Burnished in the crucible rather than disconnected academic research, Improvising Careers is based on author Christopher Bishop’s own successful navigation of eight different careers. Nanopharmacist? Lunar tour guide? Robotic ethics consultant? Augmented reality content designer? Quantum algorithm programmer? These jobs may not sound familiar now, but they will in due time. The world of work is being transformed. According to the World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs 2020, over the next ten years over one billion workers are at risk of losing their jobs to robotics, automation, and AI. So that they may explore the tremendous opportunities that lie ahead for today’s learners in the workplace of the future, Improvising Careers provides readers with tools to both shape and take advantage of the coming technological innovations. People can prepare for the kinds of work they might be doing as they move into the middle of the twenty-first century by leveraging the insight and socio-historical perspective in Bishop’s pragmatic guidebook. The three main components of his Future Career Toolkit—VOICE, ANTENNA, and MESH—enable readers to better plan and execute their own nonlinear, multimodal career path and provide a systematized, scalable, repeatable, malleable framework for navigating multiple careers, both today and in the future.
