When people think about “jobs of the future,” many point to the areas of health care, education and so-called “green” technology. Seth Godin, author of a dozen bestsellers on business and marketing, says regardless of one’s direction, the rules have definitely changed. “The fact is great jobs, great middle class jobs where you do what someone else tell you to do all day, are gone forever,” says Godin.

Godin believes that people must create the opportunities for their own “best job in the future.”

“It doesn’t really matter where you do that job, it’s how you do the job,” he says. “If you’re able to do a job where you are solving these interesting problems and creating value, then there’s an unlimited number of people who want to hire you. The problem is, people have been brainwashed into thinking that’s not the kind of job you’re supposed to get. The kind of job [they’re] supposed to get has a resume, listing how compliant they are, and they mail it into the big company, where it goes in the big stack. That’s the mistake.”

Godin believes future success will depend on not just a work ethic, but personal creativity. For example, many say how the future will see a greater need for nurses, but Godin says the individual nurse needs to seen as indispensable.

“If you are a nurse on the ward who’s just like every other nurse, working your shift and doing what you’re told, the boss’s goal is to replace you with someone cheaper. The reason why they’re always talking about a ’shortage of nurses’ is that they want there to be more nurses so they can pay them less,” says Godin. “But think about the other kind of nurse, the nurse that someone can’t live without, the nurse that makes everything work. The nurse that if they weren’t there, people would miss him or miss her. That sort of nurse never has to worry about job security. They’re the last ones to go.”

As for the so-called “green economy,” which touts the use of slightly more efficient technology and products that are friendlier to the environment, Godin once again says the field is only beneficial when people make their own opportunities.

“‘Green’ is one of the most overused terms of our day. It doesn’t mean anything, right? You can just slap the word ‘green’ on anything you want and watch your sales grow. It’s like ‘organic,’” says Godin. “What I think the intent is, is if you have a job where you’re able to bring something new to the technology of solar [energy], or you’re bringing something new to the way a homeowner thinks about replacing his windows, then there’s plenty of opportunity for you.”

Above all, Godin says there is little room for hesitation from job seekers. “Quit whining, quit sitting at home in your living room watching ‘Wheel Of Fortune.’ Go make something happen. No one can stop you,” he says. To Godin, people can only find their own perfect future job when they create it.

The US Census Bureau just released the latest American Community Survey data, providing a statistical portrait of the characteristics of the nation’s population in 2008. According to the new snapshot, one-in-four people in Texas (24.1 percent) lacked health insurance in 2008, the highest rate in the nation. At the other end of the spectrum, fewer than one-in-20 Massachusetts residents (4.1 percent) lacked coverage. Read the list…

A new website wants to help you remember something that’s easy to forget: all those details to support your potential warranty repair claims. Launched by a man who had to pay to repair his TV because he lost his warranty documentation, the site was initially created for a small circle of his family and friends. But now anyone can “Buy It, Save It, and Forget It.” Read more…

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