The iconic scene in "The Graduate" when, amid the hubbub of a cocktail party, Benjamin Braddock is given profound career advice summed up in the single emphatic word "Plastics!" was reflected in real life a few weeks ago on stage at the Business Marketing Association's (BMA's) Masters of B2B Marketing Conference. If a career in plastics was a virtual guarantee of success in the 1960s or 1970s, what is the equivalent for the age of artificial intelligence -- i.e., 2017 onward? The BMA moment was precipitated by an audience question put to Jon Iwata, IBM's senior vice president, marketing and communications, after his presentation about the imminent impact of AI on marketing, in general, and of Watson, in particular. The query: "Knowing what you now know about data and artificial intelligence, what would you do differently if you were starting your career today?" Iwata paused long enough to get some sympathy chuckles from the audience, since in that pause you could nearly see the smoke rising, as my grandpa used to say.