Tag: Career

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News You Can Use: 9/6/2017

  • Tech Censorship of White Supremacists Draws Criticism From Within Industry

    The EFF said “states and malicious actors” often turn to denial-of-service attacks when they try to silence voices. Cloudflare’s decision to deny security against these kinds of attacks to Daily Stormer signals that they can pick and choose clients, making it more difficult for them to fend off external pressure in the future, the EFF said.

    The censorship of Daily Stormer was decided by behind-the-scenes actors that are little known to the general public, rather than players like Facebook and Twitter, the ostensible windows of the internet that are in direct contact with users, making the moves more unsettling, said Mr. Prince.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-censorship-of-white-supremacists-draws-criticism-from-within-industry-1503144003

  • Would You Be Thankful or Horrified If the Emails You Got While on Vacation Disappeared?

    “While you’re on vacation, people who email you get a message, letting them know when you’ll be back. And then — the most important part — the tool deletes the email,” she wrote.” If the email is important, the sender can always send it again. If it’s not, then it’s not waiting for you when you get back, or even worse, tempting you to read it while you’re away.”

    While most companies likely won’t implement an office-wide system like Huffington’s, it’s a helpful reminder that if you don’t respond to that email right away, the world won’t come to an end. And as a business owner, if you want your employees to stay healthy and productive, it’s on you to encourage them to actually take that time away for themselves — and leave their inboxes behind.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/299268

  • Bryan Cranston: One Thing All Young People Should Do While They’re Still Young
  • To Succeed You Must Become a Knowledge Junkie

    Selling is hard if you haven’t made a commitment to it, but the truth is anything is hard without a commitment. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, if you aren’t committed to it, you will suffer. Being committed means you write down your goals and train daily to be better at whatever you do.

    Anytime I am having trouble getting what I want in my life, in my career, in money or in my relationships, I ask “What is it that I do not know?” It doesn’t matter if it’s more quality time with my kids, more income, more freedom, security, confidence or whatever it is I want, the first thing I look for is to become clear about my desire and then look for what I don’t know.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/299105

  • How to Run a Remote Startup Across Time Zones

    The water cooler effect has both positives (shared theories about what happened on Mr. Robot last night) and negatives (creates fertile ground for office gossip). But, overall it’s a good thing, and the remote team needs a chance to bond, too.

    Thankfully, there are some excellent ways to create a virtual space where everyone is included but no one needs to wear pants. The two most popular options are HipChat and Slack, with Slack edging ahead of the competition. The virtual communication tools connect team members and offer messaging sub channels, direct messages, customized calendars, task assignments and so on. You can start a channel dedicated to awesome high-five gifs or unexpected animal friendship videos. This can be instrumental in building a company culture for people to become invested in.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/291919

Photo: Ryan Wong

Posted on

News You Can Use: 8/23/2017

  • Google Uproar Highlights Questions Over What You Can or Cannot Say at Work

    “There’s no unfettered right for employees to say whatever they want without facing repercussions from their company,” said Daniel A. Schwartz, employment law partner at Shipman & Goodwin LLP. “The question for companies like Google is, are you going to discipline employees for speaking their minds, when you’ve created a platform that encourages it?”

    Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai tried to strike a balance in a message sent to employees Monday. “We strongly support the right of Googlers to express themselves, and much of what was in that memo is fair to debate regardless of whether a vast majority of Googlers disagree with it. However, portions of the memo violate our Code of Conduct and cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace,” Mr. Pichai wrote. Google hasn’t publicly named the memo’s author.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-uproar-highlights-questions-over-what-you-can-or-cannot-say-at-work-1502175014

  • 4 Meeting Mistakes You’re Probably Making and How to Fix Them

    There’s an adage that describes why you feel like you have to use up the whole hour: Work will expand to fit the time available, otherwise known as Parkinson’s Law. But you can — and should — break this law when the agenda items have been adequately covered.

    Resist the urge and instead think back to your student days, and the jubilation you felt when you were let out of class early. Then use the found time to do something more productive so you can thoroughly enjoy that Summer Friday.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/298260

  • Inspire Confidence in Others with Compassion: A Life Lesson from the Kitchen
  • 3 Leadership Lessons From A Badass Female Yacht Captain

    Turn mistakes into teachable moments.
    “When I find that people make mistakes, in the past I was more quick to respond. I think with age and experience, I now stop and pause and I think about where the person was in their mind [when they made the mistake]. I don’t make snap decisions like I used to. They are human beings, they are not machines. Maybe they didn’t get a good night’s sleep. Maybe they’re going through a divorce. Maybe their mother has cancer. I think of that and that’s the pause [I take]. And then I think about how I can make this a teachable experience instead of a reprimanding experience.”

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/298507

  • Collaborate With Coworkers More By Sitting Closer To Them

    Researchers looked at 40,358 published papers and 2,350 patents that stemmed from MIT research between the years 2004 and 2014. In it they discovered that how close you sit to a person can have a dramatic effect on whether or not you’ll collaborate with them. Even a few hundred feet can make a huge difference.

    “Intuitively, there is a connection between space and collaboration,” Claudel observes. “That is, you have a better chance of meeting someone, connecting, and working together if you are close by spatially.” Even so, he says, “It was an exciting result to find that across papers and patents, and specifically for transdisciplinary collaborations.” He adds, “In many ways, this data really confirms the Allen Curve.”

    http://lifehacker.com/collaborate-with-coworkers-more-by-sitting-closer-to-th-1797774785

Photo by Ethan Robertson on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 8/16/2017

  • China’s Next Target: U.S. Microchip Hegemony

    Today, the industry is riven by a nationalist battle between China and the U.S., one that reflects broad currents reshaping the path of globalization. Washington accuses Beijing of using government financing and subsidies to try to dominate semiconductors as it did earlier with steel, aluminum, and solar power. China claims U.S. complaints are a poorly disguised attempt to hobble China’s development. Big U.S. players like Intel Corp. and Micron TechnologyInc. find themselves in a bind—eager to expand in China but wary of losing out to state-sponsored rivals.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-next-target-u-s-microchip-hegemony-1501168303

  • Does 99.5% planned uptime = 99.5% actual uptime?

    There are 744 hours in a 31-day month. Without digging further into how the vendor calculates the uptime percentage, it would be natural to do simple math and quickly determine that .005 downtime equals four hours per month. This seems very reasonable, on the surface, but remember math is tricky and the vendor controls the math. Some vendors calculate their uptime percentage as:

    Actual Hours System Up divided by (Hours in the Month minus Planned Downtime)

    The key question to ask is “how much planned downtime do you have in any given month?” You will find a wide array of answers to this question. For example, one leading vendor plans for 40 hours of planned downtime a month to apply patches, fixes, and general system maintenance. The very reasonable four hours of allowed downtime in their marketing equation equals 44 hours, or almost two days, of actual downtime a month. Very tricky!

    http://www.cio.com/article/3209041/cloud-computing/does-995-planned-uptime-995-actual-uptime.html

  • Kristi Hedges: “The Inspiration Code: How The Best Leaders Energize People
  • This is how Travis Kalanick is plotting his comeback as Uber CEO

    Some company executives are concerned that Mr. Kalanick could use a SoftBank investment to dilute other shareholders’ stakes while he continues to buy stock back from employees in a bid to amass power. And aligning with Masayoshi Son, the founder and chief executive of SoftBank, could provide Mr. Kalanick with a key ally, especially if Mr. Son seeks to appoint new board members who favor Mr. Kalanick’s return as chief executive as part of an investment.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/4045787/this-is-how-travis-kalanick-is-plotting-his-comeback-as-uber-ceo

  • Supply chain’s continuing image problem

    And this is making recruitment a challenge. DHL surveyed over 350 supply chain and operations professionals in the five major regions of the world as a basis for its research. Fifty-eight percent of the companies surveyed said that it is hard to find potential employees who possess the right combination of tactical/operational expertise and professional competencies such as leadership and analytical skills.

    Although supply chain managers are aware that their jobs require taking on a more strategic role, that perception does not seem to be shared by job candidates or even internally at managers’ own companies. According to the DHL report, almost 70 percent of surveyed companies said that their search for supply chain talent is hampered by a “perceived lack of opportunity for career growth” and the “perceived status of supply chain as a profession.” This same misconception is also an internal problem, according to the survey. Only 25 percent of survey participants agreed that their own companies view supply chain as equally important as other disciplines.

    http://www.supplychainquarterly.com/news/20170728-supply-chains-continuing-image-problem/

Photo: Bryan Minear

Posted on

News You Can Use: 8/2/2017

  • Is IT having an identity crisis?

    Forty percent of the CIOs said that they make 50% or less of the IT decisions for their companies. And 39% said that business departments buy their own technology without consulting IT “often,” “very often” or “most of the time.” Meantime, IT departments themselves perform a shrinking proportion of the technology work they still oversee, with 24% of the respondents saying they outsource more than 50% of their IT and only 9% saying they outsource none at all.

    If outsourcing is the norm, and business departments outside IT are increasingly procuring their own technology, it may be time to ask exactly what IT’s role and identity is in the modern workplace.

    Also:

    Whatever IT’s identity within an organization may be, if it’s primarily viewed as a cost center, that’s not a good thing. “IT is a foundational element,” says Ed McLaughlin, CIO at Mastercard. “You really have to cease thinking of technology as a cost center. Technology is one of the primary assets of a business.”

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3191986/it-management/is-it-having-an-identity-crisis.html

  • Do Raises Make Employees Happy or Is It Something More?

    “One of the most striking results we’ve found is that, across all income levels, the top predictor of workplace satisfaction is not pay. It is the culture and values of the organization, followed closely by the quality of senior leadership and the career opportunities at the company. Among the six workplace factors we examined, compensation and benefits were consistently rated among the least important factors of workplace happiness.”

    However, there was a study from Princeton that found that “having a higher income increases happiness but only up to about $75,000 per year.” After that, “higher pay doesn’t influence happiness much, and other factors take over.”

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297326

  • The Case for National Childcare
  • 8 Ways Any Millennial Can Be a Millionaire in 5 Years

    Investing can be tricky, but it’s one of the best ways to get a return on the money you currently have. If you want to make significant money quickly, you’ll need to take some major risks, which means being willing to lose all the money you put in. For best results, start by investing a good amount of money. You can make more potentially if you risk more. Pick certain sectors that you find yourself most interested in and concentrate on investments in those spaces. Before any of this though, take time to learn as much as possible about the stock market.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297322

  • Six Words And Phrases That Make Everyone Hate Working With You

    3. “IT IS WHAT IT IS”
    Clichés like this make you sound like a lazy thinker. We default unthinkingly to empty expressions when we’re trying to give the impression we have something to say but really don’t, and also when we want to sound as though we’re comfortable with something but might not be. “Business is business,” “it is what it is,” and phrases like them aren’t just meaningless and repetitious—they sound like you don’t really care or that your brain just isn’t in gear. Good luck getting promoted that way.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40441775/six-words-and-phrases-that-make-everyone-hate-working-with-you
    This is my dad’s favorite saying, guess he won’t be getting that big butcher shop promotion…

Photo: Brodie Vissers

Posted on

News You Can Use: 7/26/2017

  • Why Is Brexit So Expensive?

    The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, says the financial settlement will be “based on the principle that the United Kingdom must honor its share of the financing of all obligations undertaken while it was a member of the Union.” As a member of the EU, the U.K. is responsible for approximately 15 percent of the 28-member bloc’s common budget. Since the EU budget is determined every seven years (the current one spans until 2020), European lawmakers want the British government to honor the financial commitments it made when the budget was agreed upon in 2013. These obligations include EU-wide investment projects, pension promises to EU officials, and other liabilities. If it agrees, the U.K. would effectively be paying into the EU budget a year beyond its projected exit date: March 2019.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/why-is-brexit-so-expensive/534063/?utm_source=feed

  • The Top Stressor for Workers Is Not What You Think

    Polling more than 10,000 men and women in the technology industry, job website Comparably uncovered the top stressors for people at work. Above having a long commute, difficult co-workers, a bad manager or long hours, the majority of workers said “unclear goals” was the most stressful aspect of their careers. In fact, 42 percent of workers admitted to being stressed by this goal ambiguity, with “commute” and “bad manager” tying for second, each with 16 percent of the votes. And it looks like the last thing people are worried about are long hours (12 percent), after having difficult co-workers (14 percent).

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297492

  • Which Jobs Will Machines Take Over? Movie Critics, Doctors, Truckers…
  • FCC admits it didn’t document alleged cyberattack

    The Federal Communications Commission now claims to have no data on a DDoS attack that took down its website in May, just months after stating it had “gigabytes” of documentation on the incident. The supposed attack followed talk show host John Oliver redirecting viewers to the FCC’s comment section, where he encouraged them to complain about the organization’s stance on net neutrality. With over 9 million comments reportedly left on the site, the FCC quickly responded, stating that it couldn’t accept more feedback, because it was incapacitated by an alleged DDoS attack.

    Now, after a freedom of information request filed by Gizmodo attempted to reveal more about the ‘attack,’ the FCC is claiming that its previous thorough analysis on the incident “did not result in written documentation.”

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/20/the-fcc-admits-it-didn-t-file-a-report-on-its-own-ddos-attack/

  • I’ve Been A Manager For Over 10 Years. These Are The Biggest Lessons I’ve Learned

    It can be hard to get strong personalities to align with decisions with which they don’t entirely agree. But having every team member opt in and back a decision is key. It’s on you, as the manager, to create a scenario where everyone can get on the same wavelength before you move forward with a plan. It all comes down to communicating in a way that makes it easier for others to say yes, even if you think you don’t have the time. Putting in this effort up front will pay off in the end, and the trust you build will carry on into the next decision, and the next, and the next.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40441456/ive-been-a-manager-for-over-ten-years-these-are-the-biggest-lessons-ive-learned

Photo: Shopify