“Eating the seed corn” is a phrase that has been used in a number of contexts, but it always means that one has sacrificed the ability to achieve a future livelihood.    Various pundits have argued back and forth about the relative merits of Government bail-outs for industry or for individuals.  Many “experts” have expounded on the workings of capital and the magic of the financial markets to marry capital to ideas and produce growth (with or without foreign investment and trade).  Legions of public and private economists have pontificated on the future growth in jobs for engineers, computer scientists, medical workers, and special education teachers. 

Similarly, there has been much hand wringing over the low number of American graduates in science and engineering, and many competing social and political ideas on how to better prepare American children to attain these degrees. 

They have all missed the point.

American kids are not stupid.  They focus on “tap dancing” skills – the glib art of re-framing a situation in a positive light, providing “root cause analysis” of failures, and establishing and following “best practices and processes.”    Tap dancing, not competence, is the key to opportunity in the present American economy.  There are no jobs for students with engineering or computer science degrees.    Let me say that again, for all the pundits and economists: THERE ARE NO ENTRY LEVEL JOBS IN TECHNOLOGY.

What! you sputter --  what about energy, what about electronics, what about computers ?    What about them?  There are no jobs.   Both Government and Industry talk about jobs and opportunity.  They both have enormous incentive to do so.   The reward system rewards both politicians and executives for growth and good news.  Ironically, that is the reason there are no jobs.  “Growth” means increase in share price, not growth of the business; and “good news” is an announcement that costs have been reduced.

The reward system that compensates executives based on stock price has completely destroyed the economy.  The price of stock rises and falls on the sound bites of the analyst call, despite the evidence that most analysts have little or no real understanding of the individual businesses they cover.  They just want to know about costs, savings, profit, and market potential.  Executives stay on topic and pronounce the happy words that cause them to be rewarded.  Those words are “cost savings,” “just in time inventory,”  “best practices,” “metrics,” and “benchmarking.”

All of those ideas can be useful in managing a business, but they are meaningless in and of themselves – and can lead to the collapse of the economy.    In particular, they lead to the strategic elimination of low level, repetitive jobs.  These are the jobs that can be automated or off-shored.   These are the jobs that 22 year olds do.  These are “cost savings.”

A 22 year old engineering or computer science graduate has acquired some basic knowledge and tools.  When they work in entry level jobs they learn the actual details of the field.  The kid who staffs the Help Desk looks up questions in the manual for users who didn’t understand how to find the answer, or who didn’t understand the manual.  After doing that for a year or two the kid knows a whole lot of answers.   One of the things that the kid learns is how the product might be improved to avoid some of the problems that the users are calling about.  Perhaps he or she then moves on to an assignment attempting to resolve some of the problems – thereby learning the aspects of the design that might be improved.  By the time this person is 27, he or she knows a lot, and is ready to move into a job developing the product line.  

This progression is analogous to the medical residency system, where a new MD works under an experienced doctor to develop depth of understanding in a particular field of medicine.  These residents perform routine tasks such as drawing blood, which could certainly be done by a lab technician; but they are performing these tasks alongside an experienced physician: they are becoming familiar with the details of the type of medicine they wish to practice.  Interestingly, in Malcom Gladwell’s book about successful people, Outliers, he finds a consistent correlation between 10,000 hours of practice and expertise in any field.  The five years of entry level work from age 22 -27 equates to about 10,000 hours. 

Now, with the experience gained in an entry level position, our 27 year old is well able to work in the field, and is prepared to become the idea generator who thinks of the Next Big Thing.  (You may ask about Bill Gates, or Michael Dell, who had the Big Idea at a younger age:  yes, they did, but they got their 10,000 hours in early due to entry level opportunities at a very young age.) 

Unfortunately for the American economy, our 27 year old works in India or China or South Korea.   The young professionals in these other countries are the ones who have the knowledge to generate the Next Big Thing, because we don’t have those entry level jobs here anymore.  A Monster.com search performed 7/5/09 turned up just 37 jobs for entry level computer science graduates.  We have outsourced the very engine of our American economic specialty: innovation.  

What about all those “technology workers” the economists think we need?  Fair question, there are two answers.   The first answer is that there ARE jobs for people who connect your PC cables, or who swap out your bad hard drive.  These are not “living wage” jobs.  They are the jobs that our recent Bachelor of Science in Computer Science graduates try to get to stay “in the field” while they live with Mom and Dad and look for an entry level computer science job.  They also babysit, mow lawns, and plow snow: honest labor, but low wage, part time work. 

The second answer is a bit harder to think about.  Our economy will need technology solutions; solutions now provided by the soon-to-retire baby boomers.  That need, and the forecast of new problems to be addressed by technology (energy, environment, health) is why the economists project all those jobs.  The sad truth is that we are on the verge of having to import those solutions.  Our economy only supports “this quarter profits”.  We have “saved” and “cost-cut” and “profited” ourselves through the seed corn.  We have lost a generation of 22 year olds.

The only “silver lining” is that the current economic crisis has caused the baby-boomers to remain employed.  There are many 70+ year olds in the engineering fields.  There are lots of jobs for them – they know the field.    The present crisis affords us the “excuse” to hire 22 year olds to work alongside the boomers and learn the business.  Let’s hire them.  If we don’t make this “higher cost” investment in developing American talent, there is no fall-back.  Soon, the 27 year olds offshore will become 35 year olds hiring the 27 year olds behind them --- building their own businesses, having the big ideas, and putting the U.S. economy into low gear for the long term.

M. Sullivan

Bi-Cameral Mind

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