So Ivanka Trump’s big idea for ‘the future of work’ is … LinkedIn?

Ivanka Trump is not generally associated with the phrase “tech innovations” — a fact no one apparently bothered to relay to CES until it was too late.

The president’s daughter and failed businesswoman was at the annual technology convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, today to give a talk on the future of work. And what a future it is. According to Trump, the workers of tomorrow will be graced with an “interoperable learning record” which will allow them to bring a list of all their skills with them wherever they go. 

That’s right, Trump’s big idea for the American worker is some kind of standardized LinkedIn. 

But, wait, there’s more! This “résumé of the future,” as Trump at one point referred to it, will do more than just list your job skills — it was also send you push notifications. 

“And oh, by the way, wouldn’t it be great if there was a job vacancy in your zip code that matched the skill you had, if it got pushed to you?” she told moderator Gary Shapiro. “This is not hard to do. It just hasn’t been done.”

And while LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman might disagree with that latter point, there’s no denying Trump’s boldness in just charging right ahead and pretending professional social networks and digital résumés don’t already exist. 

“We need to harness technology and data to enable people to have their information in their iPhone,” insisted Trump. 

Sure, why not. 

Image: Screenshot / youtube

Trump wasn’t done there. Some degree of verification is important, you see. 

“Why can’t you have your high school degree verified and in your phone so an employer, A, doesn’t need to call your high school and find out did you in fact graduate,” she mused. “So it takes the friction out of the process. It’s verified, it’s there.”

Indeed. If only there was a way to determine if people really did graduate high school. Some sort of documentation, say, or certification. Nah, it’s too complicated. An interoperable learning record is definitely more straightforward.  

CES certainly made the right call inviting Ivanka Trump, a person who will never have to create an interoperable learning record herself, to speak about the future of work.