There’s nothing better than having a moment of brilliance that hits you and you think, ‘YES’!

In my world, we often spend time talking about epiphanies. That’s because every new product and business starts with an epiphany, so it’s in our best interest to create more epiphanies.

Taking that one step further, our future is being defined and created by epiphanies that happen inside the minds of cutting-edge startups, and many of these entrepreneurs start by asking one simple question, “what’s missing.”

Whenever we can identify one of these missing opportunities, we gain massive insights into the world ahead.

Have all the good invention ideas been taken? It seems like every week we hear about a cool new tool, product, or feature to enhance our everyday lives. The inventor in us says, “Oh man, I wish I’d thought of that!”

Is there anything left for us to contribute for the betterment of mankind? What problems are still unsolved? What life enhancements have we not thought of and addressed? “What’s missing?”

The short answer: A lot.

By combining a little imagination with some wishful thinking, it’s not hard to come up with a list of what’s missing in our lives. You know, the kinds of things that once we have them, we’ll wonder how we ever did without them. Such as:

1. Virtual friend/confidant

While we do have virtual sources of information, and we can ask an online avatar “What’s the weather look like for tomorrow?” or “Where’s the closest falafel restaurant?,” we still don’t have a trusted online soulmate who knows us well who can provide an objective and informed opinion on important life choices or a virtual friend who will understand and keep our deepest and darkest secrets.

2. A new model for home ownership

We seem to be stuck in a housing model where we’re either homeowners or home lessors. That means we’re confined to the inherent trade-off between permanence and transience, stability and uncertainty, asset growth and continued disbursements. Is there another way to deed or bestow home ownership – perhaps an earned model rather than a cash-based one?

3. Better-than-natural food

“Natural” is good but it’s one-size-fits-all. One way to improve our food supply might be to customize it to a person’s unique situation and needs – their metabolism, unique deficiencies, and even health goals. Adding or subtracting certain ingredients and components in an otherwise natural food product may make it less “natural,” but since nature has never been human-centric, maybe that’s not a bad thing.

4. Gig degrees or certifications

Most people working in a gig arrangement probably never graduated from college or high school with the goal of becoming a gig worker. And when they settle into that space, there’s a lot of learning on the fly – everything from writing contracts, to pricing services, negotiating deals, networking relationships, accounting, tax issues, and career planning. There should be a place to learn these skills and maybe even a certification to verify your achievement.

5. Movies in the round

It’s been a while since the latest movie theater innovations. Surround-sound and 3-D movies are so last decade. How about movies filmed and projected in a holographic format? With the action happening in the center of the 360-degree theater, every seat would offer a unique perspective on the film – and a strong incentive to see it more than once.

6. Downloadable personalities

Devices that talk to us lack personality. If you had the ability to create a new “personality,” with some new personality-builder software, what features would you want it to have? And what type of devices would you want to download it into? Adding a personality or two to a computer or robot is only one possibilities. But what if you could download personalities onto your refrigerator, your car, your bathroom mirror, or the front door of your house?

7. Arguing Shoes

Imagine an advertisement for a product called – Arguing Shoes: “Our research has shown that most children today think of their feet as an extension of their own personality, and a source of entertainment. For this reason we have created the world’s first talking shoes. But after extensive testing we found that just talking to their feet didn’t exactly excite kids. So we spent time designing shoes that not only talk, and carry on a conversation with each other, but also argue with each other. For whatever reason, kids just love watching shoes that are constantly arguing and bickering with each other. To make it even more interesting, our shoes not only argue with each other, we’ve designed them to pick a fight with any other shoes within earshot. This will create hilarious situations in shopping malls, movie theaters and schools, entertaining children everywhere!”

8. Food-casting sensors and transmitters

Over time, sensors embedded in our clothing or even under the skin will monitor food intake and its effect on our metabolism and start creating guidelines for our next meal. As we enter a restaurant, our food-caster will notify them of our dos and don’t to keep our diet on track. Order a double-cheeseburger and the transmitter will know to rewrite your online with a plant-based meat substitute instead!

 9. Plant or animal communicator

With prototypes of natural language translators already in existence for humans, the next step will be technology that bridges the communication gap between humans, and plants and animals.

10. Gamified ethics and reward-based morality

In case doing the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing isn’t good enough, we could gamify our interaction with people and the world around us. Points for voting, donating, complementing, listening, and mentoring, for example, could be exchanged for discounts and products from participating vendors.

11. Trainable, mood-sensing music services

Let’s add an AI mood detection and cognitive task monitoring element to music streaming services. As a service it would not only learn our favorite genres and artists, but also detect our mood and state of mind to deliver the right selections to improve performance, or find a peaceful zen-way relax.

12. Gravity-suit-based sports

As technology evolves, jet-pack, gravity-defying, flying suits could add a third dimension to nearly any field-based sport, much like Quidditch in the Harry Potter series. For more inspiration check out Quidditch Through the Ages.

13. Global DNA animal library

Similar, in some respects, to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, this library would preserve the actual DNA of all animals.

14. Perpetual self-filling canteen

In a world where people continually die from lack of hydration, one of the most-needed devices is a handheld canteen that is constantly extracting moisture from the air.

15. Billion-person genealogy project

The genealogical industry currently exists as a million fragmented efforts happening simultaneously. While the dominant players, like Ancestry.com, have multiple websites with hundreds of millions of genealogies, there is still a much bigger opportunity waiting to happen.

16. Global election

When will we see the first global election with over a billion people voting from over 100 different countries? Will they be voting for a person, or voting on an issue? If it’s a person, what position will that person be running for? And, if it’s an issue, what issue will be so compelling that everyone wants to vote on it?

17. Instant sleep

A workaholic’s dream. People who need to finish an important project, but are feeling exhausted, could simply walk into the instant-sleep chamber. Voila! In a few seconds they could walk back out, fully rejuvenated and raring to go. Is this possible?

18. Dream recorder

How often have you forgotten your dreams the next morning? Is it possible to create a “hit-play-to-record” device that would allow you to visually archive your dreams?

It’s easy to look around us and see what exists today, but the true visionaries are looking for what’s missing.

The voids and empty spaces around us will have people stampeding to fill these vacuums once they can be defined and understood.

People who blaze these new trails will create entire new industries, and the job-generating opportunities that go along with them.

I’m sure as you considered these possibilities, you probably saw what you believe are insurmountable challenges and Illogical leaps. But that’s where epiphanies come in. Emerging ideas are happening amidst a very fluid landscape and as technology changes, so does the outlook for “what’s missing?”

Best advice is to think incrementally, in stages. Figure out one challenge, then the
next, and pretty soon it all adds up to the Next Big Thing.

And voilà – one more item in our lives that’s not missing any more.

For those of you who haven’t noticed the shifting winds of higher education, certifications have been secretly creating an entire new industry that is layered between colleges and employers. While they don’t compete directly with colleges, they’re quickly rising in importance, as a preferred form of credentialing, one that is highly adaptable, outside of governmental controls, where companies can provide far more input.

Businesses today care far less about someone’s degree or underlying coursework, and far more about whether they’ve been able to pass the necessary certification tests.

The timing is perfect because a growing chorus of people have been asking, “is a college degree really worth it?”

Americans now owe over $1.56 trillion in student loan debt, spread out among 44.7 million borrowers. That’s roughly $521 billion more than the total U.S. credit card debt.

Yet, it’s not just about the money. On the surface, highly paid engineers and financial managers still make tons of money. The true cost-to-benefit analysis needs to focus more on the “half-life of a skillset.”

For this reason, certifications are shining a spotlight on urgently needed skills that universities never saw coming. What makes matters worse is traditional colleges have virtually no ability to quickly adapt to these new markets.

We have been operating under the delusion that anything we learn early in life will benefit us for a lifetime. That wasn’t true for the mandatory calculus courses I struggled with many years ago, and it won’t be true for many of today’s less-than-useful courses that receive “mandatory” designations by universities today.

Our entire education system has been formed around a “just in case” mindset so students can be prepared for whatever situation they run into, “just in case” they need it.

But with education, we’re aiming at a moving target.

Med students, lawyers, and others pursuing advanced degrees will often spend 7-10 years in pursuit of their dream job, which will likely morph into something totally different by the time they get there.

The combined cost of both the time and tuition leaves many with a staggering amount of debt. The rationalization for college loans often takes the form of, “surely I can earn my way out of this massive debt I’m creating!”

Since 11.5% of student loans are delinquent, that statement has not been true for over 5 million students, and likely 2-3 times that many are struggling to stay ahead.

Until recently, college degrees were the only game in town. Yes, a person could start their own business, write a best-selling novel, or become a Hollywood actor or actress, but those odds were even less with no clear path for getting there. College degrees offered a clear path to a well-respected accomplishment, even if it didn’t work out as planned for everyone.

That was so yesterday!

Today there are a number of certifications that can be gained in far less time, for far less money, and a person’s overall earning powers can more than double.

Physics class at Moore College in the 1800s.

First, a little history

Where did the 4-year degree come from?

As it turns out, the 4-year degree had a fuzzy beginning but was primarily an American invention stemming from the early 1800s. During that era, information was scarce and it was felt that educated people needed to have a well-rounded “breadth” of education to compliment the “depth” of their core discipline (major).

For this reason, colleges started requiring half of their coursework fall into the “breadth” category, typically in the area of humanities, liberal arts, and social sciences. For most colleges, this is still a requirement today.

Although colleges argue we still need the breadth of education, most of us are already getting it ambiently.

According to Statista, the average American today is consuming information 721 minutes per day (12 hours and 1 minute) from TV, mobile devices, computers, print media, and more.

While academics contend that watching YouTube cannot be considered the equivalent of attending a college course, others will maintain it’s far better because it’s immediate, relevant, and it doesn’t cost anything.

To be sure, this is a debate that has not gone unnoticed by most institutions. Even though the time/money investment in college education is trending in the opposite direction of other consumer services, reducing degree requirements goes counter to the current time-in-seats financial model most colleges are reliant on.

Tech industry certifications reflect the today’s demand for unique talent.

Top-Paying Certifications 2019

Each year, Global Knowledge creates an annual list of top-paying IT certifications which reflects shifting philosophies and tech trends greatly impacting IT departments around the United States. This year’s highest-paying certifications reveal a strong emphasis on cloud computing, cybersecurity, networking and project management.

1. $139,529 – Google Certified Professional Cloud Architect
2. $135,798 – PMP® – Project Management Professional
3. $135,441 – Certified ScrumMaster®
4. $132,840 – AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associates
5. $130,369 – AWS Certified Developer – Associates
6. $121,288 – Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE): Server Infrastructure
7. $120,566 – ITIL® Foundation
8. $118,412 – CISM – Certified Information Security Manager
9. $117,395 – CRISC – Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control
10. $116,900 – CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional
11. $116,306 – CEH – Certified Ethical Hacker
12. $113,442 – Citrix Certified Associate – Virtualization (CCA-V)
13. $110,321 – CompTIA Security+
14. $107,143 – CompTIA Network+
15. $106,957 – Cisco Certified Networking Professional (CCNP) Routing and Switching

NOTE: Dollar amounts reflect average salaries currently being paid. This is the first year for the Google Certified Professional Cloud Architect.

Top Paying Non-Tech Certifications

After looking at the impressive salaries for top tech positions it’s easy to overlook many of the non-tech opportunities for becoming a certified professional. Here are a few other options:

1. $81,100 – Clinical Laboratory Scientist Certification
2. $79,700 – Certified School Psychologist
3. $85,786 – Certified Professional Accountant
4. $70,000 – Master Automotive Technician Certification
5. $70,600 – Certified Automotive Fleet Manager
6. $56,500 – Certified Logistics Coordinator
7. $81,400 – Certified Welding Inspector
8. $82,000 – Certified Nurse Midwife
9. $64,600 – Certified Construction Health and Safety Technician
10. $77,703 – Certified Mortgage Underwriter

How much earning power will your college degree have 10 years from now?

Top Paying College Degrees 2019

According to the salary comparison site Payscale’s recent survey of 2.3 million graduates from 2,700 U.S. colleges, these are the highest earning majors. In general, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors consistently have some of the highest rates of employment and top incomes.

1. Petroleum engineering – Early career salary: $94,600
   Mid-career salary: $175,500
2. Actuarial mathematics – Early career salary: $56,400
   Mid-career salary: $131,700
3. Actuarial science – Early career salary: $61,200
   Mid-career salary: $130,800
4. Nuclear engineering – Early career salary: $69,000
   Mid-career salary: $127,500
5. Chemical engineering – Early career salary: $70,300
   Mid-career salary: $124,500
6. Marine engineering – Early career salary: $73,900
   Mid-career salary: $123,200
7. Economics and mathematics – Early career salary: $60,000
   Mid-career salary: $122,900
8. Geophysics – Early career salary: $54,100
   Mid-career salary: $122,200
9. Cognitive science – Early career salary: $54,000
   Mid-career salary: $121,900
10. Electrical power engineering – Early career salary: $68,600
    Mid-career salary: $119,100

We’ve entered the era of anytime anyplace learning.

The age of on-demand learning

A recent survey of 39,000 software developers by HackerRank showed that 73.7% of software developers are at least partially self-taught. That’s critical for an industry that’s introducing new languages, frameworks, or tools on a frequent basis.

The study also found that 25% of developers learned to code before they were allowed to drive, and kids in Great Britain learning the earliest with 11% starting between the ages of 5-10.

The average developer today knows four languages and wants to know more. When it comes to learning new languages, they’re watching what Silicon Valley wants. Go, Kotlin, Rust, Scala, and Swift are some of the languages currently on their “want to learn” lists.

Top Paying Programming Languages 2019

Salaries for software engineers grew 5.1% last year to $110,898, while technology strategists and architects wages grew 8% to $127,121.

Other roles that earned between $100,000 to $115,000 included DevOps engineer, hardware engineer, project manager, and security analyst.

Top paying programming languages included:

1. Go (Golang) – $132,827
2. Perl – $110,678
3. Shell – $109,518
4. Node.js JavaScript – $105,418
5. Java/J2EE – $105,164
6. TypeScript – $103,680
7. Python – $103,587
8. Ruby – $ 102,086
9. Swift – $ 101,631
10. C# – $101,566

In the end, employers will decide which skills are most valuable.

Certifications Vs. Degrees The Future of Credentialing

The nature of employment is changing quickly, and the average tenure is dropping. According to Payscale, the average person currently goes through 12 jobs changes during their lifetime.

Because of automation, we should anticipate that number to more than double over the coming years. Those going down the path of becoming a freelancer may have as many as 1,000 different clients.

With employment trending towards shorter commitments, employers are far more interested in immediately applicable skills that a prospective worker brings to a task than the classwork they’ve completed or reputation of the school they’ve attended.

For this reason, certifications are becoming a far quicker and more effective way for hiring managers to gauge a person’s competency. They’ve become less invested in how the learning took place and far more interested in only interviewing those who have passed the test.

Employers are also finding they have more input on certifications when it comes to the testing process and what constitutes a relevant knowledge base.

Because of this, hiring companies will weigh far heavier on certifications than academic degrees for their preferred form of credentialing.

Apples to Oranges Comparison

If you’re a parent thinking about encouraging your child to go to college, it’s not easy to calculate the costs involved. Tuition, room, board, transportation, books, athletic fees, computers, clothing, smartphones, apps, and other charges can all add up to a pretty hefty number.

If students today can get by for less than $100,000 for a 4-year degree, they’re being very frugal.

Degrees completed in the traditional four-year timeframe typically require a full time commitment. Those working part-time or full time usually take longer.

Because of the 4-5 year commitment most are making to complete college, they are also losing 4-5 years of salary and work experience. For talented students, this can amount to as much as $300,000-$400,000.

While it can be argued that college years allow time for students to “grow up” and become socially-connected, mature adults, there is also a significant cost involved with this approach.

As you can see, this is more of an apples-to-oranges comparison. Not all certifications are as valuable as a college degree, and the reverse is also true.

Rest assured, tomorrow’s jobs will be vastly different than today’s jobs.

48 Future Certification Programs

Over time employers will begin to demand far more certifications, for a wide variety of emerging technologies. Since it is far easier to create a certification exam than an entire college curriculum, certification trends will soon be viewed as a leading indicator of new industries being formed.

As new tests spring to life, a variety of programs will quickly follow to fill the learning void.

Here are a few examples of future certifications that testing companies will likely begin to offer:

1. Quantum Computing Systems Engineer (listen to our interview with Honeywell’s Justin Ging about this topic)
2. Quantum Computing Applications Manager
3. Drone Command Center Management
4. Drone Command Center Traffic Engineer
5. Swarmbot Programmer
6. Swarmbot System Manager
7. Cryptocurrency Advisor/Trader
8. Cryptocurrency Design Engineer
9. Blockchain Analytics Engineer
10. Blockchain Security Analyst
11. Green Energy Engineer
12. Green Energy Resource Planner
13. Machine Learning Architect
14. Machine Learning Project Designer
15. CRISPR Director of Ethics
16. CRISPR Project Manager
17. Synthetic Biology Technicianv
18. Synthetic Biology Engineer
19. Designer Baby Engineer
20. Designer Baby Director of Ethical Oversight
21. 3D Printing Designer Level 1
22. 3D Printing Designer Level 2
23. Deep Space Support Tech
24. Deep Space Living Pioneer
25. Tube Transportation Traffic Planner (listen to our interview with ET3’s Daryl Oster about this topic)
26. Tube Transportation Terminal Director
27. Freelance Project Manager
28. Freelance Support Engineer
29. Mini Airport Manager
30. Mini Airport Project Planner
31. Social Media Marketing Technician
32. Social Media Marketing Strategist

Workplace readiness skills are important because they ensure workers have the basic academic, critical thinking, and inner personal skills necessary to be employed. In addition, academic skills such as reading, writing, basic math and communication skills are essential for optimal job performance.

According to LinkedIn, the most in-demand skills today are time management, adaptability, collaboration, persuasion, and creativity.

For these reasons we will also see a number of “workplace readiness certifications” spring to life.

1. Creative Writing
2. Money Management
3. Emergency Response
4. Introductory Dispute Resolution
5. Advance Dispute Resolution
6. Workplace Geometry
7. Workplace Mathematics
8. Introductory Problem Solving
9. Advanced Problem Solving
10. Introductory Critical Thinking
11. Advanced Critical Thinking
12. Money Management
13. Workplace Security Tech
14. Distraction Management
15. Introductory People Management
16. Advanced People Management

How many certifications will you bring to your next interview?

Final Thoughts

Over the next decade it will be common for a prospective employee to show up for a job interview with 8-12 certifications to highlight both their technical talents as well as their problem solving and critical thinking skills.

Young people will find a wide variety of ways to achieve the learning (and unlearning!) component of passing certification exams. Some will happen overnight, others on the job, and still others throughout a career.

Contrary to what many are leading us to believe, we’re entering a world of super employment. Prospective employees will have more choices than ever, and the freelance world will provide an alluring alternative to traditional employment.

Over the coming decades we will witness an unprecedented wave of innovation and creativity driven by new tools of production. During this time we will see an explosion of hundreds of thousands of new micro industries that will employ hundreds of millions of people.

We are entering an unusually creative period in human history. Those who embrace this kind of change will prosper, and companies that study and embrace this fluid “jobscape” will have the tools to build flourishing enterprises.

Naturally, those with strong loyalties to academic institutions will find this to be a contentions issue. I very much welcome those who disagree, so please feel free to voice your thoughts and opinions on this topic.