Tag: Communication

Posted on

News You Can Use: 10/30/2019


Photo by Mihai Surdu on Unsplash

  • Why you should ditch team building activities and just let people get to work

    Forget the rock-climbing excursions; instead, give team members meaty tasks to accomplish together (and I’m talking about real work, not fake tasks here). The most effective way to strengthen team bonds is by having people work together and accomplish results as a group. Winning the three-legged race may be exhilarating (or embarrassing for those who don’t love the cheesy), but overcoming a work challenge or solving a thorny problem is a much more effective way to get your team closer together.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90408773/4-things-you-should-do-instead-of-team-building-activities

  • The Phone Call Isn’t Dead, It’s Evolving

    Talking was the most popular way to communicate via cellphone in the fall of 2012, with 94% of survey respondents having done so in the prior week, according to consumer-research firm MRI-Simmons. By the spring of 2019, talking had fallen to least popular, behind texting, emailing, posting to social media and using chat apps, with just 45% reporting doing it in the prior week. In other words, less than half had used their phone for an actual phone call.

    Multiple people I interviewed said when the phone rings unexpectedly, they assume someone has died. But some app developers and investors think voice communication over the phone isn’t the problem, just the act of making a phone call itself. Between the rise of smart speakers and Apple’s wireless AirPod earbuds, and the ubiquity of group messaging and video chat, they’re betting now might be the time for voice to make a comeback.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-phone-call-isnt-dead-its-evolving-11571457605

  • What causes an economic recession?
  • Zuckerberg defends Facebook as bastion of ‘free expression’ in speech

    Zuckerberg defended the company’s decision to allow misinformation in political advertising on the platform, despite high-profile pushback against the policy.

    “Given the sensitivity around political ads, I’ve considered whether we should stop allowing them altogether,” Zuckerberg said. “But political ads are an important part of voice – especially for local candidates, up-and-coming challengers and advocacy groups that may not get much media attention otherwise. Banning political ads favors incumbents and whoever the media covers.”

    And he also seemed to brazenly rewrite the site’s beginnings, which were reportedly as a “hot or not” game for Harvard students to play, as a platform to share perspectives after the beginning of the Iraq war.

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/17/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-free-expression-speech

  • Debt-ridden GE abruptly freezes pensions on 20,000 employees

    The company announced today that it was going to pre-fund about $4-5 billion of estimated minimum ERISA funding requirements for 2021 and 2022 and offer a limited time lump-sum payment option to approximately 100,000 eligible former employees who have not started getting their monthly pension payments yet.

    According to GE, these moves will cut its pension deficit by about $5-$8 billion and its industrial net debt by approximately $4-$6 billion.

    Wall Street seemed to like the decision. GE’s stock was $8.63, up 6 cents or 0.70%, in pre-market trading.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90414035/debt-ridden-ge-abruptly-freezes-20000-employee-pensions

Posted on

News You Can Use: 9/11/2019


Photo by Joshua Ness on Unsplash

  • The Case for Lowering Your Expectations

    In 2006, epidemiologists from the University of Southern Denmark set out to explore why citizens of Denmark consistently score higher than any other Western country on measures of life satisfaction. Their findings, published in the medical journal BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), zeroed in on the importance of expectations. “If expectations are unrealistically high they could be the basis of disappointment and low life satisfaction,” write the authors. “While the Danes are very satisfied, their expectations [compared to other countries] are rather low.”

    In a more recent study that included more than 18,000 participants and was published in 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from University College in London examined people’s happiness from moment to moment. They found that “momentary happiness in response to outcomes of a probabilistic reward task is not explained by current task earnings, but by the combined influence of the recent reward expectations and prediction errors arising from those expectations.” In other words: Happiness at any given moment equals reality minus expectations.

    https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-case-for-lowering-your-expectations

  • How to Communicate With Your Boss

    We recently conducted a survey of 355 people and learned that the #1 piece of information that managers want to know is the progress that’s being made on a project. As a result, you’ll want to ask yourself: Am I sharing the progress I’m making day-to-day or week-to-week? You can also ask your boss directly: “How can I give you more visibility into my work?” or “Are there any decisions or projects you wish I were more transparent about?”

    https://lifehacker.com/how-to-communicate-with-your-boss-1837407349

  • Why employees have the upper hand now more than ever before
  • You should think more about how you onboard your newest hires

    No matter how experienced your new hire is, they likely don’t want to be the center of attention of a group of strangers on day one. Starting a new job is stressful, and being immediately thrust into a round of clapping employees magnifies that stress exponentially.

    What to do instead: Opt for “pre-boarding.” To minimize first-day jitters (and the chance of a new hire getting cold feet after accepting your offer), send a welcome email within a couple days and perhaps have one or two key staffers send a similar email. You may also want to send along the employee handbook and a brief outline of the first week’s schedule. That way, new employees can start with confidence and a warm, but low-key, welcome.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90382574/you-should-think-more-about-how-you-onboard-your-newest-hires

Posted on

News You Can Use: 4/3/2019

  • How Better Communication Skills Can Make You a Better Leader

    You might stray away from being assertive, in fear that it’ll come off as confrontational — trust us when we say they’re not one and the same. Part of being assertive is the ability to confidently stand behind your words and offer up a much-needed sense of direction or action plan.

    Fact is, everyone possesses knowledge — but what makes individuals stand out as leaders is their ability to communicate that unique information. And beyond just relaying that information, figuring out a way to inspire and motivate others.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/331323

  • Apple still has a lot to prove with its new subscription services

    The best answer I can come up with is this: Apple has a huge effect on technology and culture, and Apple is trying to tell a new story about what it is and what it makes. You should care because the story Apple tells us and tells itself has real effects on the products it makes and its effect on culture.

    So yes, Apple makes subscription services now. But if the whole story is just “Apple can make more money now that iPhone sales have plateaued,” then none of this really matters or changes anything.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/26/18282776/apple-tv-news-plus-subscription-services-announcement-keynote-cost-bundle

  • Shh! Keep Your Big Goals to Yourself.

    Some experts argue that praise before accomplishment can actually prevent us from reaching our goals. In 2009, researcher Peter Gollwitzer asked the question, “Are scientists more likely to write papers if they tell colleagues about their intentions or if they keep their intentions to themselves?”

    After completing a series of studies, Gollwitzer and his team found that when people set a goal that’s closely tied to their identity and share their intentions with others, they’re less likely to achieve that goal. In converse example, telling friends that you’re going to start taking vitamins likely won’t affect your follow-through. That’s because vitamins probably aren’t deeply tied to your personal identity.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/329168

  • Move over, WeWork. This Belize beachside coworking space is the dream

    While all coworking spaces claim their business is “more than a workspace” and their unique design and the various perks they offer “set them apart,” the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) may actually be right. The bungalow is situated over the brilliantly blue water on Tobacco Caye. The coworking space has an open-concept layout to help coworkers feel right at home and make collaboration easy. There are standing desks, a wellness center, executive parking, a VIP boardroom, and, of course, Wi-Fi and a killer view.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90327084/move-over-wework-this-belize-beachside-co-working-space-is-the-dream

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 12/26/2018

  • Evan Spiegel’s Imperious Style Made Snapchat a Success—Until Users Fled

    Snapchat’s popularity among young people and celebrities once helped give its owner a peak valuation of about $31 billion after its March 2017 initial public offering. The messaging app, which lets a person send a friend “snaps”—photos and videos that can disappear seconds after the recipient views them—once looked capable of becoming a viable social-media competitor to Facebook Inc.

    The redesign mess adds to troubles swirling around Snap and raises questions about whether Mr. Spiegel’s management instincts can help it pull through. His style—trust instincts, take control of details, ignore naysayers—paid off during Snap’s meteoric rise after its 2011 founding.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/evan-spiegels-imperious-style-made-snapchat-a-successuntil-users-fled-11545588892

  • Richard Branson Says the 9-5 Workday Grind Is About to Die. Here’s Why.

    Two other ideas that Branson supports are the proliferation of three and four day weekends and job sharing. These would prioritize a work infrastructure that allows employees to have full lives outside of an office, to spend time with friends and family, to devote time to the things they are passionate about, and to focus on being physically and mentally healthy.

    Branson explained how flexible work is a big part of how he leads Virgin Group. “If you trust people and treat them as adults, they will repay you by working effectively and efficiently,” he wrote. “Choice can empower people to make good decisions and feel positive about their workplace, helping to keep great employees and attract new talent. If we all work smarter, we won’t have to work longer.”

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/324969

  • GoFundMe and a broken healthcare system
  • Advice For Employees: There’s a Limit To Your Complaints

    But to all employees — particularly those who are too young to remember what it was like during the 2009 recession — I do have a warning: you may want to zip it, just a little.

    There’s nothing wrong with giving feedback and by all means if your employer is doing something illegal you should be reporting it. Otherwise — and I say this with peace and love — you may be wise to tread carefully with your concerns about how the owners of the company you work at manage their company. Big firms like Google and Amazon that are in the public eye seem to have a higher tolerance for agitation. But smaller companies? Not as much. We don’t need the headaches. If you’re really not happy with how your employer runs his or her company then by all means: take advantage of the strong economy and make a move. That advantage isn’t going to last forever.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/324626

  • Stop Sending Regular Text Messages

    In more granular terms, the FCC has done to text messaging what it did to the internet when it overturned rules protecting net neutrality. The FCC’s latest decision reclassifies both SMS and MMS texts as “information services” under Title I of the Communications Act. Information services, however, aren’t subject to the same level of regulations as Title II-classified “telecommunication services” like phone calls, which is how they were classified before the December 12 decision. If you’re questioning the comparison to net neutrality, it’s literally the same issue: Broadband internet service was classified as Title II, allowing the FCC to enforce net neutrality rules. But the FCC voted to ditch these rules last year and once again classify broadband under Title I.

    Bottom Line:

    Basically, if you were looking for a push to switch to Signal, this is it. It’s secure, it has a desktop app, and it works across iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows.

    https://gizmodo.com/stop-sending-regular-text-messages-1831258324

Photo by Christophe Hautier on Unsplash

Posted on

News You Can Use: 8/29/2018

The Source: Gig Economy

  • It’s Not Technology That’s Disrupting Our Jobs

    Over these four decades we have seen an increase in the use of day laborers, office temps, management consultants, contract assemblers, adjunct professors, Blackwater mercenaries and every other kind of worker filing an I.R.S. form 1099. These jobs span the income ranks, but they share what all work seems to have in common in the post-1970s economy: They are temporary and insecure.

    In the last 10 years, 94 percent of net new jobs have appeared outside of traditional employment. Already approximately one-third of workers, and half of young workers, participate in this alternative world of work, either as a primary or a supplementary source of income.

    Internet technologies have certainly intensified this development (even though most freelancers remain offline). But services like Uber and online freelance markets like TaskRabbit were created to take advantage of an already independent work force; they are not creating it. Their technology is solving the business and consumer problems of an already insecure work world. Uber is a symptom, not a cause.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/opinion/technology/technology-gig-economy.html

  • Big ‘Epic Fails’ Can Feel Like a Punch in the Gut. What Should You Do After?

    Whether it’s a client, a boss or your team, don’t wait to reach out. The key is to learn all of the facts first. Together with your team, iterate a heart-felt and honest response before the end of the day via email or in preparation for a live conversation. It is important not to let more than a few hours pass so that your client and your team can see that you place a heightened yet thoughtful sense of urgency. Blame does not matter and there is no room to take a tit-for-tat approach, nor to overly explain the reasons for the perceived or qualified failure. Instead, take personal accountability for the negative experiences and/or outcomes expressed by your client. Thoughtfully respond with words that explicitly reflect the examples of failure relayed by your clients. Reiterate your company’s mission and your personal commitment to ensuring customer delight. If it makes sense, offer to refund a portion of the costs.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/316096

  • The death of America’s middle class: Sky-high rent, second jobs, and 1% TV
  • Sorry, Pal, I Don’t Want to Talk: The Other Reason People Wear AirPods

    Dave Luis, 44, head of marketing for a hospitality startup in Dubai, heard a friend complain about insouciant colleagues wearing AirPods during business meetings.

    “She found it incredibly rude and offensive,” Mr. Luis said. “I’d recently bought mine. Every time we met, she’d actually make a point of asking me to remove these from my ears.”

    Mr. Luis posted a poll on his Facebook page asking for opinions about wearing the devices during meetings. He said he was surprised to find that only 9% of his 80-plus friends found it acceptable.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/sorry-pal-i-dont-want-to-talk-the-other-reason-people-wear-airpods-1534949793

  • The secret to getting work done in an open office

    Where people sit is another consideration. “You can’t mix sales, which is naturally a loud process, with developers, designers, or writers,” says Fried. “They go at a different pace. Different jobs require different environments. People who need to make noises are special; we’ve made focus the primary default.”

    By making choices and implementing strategies, Basecamp employees can be focused and undistracted even though spaces are all out in the open. “You don’t have to feel like you have to hide to find quiet; quiet is the default here,” says Fried. “Noise is the exception, and it’s in isolated spaces.”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90218546/the-secret-to-getting-work-done-in-an-open-office