What skills do employers value most? The ones that fill a hot current skills gap, like blockchain or cybersecurity? Sure, you can snap up a job right now in one of those areas if you’re skilled up, and probably a well-paid one too. But if you start out now on the learning path hoping for a slice of the action, maybe by the time you’ve acquired the skills – which could take years – the market might be flooded with prospectors who’ve had the same idea and the opportunity could have flown the roost.

Sometimes simple demographics can lead to a genuine business opportunity. In 2010, there were 17 million Americans between the ages of 75 and 85. By 2050 that number will reach 30 million, according to the National Institute on Aging. Right now it’s the last of the Silent Generation and the first of the Baby Boomers who are beginning to enter that age group, and by 2050 it will be Generation X (the “Baby Busters”). This age shift, known as the Graying of America, means there will be more and more demand for residential assisted living as time goes on.

Corporations began trumpeting their Corporate Social Responsibility in the 80s and 90s following a series of landmark corporate scandals that gave Big Business a bad name. The corporate psychopath had emerged into the collective conscious as a new bogeyman, and companies fell over themselves to avoid being tarred with that image. Fast forward to 2018 and CSR is more crucial than ever, with pressure to toe the line coming from all sides.

2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road was all about water scarcity, how it can be exploited in order to wield power, and how desperate people can get when their access to water is restricted or cut off. The film predicts a future in which violent despots can gain control of water supplies and use them to manipulate populations. This futuristic conflict is based entirely on access to water.

Running a business used to be an analog affair based on straightforward principles. Retail? Buy low, sell high. Services? Give a little, charge a lot. Rinse and repeat. But then a flood of zeroes and ones invaded business, disrupted everything and changed the way we work, making us dependent on it in order to perpetuate itself. Whether we become slaves to the beast or tame it to serve our own ends depends on us.

Learning Chinese is not as hard as you might think. It just looks scary to Westerners because of the unfamiliar writing. In fact, Mandarin Chinese is refreshingly simple and logical to learn. Here’s an example from the British Council in which they introduce us to Chinese characters: