While the Class of 2013 has been in school, and since the introduction of the iPhone, more than 500,000 apps-related jobs have been created. Smartphones have driven a culture of “Innovation Ready” individuals who have rapidly seized the opportunity that these devices have presented. The Class of 2013 must be “innovation ready” to survive and thrive in an economy where lightning-speed change is a matter of course. You are the first to go through college relying on phone apps to obtain class schedules, rent textbooks, join lectures, do research, and find wi-fi hotspots. In this, you have demonstrated your ability to adapt and learn how to use technology to get your work done.
You will also be challenged to adapt to a changing workplace — a dynamic and ever-evolving environment where the ability to think critically and move quickly is paramount. For you, who have been raised in a digital world, the workforce will seem normal, while for my generation, we have struggled to adapt, given that our pre-digital schooling consisted of a notepad, pencil and a typewriter.
Increasingly, today’s workplace is no longer a place. It requires a new point of view. There are fewer barriers of geography and language than there were in the past. In many companies, employees work from anyplace, anytime, from any device. Employees must embrace the fact that the project they finish today may have been initiated in Shanghai.
By the time you reach your 30th birthdays, more than 50 billion things will be connected to the Internet. Machine-to-machine interactions — literally quadrillions of them a day — will connect data and take actions on our behalf every second. That’s why what we call the “Internet of Everything” requires a new mindset. When I left college, skillsets were based on the ability to retain information and utilize it when necessary. But this new, “21st Century Mind” is built on harnessing the world’s information to drive actions and experiences. It is power now available to nearly everyone in the world. If used well, we can solve some of our most vexing problems. If used irresponsibly, it can raise issues of privacy and control.
Some graduates (and some in the media) today are debating whether a college degree is worth it. In this dynamic economy, I am here to tell you it is. I believe that the internet and education are the great equalizers in life. Just look at the facts: The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the unemployment rate for Americans 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree was approximately 3.8 percent. For those without a college degree — unemployment was 7.9 percent.
In speaking of new graduates, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently wrote that “given the pace of change today, even they will have to reinvent, re-engineer, and reimagine that job much more often than their parents if they want to advance in it.” He says these young people must be “innovation ready,” not just able to find a job, but invent one.
San Jose State University is part of this reinvention. This month, the university announced an expansion to its collaboration with edX, the not-for-profit online learning enterprise founded by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The result is that online courses will be made available to as many as eleven other California State University (CSU) campuses and thousands more students across California.
CSU students will have access to the rigorous materials — readings, video and interactive exercises — wherever they study, and then meet in class for discussions and group work facilitated by local professors. The signs of success from this program are clear. In one engineering class, the pass rate was 91 percent, compared to the pass rates in similar, conventional classes with rates as low as 55 percent.
Everyday across the world we are seeing this type of innovative teaching and learning, setting the stage for a different kind of lifelong training.
That’s what it takes in today’s fast moving, data driven Internet of Everything world. All of us must be innovation-ready, and realize that career growth will go to those who continue to leverage the 21st Century Mind by adapting, discovering, and learning new skills. To all graduates, I say congratulations and offer these three words of advice: Never stop learning.
John Chambers is Chairman and CEO of Cisco. He will receive an honorary doctorate from San Jose State University on April 26. This was condensed from remarks he will give at the San Jose State University honors convocation April 26.
