What is the difference between Digital and Information Technology. A basic definition is: digital describes the content distributed through technological channels while InfoTech is the hardware that facilitates the distribution.
The technology sector consists of companies involved in information technology research and development, computers, hardware, and software. It revolves around the manufacturing of electronics, creation of software, computers, and other products and services related to information technology.
Digital technology in the context of jobs refers to the use of electronic tools, devices, systems, and resources that organizations utilize for various purposes. These technologies play a crucial role in processing or storing data, enhancing employee productivity, and improving efficiency.
ICTT also writes that; “Canada doesn’t really have a system for figuring out where digital technology jobs end and regular jobs begin or explore how a national standard of definition for digital skills and careers will be the gateway for policymakers and employers to fill any gaps.”
In the UK, the Northern Council for Further Education, NCFE is an example of Essential Digital Skills training and qualifications (EDSQ) that are; “funded qualifications mapped to national standards for essential digital literacy.” NCFE advertises that they “offer a vast range of digital units and qualifications to help adults progress in their careers and meet the need for a highly skilled digital workforce.”
Job growth in the Technology sector and E-commerce
“Technology is a growing sector in Canada driving employment and innovation. With approximately 37,000 companies and $160 billion CAD in revenue, the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) terms the IT industry as the engine of growth and people often refer to Toronto, one of the IT hubs of Canada, as the Silicon Valley of the North”.
In their “Digital talent Outlook 2025” the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) advise; “By 2025, ICTC forecasts employment in the Canadian digital economy to reach 2.26 million, triggering a demand for an additional 250,000 jobs”.
Digital Economy
The digital economy is the worldwide network of economic activities, commercial transactions and professional interactions that are enabled by information and communication technologies (ICT)
The Digital Economy consists of all the transactions carried out over digital infrastructure or using digital technologies, including e-commerce. In fact, anything with an “e-” in front of it is part of the digital economy. It’s not just Facebook and Amazon, but even traditional companies that are part of the digital economy. The represents the shift in business to an increasingly digital form of operations.
Online e-commerce spending in Canada grew by 72.7% in 2020, totaling $28.6 billion (dollar figures are in USD). That growth exceeds what we saw in 2019, where e-commerce reached 16.6 billion dollars in spending and 3.6% of all retail revenues.
This growth in the e-commerce sector has created an increased demand and hiring for customer service representatives, warehouse and inventory managers, e-commerce managers & analysts, logistics specialists and others.
Digital skill demand
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the pace of digitalization in the workplace, resulting in a critical need for more workers with advanced digital skills.
“Many industrial sectors across Canada are experiencing huge disruption with the advent of new technologies and automation, and experiencing a shortage of skilled workers.”
“Disruption in labor markets is referring to new technologies, mainly automation, which might take the form of robots in manufacturing, artificial intelligence in the office, computerization,” explains Pissarides. “Digital technologies are disrupting labor markets and the way they work because they require different skills.”
Digital skills
Tenzin Adams of High Speed Training writes the following on digital skills; “Whilst they range from entry-level tasks to advanced abilities, all digital skills are highly transferable and are now considered to be a critical component for employability. As the use of digital technology and automation is transforming the jobs market, transferable skills, particularly those in the digital sphere, are becoming more and more sought after.”
The digital skills you need will depend on the type of career you’re pursuing, however there are essential skills that are increasingly required in most jobs. These are skills that everyone should aim to develop.
Essential Digital skills
communicating
handling information and content
transacting
problem solving
being safe and legal online
For the more technically inclined, 10 of the top Advanced Digital Skills are listed below:
Blockchain: Understanding decentralized digital ledgers and their applications.
AI and Machine Learning: Grasping artificial intelligence concepts and machine learning algorithms.
Big Data Analysis: Proficiency in analyzing large data sets to extract meaningful insights.
Cybersecurity: Protecting digital systems and data from threats.
Cloud Computing: Utilizing cloud services for storage, computation, and collaboration.
User Experience (UX): Enhancing user satisfaction by designing intuitive interfaces.
Marketing and SEO: Navigating digital marketing strategies and search engine optimization.
Business Intelligence: Leveraging data-driven insights for informed decision-making.
Office Automation: Streamlining tasks using tools like spreadsheets, macros, and workflows.
Virtual and Augmented Reality: Understanding immersive technologies for various applications.
These advanced digital skills not only boost individual productivity but also contribute to a company’s competitive edge.
As technology evolves, fostering a digital mindset becomes crucial—enabling professionals to embrace digital transformation, innovate, and stay efficient.
Those with advanced digital skills can end up in current jobs and future opportunities being created.
“Best IT and tech jobs in Canada for 2023 and beyond.”
developer/programmer
Business System analyst administrator
data analyst /scientist
quality assurance/ analyst
security analyst/architect
cloud architect
IT project manager
network engineer
Essential tech skills yes, but not all of us have the aptitude or interest to obtain a computer science diploma or degree. Fortunately, countries like Canada offer Essential Digital Literacy programs as shown below.
For marginalized Canadians: “The Digital Literacy Exchange Program (DLEP) will invest $17.6 million to support initiatives aimed at teaching digital literacy skills to Canadians who face barriers to participating in the digital economy. The program aims to equip Canadians with the necessary skills to use computers, mobile devices, and the Internet safely, securely, and effectively. Project funding for the second phase will be available from 2022–23 to 2024–25.
Emotional/social soft skills plus hard skills or digital literacy will be highly transferable to different sectors of the current and future labor market. Or to reframe, you would be in demand in the job market and could work as a freelancer if that is your goal!
There are many different jobs, like working as a pilot for the Canadian Snowbirds, shown here. Each occupation/job will require varying degrees of education, skills or experience. This post provides an overview of the labor and skill shortages in Canada..
In 2022, Canada had unfilled job vacancies occurring across the board which may continue into 2023 and beyond. The aging and mass retiring Boomer generation is thought to underlie this labor crunch. It could prove to be an opportune time for older workers choosing to work past 65. For different motivations, opportunities also exist for Generations X, Y and Z people in this regard.
Labor or Skills shortage or Mismatch?
“When an employer is looking to fill a vacant job, what they are really looking for is a set of skills to complete a series of tasks. So, job vacancies can be thought of as skill-set vacancies, or as unfilled skills demand.
“These three concepts are often used interchangeably, creating confusion and uncertainty, potentially leading to inappropriate or ineffective solutions. As such, the following definitions are recommended:
Labour shortages refer to a lack of candidates for a specific job in a specific labour market.
Skills shortages refer to a lack of candidates with the skills required by particular employers.
Skills mismatches refer to situations in which an employee’s current skills are not well suited to their current job.”
Now that your well versed in skill jargon, time to move onto what shape the Canadian labor market is in.
The infographic below, for 2021 breaks down the labor force by broad occupational categories and the percent employment in each, as reported in the last Statistics Canada,Census 2021.
Digging deeper into job growth rates and job vacancies.
In September 2022, Statistics Canada in their Job vacancies, second quarter 2022 report advises; “Employers across all sectors in Canada were actively seeking to fill nearly one million (997,000) vacant positions in the second quarter, the highest quarterly number on record”.
From 2016 to 2021, Canadian health care employees increased by 204,000, with a total work force of 1.5 million. The demands of the pandemic, record retirements and an aging population were a large part of this %16.8 increase over 5 years, according to Canada’s 2021 census.
On top of the %16.8 increase , “there were 136,100 job vacancies in the health care and social assistance sector from the April to June 2022 quarter, up %28 or (+30,500) over last years quarter, with adjustments.”
The growth in the health-care sector was exceeded by the increase of workers in the professional, scientific and technical services industries, which grew by %17.3 or 219,000 workers over the same 5-year period. Workers in these sectors include software and web developers, auditors, accountants, data scientists and cyber security specialists.
Of Canada’s 1.5 million health-care workers,%80 are female while workers in the professional, scientific and technical industries are 57% male in this category.
What steps are being taken to address the labor,skill shortage?
Immigration Initiatives
Immigration has and continues to play a large role in meeting labour market demands across Canada, not always making everybody happy though!.
With Boomers retiring and Generation Z and Millennials leaving the service sector in droves, employers in Canada increasingly need to rely on immigration to recruit workers to fill jobs.
In November 2022 the Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, the Honorable Sean Fraser announced a new National Occupational Classification code (NOC) 2021 that creates 16 new occupations to help address acute labour shortages. Those applicants who are admitted under this Express entry program will be eligible for employment and eventual permanent residence. These occupations are:
payroll administrators
dental assistants and dental laboratory assistants
nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates
pharmacy technical assistants and pharmacy assistants
elementary and secondary school teacher assistants
sheriffs and bailiffs
correctional service officers
by-law enforcement and other regulatory officers
estheticians, electrologists and related occupations
residential and commercial installers and servicers
pest controllers and fumigators
other repairers and servicers
transport truck drivers
bus drivers, subway operators and other transit operators
heavy equipment operators
aircraft assemblers and aircraft assembly inspectors
“The targets for this program would see; “an increase in the number of immigrants entering include an increase in the number of immigrants entering Canada next year (2023) to 465,000, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025”. This is potentially 1.5 million permanent residents.
The Canadian labor market is in a state of flux, whether it is unfilled job vacancies, skill gaps, record retirement stats, an aging workforce, ambitious immigration programs to ease the labor shortage and Canada’s low fertility rate, skill training initiatives and the digital transformation taking shape!
Exciting times with all the changes and opportunities ahead!
With all the information out there about the mind heart and body, I am writing this post to help clarify their relationship to each other.
Please read through the list that follows. It supports how incredible the mind, heart and body are..
Mind, Heart, Body factoids
The “brain which is our “three-pound universe” contains 100 billion neurons, 50 trillion synapses and signals travel at 300 mph speed!.
The mind is home to approximately 6200 thoughts per day
We take 25000 breaths per day plus or minus.
Our hearts beat 100,000 times per 24-hour period and about 35 million times in a year. During an average lifetime, the human heart will beat more than 5 billion times!
Your heart generates the most powerful energetic field in your body.
The electromagnetic field your heart generates is 5,000 times stronger than the field generated by your brain.
Pretty amazing spec’s , people may appear like the silent type, but inside there is a lot going on.
Mind and Brain background information.
The mind is the seat of consciousness, the essence of your being. Without a mind, you cannot be considered meaningfully alive.
There are those who still believe consciousness is like an unexplainable. ghost in the machinery of our brain.
Yet the mind is not made up of any cells and is hypothetical, according to the chart below. You also cannot touch the mind!
Does a thought exist? A thought exists as electrical and chemical activity in the brain which can be measured both with an EEG and CAT scanner. So yes, thoughts do exist as organized electrical activity in the brain.
This does not really explain how electrochemical activity is translated into what we perceive as a thought or part of our consciousness.
Brain is the central organ of the human nervous system
Mind is a faculty that manifests itself in mental phenomena such as perception, thinking, sensation, reasoning, memory, etc.
It is made up of blood vessels and nerve cells.
It is not made up of any cells and is hypothetical.
It has a definite shape and structure.
It does not.
Brain coordinates, movements, feelings, and different functions of the body.
It refers to a person’s conscience, understanding and thought process.
You can touch the brain.
You cannot touch the mind.
However, “neuroscientists sometimes say that we have one brain, but two minds: a mind that makes conscious choices, based on self-reflection and awareness; and a mind that makes automatic responses based on instinct and habit.”
“We are aware of a tiny fraction of the thinking that goes on in our minds, and we can control only a tiny part of our conscious thoughts. The vast majority of our thinking efforts goes on subconsciously. Only one or two of these thoughts are likely to breach into consciousness at a time.”
The mind is much more powerful than most people might imagine. Within our minds we have the ability to change our perception of reality as well as to gain a much deeper understanding of what underlies our thoughts and actions.
The way your heart beats affect all other processes in your body. Your heart rate is intimately tied to your bodily functions and mental, emotional states.
Heart rate variability (or “HRV”) is the variation in time intervals between consecutive heart beats averaged over time. Your heart rate speeds up during inhalation and slows down during exhalation. Variability in your heart rate is good and desirable.
Experiencing emotional or physical stress causes an increase in heart rate, elevation of blood pressure, and release of stress hormones. All these result in a greater workload for the heart, which can be dangerous.
Concsious breathing exercises are an essential skill to help slow down our heart rate and reduce the stress on our heart from poor breathing techniques.
“Hyperventilation and other incorrect breathing patterns are often the norms for stressful people. They breathe too quickly, too slowly, too shallowly, or hold their breath frequently. These unconscious breathing patterns can lead to many complaints, both physical ,mental and emotional.
“Cardiac coherent breathing is a form of coherent breathing that focuses on matching your breath to your heart rate. Over time this can help with increased cognitive and emotional functioning.
Some cardiovascular benefits of coherent breathing include:
I also mention the gut or enteric system briefly to point out its relationship to our mind, heart and body health. It will be the subject of another post.
The gut or enteric system
Useful information next paragraph for learming where certain emotions and feelings are experienced in the body.
“Researchers have discovered that the gut and brain are closely connected; and that this relationship serves an important function not only in managing emotions and stress but also aiding digestion. Emotions are felt in the gut. Feelings such sadness, anger, nervousness, fear, and joy can be felt in the gut. The term “feeling sick to the stomach” describes a situation which involves mental or emotional anguish which can produce stress in the mind and the body. We can also feel excitement in our gut which can be described as “butterflies” in our stomach.”
The brain and the gut are connected and constantly in communication. In fact, more neurons reside in the gut then in the entire spinal cord, according to research published in the book Neuroscience.
The neural signals for your heart rate, breathing, digestion, and other bodily functions are carried by the vagus nerve which runs throughout your upper body ending in your brain where they’re assigned meaning. The health and function of your vagus nerve is referred to as “vagal tone.” Low vagal tone is linked to numerous physical and mental conditions.
Coherent breathing, in part works by improving the functioning of this nerve.
“Vagus nerve: The vagus nerve is the biggest part of the autonomic nervous system, which controls many of the body’s functions, such as breath rate, digestion, and heart rate. It is also responsible for fight, flight or freeze responses. Coherent breathing can stimulate the vagus nerve, which moves the nervous system out of fight or flight and into a more calm state.”
There must be divine intelligence behind the creation of human beings!
Staying in the present moment is the ultimate (yet elusive) goal of any meditation practice. There are many types of meditation. This post will focus on a breath centered meditation. Learning to meditate is like learning any other skill, it requires practice to develop, with the benefits making it time well invested
Swami Vivekananda is considered as the introducer of meditation to the Western countries. He defined “meditation” as a state “when the mind has been trained to remain fixed on a certain internal or external location, there comes to it the power of flowing in an unbroken current, as it were, towards that point.
Mind versus Brain
The three definitions of mind and brain below come at it from a more comprehensive perspective than those found in ; “A Primer on the Mind, Heart and Body.”
Dr. Jennifer Weinberg, MD, MPH, MBE, a preventive, and lifestyle medicine physician, describes the brain as “the hardware” that allows us to experience the thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions that we collectively call the mind.”
Ray Oakley, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Psychiatry and Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University advises; “According to the mind–body or biopsychosocial paradigm, which supersedes the older biomedical model, there is no real division between mind and body because of networks of communication that exist between the brain and neurological, endocrine and immune systems..”
Quantum Consciousness
Dr. Dirk K.F. Meijer, a professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, hypothesizes that consciousness resides in a field surrounding the brain. This field is in another dimension. It shares information with the brain through quantum entanglement, among other methods. And it has certain similarities with a black hole.
In other words, the “mind” is a field that exists around the brain; it picks up information from outside the brain and communicates it to the brain in an extremely fast process. He described this field alternately as “a holographic structured field,” a “receptive mental workspace,” a “meta-cognitive domain,” and the “global memory space of the individual.”
In Dr. Dirk K.F. Meijer’s interesting quote above he writes; the mind “picks up information from outside the brain and communicates it to the brain in an extremely fast process. An idea of how fast this might be and the complexity of the brain is described next.
The Cleveland Clinic infographic above advises that signals in the brain travel at 300 miles per hour over 500 trillion synapses and 100 billion neurons!
What does Mindbody Connection mean?
Sandstone Care, a mental health provider states that;” The mind-body connection works by the feedback loop between your body and your mind.
Painted Brain, another mental health provider offers this excellent definition ;”One of these connections is the Mind-Body Connection, which is the link between our emotional and mental health (such as thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors) and our physical health. Our biology impacts our mood. How our body feels impacts our emotions.
An example of this mind-body connection is how your body responds to stress. Constant worry and stress over jobs, finances, or other problems can cause tense muscles, pain, headaches, and stomach problems. It may also lead to high blood pressure or other serious problems.”
Awareness and Mindfulness
Self-awareness or mindfulness mean being fully present and aware of where we are and what we are doing. It means not being overly reactive or overwhelmed by what is going on around us, but just being aware and reflective.
Mindbody connection and mindfulness are the same, moving the mind and body in the direction of increased harmony, balance or coherence.
We can talk about mindfulness at length about it, but to understand it we have to experience it directly, through a breathing meditation or other practice. This is because mindfulness points to something intuitive and pre-conceptual.
Meditation and Conscious breathing
Your mind is often underutilized because you aren’t focusing it on the right things. However, if you set a clearly defined goal, and point your mind there, your mind will help you travel where you want to go.
You are the one who should give instructions to your mind, not vice versa. If you do not learn how to use this amazing tool then it will use you for your whole life
Integrative psychiatrist James Lake, MD, of Stanford University, writes that “extensive research has confirmed the medical and mental benefits of meditation, mindfulness training, yoga, and other mindbody practices.
Conscious breathing also improves the quality and effectiveness of meditation by; assisting in changing the brain wave activity from the stressful beta wavelengths to more relaxing and healthier alpha and theta wavelengths.
There are many health benefits to intentional or conscious breathing.
When you meditate, you will have periods of time focusing on your breath as it comes in and out of your body. And other times, finding your focus being swept away by the automatic thinking mind, and then snap out of it and return to the breathing, again and again. Rinse and repeat.
I am including a short video on a breathing meditation. There are many online, you just need to find one that resonates with you.
To begin this post let’s back up a bit to; The Information Age, also known as the Digital Age, is a period in human history which begins in the mid-to-late 20th century ( 1950’s) and lasts to the present day, representing the current time period we are now in. A defining event during the early Information Age was the invention of the Internet by 1990, which opened the door for digital transformation.
What Metaverse?
The Imagination Age is the period beyond the Information Age where creativity and imagination become the primary creators of economic value. A key concept is that the rise of an immersive virtual reality-the metaverse or the cyberspace will raise the value of imagination work done by designers, artists, etc. over rational thinking as a foundation of culture and economics. Wow.
I like the sound of transitioning to the Imagination Age, valuing imagination over rationality as a “foundation of culture and economics.” We will see how this plays out in the not-too-distant future.
So, imagination and creativity are important for the Metaverse to operate, what more specifically is the Metaverse?
Metaverse is a word that is a big part of the tech buzz these days, pivoting on the announcement in 2021 by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, introducing his companies new name Meta, and mission “which brings together our apps and technologies under one new company brand. Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.”
The required technologies are not advanced enough to make a full version of the metaverse, but Meta Platforms predicts this achievement within 5 to 15 years . A completed metaverse could therefore arrive between 2025 and 2035.
Because it is still being developed there is no commonly accepted definition. Several suggested definitions of what the Metaverse is follow.
One could define the “Metaverse” as a digital universe full of many online worlds, which will be ideal for working, studying, having fun, playing, doing business and interacting with others, through 3D avatars using virtual and augmented reality.
The metaverse isn’t about escaping reality, says futurist Cathy Hackl. Instead, it’s about “embracing and augmenting it with virtual content and experiences that can make things more fulfilling and make us feel more connected to our loved ones, more productive at work, and happier.”
Important pre-cursors to the Metaverse being born include the technologies of; Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud Computing with 5G / 6G the unsung hero.
“In less than two years Apple vastly improved its chips with the M2. The new in-house offering has 50% more bandwidth and a 40% faster neural engine compared to the M1, released in 2020. Today, networks powered by 5G are 25 times faster than those with 4G LTE. Sophia the robot has gone from demo to international film star in a matter of years, and the metaverse is in its infancy.
Massive data management in real time and online; quantum computing are also essential for the operation of the Metaverse.
Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technology
Metaverse uses artificial intelligence and blockchain technology to create a digital virtual world where you can safely and freely engage in social and economic activities that transcend the limits of the real world, and the application of these latest technologies will be accelerated. Artificial intelligence and blockchain technology are expected to play an essential role in the ever-expanding world of the Metaverse.
Cryptocurrency is still recovering major corrections and time will tell when the market recovers,
To keep this post brief, I will wrap up this exciting topic and leave off with a video starring Mr. Zuckerberg, who has a lot invested in successfully completing a version of the Metaverse!
