From: park@netcom.com (Bill Park)
Subject: Re: AI Winter Refugees
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 92 00:05:20 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)
Summary: Be careful when you pick a retraining program.
Followup-To: comp.ai
Bcc: park@netcom.com
Keywords: AI Winter, IEEE, aerospace, ocan engineering, retraining

In article <x+an!9a.vere@netcom.com> vere@netcom.com (Steven Vere) writes:

> I am writing an article on AI Winter Refugees: un(der)employment
> among AI professionals.  I would like to solicit information and
> opinions from the AI community on the following points:
...
> o alternative career paths followed by AI Winter refugees.

Here's a timely cautionary tale for us frostbitten AI types, from
"Combatting defense cutbacks," by Tekla Perry in <The Institute> (news
supplement to <IEEE Spectrum>), September/October 1992, pp. 12, 11.
(The article is about the ongoing horrorshow among their aerospace
members in Southern California) ...

    "'In the early '70s, the IEEE came up with a program to retrain
    aerospace engineers into ocean engineers,' IEEE Past President
    John Guarrera said.  'We retrained 20 people and ended up with 20
    unemployed ocean engineers.'"
    
The article also notes that the IEEE, in addition to loss of members,
loss of conference revenue, etc., is also suffering a loss of
volunteer labor.  Their members are either out of work (therefore too
busy scrambling to pay the mortgage to do any extra volunteer work),
or are still employed but working "long overtime hours to fill in for
those who are gone and to prove that they should survive the next
round of layoffs."  Is this double-duty also a (supply-side) factor in
AI Winter?

Easy prediction: We'll soon be seeing megabuck lawsuits against such
employers for a U.S. version of the current Japanese "pop" disease of
"karooshi" (death from overwork).  Ambulance-chasers, take note!!
Spouses, take notes!!  You'll need them for the deposition.

Constructive comments:

One fly in the ointment with retraining is that, after you complete
your training, you still have no experience.  Look at the job ads on
Usenet or in the classified section of the newspaper and notice how
many require two or three years experience, commercialized products,
or even say flat out "no entry-level people."  I think the best
retraining opportunities would be for fields that are so new that
almost no one has had the opportunity to build up any experience yet,
but have growth potential.  Here are some straw people to stimulate
discussion:

* Programming Apple's Personal Digital Assistants in their new
  "dynamic language," Dylan.  This is going to be one of those
  "content-driven" markets, so if you think up new, useful things to
  do with Newton(tm?) and his little brothers from Sharp, you'll get to
  drive to Safeway for a loaf of bread in your new Testarossa.

* Computerized aids for the molecular biology/genetic engineering
  labs.  See Larry Hunter's new book on this almost-virgin application
  area (reminds me of my old girl friend).  Good for a Jensen, anyway.

* Throw in with one of those road-show management consultants /
  consulting groups that charge huge fees to scold CEOs of big
  companies about what bad boys they have been and tell them they have
  to shape up, Restructure, Compete Globally, implement Total Quality
  Control, achieve Total Customer Satisfaction, Rationalize their
  Factories, Re-Engineer their Organizations, quant. suff. ad naus.
  Develop some simple little program for the guru to sell them for an
  $11,999 site licence -- plus support and training fees, of course.
  The CEOs would then get to take these systems home and stick them on
  their unfortunate managers' desks, where, for the next few quarters,
  they would guide those managers step-by-step through your chosen
  guru's magic formula for success.  And of course (nyuk, nyuk!), they
  would report back to the CEO's leather-bound touch-screen Executive
  Information System ($10,000 in teak commode with integral
  temperature-regulated wine storage compartment) on each of those
  manager's performance-weighted achievement/compliance metric.

  ... what?  Well, of COURSE it would run on a PC!

...
>  Steven Vere                                    70571.521@compuserve.com
>  Boulder Creek, California                               vere@netcom.com

Bill Park

-- 
Grandpaw Bill's High Technology Consulting & Live Bait, Inc.
Newsgroups: comp.ai