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.