.  Sound boring?  It can be when you talk about it.  But making creative scenes is a blast when you actually do it, like we all did in the video above.  It's time to make a scene... YOUR SCENE.