Tag: Career

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News You Can Use: 7/19/2017

  • This Public Speaking Habit Is Annoying Your Audience

    When you pace too much, you’ll lose out on the opportunity to use your movement to punctuate what you’re saying. In writing, you use spacing to separate paragraphs on a page, and punctuation to build pauses into a sentence. Movement can do the same thing when you speak.

    For example, suppose you said, “We have to move in new directions. We have to innovate.” If you stood still and delivered those two lines non-stop, they’d land with little impact. If added a short pause between the sentences yet remained still the whole time, you’d have a bit more impact. But if you paused and also moved between delivering the first line and the second, you’d have the most impact.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40438283/this-public-speak-habit-is-annoying-your-audience

  • What is that agile certification really worth?

    “Agile project success has less to do with whether or not developers are certified and much more to do with whether or not the entire organization is making the culture shift towards an agile mindset all the way from the lowest-level developer up to the CEO,” Doucette says.

    Taking time as an organization to understand, adopt and apply agile principles and practices is what it’s all about, he adds; agile certification, scrum masters, agile coaches and the like are not going to be effective on their own unless there is company-wide buy-in of the principles and practices behind the methodology, Doucette says.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3033058/certifications/do-agile-certifications-mean-anything.html

  • How to Control Your Rage, With Buddhist and Michelin Star Chef Eric Ripert
  • Senators warn FCC that it better be ready for Wednesday’s net neutrality Day of Action

    Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and Hawaii’s Brian Schatz asked the commission to confirm that it won’t be caught flat-footed during Wednesday’s net neutrality Day of Action.

    The two pro-net neutrality Senate Democrats cited an incident in May during which the FCC’s comment portal crashed due to what Pai described as a “non-traditional DDoS attack.” The Senators were rightfully suspicious about the supposed DDoS claim as it would have coincided with a call to action by TV host John Oliver, who urged viewers to leave comments expressing their displeasure at the FCC’s policies.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/10/wyden-schatz-letter-to-pai-net-neutrality-day-of-action/?ncid=rss

  • The Overlooked Job Skill That Could Be the Key to Your Next Raise

    A recent study out of the University of Iowa showed that those who can type quickly are more likely to emerge as leaders of remote groups. That’s a direct correlation between typing speed and being perceived as a high performer.

    It goes without saying that high performers at work get promotions and raises more quickly. Thus, better typing skills should lead to higher salaries. Somewhere, Mrs. Ames is reading this and thinking, “I told you so!”

    The Iowa study found that “individuals who can type faster are able to more quickly communicate their thoughts and drive the direction of a team.” In my experience, that is spot on.

    http://www.thesimpledollar.com/the-overlooked-job-skill-that-could-be-the-key-to-your-next-raise/

Photo: Brodie Vissers

Posted on

News You Can Use: 7/12/2017

  • China’s All-Seeing Surveillance State Is Reading Its Citizens’ Faces

    China is rushing to deploy new technologies to monitor its people in ways that would spook many in the U.S. and the West. Unfettered by privacy concerns or public debate, Beijing’s authoritarian leaders are installing iris scanners at security checkpoints in troubled regions and using sophisticated software to monitor ramblings on social media. By 2020, the government hopes to implement a national “social credit” system that would assign every citizen a rating based on how they behave at work, in public venues and in their financial dealings.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-all-seeing-surveillance-state-feared-in-the-west-is-a-reality-in-china-1498493020

  • Ira Glass on structuring stories, asking hard questions

    I’ve said this many times in many places, but the structure of stories on our show in this kind of narrative journalism is there’s plot and then there are ideas. And those are the two elements that you’re constantly monitoring to know whether or not you’ve got them. And in part I feel like when people hear that they don’t even know exactly what is meant by that. All plot is is a series of actions where one thing leads to the next—sort of like this thing led to this next thing, led to this next thing, led to this next thing, led to this next thing, and then some of the things in this list can be, “And then he said this to me, and as a result, I said this back to him, and then he said this back to me, and then I got angry and I stormed out and I wrote a bill saying…” What you want is one thing leads to the next leads to the next leads the next and the reason why we do that is because once you have any sequence of actions in order of like, this happened and then this happened and this happened that creates narrative suspense because you wonder what happened next.

    https://www.cjr.org/special_report/qa-ira-glass-turnaround-npr-jesse-thorn-tal.php

  • Act Like the Leader You Want to Be
  • There’s Now a Name for the Micro Generation Born Between 1977-1983

    So here it is, according to Dan Woodman, an associate professor of sociology at The University of Melbourne: Xennials.

    The idea is there’s this micro or in-between generation between the Gen X group – who we think of as the depressed flannelette-shirt-wearing, grunge-listening children that came after the Baby Boomers and the Millennials – who get described as optimistic, tech savvy and maybe a little bit too sure of themselves and too confident.

    http://didyouknowfacts.com/theres-now-a-name-for-the-micro-generation-born-between-1977-1983/
    While I agree that the generation I grew up with does not fit with GenX or Millennials, I hate that name.

  • If You’re a Top Performer, Get on Your Coworkers’ Good Side

    The study, led by Elizabeth Campbell of the University of Minnesota, and published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, looked at several hundred stylists working in a wide variety of salons—chosen because they represent a socially dynamic environment where colleagues have to work individually and interdependently in order to succeed. They found that peers were far more likely to speak ill of top performers and try to damage their reputation. Furthermore, the more collaborative the environment, the more peers tried to drag down top performers.

    http://lifehacker.com/if-youre-a-top-performer-get-on-your-coworkers-good-si-1796716739

Photo: Trinity Kubassek

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News You Can Use: 6/21/2017

  • Why Remote Work Can’t Be Stopped

    Despite these moves by big companies, data indicates that the remote-work trend in the U.S. labor force is inexorable, aided by ever-better tools for getting work done anywhere. Surveys done by Gallup indicate that in 2016, the proportion of Americans who did some or all of their work from home was 43%, up from 39% in 2012. Over the same period, the proportion who only work remotely went to 20% from 15%. Amazon.com , American Express , UnitedHealth Group , and Salesforce.com allow employees to work remotely at least some of the time.

    Regarding tools used:

    For remote workers, the communications tools they use daily are the equivalent of these common spaces. The canonical example, owing to its explosive growth and creeping ubiquity, is the group-chat service Slack. It’s designed to make it easy for employees to communicate in ways that aren’t so different from the way they would around a water cooler or a conference table. Slack’s playful features, like on-demand animated GIFs, make it good for collegial interaction, while its library of chatbots and integrations with other enterprise software make it useful as a hub for communicating about and controlling many aspects of a business.


    https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-remote-work-cant-be-stopped-1496577602?mg=prod/accounts-wsj

  • After London Attack, Tech Firms Urged to Do More to Fight Extremists

    Mrs. May said Britain must work with other democracies to “reach international agreements” to regulate cyberspace to prevent terrorism planning. Her statement ratcheted up already critical remarks her cabinet members made in the wake of a March attack, also in London, that killed five people near Parliament. Saturday’s London attack came 12 days after a suicide bomber killed 22 people outside a concert in Manchester, England.

    Also

    Many tech companies say they already work hard to police their platforms for terrorist content, and cooperate with judicial and police investigations. When it comes to propaganda, Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft Corp. all agreed last year to create a common database of identifiers of terrorist images to speed up flagging and removal of propaganda videos.

    Twitter said it suspended 376,890 accounts in the second half of 2017 for promoting terrorism. Twitter said it identified almost two-thirds of those itself, with less than 2% of accounts shut down because of government requests.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/british-leaders-call-on-silicon-valley-to-do-more-to-combat-extremists-1496598615?mg=prod/accounts-wsj

  • Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People
  • Why “I’m Just Not Technical” is No Longer an Excuse in the C-Suite

    Acknowledge that investing in a partnership with experts, needs to be discussed. When it comes to securing your organization, it’s not about whether your internal team has the aptitude, it’s about the time. It’s not uncommon to hear that IT departments have roles that “wear many hats.” So you need to consider whether they have the time and resources to dedicate to maturing the cybersecurity posture of your organization? Be warned though: you get what you pay for from a partnership with a cybersecurity firm. This should not be the same team that is selling you hardware and/or assisting in the configuration and implementation process.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3199906/security/why-im-just-not-technical-is-no-longer-an-excuse-in-the-c-suite.html

  • Is Your Boss Getting Ready To Quit? How To Tell And What To Do

    Next, look at the landscape and think about what your options are, says leadership expert Susan Fowler, author of Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work . . . and What Does: The New Science of Leading, Energizing, and Engaging. There is the potential for great change ahead. Think about what you want to happen next, she says. Are you ready to move up? Are you still motivated to be with the company? Is there an opportunity for you ahead? These are some of the questions you should be asking yourself, she says. Once you have a vision for your next goal, you can begin to formulate a plan.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40426129/is-your-boss-getting-ready-to-quit-how-to-tell-and-what-to-do

Photo: Johannes Plenio

Posted on

News You Can Use: 5/24/2017

  • Former Google worker barred from Uber’s self-driving division by court

    A judge has ruled that Uber can keep working on its autonomous vehicles with one key condition: autonomous vehicle lead Anthony Levandowski must be removed from any of Uber’s LiDAR-based efforts. Prior to joining Uber, Levandowski worked for Google’s Waymo division and allegedly took some 14,000 documents pertaining to LiDAR and other self-driving tech on his way out the door. He’s still employed by Uber according to TechCrunch, and has voluntarily removed himself from the autonomous division as of late last month.

    TC also reports that the presiding judge ruled that information from Waymo essentially made its way into Uber’s tech by osmosis, “regardless of whether any documents were actually found on Uber computers and devices.”

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/15/uber-google-waymo-anthonylevandowski/

  • Supply chain toolkit: How managers prepare for the next crisis

    A tremor hit Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture last year. Hundreds of buildings fell, thousands of people were injured, and, for days, the world watched as a city destroyed picked itself back up. But the ripple effects of the quake spread beyond the island nation to global stores and dealerships as companies like Toyota and Sony halted production due to inventory shortages. Sony later reported the event cost the company over $1 billion.

    http://www.supplychaindive.com/news/crisis-management-supply-chain/442273/

    “The first thing to do is go out there and get some education,” Schlegel says. “There’s a huge body of knowledge out there, a huge, emerging body in supply chain risk management.”

    Step two, Schlegel says, is building that always-hot supply chain buzzword: visibility. And that’s where mapping and monitoring come in. “Most of us don’t have it, whether upstream or downstream.” It’s not just about who suppliers are, or the price, but where they are located, he says. “You have to know where your suppliers, customers, DCs and contractors are. What you don’t know in the global supply chain will hurt you.”

    http://www.supplychaindive.com/news/operations-crisis-management-supply-chain/442218/#

  • Net Neutrality Update: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (NSFW)
  • How To Decline An Opportunity At Work That You Might Want Later On

    The message you want to get across is that you’d like to say yes, but unfortunately, this isn’t the best time for you. The tricky part is: That’s the same thing people say if they want to decline, but think punting comes off nicer than a flat no.

    To separate yourself from them, keep in mind that you have a totally different motivation. Their goal is to be nice–and hope the other person forgets about them. Your goal, on the other hand, is to share that you’re interested, but genuinely can’t make it work.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40421338/how-to-decline-an-opportunity-at-work-that-you-might-want-later-on?

  • The working dead: IT jobs bound for extinction

    “Previously, job seekers with high-demand technical skill sets and expertise were mainly hired into IT departments,” he says. “Nowadays, traditional IT skill sets are in demand across a wider variety of departments—from engineering and product management, to business intelligence and even design.”

    Instead of lurking around the server room, many sys admins can be found in marketing or sales departments managing their companies’ CRM implementations, notes CompTIA’s Stanger. But he adds that IT admins can still remain relevant by attuning their skills for the cloud-mobility-IoT era.

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/3196022/it-careers/the-working-dead-it-jobs-bound-for-extinction.html
    Not sure if I agree with everything on this list, but an interesting conversation starter. 

Posted on

News You Can Use: 5/17/2017

  • LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman: To Scale, Do Things That Don’t Scale

    “Over the last 20 years, I’ve worked on or invested in many companies that scaled to 100 million users or more,” says Hoffman. “But here’s the thing: You don’t start with 100 million users. You start with a few. So, stop thinking big, and start thinking small.”

    Adds Chesky, “It’s really hard to get even 10 people to love anything but it’s not hard if you spend a ton of time with them.”

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293393

  • Why ‘Vacation-Shaming’ Hurts You More Than Your Employees

    Gary Beckstrand, vice president of O.C. Tanner Institute, in Salt Lake City, described an acquaintance who worked for a smaller company where long hours and lots of work travel were common. “While she was very passionate about her work — in fact, she says she loved it — after three years and only one very short vacation mixed in, she was completely burned out and she left the company,” Beckstrand told me.

    “You lose great experience and talent with employees who leave, and it costs the company money to bring in and train a new person.”

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293711

  • Irrational Thinking Is a Virtue, Not a Vice
  • DHS ‘likely’ to expand laptop ban on flights

    Expanding the ban to and from other countries, including European countries, is being weighed by DHS, according to various reports. There is also an internal debate at DHS about what to do about lithium batteries inside devices stored in the baggage hold of a plane that could overheat and catch fire, causing a catastrophic explosion, according to Reuters and others.

    Expanding the DHS ban would require a herculean adjustment for many business travelers, some accustomed to writing and editing reports and presentations for hours on long flights. Suggested workarounds include the ability to check out a lightweight laptop or Chromebook near an airport gate to use just for that flight. It would then be checked in after all data was erased at the end of the flight.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3196146/it-industry/dhs-likely-to-expand-laptop-ban-on-flights.html

  • Why your mom is the best CPO you know

    By the time my son was 5, I had learned a valuable lesson: the $30 double-reinforced-knee pants from the catalog were a smarter purchase than the $9 pants from the big-box store. Why? Because my son, God bless him, can wear holes in the knees of his pants in no time flat. The $9 pants seemed like a bargain, but I had to replace them often. After two winters of trying to find long pants in his size when the stores had transitioned to Spring duds, I realized that the better quality, more expensive pants saved me time, gas, frustration in the long run.

    https://www.jaggaer.com/mother-procurement-posts-mom-best-cpo-know/

Photo: Eva Darron