Locally and globally, we continue to see that the nature of jobs is profoundly changing, and what we do in order to earn our incomes, and how we do it, will never be the same.  Importantly, none of this will ever again conform to what were the norms or rules or expectations across companies or through the years.

Today, I (Erica) had the pleasure of participating in DeVry University’s first In-Demand Careers Conference. This timely event examined where information security, healthcare management and accounting is moving in the future.  I spoke to the audience about the galloping pace of change, and how a slew of new technologies are ushering people out of their jobs, and changing the way we work and live. While many people view the current economic climate as a recession, we view this as a period of transformation.  We are moving from the world as we have always known it to a radically new one – and with it comes an urgent need for new ways of doing business, structuring organizations, and living our lives.

At the event, I spoke about how careers will never be the same as they used to be, and will look very different in the years to come. The idea that there are definitive beginning, middle and end stages to an individual’s life is also shifting.  People are now more likely to quit work and go back to school or retire and then take up a new career than ever before; life is less and less likely to follow a linear path.  There are also no career paths any more in one place or one industry, and there is no longer any guarantee that the job will even be there as long as a year later.

It will become increasingly important for universities, such as DeVry, to teach a new generation about data security and risk, and help students identify and address the real-world challenges of IT security in new and innovative ways.