Tag: Trump

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News You Can Use: 6/14/2017

  • A breakdown of the US departure of the Paris Accord:
    Elon Musk, Google, Microsoft, and more decry Trump’s withdrawal from Paris accord

    In a speech delivered in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said withdrawing from the accord would “protect America and its citizens” and that he would seek new negotiations for terms more favorable to the U.S. “We are getting out,” Trump said. “But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great.”

    Also…

    Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook reached out to the White House in recent weeks to underscore the reasons for remaining in the accord. This morning, Musk tweeted that he had “done all I can to advise directly” Trump and others in the White House. Musk sent another tweet shortly after Trump ended his lengthy speech, announcing his own departures from Presidential councils.

    https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/01/elon-musk-google-microsoft-and-more-decry-trumps-withdrawal-from-paris-accord/
    Why pulling out of Paris Accord damages America’s economic future

    If ending our participation in the Paris Accord slows the U.S. advanced energy market, our American companies will be at a huge competitive disadvantage globally. They won’t have a robust local market to build on. Before long, we will find ourselves buying energy technology from other countries, just as other countries now soak up our digital tech products.

    Worse, the damage can go beyond energy to all U.S. industry. New energy sources aren’t getting adopted just because they might stave off climate change — they’re getting adopted because they are becoming cheaper than carbon-based energy.

    https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/02/why-pulling-out-of-paris-accords-damages-americas-economic-future/?ncid=rss

  • Supply Management Technical Difficulty

    But if we are talking about a true e-Procurement system that is going to be rolled out to everyone across a Global 3000 organization with the authority to make a requisition or spot buy, this will be tens of thousands of users, serviced by hundreds of Procurement professionals doing daily spot buys and MRO inventory management and dozens of strategic buyers and analysts looking for opportunities and conducting complex events using optimization and deep data mining, an average high end server is not going to do the trick. Multiple server instances are going to be needed, but they are all going to have to work off of the same data store, and a significant amount of this data is going to need to be accessed and updated in real time, so it’s not just a matter of replicating the database and allowing the users to go to town.

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2017/05/29/supply-management-technical-difficulty-part-vi/

  • Do you need to be a dick to be a successful leader?

    Crass title, but very interesting video (obviously there is some NSFW language)
  • Here Are the Airports You Can’t Fly From With Your Laptop

    In March, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a rule that requires passengers flying to the United States from 10 airports in Muslim-majority countries to put electronics bigger than a smartphone into their checked luggage. The DHS categorized cameras, e-readers, portable DVD players, tablets, travel printers and scanners and laptops as the devices that wouldn’t be allowed on board.

    The airports that were affected by the ban are Abu Dhabi International Airport, Dubai International Airport, Cairo International Airport, Queen Alia International Airport, Kuwait International Airport, Mohammed V Airport, Hamad International Airport, King Khalid International Airport, King Abdul-Aziz International Airport and Ataturk International Airport.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/295172

  • What Really Happened with Vista (interesting read)

    Microsoft badly misjudged the underlying trends in computer hardware, in particular the right turn that occurred in 2003 to the trend of rapid improvements in single-threaded processor speed and matching improvements in other core elements of the PC. Vista was planned for and built for hardware that did not exist. This was bad for desktops, worse for laptops and disastrous for mobile.

    https://hackernoon.com/what-really-happened-with-vista-4ca7ffb5a1a

Photo: Paul Morris

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Outsourcing industry facing more immigration complexity

This week, President Trump is revisiting United States immigration policy.

The President signed an executive order on Tuesday to prevent immigration “fraud and abuse”:

“It’s America first—you better believe it,” Mr. Trump said during a speech at Snap-On Inc., a tool manufacturer in Kenosha, Wis., before signing an executive order that calls for a government-wide review aimed at stricter enforcement of immigration and other laws governing the entry of workers into the U.S.

A by-product of the Trump administration’s attempts at modifying immigrant labor regulation is a drop in H-1B applications for the first time in years:

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said Monday it had received 199,000 H-1B applications for the next fiscal year, according to the federal immigration agency. This is a steep decline from the 236,000 received last year and the 233,000 it received in 2015.

SFGate.com spoke with Martin Lawler, a Bay Area immigration attorney that suggests H-1B applications declined due to frustration. Applicants are selected at random and have to wait months to learn the final decision on their status.

Companies operating in US technology hubs like San Francisco have been complaining that these modifications will result in access to less qualified resources with math-based skills.

The biggest companies using H-1B visas are large Indian outsourcing firms like Tata, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, and Accenture. The Trump administration specifically called out Tata and Infosys as abusers of the existing program by supplying low-paid, low-skilled workers instead of the high-skill labor the program was designed to support.

The Trump administration is looking to raise the minimum salary requirements to issue a visa and would also like to place a limit on the number of employees with H-1B visas a company can hire. With these rules in place, Trump is expecting American companies will have no choice but to hire from the domestic labor pool.

Interestingly, even with all of the labor turmoil, Tata Consulting is reporting an actual rise in profits:

Mumbai-based TCS said profit in the fiscal fourth quarter ended March 31 stood at 66.08 billion rupees ($1.02 billion), up 4.2% from 63.41 billion rupees a year ago. That was just below the 66.23 billion rupees consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Revenue grew 4.2% to 296.42 billion rupees.

As the President refines his immigration policy, will Tata and its competitors be able to maintain growth? More importantly, is President Trump taking actions that will help the US economy in the long run by giving US workers (potentially) more opportunities, or will these decisions ultimately inhibit economic growth?

Update: Epilogue 

The Atlantic published an article detailing how a “buy American” strategy could backfire economically:

Laura Tyson, a professor at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business who chaired President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, described much the same fundamental problem with the policy. “For every dollar spent, the amount you get for that dollar is going to depend on the price you have to pay,” she explained. “This kind of policy will reduce competition and raise the price of the product. So, instead of a global set of suppliers competing for U.S. government contracts, only U.S. suppliers will compete. And in some product areas, there won’t be a large number of U.S. suppliers, and [they] may not have the superior products or the superior technology. So, in those cases, both the quality and the price of the product that the government faces with a limited budget to spend on procurement will actually deteriorate.”

The critiques seem to focus on government procurement and explains that by closing bids to foreign companies, products and services will cost more and potentially provide inferior solutions.

Here is a podcast I did a few months ago on the H-1B topic:


Photo: himanshu-singh-gurjar

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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: 3/8/2017

  • Trump expected to cut federal IT spending

    “Initiatives like data center consolidation and adoption of cloud services – even though not completely successful – have set the table for leaner spending,” Bjorklund said.

    The Trump administration will be helped as well by declines in the cost of IT. It will likely put modernization investments on hold “until they can figure out the way ahead,” Bjorklund said.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3174085/it-industry/trump-expected-to-cut-federal-it-spending.html

  • Make your conference calls stink less…

    You need to assume that some of what you’re saying just isn’t going to get through. So go over your key points quickly yet frequently. Think of them as road signs that remind your audience where you’re heading: If you don’t check in every so often, they might get lost. You don’t have to repeat the message in the same exact way every time, but reinforcing your ideas is a must when so many other factors (both technological and human) are conspiring against you.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/3068455/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/your-conference-calls-sound-terrible-but-you-dont-have-to

  • This Video Explains Why “I Don’t Have Time” Is a Poor Excuse
  • The Best Questions to Ask in Every Job Interview Round

    “What are the Immediate Projects You’d Like Me to Work on in the First 30, 60, and 90 days?”

    With this one, you’ll get a sense of what types of tasks your new manager will want you to work on when you first start work. The key here is to keep digging until you’re clear on the first set of expectations for the role.

    http://lifehacker.com/the-best-questions-to-ask-in-every-job-interview-round-1792859446

  • Rethinking Sourcing Suites and Their Sub Components — Gartner’s 2017 Magic Quadrant

    And as procurement organizations increasingly mass-customize how they deliver value to the business and the technology approaches and providers they use to deliver those new capabilities and associated outcomes, we believe that evaluative exercises need to be ever more tailored to an individual organization’s needs. For subscribers, Gartner is moving in this direction as well (which we applaud). But static reports that take six months to create and then are updated every two years with monolithic graphics run counter to this trend.

    http://spendmatters.com/2017/02/09/rethinking-sourcing-suites-sub-components-gartners-2017-magic-quadrant/

Photo: Lionello DelPiccolo

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News You Can Use: 2/22/2017

  • Trump eyes end to an H-1B system that favors largest outsourcers

    The H-1B lottery favors large firms. In the 2015 fiscal year, for instance, the top 10 firms received 38% of all the H-1B visas in computer occupations alone. All these firms, except for Amazon and to a partial extent IBM, are outsourcers. These large companies have the resources to submit enough visa applications to help ensure they receive a bare minimum of approvals.

    Also

    Instead, the Trump administration is hinting at changes that may end the random lottery distribution and replace it with a merit system. It could distribute visas based on wages or whether a visa holder was educated in the U.S. It could favor non-dependent H-1B companies — a legal definition for firms that have less than 15% of their staff on the visa — over dependent firms, which includes all the all the large offshore firms.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3167586/it-outsourcing/trump-eyes-end-to-an-h-1b-system-that-favors-largest-outsourcers.html
    H-1B advocate Sen. Orrin Hatch sets stage for new visa battle

    Among Hatch’s proposals are capping the number of visas any single employer can apply for, and requiring employers to attest that they first tried to hire an American worker. He also proposed something called a “shot clock” rule that will revoke a visa if it isn’t used within a certain period of time.

    http://www.computerworld.com/article/3171151/it-careers/h-1b-advocate-sen-orrin-hatch-sets-stage-for-new-visa-battle.html

  • To pay or not to pay: Too many victims say yes to ransomware

    According to the FBI, the collective amount of ransoms paid in all of 2015 in the US was $24 million. In 2016, it had jumped to $209 million in just the first three months – which means if the growth curve continued it would easily have topped $1 billion by the end of the year.

    http://www.csoonline.com/article/3168931/data-breach/to-pay-or-not-to-pay-too-many-victims-say-yes-to-ransomware.html

  • Preparing Our Economy for the Impact of Automation & AI
  • Why Office Perks Are Traps, Not Benefits

    Is it any wonder, then, that the “benefits” at so many companies aren’t benefits at all, but ploys to get you to work longer? Dry cleaning and laundry services available on-site? Great — now you can put in a few more hours a week, because your clothes will be cleaned for you. Free pizza for the long hours you put in on that important project on Friday? Fantastic — no lunch break, meaning more work we can extract from you. These so-called perks, in other words, tend to be Trojan Horses. While you’re chewing away on pizza and having your laundry delivered to your office, the company and its leaders are smiling because you are still in your office.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/289056
    Interesting context for the last SourceCast Episode (59)

  • Why Coworking Isn’t Just a Rented Desk

    If you are not creating value for your customers, then stop what you are doing. We create value at Alley by offering massively discounted services for each and every one of our members. Most of our members are emerging startups and they need help, so we created a platform to help them grow. These services have been vetted, and all of the services we offer are from our members. You basically live with them, next door to your accountants or insurance providers. We also have direct links into investor relationships. We partner with firms such as ERA and Techstars to give the companies exposure. This is great deal flow for investment firms and this is wonderful for our members who need to raise money. I am proud to say that since our inception Alley companies have raised over 1 Billion in funding based on our last studies. This year, two of our companies have made it into the elite accelerator, Y Combinator.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/289129

Photo: Redd Angelo