Category: Industry News

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News You Can Use: 1/18/2017

  • What’s Adding To Supply Chain Risk? 3 IT Trends To Watch Out For

    This report mentioned the threat of “data overload” specifically in the context of health care, stating that it will be a “challenge for providers.” This is because the overwhelming bulk of data will create new and excessive amounts of work for industries to contend with.

    According to this report, the answer lies in customized alerts and filtering to help distinguish important data at any given time. It might work slightly differently, but the same principle could extend outward to other industries later on, with further devices connecting to the internet throughout the supply chain.

    http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2017/01/whats-adding-to-supply-chain-risk-3-it.html

  • Four Moves You Might Not Realize Make You Look Unprofessional in an Interview

    You Don’t Finish Your Homework
    But, cautions Adrian J. Hopkins, a Muse career coach, this isn’t homework you can half-ass. It’s not enough to spew off a couple of “top-line company facts.” If you want the job and wish to avoid looking unprofessional in any way, shape, or form, you’re going to have to “go above and beyond a basic understanding of the company.” Let the interviewer know how you plan to grow with the company and get him thinking that he can’t “believe” he hadn’t the good fortune of meeting you sooner.

    http://lifehacker.com/four-moves-you-might-not-realize-make-you-look-unprofes-1790770222

  • Christopher Kai: “Catapult Your Career Opportunities
  • 5 Steps to Organizing Your Life and Doing Great Things This Year

    Let it all go
    “Think of new goals, new expectations and new ways to achieve them,” he says.

    If you don’t have one already, buy a paper shredder and start shredding the piles around you that are just taking up space. Scan the files that are truly needed.

    “If you are realistic and hard on yourself, the ratio of what to shred to what to scan will be 10 to one,” Klosky says.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/287141

  • Driverless Trucks, Robots and Chatbots Could Reshape the Supply Chain

    More than half of supply chain companies have so-called innovation centers to help test out new concepts. Of those, 20 percent have achieved a return on their investment, while half expect a payoff in the next two years.

    Robots are also on the rise, even though less than a quarter of organizations currently use them in their work, researchers found.

    Propelled by algorithms that allow them to accomplish more complex tasks, robots can help companies improve efficiency, cut costs, keep pace with competitors and limit errors, according to respondents.

    https://www.trucks.com/2017/01/05/driverless-trucks-robots-supply-chain/

Photo: Joshua Ness

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News You Can Use: 1/11/2017

Photo: Denys Nevozhai

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News You Can Use: 1/4/2017

  • Ethical Sourcing: Do Consumers and Companies Really Care?

    According to Steve Polski, senior director of responsible supply chains and sustainability at Cargill, consumers consistently say they want more sustainable products and services but are often unwilling to pay a premium. Polski has spent years researching this topic, and he has found that consumers care about a company’s sustainability and ethical sourcing efforts and may reward it with brand loyalty, but they generally don’t want to pay more for the products.

    Also:

    The survey also found just how much consumers said they were willing to pay for ethically and sustainable sourced products. Thirty percent said they would pay up to 5% more and 28% said they would pay up to 20% more for such products. A quarter of consumers also said they actively sought sourcing origin information when they made their most recent purchase.

    http://spendmatters.com/2016/12/26/ethical-critical-strategic-sorts-sourcing-supplier-management-best-posts-2016/

  • Why Your Annoying Boss Micromanages You

    The Science of Us explains that, like most people, when you feel powerless or helpless, your first instinct is to exert control over the things you do have some control over, and if you’re a boss or manager, that might mean your employees. While we know that most people work best when they’re given independence and autonomy, and when managers trust their teams to make the best calls when they need to, well, sometimes good old psychology just takes hold.

    http://lifehacker.com/why-your-annoying-boss-micromanages-you-1790380406

  • Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace

    This fellow is a little smug, but he makes some really interesting points.
  • 3 Predictions For Apple’s Supply Chain In 2017

    China isn’t the only Asian country Apple could continue to work with. The Wall Street Journal reported that it may manufacture products in India and could be currently working toward a deal for this with the Indian government.

    However, this seems to be more of a matter of speculation and deduction than pure fact, since Apple did not comment and Tim Cook, the company’s CEO, openly said that there were no plans to start producing in the country earlier this year.

    Forbes contributor Tim Worstall also pointed out that most of the benefit would go to Apple, with the Indian economy itself not gaining too much from the company’s presence there. This sits in contrast to Apple’s work in China, which also benefits the country in addition to the business’ sales themselves.

    http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2016/12/3-predictions-for-apples-supply-chain.html

  • 7 things Silicon Valley needs to stop doing in 2017

    Stop acquiring companies and products just to kill them:
    Some of the greatest apps and sites ever created were acquired as they were rising in popularity, then terminated. Remember Posterous, Pownce, Dodgeball, reMail, Nextstop and Friendfeed? These were all innovative, powerful, well-designed apps or services that were terminated on purpose because they were so good.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3153884/it-industry/7-things-silicon-valley-needs-to-stop-doing-in-2017.html

Photo: Anchor Lee

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News You Can Use: 12/14/2016

  • The Best Music for Productivity? Silence

    When silence and music were put head to head in more cognitively complex tests, people did better in silence. In a study from the 1980s, researchers gave subjects the option to listen to either upbeat or soft music of their preferred genre, or nothing, while counting backward. The people who listened to their favorite, upbeat tunes did worst of all, and those who heard silence did best.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/the-best-music-for-productivity-silence/509948/?utm_source=feed

  • How FedEx is shaving millions from its IT costs

    Apptio’s software also uncovered a glaring inefficiency in FedEx’ aircraft maintenance operations. For years, engineers inspected aircraft by climbing up and down the planes and then driving a golf cart to a shack, where they would enter data into an inventory management system, which costed $10 million annually. To streamline the process, the IT team created Workbench, which enables engineers to inspect aircraft and input data via tablets and smartphones. The software costs $2 million a year.

    “We are several hundred million dollars cheaper because we keep finding unique ways to drive value,” Carter says. FedEx is applying some of the savings to emerging technologies such as TRON, a Bluetooth-enabled sensor that offers a lower cost way of tracking packages.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3144504/software/how-fedex-is-shaving-millions-from-its-it-costs.html

  • An island no more: Inside the business of the podcasting boom

    “The interesting thing is that, in this last six to nine months, I feel like we actually turned the corner,” observes Bryan Moffett, who heads ad sales for NPM, NPR’s sale arm. NPR — the leader in podcast audience — earns more than $10 million in podcast revenue and owns a double-digit share of the market. “We’re getting in business from Wells Fargo and Dell and Target — big Fortune 100 brands.”

    http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/09/an-island-no-more-inside-the-business-of-the-podcasting-boom/

  • Apple Grabs Wearables Lead with Holiday Sales
    A follow-up to SourceCast Episode 51

    For all the skepticism about the Apple Watch’s prospects, the new version appears to be selling better than the first one. Apple raked in nearly half of the revenue generated online in the U.S. wearables market in the monthlong lead-up to Cyber Monday, new data shows, a big increase on last year. Meanwhile, Fitbit lost ground—and the data shows that its expected purchase of competitor Pebble won’t help much.

    https://www.theinformation.com/apple-grabs-wearables-lead-with-holiday-sales

  • What this GE Exec is hiring for in 2017 (and why)

    Not everybody is a software engineer, but every single person at Global Operations understands their part in GE’s transformation into a digital industrial company. Whether you’re in HR, accounting, or operations, being able to analyze and understand data is critical. We produce massive amounts of data every day and need to use it as efficiently as we can.

    So even if you don’t have a degree in engineering or your job description doesn’t include data processing, we want to see how you use data every day. I look for candidates who can explain how they turn their work into actionable insights—or who can tell us how they think data might help them do their jobs better. Data is the most valuable language you can speak today.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/3066215/pov/what-this-ge-exec-is-hiring-for-in-2017-and-why

Photo: wu yi

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News You Can Use: 12/7/2016

sn_money_vitaly-taranov

  • Management Thought is Bankrupt

    We are seeing the dominance of measurement.  KPIs abound. Big Data everywhere. Your personality is tested and measured. As is your engagement. On an ongoing basis. Every project has thousands of targets, deadlines and measurable processes. Data, data, data. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Measure, measure, measure.

    Taylorism for the hi-tech generation. A model we know does not work and does not motivate, but one we’ve re-embraced anyway. And we wonder why there is no meaning or engagement at work.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/management-thought-bankrupt-dr-richard-claydon

  • Why Avoiding Office Politics Isn’t Always the Best for Your Career

    When it comes to office politics, Simosko warns, “There is no way around it. Once you start working with a team you are going to experience it. I am not a fan of politics, but I have learned that ignoring them can have negative consequences.” She insists that learning to deal with office politics is vital for leaders at any stage of their career. “It can determine whether you are successful in your career or not,” she said.

    http://lifehacker.com/why-avoiding-office-politics-isnt-always-the-best-for-y-1788946874

  • What everyone ought to know about Social Media (thanks JD!)

    How technology hijacks people’s minds

    http://www.timewellspent.io/
  • The tech that will feed the world

    Now computing capacity is cheap, and it’s possible to model all possible choices and their potential outcomes. A smartphone with Google Maps, for example, can evaluate every path from point A to point B to decide, based on the current traffic conditions, which will likely be the shortest or fastest route.

    Simulation and modeling also help from getting lost when it comes to growing crops. At the most basic level, plants need sunlight, water and nutrients at levels that vary during various stages of growth. It sounds simple, but at scale, optimizing each factor has a huge payoff.

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/19/the-tech-that-will-feed-the-world/?ncid=rss

  • Microsoft executive bonuses could soon be tied to diversity goals

    According to Gwen Houston, Microsoft’s General Manager for Global Diversity and Inclusion, Nadella is working on a plan that will make meeting diversity goals a major factor in deciding if executives receive their full bonus each year. “Diversity and inclusion is something you’ve got to ingrain,” Houston said. “That’s what Satya has been doing.” Still, Houston says the company has more to do. Layoffs from sale of Nokia assets severely hurt the company’s percentage of women and minority workers, and new hires haven’t made up the difference yet.

    https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/18/microsoft-executive-bonuses-could-soon-be-tied-to-diversity-goal/

Photo: Vitaly Taranov