It is time to slowly say good-bye to the “job” as it has been known in our lifetime and the lifetime of our parents.  The parents of baby boomers were the first full generation that lived with the general concept of “life-long employment.” Baby boomers left college and stepped on lower rungs of a “career path.” Now, after three consecutive “jobless recoveries,” it should be clear that jobs as we had defined them are disappearing.

Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers almost three years ago, a number of people who had recently lost jobs due to downsizing, bankruptcy and lack of funding, have asked me where they should look for jobs.  My answer has been consistent: become your own job.

What is it that you love?  What is it that you are good at? What are your most marketable skills? What is your greatest value to the marketplace? If you stop and think about it, there should be a lot of overlap in the answers to these questions.

It is time to become the job you are.  It is time to embrace being a free agent.  It is time to be a one-person company.  It is time to let go of the concept that there is a job out there that provides security.

As early as late 2008, I forecasted that the unemployment rate in the U.S. would push through nine percent and perhaps reach 10 percent.  I further suggested that the country would stay close to these historically high levels of unemployment for …

In the last column here, I pointed out that a number of my Shift Age forecasts have come true. I wrote about several of them and how I get an odd sense of déjà vu when these forecasts become reality. In this and coming columns, I will revisit them – not to gloat, but to provide explanation, because people read and hear forecasts differently from explanations of the actual events they become.

In 2007, I forecast that humanity, and particularly the developed countries of the world, would enter the “reorganizational recession of 2007-2010.” Considering that this is a blog that looks into the future, it might seem contradictory to be looking back at this event, but by doing so, I can explain why it was accurate and why understanding it will help us better navigate and understand what lies just ahead.

The reason for the length, breadth and depth of the 2007-2010 recession was that it was a reorganizational recession between the Information Age and the Shift Age. Most economists look at recessions through the eyes of history, measuring whatever recession we are currently in against past recessions. Phrases such as “this looks to be another jobless recovery similar to the recessions of the 1990’s” or “the recovery will be on the back of the consumer – when the consumer starts spending, we will emerge from this recession” (both paraphrases) are common and represent economists looking at economic downturns purely through economic filters. That is why they have had to keep revising …

In the past I have written that as a futurist, it sometimes feels like I live in a state of déjà vu. I spend a lot of time researching and looking into the future to develop the forecasts and trends that I write and speak about. I experience them, see them, and have varying degrees of certainty when I publish or present them.

Since 2011 began, so many of the forecasts and trends I predicted over the last four years are coming true, I feel as if I’m in an almost constant state of déjà vu. Now, as I spend some 22 hours traveling from Chicago to Singapore, scanning stacks of periodicals from around the world, this feeling is amplified.

I will write a lot in the coming weeks and months about all these forecasts and trends. As a futurist, I should be judged in part on how accurate I am, so it is indeed gratifying that many of the events/trends I predicted have become reality in 2011. The purpose of all these upcoming columns is to be able to point to actual events as the manifestations of what I have been speaking and writing about since 2006, when this blog began, and 2007, when I wrote The Shift Age. This will help explain the truly transformative time we are now entering. In a few years, the world will look quite different from what it did in 2010. The early evidence is everywhere in 2011.

Here are some of the trends and forecasts …

In the past year I have found that framing conversations about certain topics with the context of being of the 20^th century or of the 21^st century to be clarifying for most people.

I have written extensively about humanity being in transition between the Information Age and the Shift Age.  Those who have heard me speak or read my writings come to understand and accept this.  That said, this is a higher concept than the simple reality of the calendar.  No one can dispute the numerical fact that we are 10% into the 21^st Century, unless you want to debate whether the scientific concept of linear time verses the older concepts of cyclical time or chaotic time.

Once you start to look at the world, its’ institutions and both business categories and specific companies, through this 20^th versus 21^st century filter, things become clearer.

Here are some examples:

I could go on for pages, but the lists above should both provide clarity and food for thought.

A very simple way to look at the world is through this filter as it will bring clarity as to what will last and what won’t, to what will be significant and what will not be.  It is clear that companies created in the 20^th century that …

To many, the absolute collapse of the magazine industry in 2009 may seem stunning.  What is stunning to me is that the industry didn’t see it coming and take steps to avert this collapse.  Once again, another industry can only see a year ahead and thinks that a down year – 2008 – would be followed by a flat or up year. Historically in the advertising business that has been the career experience of the senior executives, so why not look to the past for reassurance?

The Big Three auto companies had an insular culture that didn’t pay attention to outside forces.  They only focused on the fact that they could make $1,500-2,000 profit per SUV and pick-up trucks, so they just kept making them hoping – not thinking that is for sure – it would all continue.  We know where that led.

Conde Nast took pride in its’ high level extravagant culture.  Bright and shiny and expensive always worked in the past, so hey, we’ll be ok in the future.   Whoops! It looks like we have to shut down some new and iconic titles as they are no longer viable businesses.

Business Week, one of the iconic business publications of the last half century was sold for $5 million.  Sounds like what was a good revenue week three years ago.  Who bought them?  The well diversified, global, multi-media, multi-revenue stream Bloomberg.  Just think about an on-line and video, global weekly news and feature product called Business Week, served up on consoles and …