“You say you want a revolution”
This is truly an era of discontinuity. The old models of institutional education, traditional teachers, conventional counseling, and well-worn pathways to opportunity are fraying. In addition they are inegalitarian. Elite institutions are able to provide their constituents with disproportionate advantages while those without access because of location, financial resources or social status are unable to get the “golden tickets” and must settle for a place in back of the crowd.
In the legacy model of human potential previously described in Part II of this series, a variety of human intermediaries have traditionally served to bridge the yawning gap between the supply of talent and the demand side of opportunity. Call them HR professionals, guidance counselors, teachers, parents, friends. The very complexity of the employment landscape, the disorganized nature of the pedagogical landscape, the inefficiency by which talent attempts to find relevant opportunities suggest that human approaches alone are inadequate. What is likely to emerge are new hybrid models that make use of both human touch and data science.
