The biggest problem with collaboration is that it makes what Mr Newport calls “deep work” difficult, if not impossible. Deep work is the killer app of the knowledge economy: it is only by concentrating intensely that you can master a difficult discipline or solve a demanding problem. Many of the most productive knowledge workers go out of their way to avoid meetings and unplug electronic distractions. Peter Drucker, a management thinker, argued that you can do real work or go to meetings but you cannot do both. Jonathan Franzen, an author, unplugs from the internet when he is writing. Donald Knuth, a computer scientist, refuses to use e-mail on the ground that his job is to be “on the bottom of things” rather than “on top of things”. Richard Feynman, a legendary physicist, extolled the virtues of “active irresponsibility” when it came to taking part in academic meetings.

Source: The collaboration curse | The Economist

“Ultimately, the WEF offers a massive list of recommendations for major companies to prepare for the 2020 robot-workforce apocalypse. The report’s authors use the strong phrase “no more excuses” regarding diversity in hiring, and they offer a longer-term recommendation for companies to invest in “wholescale reskilling” of their existing workforces. It also encourages businesses to engage with governments and educational providers in updating high school and college systems for a new economy. “Two legacy issues burdening formal education systems worldwide are the dichotomy between humanities and sciences and applied and pure training, on the one hand, and the prestige premium attached to tertiary-certified forms of education—rather than the actual content of learning—on the other hand. Put bluntly, there is simply no good reason to indefinitely maintain either of these in today’s world,” the report says.”

Source: Report: Robots, other advances will cost humans 5.1 million jobs by 2020 | Ars Technica