Is 90% Unemployment Really “Progress?”

First came fire.

… then the agricultural revolution.

… then the industrial revolution.

… and now the information age.

Breakthroughs that automated labor and opened up whole new avenues to live better and work less.

The automation process follows a familiar path. First, someone identifies a problem with the status quo. Then someone else builds a tool or machine to solve that problem (e.g., tractor, light bulb, ATM).

Eventually, people start losing jobs as the new invention penetrates industry. The old, manual way of doing things survives longer in poorer countries until, even there, automation takes over.

Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist, is predicting a time when nearly ALL people stop working for a living…

Yes, by his estimation 90% of workers will be unemployed. He calls this progress. 
In his words:

“Five hundred years from now everyone is going to be involved in some kind of information or entertainment … There will be no farmers, there will be no people working in manufacturing.”

Anyone who wants to work will be doing it strictly for pleasure, like a suburbanite tending a flower garden.

Jurvetson says Moore’s Law makes this entirely possible:

“…we’ll live off the production of robots, free to be the next Aristotle or Plato or Newton.”

The only thing I could think about after reading the article was alarm clocks.

No work = No alarm clock.

Without a reason to get up in the morning, nobody will be DRIVEN and INSPIRED enough to do the hard things innovation requires. Namely study, learn, and experiment.

An over reliance on automation tools is the plague of modern marketers. Obviously, automation has boosted productivity in spades but the price is high. Many marketers have gotten lazy.

These marketers think they can blast out any kind of message, and then simply clean up, once the sales start rolling in.

But if automated software could REALLY turn dross into gold, then EVERY company with a CRM system would be raking in profits hand-over-fist.

The fact is, while there have never been MORE automation tools for getting your voice heard, it’s also never been this hard to reach your prospects.

I’ll go further: this might be the HARDEST TIME in the information age to make a sale.

Automation software is just a TOOL. It can only carry your offer. You still have to create content that’s WORTH automating.

Here’s what I’ve learned: if your offer isn’t at least adequate, no amount of frequency or touches will save you. You’ll go bankrupt trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Whenever I sit down with new prospects, I NEVER ask about their automation tools.
It’s just not important enough to discuss on a first date.

I assume they use them, and if we end up working together, we’ll eventually talk automation tools.