In part 1 of the post, I’ve already covered some new breed of professionals who emerge due to the change of technology, business and economic today. In part 2 of the post, we will continue looking at the rest of the new professionals. If you read carefully, you may notice something interesting and common among these groups of professionals. There are 3 indispensable items that they cannot go without – premium coffee, smart phone and laptop with fast internet connection. They simply cannot function without all these items and inevitably they have almost become part of them and their identities.

Read on to find out who are these unique breed of professionals. 

5. Nanobots
One such group of professionals is called Nanobots and it stands for “Nearly Autonomous, Not in the Office, doing Business in their Own Time Staff”. They do not seem to be like the rest because they are considered to be more mature and highly talented than the others. They are also known to be self-motivated, self-starting, and positive high achievers. Their positions vary in the hierarchy of a particular organization: Senior Executives, Managers, IT professionals, and others.

While this is being done by a number of companies already before, the growing number of other businesses seem to be catching on. This new emergence of acceptance in the industry of this new phase of professionals is mainly due to the needs of certain businesses to increase the possibility of the company reaching its goals through these new types of professionals. Also, this reason can also lead to lessening overhead costs of the business, which would prove be very good for the company.

Nanobots earn their living by doing their work even if they are not present all the time at the office, and reaching the target or expectations of the senior management in the office when they show the results of their work. Work may involve solving problems or making negotiations. They spend more hours outside the office to work. Most of them are engaged in sales, consultancy services, maintenance, and others.

Nanobot also known as mobile professionals, their lives are dominated by cell phones, they roam the streets while doing business, and they enjoy remote access connected to their business network at the main office. They are the ones who typically work longer hours than the rest even though you may not find them at their desks. They keep the lines of communication open between them and their managers, and seamlessly maintain the status of a professional with a high achiever status. They also require the least amount of supervision in order to do the work right since they work outside the confines of the office environment.

Nanobots have to be highly trustworthy, self-reliant and result-oriented as they are often not within the visibility of their supervisors. They need to be consistent and show good results for their performance. 

6. Bedouins
The next group of professionals is known as Bedouins, they borrowed its name from nomadic Arab who roams freely in the desert. Unlike the Arabic, Bedouins roam from café to café freely with their laptop and mobile phone. They can work anywhere as long as there is Wifi connection and caffeine.

Bedouins do not confine themselves to home office or one working place so they do not face isolation problem as other home office based professionals. To them, the cafés have almost become their workplaces. They are not bothered with loud music or noisy environment in the cafes instead they feel such buzz will give them energy, inspiration and creativity.

They can easily connect with other Bedouins in the cafes and most could tap into each other expertise for their own projects. Some have even form excellent partnership to bring extra values to their customers. The typical Bedouins could be programmers, software developers, designers or online marketers.

While Bedouins could enjoy lively ambience and interactions with one another but it is also to their disadvantages as there might be too much distractions in order to be productive in such environments.

7. Knowledge Entrepreneurs
The last group is knowledge entrepreneurs or commonly known as knowledge workers by management guru – Peter Drucker. As the name suggests, knowledge entrepreneurs are highly educated and work primarily with information. They develop and use knowledge in the workplace to create new products or services.

Knowledge entrepreneurs are highly demanded in this information age; their specialized intellectual assets are highly valued in the corporate world as more knowledge works arise. They work with complex ideas and concepts and use new found information to solve complicated problems and issues.

Some good examples of knowledge entrepreneurs include: researchers, scientists, technical writers, programmers, academic professionals, systems analysts, lawyers and more.

Unlike the rest of the new breed professionals, knowledge entrepreneurs have to invest a lot of times on formal education and continual training. They need to constantly keep up to date with the latest technology and knowledge so as to continue excel in their jobs. They may not enjoy the freedom and flexibility in their works like other new breed of professionals but their rewards derive from great satisfaction of creating new things and solving problems for human lives.

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Do you see yourself as one of these new breed of professionals? Some of you may see yourself belong to different groups at the same time. How do you feel being part of them? Do you think they will evolve into another new breed of professionals in future? Please leave your thoughts and comments below.

The technological advances, globalization, increased education and change of economy have not only caused massive change to the workforce but also to the way we work today. Fierce competitions have forced many businesses to go for 24×7 operations. To reduce operation costs, some businesses have to outsource their non-core businesses to specialist providers while some choose to bring in specialists only on per project basis to reduce the need for permanent and full-time staff.

The need for efficiency, speed, mobility, flexibility and specialized skills has caused an emerging breed of new and extraordinary professionals to meet the demand. These groups of professionals are highly knowledgeable, creative, innovative and tech savvy. They are independent, flexible in their working time and place and adaptable to the constant changing business environment.

In the first part of the post, we will look at some of the new breeds of professionals who emerge to satisfy the technology driven and ever-changing business environment.

1. Flexi-Professionals
The first group is called the Flexi-professionals. They are very particular about flexibility in their work schedule and workplace because of their personal or family commitment. They are welcomed by businesses that only want occasional but specialized help in their businesses but could not afford full-time staff.

Flexi-professionals are excellent resources when businesses are tight in manpower. For example, they are greatly demanded during peak periods like festive seasons, new product launch or implementation of new projects.

They can be engaged on per project or contract basis. It is common for professionals like freelancers, contractors, consultants and advisors to fall under this category.

They are highly independent, specialized and adaptable as they need to work in different work environments and cultures.

Flexi-professionals enjoy the flexibility of time and work but unfortunately, they are normally not entitled to the same benefits as full-time staff such as insurance and health benefits.

2. Webpreneurs
The second group is known as Webpreneurs, they are highly tech-savvy entrepreneurs who operate web based enterprise or business online. More and more people are now turning to become webpreneur because of the ease of setting business online; another reason is due to the negative impact of the economic downturn. People are taking proactive approach to create jobs for themselves than waiting for jobs.

Thanks to information technologies, there are now plenty of opportunities offered online. Webpreneurs found that the job opportunities are no longer limited to their own countries but can be found globally. For example, selling affiliate products, setting ecommerce store, becoming a virtual assistants, selling unused product at eBay and etc. There are many untapped niches and opportunities online if one know the ways to do it.

Webpreneurs enjoy the flexibility to work where and when they wish as long as there is internet connection. Some Webpreneurs may have a team of people working with them but may not have met all their colleagues face-to-face as they are virtual team. Their teammates may come from different countries and time zone but have no problem working together remotely and virtually.

This is the beauty of being a webpreneur as it crosses the boundaries of space, time and culture.

3. Home Entrepreneur
The third group is known as home entrepreneurs. There are many factors that caused the emergence of home entrepreneurs. The main driver is the technological advancement which makes starting a business a breeze nowadays. Another main contributing factor is the inability to find similar job after laid off. So instead of joining the mad competition of job hunting, most prefer to take control under their own hands by creating jobs for themselves. They either sell their services back to their previous employers or to their competitors.

Unlike the other two professionals, home entrepreneurs have no bosses to report to so they have to very self discipline and independent. They need to work smarter than the rest as their success depend on how well they could work. They are thrived in multi-tasking and time management as time is money to them. They are also high energy, persistent and tech savvy.

Successful home entrepreneur know how to plan their time well, their shared goal is to have a good work-life balance and enjoy the flexibility without compromising on work quality and family concerns. However, there are some prefer to integrate work into their life as they enjoy what they are doing every day.

Working as a home entrepreneur can be quite lonely at time but smart home entrepreneurs should know how to leverage technology to network with their community online.

4. Lifestyle Entrepreneur
The next group is called lifestyle entrepreneurs; they are professionals who seek to make a living around their lifestyles. Unlike the rest, they do not work mainly for money; their work mission is either for personal or social cause. In short, they are motivated by lifestyle not money.

They prefer to work when and where they want or even who they want. Their main goal is to gain independence and personal freedom. Compare with other new breed of professionals, lifestyle entrepreneurs are not so ambitious to build a business empire for their businesses. However, there are still some lifestyle entrepreneurs who have found success in their businesses but their number one priority is still their personal life.

Not all economies favor lifestyle entrepreneurs because they are considered as laid-back business owners who are not aggressive enough for economic growth. Most of them just earned enough to survive and they are just happy with them. If a country is looking for exponential growth, this may not a good news to its economy.

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The above are some of the new breed of professionals who are found in the new economy, be sure to keep an eye on next week’s post where there are more new emerging professionals covered. If you have come across any new and interesting breed of professionals, please share it with us at the comments below.

Do Want to Own a Prestige Office at a Prime Location?

Now, here is the chance! You stand to win a 760 sq ft shop space at a great business location with SGD20,000 renovation fund and it is pre-paid for first 6 months.

What’s more you will get free Executive Education Programme from famous world business school – INSEAD and a special entrepreneurial coaching from Standard Chartered Bank. See Ad below.

All you have to do is to submit your great Business Idea in a 60-sec video with 50 words or less summary to UltimateStartupSpace.com.sg before 12 February 2010. The result for the top ten ideas will be announced in 18 February 2010 and the ultimate winner will be selected on 11 March 2010. For more information, please visit http://www.ultimatestartupspace.com.sg/ for details. 

I believe this is a dream to every business owners and entrepreneurs. It sounds too good to be true and glad that these organizations are doing their part to help startup businesses. The contest came just in time when the National University of Singapore (NUS) Entrepreneurship Centre study released last month showed that 18 per cent of tertiary students polled wanted to become entrepreneurs after graduation. According to the AsiaOne report, the director of the NUS centre, Professor Wong Poh Kam said that the increased awareness of entrepreneurship due to initiatives by the Government and schools was a major factor propelling youths towards wanting to run their own businesses and he also added the following comment.

“’The younger generation will have different ideas from the previous generation. In the past, people wanted only a job after graduation, but now perhaps they think differently.’”

It’s exciting to learn that Singapore has become a nation of budding student entrepreneurs and we can be expected to see more innovating and enterprising new businesses in the near future. So if you are one of those aspiring entrepreneurs, grab the chance now and put on your thinking cap.  Unfortunately, this is open to Singaporean and Permanent Residents only so if you are from overseas and have a great business idea, I guess you should try getting a Singapore partner first if this is ever allowed.

Last year, there was a jobless and a 49-year old man named Paul Nawrocki took to the street of New York wearing a suit, tie and sandwich board that read:

‘Almost Homeless. Looking for employment. Very experienced operations and administration manager.

‘Desperately seeking full-time employment with insurance benefits. For self and family. Disabled wife on 15 medications.

‘Request a copy of my resume. Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated.’

Paul Nawrocki had turned to the depression-era tactics of trying to land a job after nine-month of fruitless job searching. It was reported then he was yet to find a job even after such extreme tactics.

It is a tough job market now for older job seekers as employers generally prefer to employ younger employees as they view mature professionals as inflexible, expensive and over-qualified. Mature and experienced professionals have suddenly found that age has become an obstacle than asset while looking for job. These groups of people are highly skilled, experienced and qualified but struggle to get back to workforce after retrenchment. In addition, these groups of people normally have the highest expenses to meet due to family commitment. 

If you were in the same position, what will you do? Devote all your energy continues looking for jobs and never give up! Try a job switch and take on anything at less pay. Swallow your pride and take your order from a younger and inexperienced boss. Continue praying and hoping tomorrow will be better; when the economy gets better, you will get a better job. 

As the saying goes, when opportunity doesn’t knock, build the door. If you can’t get a job or better job, MAKE it yourself! Do what you can, with what you have and where you are. Utilize your wealth of knowledge, skills and experience and convert them to a profitable business. Your business is not necessary to be big at a start, take it one step at a time and start it from your home. A home business will take less risk and cost but at the same time can be fulfilling and satisfying.

With the advent of technology and the trend of working at home, starting a home business is not a daunting task. If you know your market well and have picked the right business model, creating a sound home business is not impossible. Many great business empires have started their business from their home bedrooms or apartments. Apple Computer is one company well known from starting its humble beginning in the garage. Click here to check out the other 20 great business empires who have also started their humble beginning from home.

All these successful business founders have found opportunities amid of difficulties and setbacks. The common reason they were successful was they pursue their own passion and love what they do. Therefore, if you are thinking to spend all your time and energy to find or switch to another job you are not interested, starting a home business could be your next alternative. With your experience, talent and credentials plus your mature mentality, you are qualified and suitable to run the business by yourself.

So for those who were retrenched and over the hill, is there still job for you? The answer is definite yes, the path to successful and secure life-long career actually starts from home.