Alright,
so the tech sector is continuing to evolve and we're
not just talking about new products or faster wifi,
more americans are transitioning from blue collar jobs
to what's being dubbed white
collar,
sorry, new collar,
mostly technical roles that require a specialized skill set
and don't necessarily require a four year college degree.
This shift taking place as the pandemic has increased
consumer demand in usage within the tech industry,
with more people working remotely or needing devices to connect to loved ones.
So joining me now is Matt CUlkin's founder and Ceo of a
company providing low code automation platforms
in an effort to accelerate business.
So, matt, when you think of big tech companies like Apple or google,
You normally think of employees with four year degrees from top schools.
But what are we seeing now?
Yeah, you know, this is a great opportunity,
maybe a once in a generation opportunity for
people to change tracks in their career.
This new collar movement is about switching the track
you're on and getting onto a higher value track,
making the most of your skills, maybe even your out of date skills.
And I don't know if you get a job at Apple necessarily, but let me tell you, there's,
there's a need for technological experts across our economy in the next few years,
we're going to be a million technologists short,
literally a million in the United States alone,
there's a tremendous amount of demand right
now and technology has made it easier for
for people to switch their skills and start in a new track and become a developer
and so that's what the new collar is about. It's about leveraging your talents,
taking on a new track and maybe making the most
of the opportunities around you to learn a new skill.
Yeah, I understand that new collar might be the buzzword here,
but the practices are fairly old and they take a lot of time
coding, doing those kind of
jobs, take a lot of time, a lot of practice and a lot of experience.
So how are these folks
making this transition and why is it becoming so popular?
Knowing that it's so hard to do?
Well in a way, ken we're already developers, right?
We all are if we give instructions to each other, we already think like developers,
we just don't necessarily know how to program
a computer because that's a special language.
Well technology is making it a lot easier now
to program and to create your own applications.
And so we want to make it so easy that if you know how to instruct a person or a team,
you also could instruct the computer.
We're gonna make it so easy. It's like drawing a flow chart.
Alright, technology is coming to you. You don't need to go all the way to to it.
It's gonna come to you,
we're gonna make it easier for people to
give instructions to machines and collaborate with.
Now, I understand that your company offers something that's called low coding,
which I want to get into in a second.
You know, there's, I did some coding
in my past at the front end development wasn't full stack or anything,
had a couple of things in there.
It was tough. So what is low coding?
Because that sounds not as tough, but equally as important. So tell me about it.
It's not as tough, but you can do powerful things in it.
It means coding without, without the keyboard.
It's, it's coding with the mouse essentially.
You're drawing a flow chart,
specifying what things should happen and in what order
and and that flow chart becomes your application.
It's a lot easier than writing a traditional language. It's empowering. It's fast.
It will allow people to make a difference and add value
even if they haven't trained for years to be a developer.
And especially imagine if they're,
if they've got latent technological skills like maybe out of date skills,
they work day and for the government, for the military,
they're moving careers and yet they know how technology works.
They're just not up to date on the latest languages.
This could be their ticket.
I think right now you've got a remarkable confluence of two events.
One is the pandemic and the great resignation and the shortage of labor
and the need for developers that's going to force a lot of opportunities
across the economy that people could take advantage of it.
They want to step up and then at the same time we've got this new
technology called low code that makes it easier than ever to make that step and
to be a developer and so we've got an opportunity and an opportunity to put
them together and this is gonna be the break for a lot of people,
I can't believe, I don't have to open text Wrangler anymore.
That's what I was using back in the day.
Now, let me ask you when I know you know what that is.
So I want to ask you now, taking the leap from a employee standpoint is one thing.
But what about managers when they see a
resume with the experienced folks who have all
the credentials from these schools that are good
for coding and then these other folks,
how do managers take that leap to take the chance on the new, on the newbies.
See it from the manager's perspective though, that chair is not full,
it's empty and and they don't know how long it's gonna take to
find someone to take this role and the prices have gone up,
the wages are high, the volatility is high.
They don't know if they can keep somebody,
I think a manager's gotta take a second look
at somebody who isn't quite as qualified as a mainline resume,
but who has the ability, the talent,
the dedication and has picked up a totally modern coding skill,
like low code in the recent past,
it's easy to get that skill and as soon as you do get it,
you're qualified for some of these these these roles.
I think it's important to consider it from the manager's perspective.
They need help across the economy. They need help.
There are million developers short or they will be
soon and it's hard to find resources these days.
So actually applicants are getting a second look.
They're getting a very sympathetic look for managers right now.
So which roles are in desperate need for talent
right now when it comes to the tech sector?
Well, I'm talking about all kinds of development here and it's not, as you say,
it's not full stack necessarily, but right, we need more processes in our economy,
we are more reliant on software than we've ever been before.
And by software, I mean, a sequence of actions, right?
It doesn't have to be the most complex thing,
but we've got to run the same sequence a million
times in every medium to large organization in this economy.
And so people who can set up that sequence and
then check it when it's going wrong and tune it.
Right? That's may seem pretty straightforward, but we're missing that.
And and we're missing it in in, you know, a million people short,
just in this country.
So there there's there's terrific opportunity
to be a developer, I would say, a citizen developer.
Some people would call it someone with
enough technical wherewithal to automate something,
What would you say to the person who thinks that
perhaps they don't fit the description of a developer,
You know, they're not wearing the glasses, the long hair in the,
in the laptop in there and perhaps
they're a 45 year old person or a 65 year old person or even an 18 year
old person who decided they wanted to change or they didn't want to go to that school.
How would you get through them? That this is for you? And this can be,
yeah, this is for you. It's the lesson of low code.
We're all developers,
we all can be if we choose, development has gotten a lot easier and
the world wants more developers and so this is
a big opportunity for people to switch that track
and and show that that with, with their skills and a little bit of training,
they could be an effective, modern and well paid
developer. That's what the new collar movement is about.
Alright, I love to see it matt Calkins, founder and Ceo of Abby and matt,
always a pleasure.
I hope to see you again. Thank you so much for being on the show.
See you can code, you don't need fancy stuff or text Wrangler