Category: Industry News

Posted on

News You Can Use: 8/22/2018

The Source: Magic quadrant and Negotiation

  • Will vendor rankings replace magic quadrants? HfS Research thinks so

    We’re done, the whole quadrant craze is starting to smell pretty bad and we know the industry is fed up with it. Increasingly, many of these 2×2 matrices are missing several of the market leaders (who refuse to participate) and having them all stacked in the top right just smacks of pay-for-play (even if the analyst has fair intentions). Let’s be honest, noone trusts these matrices and they are harming the entire credibility of the analyst industry. Sure, there are many honest, quality analysts with integrity, but their craft is being soiled by several quacks who are basing their vendor placements purely on vendor briefings, whether they like a particular vendor, and whether some vendors pony up for their research services. There are many “analysts” out there who do not bother to do sufficient customer research and we all suspect who these characters (and their employers) are…

    https://diginomica.com/2018/08/13/will-vendor-rankings-replace-magic-quadrants-hfs-research-thinks-so/

  • Transactions without conflict

    It’s possible to negotiate a substantial contract in a few minutes by email—if both sides care more about forward motion than they care about the last decimal point. Or, to be more honest about it, if they care more about the benefits of the future than they care about the narrative of treating their partner like an opponent.

    In an economy based on connection instead of scarcity, the ease of those connections, the reliability built into them, our confidence that the future will match promises made–all of these benefits dwarf the narcissistic narrative of the deal maker who simply seeks to win today, at all costs.

    https://seths.blog/2018/08/transactions-without-conflict/

  • How Brexit could create a crisis at the Irish border
  • Talking about your team’s success too much in an interview could cost you the job

    “If it kind of comes out in part of your interview where maybe you were part of a team and you’re really only talking about the accomplishments of the team and not necessarily your individual contributions and what they did, I think that’s something that can hold people back,” Salzer, who is a solutions architect at Amazon Web Services, told Business Insider.

    Instead, make it clear that you were a key contributor to your company. Emphasizing your individual accomplishments in a team is a key way to sway hiring managers.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-tips-amazon-jobs-2018-8

  • We need to talk about organizational change management

    We know, for example, that 70 percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support. We also know that when people are truly invested in change it is 30 percent more likely to stick. While companies have been obsessing about how to use digital to improve their customer-facing businesses, the application of digital tools to promote and accelerate internal change has received far less scrutiny. However, applying new digital tools can make change more meaningful—and durable—both for the individuals who are experiencing it and for those who are implementing it.

    https://diginomica.com/2018/08/16/we-need-to-talk-about-organizational-change-management/

Photo by Josh Blanton on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 8/15/2018

The Source: Burned Out: Joey Lombardi

  • 5 Signs Your Employees are Nearing Burnout

    Forty-four percent of workers said a serious business mistake or shortcoming has been the result of a miscommunication at some point in their professional experience. And 18 percent said that miscommunication lost a sale — a third of those sales valued above $100,000.

    For efficiency and profitability’s sake, miscommunication is one thing you don’t want running rampant around the workplace. Sadly, when employees are overworked and overstressed, miscommunications are inevitable — and they’re often a sign that you need to hire more people, clean up processes or redistribute existing projects from certain employees.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/317535

  • Are middle children really going extinct? Here’s a reality check

    Sadly, statistics from Pew Research back up this up. In honor of Middle Child Day, which is today, the research organization parsed some of the demographic data around family size to dig deeper into the question of middle child extinction. Broadly speaking, middle children in America are a lot less common than they were 30 years ago. In 1976, 65% of American mothers aged 40-44 had three or more children, Pew writes. By 2016, that number had fallen to just 38%.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90216974/are-middle-children-really-going-extinct-heres-a-reality-check

  • Is War With China Inevitable?
  • Why You Should Get Good at Small Talk

    It’s quite beautifully phrased that “Small talk brings us into the present moment with one another.” You might have been thinking about two different things, or feeling separated by unfamiliarity, but even a point of contact over your favorite coffee flavor (uh, mocha?) can make you feel like you’re sharing an experience with someone. A small experience. Big experiences come with big talks, and you will build to that together.

    https://lifehacker.com/why-you-should-get-good-at-small-talk-1828174579

  • How to Actually Make Money as a Travel Blogger or Lifestyle Brand

    Before you start dreaming up an online course, ask yourself how to best serve your community. “It’s actually been proven that only 3 percent of people will ever complete the course. I don’t want people spending money on my stuff if they’re not going to implement,” she shared. Instead, she asked herself, What’s the best way to get in front of them and make it so valuable that they absolutely love it? She went on to create experiences and workshops that helped people learn and implement right away.

    “Get back to basics — to caring about your community and your customers and asking them all the time, ‘What matters to you? What’s important?’ And then [work backwards and create a solution] for them.”

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/317848

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 8/8/2018

The Source: Communication Complications: Joey Lombardi

  • Are we losing the art of telephone conversation?

    The number of calls made dropped for the first time in 2017. It’s not a huge drop – 1.7% – and the figure may be misleading since calls made on WhatsApp and Facebook weren’t counted. Three-quarters of people still believe that voice calls are important. But that’s not as many – 92% – as the number who value their phones mainly for internet access.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/03/phone-calls-becoming-lost-art

  • What James Gunn’s firing says about the rising stakes of social media

    Gunn’s tweets were up to a decade in the past, while Barr’s tweet reflected her current thinking and displayed actual racism, as opposed to tasteless humor. Nonetheless, there is a lesson to be learned from similarities between the two, namely: If you want to keep your job, don’t tweet anything that could possibly be construed as controversial. In the case of both Barr and Gunn, their employers’ response was, essentially, “Shut This Down Immediately, Sort Out The Details Later,” with the emphasis on damage control over details. (The details were taken care of eventually; ABC later backtracked on canceling Roseanne, announcing the replacement series The Conners in late June, and similarly, there are now reports that Marvel might consider rehiring Gunn.)

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/1/17639430/james-gunn-disney-mike-cernovich-firing-social-media-guardians-of-the-galaxy

  • Elon Musk is fulfilling Thomas Edison’s energy dreams | Michio Kaku
  • How Robot Hands Are Evolving to Do What Ours Can

    Inside OpenAI, the San Francisco artificial intelligence lab founded by Elon Musk and several other big Silicon Valley names, you will find a robotic hand called Dactyl. It looks a lot like Luke Skywalker’s mechanical prosthetic in the latest Star Wars film: mechanical digits that bend and straighten like a human hand.

    If you give Dactyl an alphabet block and ask it to show you particular letters — let’s say the red O, the orange P and the blue I — it will show them to you and spin, twist and flip the toy in nimble ways.

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/30/technology/robot-hands.html

  • Steven Pinker, Author of Bill Gates’s Favorite Book, Says Entrepreneurs Should Trust Stats, Not Their Intuition

    The thesis of Pinker’s book ultimately boils down to, that while you might think that the world is doomed — considering the news we read and see — if you measure health, wealth, safety, knowledge and quality of life generally, humanity overall is better off than ever.

    “For all the flaws in human nature,” Pinker writes, “it contains the seeds of its own improvement, as long as it comes up with norms and institutions that channel parochial interests into universal benefits.”

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/317386

Photo by Ye Fung Tchen on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 8/1/2018

The Source: A New Y2K? Joey Lombardi

  • Tesla asked suppliers for money back to boost profitability

    In a memo sent to several suppliers requesting money back, Tesla said the cash back would be necessary for Tesla’s “continued operation” and that it was an investment in “long-term growth.”

    Of course, this news won’t make Tesla investors happy. If a company needs to request money back from its supplier to achieve profitability, that doesn’t seem like a sustainable business model. That’s not to mention that it is sure to make future suppliers leery of working with Tesla. As one manufacturing consultant who isn’t involved with Tesla told the WSJ: “It’s simply ludicrous and it just shows that Tesla is desperate right now. They’re worried about their profitability but they don’t care about their suppliers’ profitability.”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90206411/tesla-asked-suppliers-for-money-back-to-boost-profitability

  • You Need a Strategy If You Hope to Keep Your High Performers

    High performers are put on the hardest projects — over and over again. You know they can deliver and really, it’s only logical to put your best people on the most important projects. But when top employees are under constant pressure while also being asked to help out with smaller ad hoc tasks that aren’t related to their work, these demands can be a fast track to burnout. Communicating with your high performers and taking the time to rein in some of these additional projects and requests will not only show your top performer that you are a source of support who values their time, but it’ll also clear their desk to work on the projects that really matter.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/316963

  • John Oliver Calls Facebook ‘History’s Most Profitable Data-Harvesting Machine’ – NSFW
  • Big tech warns of ‘Japan’s millennium bug’ ahead of Akihito’s abdication

    The Japanese calendar counts up from the coronation of a new emperor, using not the name of the emperor, but the name of the era they herald. Akihito’s coronation in January 1989 marked the beginning of the Heisei era, and the end of the Shōwa era that preceded him; and Naruhito’s coronation will itself mark another new era.

    But that brings problems. For one, Akihito has been on the throne for almost the entirety of the information age, meaning that many systems have never had to deal with a switchover in era. For another, the official name of Naruhito’s era has yet to be announced, causing concern for , calendar printers and international standards bodies.

    It’s why some are calling it “Japan’s problem”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/25/big-tech-warns-japan-millennium-bug-y2k-emperor-akihito-abdication

  • Forbes suggested Amazon should replace libraries, and people aren’t having it

    A Forbes contributor wrote a short piece titled “Amazon Should Replace Local Libraries to Save Taxpayers Money,” arguing that libraries should be shuttered in return for Amazon opening bookstores in local communities. At the gist of the writer’s argument is that Starbucks has replaced libraries as a friendly place to go and read and streaming services like Amazon Prime Video have replaced video rentals, which many local libraries had provided.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90206403/forbes-suggested-amazon-should-replace-libraries-and-people-arent-having-it

Photo by Roberto Nickson (@g) on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 7/25/2018

The Source: Joey Lombardi: Raise negotiating

  • The do’s and don’ts of raise negotiating

    If you feel a raise is in order, the first step is to track your accomplishments on a regular basis in an achievements journal, where you note major projects and successes, or an itemized spreadsheet or calendar, says Elaine Varelas, managing partner at Keystone Partners.

    “At the beginning or end of each week, review the meetings, appointments and projects you were involved in, and summarize them in two or three concise, resume-style bullets,” Varelas says. “These documents will serve you well at review time, as you review your annual goals, and will also help you make sure you are moving your agenda forward.”

    https://www.cio.com/article/2438603/careers-staffing/careers-staffing-10-mistakes-to-avoid-when-negotiating-a-raise.html

  • Why There Is No Substitute for the Annual ‘Offsite’ With Your Team

    With the context for the last year in place, you can talk about goals and objectives for the year to come with questions about what can be improved, both interpersonally (relationships that need repair or better maintenance) or in regards to team dynamics. There’s also a chance to look at financial numbers, hires or even to do a bit of a brand audit. If you’ve created enough of an element of trust by giving people a safe space to share ideas, you’ll also hear about things that simply have not been given an outlet to be discussed previously. An annual offsite can provide you with that catch-all opportunity for quiet conversations about topics of real, but not necessarily obvious, importance.

    There’s a fair amount of ridicule around exercises like trust falls — this shouldn’t be used to create a false social dynamic that doesn’t already exist, but to build on what already does. The last thing you want is for feuding employees to be given the opportunity to shoot each other in an airsoft competition or drive each other off the track in a go-kart race. The activities you choose should celebrate collaboration and team thinking, not individual showmanship.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/316338

  • What America gets wrong about China and the rest of Asia
  • New York-London in 3½ Hours? Supersonic Travel May Be Back

    Backers include Boeing Co. , Lockheed Martin Corp, and closely held Colorado startup Boom Technology Inc., which aims to start flying a reduced-size demonstration craft late next year. An initial goal for Boom’s proposed airliner is to slash the time for transcontinental trips by more than half. Round trips between the U.S. West Coast and Asia could be completed within the same day, for business travelers—the plush cabins would offer only premium seats—in a real hurry.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-london-in-3-hours-supersonic-travel-may-be-back-1531906323?ns=prod/accounts-wsj

  • How to use Slack to onboard new hires

    Start by launching a new hire or welcome channel (we call ours #yay), and encourage new employees to introduce themselves. You can then urge others to create a welcoming environment by responding to these messages–whether through text or emoji.

    Another idea is to use Donut, an app that randomly pairs up teammates and invites them to meet over coffee, donuts, lunch, or what have you. Simply create a dedicated channel for Donut (like #newbie-donuts), and employees can opt into and out of the program by joining and leaving the channel as they wish.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90201350/how-to-use-slack-to-onboard-new-hires

Photo by Andre Mouton on Unsplash