ne of America's most important entrepreneurs recently gave a remarkable speech at a summit meeting of our nation's governors. Bill Gates minced no words. "American high schools are obsolete," he told the governors. "By obsolete, I don't just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed and underfunded. ... By obsolete, I mean that our high schools - even when they are working exactly as designed - cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.

"Training the work force of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. ... Our high schools were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting - even ruining - the lives of millions of Americans every year."

Let me translate Mr. Gates's words: "If we don't fix American education, I will not be able to hire your kids." I consider that, well, kind of important. Alas, the media squeezed a few mentions of it between breaks in the Michael Jackson trial. But neither Tom DeLay nor Bill Frist called a late-night session of Congress - or even a daytime one - to discuss what Mr. Gates was saying. They were too busy pandering to those Americans who don't even believe in evolution.

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I happened to catch Friedman on a Charlie Rose Show early in April talking about the new book he wrote. I think it's a good book to recommend to people who may not have done much reading about globalization. I read one of his earlier books, The LEXUS & THE OLIVE TREE a few years ago and I saw his latest book's roots.

However, that's not what I'm writing about at this time.

Gates hit the nail on the head regarding education. I've often spoken about this in my diatribes while teaching class at Leadership University. In fact I remember saying something about it in the past week. Education is built on an old model--the factory model, where citizenization is key and the preparation for the machine world is paramount. That world is no longer the world we are going to be working in...and it's a LOT closer than we think.

A person writing about Hyper-human skill development who I quoted in a prior post indicates that within 100 years, we'll have automated all non hyper-human skills. I think that will be shorter by a factor of 10. The reason that it will take place is that we will be able to create evolutionary programming for software within 10 years. After reading Eric Baum's Book, What Is Thought, from cover to cover...I realize that we're going to discard blank slate learning modalities faster than ever and build evolutionary computation to mimic evolution's program and it will be stable enough to handle normal adult functions, if even at a low level, a level sufficient enough to auto all programming for rote and routine non hyper-human functioning.

When this happens, the bottom falls out.

I figure that we have about 10 years to evolve our societies enough to provide for the people who will be outsourced by machines. Currently, they are being outsourced across the globe by developing societies, which is NOT a bad thing, as most people think. It is essentially an issue for each individual whose job is being replaced, but fortunately that is being done in a retail, rather than wholesale manner, as will take place as soon as the machine world becomes organic!

When the wholesale replacement of even those $7 an hour jobs people complain about dissappear, what then? Have you looked at your local McDonald's lately? Even here in little ole Nebraska, the drink machine is an automated system filling in response to cash register orders!

We are gradually converting all rote processes to replace human intervention wherever we can.

The funny thing about this, is that it makes sense. It can produce more consistency and free humans to do more hyper-human skills, like paying attention to the customer or serving the client. Clearly, this is a good thing...just like it was a good thing to free mankind from digging ditches by hand, or packaging fertilizer.

The degrees of freedom that the new comporganic world will open for humans to pursue even more effective means of being human will be far beyond our imagination. YET, the transition will not be easy unless we begin to resolve the education demands of the next society, and it won't be reading, writing and arithmetic!

Gates, for whatever reason has it right when it comes to revamping education. I haven't seen his plan, but I'm on the lookout for it, if you have access to it, send me the link. My plan for education means that we begin adding immediately more capability around self-training, self-awareness, self-knowledge. We already have instrumentation that can provide insights beginning at around 12 year's old. In my view, that is a transition step we need to make now, adding another hour or two to the classroom day, which kids now waste in front of commercial TV.

We need children to start getting interested in themselves and others at a younger age. We need creative and innovative programming that begin to help young people realize what it will be like to live in a society where they won't find a job if they don't understand themselves. This is not an easy task, as our entire social framework is set upon blank slate capitalism and it's the wrong kind of stuff for the next society. Sure, working hard, being enterprising, success is important, but ONLY a part of the story. We need to move out of blank slate and into the middle between nature and nurture and begin providing people the knowledge of self that comes from assessment, reflection and dialogue. At this time, we just don't have the people to do this, nor do the training programs exist in the mainstream.

I know the work we are doing in programs like our COACH2 System and Mindful Leadership are programs that accomplish these means for adults, but I've not had the opportunity to really experiment with younger people, although we are pointed in that direction as I speak. It's not enough for me to pontificate that we need different education, methods and training, I have to become part of the solution and I realize this and am reaching out to you...if you believe in moving in this direction, recruit people to support our vision of making each day count towards making a difference, creating the innovation necessary to create a safety net for those who can't.

I'll close with this hypothesis.

As the window for transition narrows from creative to destructive over the next 10 years...we have to build into our systems the netting required to catch those people who fall off the bar! If we don't, they'll ultimately join the impoverished and the movements that desolation, isolation and the lost of hope shelter. While it may not seem like a big deal now, most of business--the ultimate authority on social evolution--will make the changes because business can't exist if it doesn't.

Therefore we'll see this change and evolution, maybe not exactly in the time I predict it, but it is coming and the sooner the better in terms of beginning to make the transition for our society the better.

People talk to me about how bad off we are with outsourcing, off-shoring and the level playing field tilting away from us...but I say to you and them, we are the luckiest people in the world, if but we can only see the opportunity this brings us.

Anyone, who knows they have to change, that change and evolution are inevitable will always be glad when they were warned ahead of time, given the time for preparation, reflection and innovation--rather than thrown in the destructive fire.

The evolution began years ago, it will continue, the issue is not whether it's going to happen, but will we make the most of the time for transition?

Won't you join us in being a part of the solution, rather than complaining about the problems?

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Thank you for considering our offer! I look forward to serving you professionally. Sincerely, Mike R. Jay, Master Business Coach