A good article from a special report at Business Week about how workers who are creative, flexible and good with people should garner the highest demand in the future job markets. Also noted is that workers must be willing to continue their education to fill various gaps. This is a prime example of how online education could better facilitate traditional education. Say for instance that you've got a BA already, maybe an MA or an MBA as well, but you need specific training in an area that may help you advance to the next level at work. Online courses are perfect for pluging those gaps. With the numbers of online universities and courses, through private companies, or through major universities and community colleges, it is a great way to pick and choose what you need and what your employer may need. What some online universities are doing, and I think this would be a great way for others to enhance their business, is to go directly to corporations and design online courses that fit their needs. In this way, online universities must aslo be flexible, creative and good with people.

No low-wage worker in Shanghai, New Delhi, or Dublin will ever take Mark Ryan's job. No software will ever do what he does, either. That's because Ryan, 48, manages people -- specifically, 100 technicians who serve half a million customers of Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ ) out of an office in Santa Fe Springs, Calif. A telephone lineman before moving up the corporate ladder, Ryan is earning a master's degree at Verizon's expense in organizational management, where he's studying topics like conflict resolution.