Tag: millennials

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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

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News You Can Use: 4/5/2017

  • Why Office Perks Aren’t Enough to Attract and Retain Millennials

    Take GE as an example. The erstwhile General Electric was founded before some millennials’ great-grandparents were born, but it’s doing a true job of remaining relevant for a new generation. In 2015 the company rolled out its “What’s the Matter With Owen” ad campaign aimed at potential millennial candidates. After its release, GE saw an 800 percent increase in applications and a 66 percent increase in traffic to the career site. GE surprised more than a few people by showing a sense of humor about its somewhat old-fashioned reputation. More importantly, the company highlighted some of the innovative work that goes on behind the scenes there, showing that it recognized the importance millennials place on being part of an organization with a well-defined mission. GE’s new look is more than skin deep: Moving its headquarters from suburban Connecticut to downtown Boston is a sign that the company is willing to adapt to how (and where) young employees want to work.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/290980

  • Senate votes to allow ISPs to collect personal data without permission

    The Senate voted 50-48 in favor of S.J. 34, which would remove the rules and, under the authority of the Congressional Review Act, prevent similar rules from being enacted. It now heads to the House for approval.

    “If signed by the President, this law would repeal the FCC’s widely-supported broadband privacy framework, and eliminate the requirement that cable and broadband providers offer customers a choice before selling their sensitive, personal information,” said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny in a joint statement.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/23/senate-votes-to-allow-isps-to-collect-personal-data-without-permission/?ncid=rss

  • America’s Next Moonshot: Cut Poverty 50% by 2030
  • How to stop taking useless notes at work

    Students who wrote longhand notes outperformed laptop note takers in recalling information to pass the quiz. And when the researchers examined the students’ notes, they found a clue as to why: The laptop notes tended to include a lot of verbatim transcription of the video, whereas handwritten notes couldn’t be written fast enough to do the same. If we can type fast enough to transcribe information verbatim, we can get away with writing notes without engaging our minds too much—we don’t have to think critically or even pay too much attention to simply write down exactly what someone’s saying.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/3069147/how-to-finally-stop-taking-useless-notes-at-work

  • Avoid the Telecommuting Reboot

    When you get to the size of a remote workforce that IBM and Yahoo were faced with, the ability to recycle and refresh the tools supporting remote workers almost certainly becomes a management nightmare for IT staff. What likely happened was that rollouts of new tools took place, but the remote workers clung to the legacy tools they knew best.

    As IT decision makers, it’s important to look at all aspects of telecommuting policy reversals. Yes, there likely were political and philosophical reasons behind IBM and Yahoo’s reversal on remote work policy. But technology may have also played a role. From an IT perspective, you should perhaps reevaluate your own telecommute processes and tools to make sure they are where they need to be.

    http://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/avoid-the-telecommuting-reboot/d/d-id/1328514?_mc=RSS_IWK_EDT

Photo: Ciprian Boiciuc

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News You Can Use: 3/1/2017

  • Rough Day at Work? Exercise and Sleep Are the Best Ways to Shake It Off.

    They found that participants who took a daily average of 10,900 steps were less likely to take out their frustrations on their loved ones than those who took an average of less than 7,000 steps a day.

    The study also found that burning about 587 calories can translate to shaking off a tough day and stop an individual from bringing work issues home with them. The authors recommended activities such as walking and swimming.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/289127

  • The Millennial CPO: How Will the New Generation Transform the Supply Chain Profession?

    “I envision the field to become more and more tech-centric,” says Jennifer Wolff, senior manager of material planning at Masco Cabinetry. “I continue to be disappointed by the systems that exist for our field.” It is safe to say that technology has embedded itself into the average millennial’s personal and work life. According to Nielsen, more than 85% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 own a smartphone, and a quarter of them ranked “technology use” as the defining characteristic of their generation.

    http://spendmatters.com/2017/02/15/millennial-cpo-will-new-generation-transform-supply-chain-profession/

  • How a Math Algorithm Could Educate the Whole World — for Free
  • 5 Steps to Develop a Supply Chain Risk Assessment Process
    1. Define stakeholder concerns
    2. Identify points of risk
    3. Develop a risk mitigation strategy
    4. Partner with third-party auditors and data collection agencies
    5. Simulate outcomes

    http://www.satprnews.com/2017/02/14/5-steps-to-develop-a-supply-chain-risk-assessment-process/

  • Oracle launches four apps for supply chain automation

    Nainani said Oracle’s supply chain and transport customers have “found it hard to adopt our IoT cloud components because they were uncertain how much investment was needed up front and how it would pay off for them.” In response, Oracle designed the new suite of tools to produce quick results in applications that clients are already using, Nainani said. The applications are in such areas as manufacturing, maintenance, customer service, and transportation management, he said.

    http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20170214-oracle-launches-four-apps-for-supply-chain-automation/

Photo: Alexander Mils

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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: 12/21/2016

  • Why Trump and the Tech Industry Are on a Collision Course

    During the campaign, Trump in turn lashed Apple for manufacturing too many of its products overseas. Stephen Bannon, the former chief executive of Breitbart—who has emerged as the ideological synthesizer of Trump’s worldview—has touted Democrats’ courtship of the technology industry as evidence the party had abandoned heartland workers for coastal elites. As Bannon recently told The Hollywood Reporter, “They were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It’s not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about.”

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/trump-silicon-valley-tech/510584/?utm_source=feed

  • What Does It Mean to be “Strategic” in Supply Chain, Anyway?

    A study in Supply Chain Quarterly provides six models or “styles” of Supply Chain strategy, each suited to a different kind of industry: “efficient” Supply Chains, “fast” Supply Chains, “continuous-flow” Supply Chains, “agile” Supply Chains, “custom-configured” Supply Chains, and “flexible” Supply Chains. These names might seem like different terms for the same thing – and these words often get thrown around as buzzwords all over the industry. But the study’s author, Hernan David Perez, goes into deep detail about the differences in each strategic approach that shows the depth and complexity inherent in developing a truly strategic Supply Chain.

    https://blog.kinaxis.com/2016/12/mean-strategic-supply-chain-anyway/

  • Tech industry sees new talent pool in people with autism
    This isn’t new (but it is good)… SAP has been recruiting people on the spectrum for the last 4 or 5 years. 

    There’s no job interview, and differences in ability are taken into consideration during the application process. Once on the job, specialist staff help support the participants.

    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/12/09/tech-industry-sees-new-talent-pool-people-autism

  • Words Of Advice From Millennials In Supply Chain Management

    Khan explains how she appreciates management that challenges her and suggests that employers need to recognize that not all millennials are the same – despite what the stereotypes might imply. The solution: get to know your millennial talent individually and take the time to understand their goals to help them reach their full potential. As the most educated generation, millennials are eager to apply their degrees in their work and they are driven to advance. However, that drive doesn’t necessarily mean they are willing to “job-hop”. Employers should strive to challenge millennials by rewarding performance with new responsibilities and opportunities to grow.

    http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2016/12/words-of-advice-from-millennials-in_8.html

  • To fix federal procurement, dump the DUNS number

    But one outdated technology still stands in the way of transparency: the DUNS Number.

    Twenty years ago, the federal government entered into an agreement with Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., to provide a numbering system to track contractors. In order to do business with the government, companies must pay Dun & Bradstreet to be issued a DUNS Number.

    Dun & Bradstreet continues to own every DUNS Number. That means anyone who wants to download or analyze the government’s public procurement data must buy a D&B license.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/308993-to-fix-federal-procurement-dump-the-duns-number

Photo: Jonatan Pie