I was reading a book on business and the way disruptive technologies changed the rules for centuries. Safe, secure jobs of one form or another were suddenly wiped out when these changes came around.

Naturally, there are professions that have been with us since the dawn of civilization, and they’ll be with us for a long, long time. Doctors, lawyers, and policemen are a few professionals that spring to mind whose jobs have staying power. A nasty episode involving a cheating spouse is likely to call for the attention of all three, and we know that cheating spouses aren’t about to disappear soon,  don’t we?

As I read on the effects of disruptive technologies, I got the idea to think of examples of workers who thought they would be safe in their jobs until retirement – those poor unfortunate folk who never saw the big axe swooshing in from the distant horizon.

Here’s a quick list of the doomed professions and the technologies that did them in:

• The milkman – done in by the convenience store and the motor car
• The traveling coal merchant – zapped by electricity (which ironically uses up a lot of coal)
• The travel agent – smothered by the internet
• The typewriter serviceman – squashed by the personal computer
• The fax machine operator – better fax machines did the culling (in the 1980′s a typical fax machine was the size of a car and required a trained operator)

These are the few that I could think of right of the top of my head. I’m sure you can think of others to add on. All these people have one thing in common, they never thought technology would end their careers or force them to adapt.

Disruptive technologies still continue to surprise us, and they are doing it at a faster rate than ever before. On the flip-side, new technology creates new opportunities.

What job types can you think of that are on the endagered speceies list? What technologies do you think will wipe them out?