What is the human-computer interaction?

 

The user interface the human-computer interaction element how we interact with these machines all of that is change and so that's going to change across the board and then there are obviously I've only put the example of FinTech but this is probably for healthcare this is probably for a lot of other areas including education and you know what are the advances are from that perspective how will we materially change the way we do things and blockchain obviously for record-keeping cryptocurrencies all of these other areas are increasingly becoming important.

Well you don't have to learn all of these areas you don't have to become an expert in all of these areas but you do need to pick the area that that both fascinates you and that that you feel you have a natural advantage in given where you are obviously you a professional have a particular area that that you're good at and so you need to look at what's adjacent what's the closest area that you can among this list or or even outside of this list that you can think of that is you know that is a natural extension of what you already know right so if you are already in kind of data handling information security of some kind you know learning the cyber security protocols learning you know penetration testing learning all of these areas becomes important right if you are already kind of a visual person in a classical and design design oriented person you know think about UI in UX and and computer interaction things like that if you are already a hardware person think about IOT it connected devices and things like that so think about what it is what is it that you can develop.

What you do not have a natural affinity for and what you can develop as something that seems like a seamless extension to what you already do let's take a step back obviously you have learned some of these skills but you what's even more important than then learning a particular skill is learning to learn and I don't think we do enough of this site and historically we've always had this mode of you know we learn for about 21 23 25 years depending on how many degrees we want to notch up and then you know you won't apply all of what you've learned for the next 3040 years and then you'll retire that's been with the narrative that's no longer the case the refresh rate of an of skills and techniques and technologies has become you know as short as five to ten years and so you need to learn new things all the time everything that you're learning now is probably the automatic writing.

One who that happens what happens that is there are going to be you know higher-level meta skills that start to bet that start to get simpler and simpler and you know and more prone to machines to interpret them so you constantly have to learn new things because we as humans are doing higher and higher order things every year like what used to be in computing in the nineteen fifties and sixties was was a matter of somebody sitting and actually computing things by hands and then it went to you know somebody learning how to operate punch cards and tape drives and all of these other things right and increasingly all of that stuff has started to become automated at one point you know you could get a pH and and not so long ago like 10 years ago 10 years ago you could get a PhD in being able to write a neural networking and now it's one function called in pretty much any language it's you know it's an open source technology that you can pick up and do today again so so these things as as we as humans advance more of these things are going to become basic attention autumn you know automatable techniques and skills and and you have to keep learning higher and higher order things right.

So the ability to pick up a new skill quickly but more importantly the ability to do it methodically at having a framework for yourself on how do you learn these things where do I look first what do I do next how do I build you know expertise in this area what kind of projects do I tackle how do I show people that I know some of these things how they become part of the community all of that support right these are all essential steps to learning to learn.

I do think it's exceedingly important to you know to develop the skill look for continuous and lifelong learning and then you need you know learning is not especially lifelong learning as a working professional you're out in the workforce it's not like schools or college or any of these were you know these others most structured environments it's important to become part of a community it you know become a part and contribute to a community you know that's how you build it and develop a reputation if you think about Linux it came out as an open-source community of people who you know we're tired based honestly of in of the more enterprise Tio's platforms and wanted to create something open-source and that became a community item think of pretty much any open-source project and that's.

Basically, how it develops in you know in the current day and age now with the open data initiative the open-source drive with open educational resources there are tons and tons and tons of these communities their community different projects especially with communication becoming so seamless and effective and cheap and pervasive that you can be a part of it's no longer a local community you know that you have to pick it's not just your city or your neighborhood or your company that you can be part of a global community that does pretty much anything from you know writes poetry to solve math problems.

I mean this is a professor of mathematics who basically open-source the solving of really really challenging problems to so-called Millennium projects and that's an open-source project where mathematicians you know people with various metals and you know then you know the people at the pinnacle of their career and amateurs all contribute to this right so become part of such a community one it develops a reputation to all the work that you do is not sitting you know kind of in your head or on your computer it's getting examined and critically reviewed by people who are potentially better than you at the beginning and over time you start to you know you start going from being the beginner in the community to being the person who mentors other people so you develop.

So many skills and build a reputation in the process so it's really really important to contribute to that kind of a cause I tend for those of you who feel daunted by the idea of you know going in joining an open-source community because most of the people are so advanced in and seem like there's so much better than you you know there are forums like Kota first-timers only calm it's a fantastic platform you know where the way they make a list of beginner only open-source communities and projects that you can be part like so I kind of explained how to how to set yourself up for and it's not just to get through this slump and not just to get through this kind of crisis or moment of confusion and uncertainty in the industry but basically these things are going to behold you in good stead regardless of what you know what the market conditions.