Tag: Healthcare

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News You Can Use: 2/27/2019

  • A digital gangster destroying democracy: the damning verdict on Facebook (UK)

    The scale of the report – it drew from 170 written submissions and evidence from 73 witnesses who were asked more than 4,350 questions – is without precedent. And it’s what contributes to making its conclusions so damning: that the government must now act. That Facebook must be regulated. That Britain’s electoral laws must be re-written from the bottom up; the report is unequivocal, they are not “fit for purpose”. And that the government must now open an independent investigation into foreign interference in all British elections since 2014.

    Cambridge Analytica was already on the committee’s radar when the scandal broke in March last year. But, over the ensuing weeks and months, it interviewed an extraordinary cast of characters to drill down into the underlying machinery of the new political power structures. And the result – a doorstopper of a report covering multiple interconnected issues – damns Facebook not just once or twice but time and time again.

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/18/a-digital-gangster-destroying-democracy-the-damning-verdict-on-facebook

    I am no fan of Facebook, but this feels like scape-goating

  • It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town

    Skilled tech workers now flock to New York from everywhere. But the homegrown talent engine that city officials sought to jump-start a decade ago is also revving up. The new Cornell Tech graduate school campus on Roosevelt Island, a product of the city’s development plan, has 300 students, with expansion plans for a student population of 2,000 over the next two decades. And new courses, buildings and research institutes are underway at Columbia, New York University and the City University of New York.

    The Cornell Tech proposal fully embraced the Bloomberg administration’s priority of blending science and industry. Graduate students’ projects at local companies are a mainstay of the curriculum.

    “In New York, people are driven by real-world problems that can be solved with technology,” said Daniel Huttenlocher, the dean of Cornell Tech, who has also worked in Silicon Valley and is an Amazon board member. “In Silicon Valley, the heritage is much more to build cool technology and then figure out how it can make money.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/technology/nyc-tech-startups.html

  • How health care quietly powers the U.S. economy
  • ‘You need a thick skin’: Ad agencies grapple with workplace bullying

    A Society of Human Resource Management study found that 51 percent of organizations report incidents of bullying last year, with 62 percent reporting gossip or lies and 50 percent reporting threats. Another survey, sponsored by the Workplace Bullying Institute in 2010, found that 35 percent of U.S. workers have experienced or witnessed bullying. The survey also found that men bully other men more, while women bully other women.

    Workplace bullying and verbal harassment, although related, are a little bit different. Bullying is not illegal — mostly because no laws really exist to protect people from being bullied. Unlike race-based, gender-based or other forms of discrimination, those who are bullied aren’t considered a protected class unless that bullying spills over into harassment that is targeted because of race, gender, sexual orientation or another reason.

    https://digiday.com/marketing/need-thick-skin-ad-agencies-grapple-workplace-bullying/

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

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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

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News You Can Use: 7/18/2018

Finding Happy: Joey Lombardi: The Source

  • Is insurance a rich enough game to disrupt?

    Tech innovation has long been a challenge for insurance incumbents. Old systems are difficult to displace in any industry, but the complexity of insurance, tradition of relying on the past to predict the future and silos of data can make it a Herculean effort. Tech giants, on the other hand, regularly cannibalize their own revenue with new products and can enlist tens of thousands of engineers to develop fantastic digital customer experiences and bring large-scale efficiencies to back-end insurance systems through better software and AI.

    So, yes, FAAMG has a number of major advantages over insurance incumbents. But for tech giants, new verticals and initiatives are also longer-term decisions around margins and market scope. It’s an obvious point, but if FAAMG wants to jump into insurance, they’ll want a decent return. Can they find that in insurance?

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/10/is-insurance-a-rich-enough-game-to-disrupt/

  • How to handle the job-search process when you just got fired

    Instead, go with something like, “For three years, my role involved analyzing market opportunities and then making recommendations to our product teams on potential new products and product enhancements. We worked incredibly well together and launched some amazing innovations. The firm recently reorganized and shifted leadership. My role was redefined, and much of the analysis work that I love was removed from my job. While I realized some key wins as my role shifted, the primary focus of the position was no longer centered on the things I do best, like [insert things you do well and know this company is seeking].”

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90199718/how-to-handle-the-job-search-process-when-you-just-got-fired

  • Being happy has nothing to do with money (or drugs)
  • Why Corporate America is recruiting high schoolers

    Since 2011, more than 400 companies have partnered with 79 public high schools across the country to offer a six-year program called P-Tech. Students can enroll for grades 9 to 14 and earn both a high school and an associate’s degree in a science, tech, engineering or math related field.

    The companies offer input on the curriculum, bring students on site, pair them with employee mentors, and offer paid internships, or some combination of the above.

    “There’s a war for talent across all our competitors. We know we’re going to need a lot of different pathways to bring talent in,” said Jennifer Ryan Crozier, president of the IBM Foundation.

    https://www.clickorlando.com/education/why-corporate-america-is-recruiting-high-schoolers

  • Yes, open office plans are the worst

    In the study, researchers followed two anonymous Fortune 500 companies during their transitions between a traditional office space to an open plan environment and used a sensor called a “sociometric badge” (think company ID on a lanyard) to record detailed information about the kind of interactions employees had in both spaces. The study collected information in two stages; first for several weeks before the renovation and the second for several weeks after.

    While the concept behind open office spaces is to drive informal interaction and collaboration among employees, the study found that for both groups of employees monitored (52 for one company and 100 for the other company) face-to-face interactions dropped, the number of emails sent increased between 20 and 50 percent and company executives reported a qualitative drop in productivity.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/yes-open-office-plans-are-the-worst/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage

Photo by Maxim Medvedev on Unsplash

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News You Can Use: 2/7/2018

  • Child development experts want Facebook to pull its Messenger Kids app

    The experts have written an open letter urging Facebook to pull the child-focused messenger app, saying that “younger children are simply not ready to have social media accounts,” reports the Guardian. The letter was spearheaded by the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood and signed by over 100 child health experts, doctors, and educators. In it, the signatories argue: “At a time when there is mounting concern about how social media use affects adolescents’ well-being, it is particularly irresponsible to encourage children as young as pre-schoolers to start using a Facebook product.” The Messenger Kids app was launched in December and aimed at children under 13. It offers a host of parental controls, and Facebook says the data collected from the app will not be used for advertising purposes. Facebook has not yet responded to the open letter.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40523795/child-development-experts-want-facebook-to-pull-its-messenger-kids-app

  • Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey’s DX dive into virtual medicine

    Blackwell and his team started rolling out the first phase of Horizon’s digital transformation strategy last year by launching pilot web and mobile services that improve the member experience and make it easier for participants to understand their benefits. These services detail which doctors are available, explain how much services will cost, and let a patient schedule a visit.

    The Phase 1 rollout lets individuals take a more active role in the administrative nuances of medical care, which really isn’t anything new. In fact, it is quickly becoming virtual business as usual for users who routinely use their smartphones or mobile devices to order pizzas, groceries, or a ride across town and prefer the same “tap and swipe” convenience for medical services.

    During the first phase, Horizon also adopted a full agile development and methodology, which included assigning a product owner for the digital platform —something the hospital IT department never did before. The insurance provider also revamped the physical space for the digital team, creating an open environment with no walls or barriers.

    https://www.cio.com/article/3251724/digital-transformation/horizon-blue-cross-blue-shield-of-new-jerseys-dx-dive-into-virtual-medicine.html

  • How To Learn To Love Mondays Again

    If you chronically dread Mondays, explore where those feelings come from, says Nicole Lewis-Keeber, a psychotherapist and coach based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve robbed half on my Sunday or more in the corporate world or as an entrepreneur already worrying about what’s going to happen for the week,” she says.

    Lewis-Keeber recommends looking at the reasons why you’re dreading Monday. Is there a project that’s troubling you? Are you struggling in your job or having issues with an individual? Once you name the source of your bad feelings about heading back to work at the end of the weekend, you can begin to reframe it or take action to resolve it.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40521664/how-to-learn-to-love-mondays-again

  • This Is What It’s Like To Not Own A Smartphone In 2018

    But it’s more than just addiction and information overload. In the rush to adopt and upgrade devices, we’ve collectively given up a lot–our privacy and data chief among them. Consider this recent video highlighting an average smartphone user whose GPS coordinates were shared with third parties 3,545 times over the course of a single week, based on permissions she gave in those user agreements no one reads.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40522828/this-is-what-its-like-to-not-own-a-smartphone-in-2018

Photo: KT

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News You Can Use: 12/13/2017

  • The Internet Is Dying. Repealing Net Neutrality Hastens That Death.

    You didn’t need permission for any of this stuff; some of these innovations ruined traditional industries, some fundamentally altered society, and many were legally dubious. But the internet meant you could just put it up, and if it worked, the rest of the world would quickly adopt it.

    But if flexibility was the early internet’s promise, it was soon imperiled. In 2003, Tim Wu, a law professor now at Columbia Law School (he’s also a contributor to The New York Times), saw signs of impending corporate control over the growing internet. Broadband companies that were investing great sums to roll out faster and faster internet service to Americans were becoming wary of running an anything-goes network.

    Some of the new uses of the internet threatened their bottom line. People were using online services as an alternative to paying for cable TV or long-distance phone service. They were connecting devices like Wi-Fi routers, which allowed them to share their connections with multiple devices. At the time, there were persistent reports of broadband companies seeking to block or otherwise frustrate these new services; in a few years, some broadband providers would begin blocking new services outright.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/technology/internet-dying-repeal-net-neutrality.html

  • China’s Tech Giants Have a Second Job: Helping Beijing Spy on Its People

    Users of Tencent’s WeChat app who run large group chats say they have received automated warnings about politically sensitive content. Some political activists say their WeChat accounts have been suspended or closed for posts critical of the government.

    During important political events, staffers with China’s internet regulator set up shop at Chinese content providers to catch anything that might slip through the cracks, people familiar with the operations said. The regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

    Along with access to online data, China’s government wants something else from tech companies—the cloud computing prowess to sort and analyze information. China wants to crunch data from surveillance cameras, smartphones, government databases and other sources to create so-called smart cities and safe cities.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-tech-giants-have-a-second-job-helping-the-government-see-everything-1512056284

  • The real reason American health care is so expensive
  • Amazon is putting Alexa in the office

    The first focus for Alexa for Business is conference room. AWS is working with the likes of Polycom and other video and audio conferencing providers to enable this.

    In addition, AWS also worked with Microsoft to enable better support for its suite of productivity services, as well as other enterprise services likes of Concur and Splunk to bring their services to Alexa. Other partners include Capital One, WeWork and JPL.

    Just as developers can build skills for Amazon Echo users, businesses can now build out Alexa skills for use within their own company. You could imagine voice access to an employee directory, Salesforce data on various clients and accounts, or company calendar information.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/29/amazon-is-putting-alexa-in-the-office/?ncid=rss

  • Verizon to Sell Wireless Home Broadband, Challenging Cable

    Verizon said Wednesday it would sell high-speed internet access in three to five cities, starting in Sacramento, Calif. The cities are all expected to be outside Verizon’s existing landline footprint in the Northeast, where it sells high-speed fiber-optic internet called Fios. The company said more details, such as its price, would be unveiled later.

    The wireless giant will use fifth-generation, or 5G, technology, which is capable of delivering significantly faster internet speeds than existing 4G technology, also known as LTE. Customers will likely have to place a box in their windows that will convert Verizon’s wireless signals into Wi-Fi inside the house.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/verizon-to-sell-home-broadband-over-wireless-network-1512037801

Photo: Pana Vasquez