How to create a job in a bad economy

Earlier this week, a sobering headline caught my attention: "In 10 Years, Your Job Might Not Exist: Here's how to make sure you're still employable."

The article notes how many jobs will be eliminated due to robotic artificial intelligence. Yet "some jobs will always be done by people. The reasons can vary greatly: economic, social, nostalgic, or simply not practical for robots to do."

This headline underscored how people must continually reinvent themselves to stay employable. We must constantly learn new skills, new software, new ways to communicate, new … well, new everything.

Gone are the days when someone entered the workforce at 18 and held the same steady, dependable position for 40 years. How many of you have held the identical job for the last decade? And how many can expect to continue holding the same identical job 10 years in the future? Jobs and job requirements continually fluctuate.

Even though my husband and I have held (mostly) the same job for the past 23 years – we're self-employed wood crafters – we've also been forced to change and grow. The craft business has remained constant, but it's altered and adapted with the times. We've also developed side businesses to supplement our income. We call this the "many irons in the fire" method of making a living. This adaptability has allowed us to paddle a light kayak over the troubled waters of the economy, while more ponderous boats have capsized under the waves of the financial downturn.

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This raises the question: How can people earn money in a bad economy? Too many people only think in terms of working for others; not enough people realize they are perfectly capable of working for themselves.

The above-referenced article discusses some skills that will remain useful and employable in the future, as well as fields of discipline that will remain in demand. The article concludes: "The future will see a host of new technologies for creating and communicating content. In-demand workers will be able to critically assess this content and find ways to communicate it to good effect. Communication skills have always been important and will remain so. … To position yourself favorably for the jobs of the future, become someone who can look at problems in unorthodox ways, seeing different angles and finding workable solutions."

In our decades of self-employment, I have found this to be true; but for a long time I didn't realize just how critical communication was as a factor in success.

A couple years ago I came across a model for starting an information-based home business, which distilled and synopsized the notions of communication and its importance in our modern age. Developed by an entrepreneur named Dave Westbrook, the model outlines the steps necessary to become self-employed with an information-based online business.

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It's unfortunate so few people understand the potential for information-based businesses, even in the age of the Internet. When you sit at your computer, the world is literally at your fingertips. Yet ironically the Internet is now so huge, it's hard to find the information you're looking for concentrated in one location. Mr. Westbrook's business model illustrates there is still a viable need to sift through the dross and gather needed information into a single location.

"Most people flop around with ideas for making a living and can't seem to grasp the notion of an information-based business," notes Mr. Westbrook. "They think in terms of either making something to sell, or finding someone to employ them. Not many people think about selling information."

Let me give a small example: I am a passionate canner. But I can't "sell" my canned goods. What I can sell is my knowledge of canning.

I realized this after readers besieged me with questions whenever I put up a canning-related post on my blog. I recognized that canning is experiencing a huge resurgence of interest among independent-minded people, so I decided to sell my knowledge. I pulled together a series of inexpensive e-booklets on canning to help people share my passion for food preservation.

These e-booklets don't exist in any physical form unless someone wants to print them out. Instead, they are cyber-information. Knowledge. Communication.

This business model can be applied toward almost any expertise. At the moment I'm mentoring a young and talented jewelry-maker in turning her hobby into a business. "Making jewelry is a job that's always existed and will always exist," she says, "since most jewelry will be unable to be taken over by robots or machines."

But it's not enough to showcase her jewelry pieces at her Etsy shop. In keeping with Mr. Westbrook's business model, she needs to showcase her unique knowledge as well – in other words, offering an information component to supplement her physical product. So she started a blog which highlights her thoughts, philosophies, methods, tools, inspiration and techniques behind her jewelry. She is working on pulling together YouTube videos and webinars to demonstrate her craft.

Everyone has a measure of expertise in something, whether it's the best way to remove stains from clothing, how to kick a drug habit, how to teach children to read, how to study the Bible, how to repair small engines, or how to twirl a baton. Every single one of these skills has the potential to be turned into an information-based business, because human skills and expertise can never be matched by an unthinking machine.

This is confirmed by the article: "In the brave new world of the coming age of intelligent machines, it is these essentially human qualities that will be more important than ever. Some things will never change because human nature is what it is."

If you're in danger of losing your job, it's time to look outside the box of working for someone else and consider working for yourself. It's not always easy, and the money is not always consistent, but your fate is in your hands rather than the uncaring hands of a harsh economy.

Something to think about.

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