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

News You Can Use: 1/24/2018

  • It’s time for Washington to start working on artificial intelligence

    Visitors to the Capitol today wouldn’t expect to see cutting edge experiments taking place inside the building and sadly, they probably don’t have much faith that Congress is even thinking about the future at all. This shows up in the rhetoric and it shows up in our budgets. Washington spends way too much time re-litigating the past — witness how much time has been devoted to debating old trade deals, the 2010 Affordable Care Act or the 1980s Reagan tax cuts — and has increasingly budgeted and legislated in a backwards looking way.

    Instead of embracing the trends of the future and empowering our citizens, too many policymakers would rather roll back the clock. According to data collected by the Brookings Institute, federal investment in research and development has declined significantly in recent decades, falling from 2.23% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the 1960s to just 0.77% in 2016 (GDP). Think about that, across the same decades when we saw a globally-connected high-tech economy emerge, we dramatically scaled back investment in R&D.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/17/its-time-for-washington-to-start-working-on-artificial-intelligence/?ncid=rss

  • Gartner: AI and B2B marketplaces will dominate procurement

    Amazon’s Web Services are its main driver of revenue for the e-commerce giant, so as more procurement officers leave outdated software behind and switch over to more streamlined and efficient options, the result will be tighter competition for other software providers, cloud services, retailers and third-party sellers.

    Furthermore, as procurement departments let go of old software systems and embrace AI-run systems, virtual assistants and chatbots, procurement departments will begin to streamline and automate purchases, there will be a shift in labor and talent demand for those roles.

    https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/gartner-trends-2018-AI-b2b-marketplaces-chatbot/514389/

  • How to Win with Game Theory & Defeat Smart Opponents
  • 5 Habits For Staying Productive In The Dreariest Months Of The Year

    2. FEEL GRATEFUL FOR SOMETHING EVERY DAY
    The holiday season can feel like a giant, blinking neon sign telling you to practice gratitude and cherish those around you. But without the sugary-sweet commercials and Netflix holiday rom-coms as reminders, it’s easy to fall back into your day-to-day routines, forgetting to notice the everyday magic around you.

    A daily gratitude habit is strongly correlated with increased happiness and overall well-being, not to mention with strengthening your relationships. For the next month or two, give it a shot. You can go as a big as writing in a physical gratitude journal once a day, or as small as remembering to reflect on a good moment before you go to bed tonight.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40515213/5-habits-for-staying-productive-in-the-dreariest-months-of-the-year

  • With all 49 Democrats on board, Senate leaders sound off on plan to restore net neutrality

    Forcing a vote means everyone in the Senate has to officially weigh in on this issue, and that makes it a very simple matter, come election season, to say whether they support net neutrality or not. Sure, they can blow smoke and attempt to obfuscate the issue, but ultimately people understand that the new rule vastly reduces the protections they have, and to support it is to support that reduction. It’s not going to be a popular decision.

    If it gets into the House, the same thing happens there — so that’s a good reason to root for its success in the Senate, even if it doesn’t really get it any closer to becoming law.

    https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/16/with-all-49-democrats-on-board-senate-leaders-sound-off-on-plan-to-restore-net-neutrality/?ncid=rss

Photo: Thought Catalog

News You Can Use: 12/27/2017

  • Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society

    Palihapitiya’s criticisms were aimed not only at Facebook, but the wider online ecosystem. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, thumbs-up.” “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem — this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.”

    He went on to describe an incident in India where hoax messages about kidnappings shared on WhatsApp led to the lynching of seven innocent people. “That’s what we’re dealing with,” said Palihapitiya. “And imagine taking that to the extreme, where bad actors can now manipulate large swathes of people to do anything you want. It’s just a really, really bad state of affairs.” He says he tries to use Facebook as little as possible, and that his children “aren’t allowed to use that shit.” He later adds, though, that he believes the company “overwhelmingly does good in the world.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/11/16761016/former-facebook-exec-ripping-apart-society

  • The Services Procurement Machine is Broken — Here’s Why You Should Trade it in for a New Approach

    Engagements measured on cost and milestones alone fail to secure the best value for the business, as quality and innovation are often the first casualties to such an approach. What’s more, the structure of the machine has forced procurement to accept increased supplier rationalization and a narrow preference for larger services providers. Stuck working with big, “safe” firms, businesses have lost access to the high-performing talent and innovative solutions smaller firms can offer.

    But let’s not get all touchy-feely here: no gently swung process automation hammer is going to shatter an old system. What’s needed to creating lasting improvement is a root cause analysis of why the machine broke in the first place.

    Also:

    Second, the machine’s focus on cost and risk avoidance has led to increased supplier rationalization. This can be great for MRO, but the same strategy for safety supplies or lightbulbs is not necessarily the right one to tap specialized creative or strategic talent. The result is small and medium-sized suppliers that have the expertise and connections to drive greater success on a localized basis in a global world end up getting locked out of the process.

    http://spendmatters.com/2017/12/04/services-procurement-machine-broken-heres-trade-new-approach/

  • How Will the Web Look Without Net Neutrality? We Travel Into the Future to Find Out

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-will-the-web-look-like-without-net-neutrality-we-travel-into-the-future-to-find-out-1513369387
  • How A Flexible Work Culture Works For Everyone

    Reduce the barriers to attracting top talent: Work-life balance ranks as the number one career goal for all three major generations — baby boomers, Generation X and millennials — according to our research with Intel. Offering flexible work arrangements can help remove geographical barriers, ensuring that you can hire and retain the best candidates, regardless of location or other barriers. (I recently wrote more on generational workplace values.)

    Benefit the planet: Flexible work practices also help businesses to conserve natural resources and energy. With fewer people in the office and on the road, you’re helping reduce transportation-related pollution and can maximize office space usage. An internal Dell study in 2015 revealed that its Connected Workplace program in the United States alone helped reduce an estimate 25 million kWh of energy. Gallup data suggests that the U.S. workforce avoids 2.7 billion round-trips per year by telecommuting — a reduction of 30 million metric tons CO2e per year.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2017/12/08/how-a-flexible-work-culture-works-for-everyone/#201ae4373b7f

  • Estonia, the Digital Republic

    Today, citizens can vote from their laptops and challenge parking tickets from home. They do so through the “once only” policy, which dictates that no single piece of information should be entered twice. Instead of having to “prepare” a loan application, applicants have their data—income, debt, savings—pulled from elsewhere in the system. There’s nothing to fill out in doctors’ waiting rooms, because physicians can access their patients’ medical histories. Estonia’s system is keyed to a chip-I.D. card that reduces typically onerous, integrative processes—such as doing taxes—to quick work. “If a couple in love would like to marry, they still have to visit the government location and express their will,” Andrus Kaarelson, a director at the Estonian Information Systems Authority, says. But, apart from transfers of physical property, such as buying a house, all bureaucratic processes can be done online.

    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/18/estonia-the-digital-republic

Photo: Jaanus Jagomägi