News You Can Use: 3/22/2017

  • How to Keep Kids, Pets, and Other Interruptions From Derailing Your Skype Meetings

    1. Take responsibility for what happened. Don’t pawn it off on other people.
    2. Explain why it happened as gracefully as you can. People find comfort in the “why” of things.
    3. Don’t make it a bigger deal than it is. Your reaction can make it more embarrassing than it already is.

    http://lifehacker.com/how-to-keep-kids-pets-and-other-interruptions-from-de-1793177092

  • How to Use Pocket Casts To Wrangle Your Horrible Podcast Addiction

    I know many visitors on the site listen to the podcast right in the browser, but if you want to take SourceCast with you on the go, and listen to other, much better content, use Pocket Casts – this is the Podcast app I personally use to keep up with the multitude of podcasts I follow.

    http://lifehacker.com/how-to-use-pocket-casts-to-wrangle-your-horrible-podcas-1793102283

  • Report: Why Merck turned to supply chain integration to save costs

    Many companies operate, for example, on an established safety stock or production level because that’s the way it has always been done. When it comes to contracting with suppliers and external manufacturers, changes in scale must be justified… a lack of data makes that process difficult.

    The case study suggests Merck & Co. realized this was a problem, and sought to integrate its systems into a single platform capable of both supply and demand planning. The change allowed the company global visibility for all of its finished goods, and segmentation of goods to better determine when exceptions are necessary, for example.

    http://www.biopharmadive.com/news/report-why-merck-turned-to-supply-chain-integration-to-save-costs/437290/

  • The Science of Style and Fashion for Entrepreneurs with Antonio Centeno

    Antonio Centeno of Real Men Real Style grew up in a trailer park, and that experience made him realize just how a person’s clothes can determine your expectations for them. You’d be more wary of trusting a doctor wearing a tye-dye shirt than one wearing a lab coat, and you’d be less likely to answer the door for a cable repair man who didn’t wear a uniform.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/290171

    The host is somewhat annoying, but interesting information…

  • Maturity is the key to effective analytics

    Many supply chain professionals report that their organizations have increased their investment in analytics over the last three years, according to a recent APQC survey. This survey looked at the analytics practices of organizations, as well as the structure of these efforts. APQC surveyed supply chain professionals from a variety of organization sizes and regions and from 36 industries. APQC’s analysis found that organizations have several areas of focus for their supply chain analytics efforts, and that most organizations have a formal analytics structure. However, the payoff of these efforts may not be at the level organizations would expect.

    http://www.scmr.com/article/maturity_is_the_key_to_effective_analytics#When:15:16:00Z

Photo: Caroline Hernandez

News You Can Use: 3/15/2017

  • New FCC chairman: Net neutrality rules were a ‘mistake’

    During his speech at Mobile World Congress, Pai said a “new generation” of leadership at the FCC is focused on “renewal as well as change.” The agency will return to the light-touch regulatory approach of the past three decades, he said.

    Pai touted his decision to end an investigation into so-called zero-rating plans, in which some mobile providers exempted some services from their data caps. Promoters of the free data plans have called them pro-consumer, but some net neutrality advocates suggested that plans may violate the rules against selectively promoting some web content.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3175766/internet/new-fcc-chairman-net-neutrality-rules-were-a-mistake.html

  • Building a Hard-Working Team Starts With You

    Once you have the right people, surround them with hard-working peers. Create a culture of “all for one, and one for all” prepared to do whatever is necessary to help the company win the race. Create realistic targets for them to hit by certain dates, and create a competitive spirit within the company, where people can show off their skills.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/288954

  • The Making of a Podcast Network | Scott Aukerman
  • ‘Ugh, I’m So Busy’: A Status Symbol for Our Time (a follow up to last week’s post)

    The gleam of being both well-off and time-poor, the authors write, is “driven by the perceptions that a busy person possesses desired human capital characteristics (competence, ambition) and is scarce and in demand on the job market.” In a curious reversal, the aspirational objects here are not some luxury goods—a nice watch or car, which are now mass-produced and more widely available than they used to be—but workers themselves, who by bragging about how busy they are can signal just how much the labor market values them and their skills.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/busyness-status-symbol/518178/?utm_source=feed

  • Toxic Workplaces Will Persist As Long As Fairness Is Just A Matter Of ‘Compliance’

    But HR, on its own, is poorly situated to fix a business culture that is indifferent to (or in denial about) offering meaningful opportunities for advancement to women or other minorities in the workplace. As political scientist Frank Dobbin has argued, human resources professionals have long struggled to establish their legitimacy within organizations.They are rarely the locus of power within corporations, which instead resides in revenue-generating departments like engineering and sales, and in the executives that preside over the business.

    HR advises. Business decides.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/3068482/pov/toxic-workplaces-will-persist-as-long-as-fairness-is-just-a-matter-of-compliance?partner=rss

Photo: Justin Tietsworth

Podcast: IBM: Watson’s war on cancer

sn_WatsonLab_NunoJob

As head of University of North Carolina’s Lineberger Cancer Center and one of the world’s premier oncologists, Dr. Norman Sharpless recognizes cancer to be the sort of big data problem that computers might help physicians solve. And he’s embracing a cognitive computer, IBM Watson, to help his team recommend personalized cancer care for his patients.

Sharpless’s UNC team is training Watson to analyze patient data, unstructured information (think scribbled doctor’s notes), genomic sequences and a continual stream of clinical trial results and medical literature in hopes that Watson can suggest effective treatment options for each new case. If Watson can do that, Sharpless says, it would help physicians mitigate the time and tremendous expense that comes with ineffective treatments. It could also completely change the nature of cancer research. But first thing’s first.

Sharpless is calling for a clinical trial pitting a team of doctors using traditional methods of research against a Watson-enabled team of doctors. And he’s confident that ultimately, the Watson-enabled team will win.

Photo: Nuno Job, Flickr