Can I just poke around the ednges of this theme a bit? Ther eare some assumptions there that might provide rich ground for your conversation.

First off, what is meant by "hundreds of millons of skilled workers?" What is really meant by "skilled?" This is important because it sets up the premise of the inquiry. If by "skilled" we mean a vast monolithic block of Chinese, Brazillian and Indian people that know more about maufacturing and customer service than we will ever do, then this sets the rest of the question in one context. But if by "skilled" we mean hundreds of millions of people who know how to convene conversations to enliven the global markteplace and find small groups of other like minded and passionate individulas to effect incredible change on many scales, then that is a whole other kettle of fish.

I have a strong belief that "education" prepares us for the monolithic and hypothetical skill set that politicians talk about. I have a strong belief that education does NOT prepare us for the potenttial of hundreds of millions of small scale, passionate and connected world changers. And I have a strong belief that this second group of skilled people are the ones to work with, and not compete against.

Then maybe the inquiry becomes: how can we create nd support learning opportunities for our kids to design projects and work with the hundreds of millions of other skilled people in the world who can help bring them to life?

Who is teaching courses in blogging, advanced Skype-call facilitation and open source collaboration to ten year olds? No one? Uh oh.

Food for thought for your conversation, Johnnie.

Ugh...forgot to spell check...sorry.

Hi Johnnie
Chris and I seem to be joined at the hip now
How about what would be the best development path for young people today (bearing in mind how the world is)

The point beign that the word "education" implies going to school and maybe that is what we might think of stopping. Here is John Gatto's devastating indictment - http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
It may be that school itself is the problem for the young of today

Hey Chris, Rob. It's funny; I posted this in a bit of a rush so didn't say this... that this is a massive can of worms, a really rich and complex issue. The snippet I quoted carries lots of assumptions to discuss. That's why it's just as well we're using a hybrid open space format for the event. This is not the place for top-down thinking!

I'll arrange for you to be invited into the Bricking It blog if you have time.

I suspected you and your conveners see the delight in the assumptions behind this theme. It sounds like politician-speak, and that's just the thing to throw into the fire of conversation!

I wrote something short last year called "The civic duty to blog" which is in a similar vein - http://www.perfectpath.co.uk/archives/000232.html

Chris - all
May I back-up Johnnie's invite to join in blogging on the site (which I'm helping develop). You can just register and dive in - no approvals needed. "How to use..." gives help but I doubt you'll need it:-)

Just dipping my toes into the whole offshore outsourcing scene, and have had some excellent outcomes. However, it's not been all plain sailing.

But I see it as the future, as our home grown developers get priced out of the market. Sort of along the lines of cars, electronics and I'm sure others could add to the list.

Perhaps UK/American developers need to become project managers interfacing between ours clients and offshore programmers? A "Change and Adapt" sort of thing.