VIDEO: Robots and our gadget addiction

Off topic for a rainy Friday - check out this amusing 4-minute look at our need to always have the latest and greatest gadgetry, (email and RSS subscribers will have to click through), brought to you by the folks at Big Lazy Robot, and perhaps not surprisingly, featuring some adorable robots.

IDIOTS from BLR_VFX on Vimeo.

All we are is just another robot sheep, marching silently in line to obtain the next thingamabob that we probably don't really need...

Happy Friday and put down your phone at some point this weekend!

VIDEO: Unboxing the future

The 'unboxing' video format, (essentially, a video of someone unboxing a new gadget like a computer or a smartphone and describing the contents and packaging), has enjoyed a run of popularity amongst the geeky set.  I mean who doesn't want to watch a choppy video with bad sound and lighting of a random 15 year-old kid unpacking a new Xbox?

Yes, 'unboxing' videos are generally horrible, and it is with that horribleness in mind that I run the risk of alienating those readers that not only don't know or care about 'unboxing' but also are lacking my interest and fascination with advances in robotics.

Check the video below, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through), of a team at MIT receiving and unboxing its Atlas robot (built by Boston Dynamics) to use in the DARPA Robotics Challenge. I will have a couple of (probably nonsensical) comments after the jump.

What is Atlas all about?  Here is a small description from the Boston Dynamics site:

Atlas is a high mobility, humanoid robot designed to negotiate outdoor, rough terrain. Atlas can walk bipedally leaving the upper limbs free to lift, carry, and manipulate the environment. In extremely challenging terrain, Atlas is strong and coordinated enough to climb using hands and feet, to pick its way through congested spaces.

The team at MIT will develop software to control and command Atlas to perform various actions in a disaster response situation - think things like defusing bombs, looking through tornado damage, potentially working in toxic waste spills, that kind of thing.

Why should you as an HR/Talent pro care about something like Atlas, and its capability and potential?

Because like lots of other technologies, these kinds of advanced robotics applications might start in research universities or government labs, but the best ones almost always become a part of the workplace.

Because at some point you as an HR pro will get asked a question from the CEO something along the lines of, 'Can't we find a way to automate that, instead of opening another assembly plant?' or 'Can you get me a cost/benefit breakdown of buying 10 new Baxters vs. hiring 50 new assembly workers?'

Because at some point someone you work for is going to see an 'unboxing' video like the one above from MIT and think, (perhaps erroneously, perhaps not), that pushing advanced automation further and farther into the business is getting easier and easier - not unlike how easy it is to set up that new Xbox.

Maybe I am completely off-base on this, and the time when the average HR pro really needs to concern themself with this kind of thing is decades away.

Or maybe I'm not wrong, and sooner than not you will have to add a 'person type' in your HRIS for new employees named Baxter or Atlas.

Job Titles of the Future #7 - Professional eSports Player

Like lots of guys of a similar generation, I grew up playing sports, watching sports, talking about sports, etc. My Dad and my other adult male relatives were all big-time sports people as well - simply put, there was not a day of my youth through teenage years where sports in some fashion was not a part.

Fast forward about, well let's just say several years, and while sports are still a big part of many American kids lives, (certainly girls sports are a much, much bigger thing today than when I was a kid), there are lots more and different ways modern kids can choose to spend their time, energy, and as we will see in a second, to feed their appetite for competition.

And just like traditional sports like basketball and football have for many years offered at least the most talented and driven kids a pathway to fame and monetary gain, we are starting to see these newer forms of competition also present similar opportunities.  

What am I getting at?

Check an excerpt from a piece in the LA Times - Online game League of Legends star gets U.S. visa as pro athlete

International stars in sports such as baseball, hockey and basketball have long been afforded special immigration status to play on U.S. teams. Think David Beckham, the former Los Angeles Galaxy soccer player from Britain, or Dodgers rookie phenom Hyun-Jin Ryu, a pitcher from South Korea.

Now add Danny "Shiphtur" Le, of Edmonton, Canada, to the elite list.

Le, an online gamer, is one of the world's top players of League of Legends, a virtual capture-the-flag game in which two teams of fantasy characters compete for a glowing orb. Le is so deft at racing down the virtual field and opening up gaps for teammates that he recently became the first so-called eSports player to be granted a type of visa normally awarded to athletes featured daily on ESPN.

With a generation of children having grown up playing video games, the decision by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has been widely perceived as elevating America's newest professional sport to the same class as old-school stalwarts.

And in a worldwide competition in which the winning team can take home $1 million in prizes, the ability to sign the best players — whether from Canada or South Korea or Russia — was seen as a must-have for U.S squads.

Did you catch all that?

A professional video gamer from Canada was granted a special type of visa, (probably a P1A), to live and compete in the USA with the rest of his elite team of gamers.

I know you are thinking this is a kind of joke, or at least a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of occurrence. After all we are talking about video games, for gosh sakes. Not football, not baseball. Stupid video games.

Except that I bet video games in general, and specifically League of Legends, the game in which Le and his team competes in, are a much, much bigger deal than you realize.

How big?

More from the LA Times:

In the U.S. bracket of the championship series, eight teams compete against one another on Thursdays and Fridays at a West Los Angeles TV studio.

The games are broadcast online and draw more than 1.7 million unique viewers. A typical National Hockey League game on the NBC Sports Network last season drew a quarter of that audience.

Gaming industry analysts estimate that more than 32 million people worldwide play the game, about half of them in the U.S. The rest come from Europe and Asia. By those calculations, 1 in every 20 Americans plays League of Legends. That dwarfs baseball, from Little League to Major League Baseball.

Like I mentioned at the top, I grew up playing traditional sports under the watchful eye of my Dad who also grew up playing those same sports. It would have fulfilled both our dreams had I become an NBA star. But alas, short, slow, and unable to jump very high (mostly) did me in.

A new generation of kids is going to grow up playing games like League of Legends, under the watchful eyes of their Dads who also grew up playing League of Legends, (or World of Warcraft, or similar).

And if those stats are accurate, or even close to it, that 1 in 20 Americans are playing League of Legends then there are going to be lots of career opportunities that will spring up from that ecosystem. Sure just like baseball and football there will be the select few like Danny Le that will become elite-level professionals, but there may also be a need for more event organizers, promotions, marketing, expert analyses, training courses, and on and on.

Professional eSports Player, that has a pretty cool ring to it, and it makes the list as an official SFB 'Job Title of the Future.'

Off Topic: The Home Office of 2001

Even back in 1967, smart folks were thinking about work and life and how to balance the two. And as an aside, I get really annoyed when the work/life police go out of their way to constantly remind the rest of us that we shouldn't use the term 'balance', but rather something like 'fit' or 'blend' or essentially something they approve of. Quit it already. If the world wants to refer to the subject as 'Work/Life Balance' its you that need to adapt, not everyone else.

But to get back to the topic, or non-topic as the case may be, back in 1967 none other than the 'Most trusted man in America', news legend Walter Cronkite gave viewers a glimpse of what at least of the part of the future of work might look like, all the way in the distant future, the year 2001. 

Check the video embedded below for what Uncle Walter had to say about the home office at the turn of the century (Email and RSS subscribers will need to click through)

Some awesome points from the Kronk, (if you can ignore he is only referring to 'men' workers throughout the video). But think about it, back in '67 folks were already thinking about technology that would free the employee completely from the office. Throw in some connected computer terminals for news and weather reports, as well as one for catching up on your investments, (beats doing emails, right?). Mix in an odd-looking phone that connects to a video monitor to have video calls. Finally, yet another monitor for the business man of 2001 to see all the other rooms in the house, (and if you look closely, it seems like Walter is looking in on the Mrs. making the bed). 

The funny thing about the home office of the future as imagined in the video is it really doesn't speak much if at all to the business man doing any actual work. And it doesn't at all speculate that work itself might change dramatically, just that there would be fancier tools to assist in the effort. And lastly, it continues to assume, like probably lots of men did in 1967, that complex work that would benefit or even require all this cool technology would only be done by men.

Let's hope that those shortcomings or lack of vision from Kronk were just a product of a more old-fashioned way of thinking, and narrow point of view. 

Because we know that in 2013 and beyond, the technology of the future will not just make things easier and more convenient, it will help make the world a better, more open, more equitable, better place.

Right?

Have a great weekend!

VIDEO: The robots are a lot like us

What a week. I am beat.

Let's take it into the weekend with a laugh - check out the video below, titled Shelved, from the Media Design School of Auckland, New Zealand. (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through).

Shelved gives us a look at what the future might hold for the incoming robot workforce - oddly enough it seems to resemble quite a bit the human workplace of today.

Shelved from Media Design School on Vimeo.

Awesome, right? "Replaced by a human!' And did you catch the key role of the HR lady?

Have a great weekend everyone!