Economy – Solving Citizen

Will the dream of self driving cars be replaced by flying cars?

Have you seen the new commercial where the car drives itself? It’s so exciting to see the future unfold. I remember watching George Jetson fly around in his car thinking “that’s what my future is going to look like”, but as time ticks on, my future seems to look more like the matrix (or some other post apocalyptic movie) than the cartoon of my childhood past.

While I don’t see myself becoming a car battery in the distant future, I do think that things won’t be the way I always thought they would. Now keep in mind I am presenting you with my wild speculation, but hear me out. Self driving cars have much anticipation and analysts think that within a decade our economy will be hit hard by self driving automation, but I’m not seeing it come from automobiles.

Already we’re seeing homeowners insurance being reduced because of automation and the LA Times has mentioned that self driving cars could flip the auto insurance industry on its head. But that’s not all automation is doing. It’s also giving us software to help on a global scale. A farmer can deploy a drone that will fly over an area miles wide, run the images through an algorithm, and tell the farmer what course of action he must take. Throw that software into a network of drones like they did in the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, and the sky is the limit!

Amazon has already invested in infrastructure for an air delivery system, including airplanes and even a company to develop their drone delivery service. In addition their ambitious projects are helping to develop regulation that will likely evolve and reshape the aviation industry.

Right now the closest I can get to my dream of flying around the skies like George Jetson is to jump in a helicopter and fly around, but such a dream would be too costly for the average person to achieve. Although they are coming out with automated systems for Helicopters, insurance prices are too high for the technology to make an impact on the aviation industry to favor the consumer. Also, we are a long way off before drones can carry people off into the sunset, but that’s not stopping companies like Ehang from trying.

Now back to my wild speculation. Automated driving systems will make a big impact on our economy and our future, but they will only last a short time. It will be like that 5 minutes you had a pager, and then the cell phone came out. When the line between helicopter and drone disappears, and insurance prices fall (which is a major reason for high aviation costs),we will see prices in aviation fall. Finaly we will see insurance liabilities transfer from the driver or pilot to the automated network provider. We will see the flying car become a reality.

So. Is it a far-fetched childhood dream to have a flying car? No. I may even see it in my lifetime.

-Brandon

Rule your organization by defining your systems

There are many types of systems to dictate the way life is run. There are the judicial system, immune system, ecosystems, computer systems and many more.

While operating your business or start up it is important to start out by defining your business. What is your purpose, and why do you exist? The simplest way to go is to make a mission statement. No I know that sounds corny, but it is the simplest way to start measuring your business.

Again, it is important to define what it is you’re doing, and if you can’t define what you’re doing then you don’t know what you’re doing. Defining your Organization is the most important part of the business. It allows you to measure what you’re doing, and metrics allows you to control your business.

In addition to a project charter, you can use SIPOC diagrams, Process Flow diagrams, and Project Charters.

Process Flow Diagram

SIPOC Diagram

In a side note, I would like to thank you all for reading. I have been absent for the last month for vacation, illness and I have also been working on a big project I plan to roll out within the next 6 months or so. I wish I could tell you more but be patient because it’s going to be huge! Please keep sharing with your friends we we can continue this momentum and grow into a community that will make dedicated hard workers wealthy.
-Brandon

Navigating your business in different political environments

Companies exist in all countries with many types of government where the political narrative ranges from mostly capitalistic, to communist. No matter what political environment people live in there are ways to make sure you and your company are successful no matter what roadblocks are put in front of you.

If you live in a mostly capitalistic society then your worries should be focused on your competition. Humans will always look after their own self-interest, and this is no acceptation with capitalism. You will always need to find ways to cooperate or compete with everyone under capitalism. Technology will be something you have to be current with because of constant innovation. Just recently Warren Buffett parted with Walmart because he felt they drug their feet while building infrastructure while Amazon has been steeling the lead in the market.

If you are located in an area corrupted by crony capitalism then you might start to deal with government regulation controlled by corporations that are too big to fail. In this political landscape you have legislation written by major corporations approved by government officials or court rulings in favor of the biggest bankroll. We saw this most recently with strict federal regulations favoring the EpiPen over any other competitor. This caused an unnatural price increase in the product because the company had an illegitimate monopoly.

The more a government controls the more things will be subsidized. Under socialism there are many subsidies given out. Roads are almost always government subsidized, along with food, and alcohol and things like green energy. There is an abundance of cash flow that can move into any organization that position themselves around such subsidies. While technology will make things efficient for every society it is wise to exercise caution and not to keep all your investments tied up in it. Last week Bill Gates said that government needs to put extra tax on innovation to keep people from loosing their jobs to robots.

I’m sure most reading this will agree that communism or even extreme cases of socialism are the most restricting form of government and makes it hard for almost anyone to succeed. Fortunately progress cannot be stopped no matter how hard people try. Currently in Venezuela there is a thriving industry around mining Bitcoin. Mining Bitcoin uses a massive amount of electricity that would be too costly for someone to mine under capitalism, but because electricity is subsidized in Venezuela people are able to mine it with little cost.
Companies and innovation will drive progress in a direction that others will try to hinder, but ultimately those obstacles will be overcome. Right now Spacex is putting up satellites to give the world access to internet. Imagine what this will do for the people in countries like North Korea? The people of the world will have access to education resources online outside of the bubble they live in. The will have access to articles like this explaining to them that they can climb out of the rut they are in and find success where ever they are. If you look hard enough you can find success in any political environment.

-Brandon

Teaching with automation in mind

If your old enough you might remember how different life was before the internet. It was practically a different world. Think of how many people were impacted negatively in the growing pains of that progress. If history teaches us anything it is that it repeats, and if we want to avoid becoming a victim of progress we must focus on increasing the skills of ourselves and the next generation.

Whatever the cause, the quality of our education is declining. This makes it hard for businesses to find workers with the skills that are required to step up to new rolls in developing and maintaining automation. On top of that we are in the brink of the Augmented Age which is throwing a learning curve to students while adapting to Artificial Intelligence.

This announcedmovement toward progress will inevitably hurt people in our economy by replacing some major roles humans play in the workforce today. Take driving for example. Elon Musk owner of Tesla Motors has announced that self driving cars can roll out in as early as two years! Think of how many people in our economy rely on this skill to acquire a living wage. Once this form of automation gains steam, driving could go the way of the horse and buggy. If driving is your best or only skill then you will quickly hit poverty.

In fact up to 80% of the roles humans have today could be replaced by automation. So what do we do? We work on continually building our skills. We move to the next step in everything we do. If you use Microsoft Excel, then you need to learn Visual Basics and write macros. If you operate or set up a machine for manufacturing, then you need to learn how to write the programs and read the G-code for that machine. Even if you have a WordPress account to make a website for you, you need to learn the HTML-code.

Not only must we do this for ourselves but we must have patience with the adaptation of our children and young coworkers who are stuck between old education and new. Parents and companies must step up and fill the gaps left behind in our education system and evolving technology by implementing training for performance. This will ensure that people with dedication will have access to a living wage. We need to focus on education which is still not jeopardized by the Augmented Age (yet). Focusing on fields that will add value to others like nursing, or teaching will make us masters over machines. I think we can all agree that it is far more desirable to work like the master over the machine.
-Brandon