business

[In case you missed this event, a gifted article] Massive crypto hack probably the largest theft of digital currencies in history [Waldvogel]

On 11/05/2026, in business, corporate / business world, cryptocurrencies, economics, emerging technologies, society, the downsides of how people use tech, by Daniel Christian

Massive crypto hack probably the largest theft of digital currencies in history — from washingtonpost.com by Miriam Waldvogel; this is a gifted article
Binance said that $6.3 billion in user funds had been affected in the incident.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, said late Thursday [10/29/26] that $6.3 billion in user funds had been affected by an attacker in what appears to be by far the largest theft of digital currencies in history.

The company, which allows users to trade cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, said around $3 billion had been frozen by various partners so far. Binance initially said on social media that its initial investigation suggested that an attacker had compromised an engineer’s laptop, enabling unauthorized withdrawals. It said early Friday that the hack was more complex than that and involved “additional points of breach.”

“These funds go toward weapons proliferation and other destabilizing activity, which makes this a major national security issue, not just a crypto theft,” Ari Redbord, TRM’s global head of policy, said in an email.

With thanks to Thomas Fraher, the Co-founder & CTO of Novastart, I’d like to pass along some screenshots about one of Novastart’s products below.

Per Thomas:

It’s an infinite canvas whiteboard where your apps open as real windows. A whole team can share one canvas, each person with their own cursor, and everything stays where you left it. You can also work alongside AI agents on the canvas.

AI can improve performance, but did anyone learn? [Rodrigues]

On 10/27/2026, in adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, emerging technologies, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, research, society, training / L&D, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

AI can improve performance, but did anyone learn? — from chieflearningofficer.com by Alexandre Rodrigues
Better AI-assisted performance does not always mean better learning. Here’s what L&D leaders can do about it.

A randomized field experiment involving thousands of knowledge workers found measurable productivity benefits from generative AI, including faster document completion. But productivity and learning are not the same outcome.

As organizations integrate AI more deeply into everyday work, L&D may need to confront an uncomfortable possibility: Employees can become better at producing results without becoming proportionally better at producing those results independently. Performance is visible. Learning is harder to see.

L&D researchers have long distinguished between performance during practice and learning that persists after practice. As Nicholas Soderstrom and Robert Bjork observed, what people do successfully while training is not always a reliable indicator of what they will retain or transfer later.

That distinction becomes particularly consequential in AI-enabled workplaces.

If we truly cared about our employees, would this be the case? [Christian]

On 10/27/2026, in business, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, hearts -- matters of the heart, society, trends, workplace, by Daniel Christian

DC: If we truly cared about our employees, would this be the case?

https://t.co/Sq3hH8Mo8q https://t.co/xG7SUB59xK

— Daniel S. Christian (@dchristian5) October 27, 2026

The Reinvention of Liberal Arts Colleges — from educationnext.org by Jon Marcus; via Ryan Craig
To remain relevant amid evolving attitudes toward higher education, Brandeis University and institutions like it are redefining their purpose

By the fall, the university will have reorganized itself into four new schools that bring together existing professional programs in areas such as business, technology, and public policy with liberal arts disciplines including history, biology, philosophy, and sociology. Before the first semester starts, each arriving student will be assigned not only an academic adviser, but also a career counselor. And in what has become the most prominent symbol of the strategy, graduates will leave with “career-competency” transcripts alongside their conventional ones, listing what skills they have learned that employers value, from communicating and writing to proficiency with AI. This second transcript also will include internships and jobs students have held as well as microcredentials, which the university now gives them a chance to earn, at no additional cost, in digital-knowledge-economy subjects such as data analytics and statistical analysis.

Let’s record the durable skills. Let’s record the life skills. Let’s record the career skills.” That way, employers will understand exactly what students have been taught to do—as will students themselves.

…
The liberal arts are in a quiet crisis of their own. The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the liberal arts—generally defined as a broad education offering majors in humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and math—fell to a 30-year low in 2024, the latest period for which data are available, according to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. That was 30 percent below the peak in 2012. Students have instead been choosing majors in subjects they consider tied directly to careers, including business, management, and health professions.

The Small Business Hub at National Disability Institute (NDI) is excited to welcome you to this year’s Disability Owned Convening

On 10/14/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), business, career development, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, corporate / business world, entrepreneurship, marketing/social marketing, policy, presentations, skills, society, sociology, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The Small Business Hub at National Disability Institute (NDI) is excited to welcome you to this year’s Disability Owned Convening, a fully virtual, national event taking place on October 21 and 22, 2026.

This accessible event offers a wide range of topics aiming to empower entrepreneurs to navigate an ever-changing business landscape, including leveraging AI, achieving financial health, marketing, accessing support and resources and panels highlighting how entrepreneurs with disabilities seize opportunities and overcome challenges to build thriving businesses.

Over the past four years, this dynamic event has connected thousands of entrepreneurs and small business owners with disabilities, entrepreneurial support organizations, state vocational rehabilitation counselors, policy makers, financial institutions and disability advocates from across the country.

Previous Disability Owned Convening Materials
Discover a trove of insights and inspiration by exploring our collection of archived trainings from previous Disability Owned Convenings! Over the past four years, this dynamic event has united entrepreneurs and advocates, offering invaluable resources and actionable advice tailored for individuals with disabilities. Whether you’re seeking guidance on access to capital, innovative marketing strategies, or tools to enhance your business organization, these archived collections offer a wealth of information.

Online Course Video Statistics — from markstudios.com by Mark Santos

“Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How many people take online courses, how big the platforms are, how long course videos actually hold attention, how many learners finish, what the money looks like, and which popular online course statistics do not survive being traced to their origin.”
.

Want to Close the Skills Gap? Bring Learning Closer to Work — from campustechnology.com by Elise Awwad

Key Takeaways

The skills gap is a workforce access problem as much as a talent problem: Employers broadly plan to upskill workers, yet many employees still lack sufficient time or access to AI training.
AI fluency compounds where workers already have access: Employees who use AI regularly build confidence and capability, while those whose jobs keep them farther from the technology risk falling further behind.
Upskilling works better when learning is integrated with work: Employers and higher education should create pathways that combine technical and durable skills with on-the-job application, rather than treating reskilling as an individual responsibility.

The skills employers say they cannot find are increasingly the skills they expect employees and candidates to arrive with, fully formed, at their own expense.
…
Upskilling or reskilling is often framed as an individual responsibility: a matter of initiative, of staying current. But if employers need these skills, they have a stake in making sure workers have a realistic way to develop them.

The Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps — 7th Edition [Olivia Moore and Andressen Horowitz]

On 10/08/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, corporate / business world, data related items, marketplaces, platforms, society, tools, trends, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

The Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps — 7th Edition — from a16z.com by Olivia Moore and Andressen Horowitz

The biggest takeaway from this new data? Consumer AI usage is wide, but not very deep…for almost everyone. While nearly half of U.S. consumers now report using AI, only 25% are engaged with it daily. And as of August, just 4.5% of U.S. consumers had an active paid personal subscription to ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. You can get more data on broad AI adoption in our State of Markets presentation we shared last week.

However, AI’s consumer power users are extremely engaged — and highly monetizable. The top 10% of spenders account for roughly half of all observed spending. These high spenders disproportionately buy coding, productivity, and creative tools.

In these users, consumer AI has found its first real market: people who pay — often a lot — for tools that help them build, create, and get work done. Reaching everyone else will likely take different products. We’re seeing glimmers of this now with the launch of personal assistants that, unlike their ancestor OpenClaw, are usable by non-developers — and free.

[Gifted article] The unexpected toll of searching endlessly for a new job [Carpenter]

On 10/08/2026, in business, career development, Daniel S. Christian, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, expectations, hearts -- matters of the heart, society, sociology, student-related, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The unexpected toll of searching endlessly for a new job — from washingtonpost.com by Julia Carpenter [this is a gifted article]
“Ghost job” postings, AI interviewers and a lack of in-person connection can take a toll on your mental health.

A prolonged job search doesn’t just sap job seekers of time, money and energy — for many, the hunt takes a devastating toll on their mental health.

Although unemployment rates in the United States have been historically low, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than a quarter of jobless people qualify as “long-term unemployed,” meaning they have been hunting for 27 weeks or more.
…

“A prolonged job search isn’t simply a logistical challenge,” she said. “It erodes a person’s confidence over time and their sense of agency, along with their financial security, obviously.”

Studies show unemployment is linked to the development of mental disorders, including anxiety and depression. Long-term job seekers describe heightened stress and exhaustion, which can make the everyday work of a job hunt feel even more burdensome, said Mindy Shoss, professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Central Florida.

From DSC:
I retired at the end of 2021, so I haven’t been in any kind of job search for years now. But I went through a time of job searching back in 2017 that lasted 9 months. I had some part-time work during that time, but nothing like the long work weeks that I was used to for years. It was a highly emotional time for me. Putting in the work to apply for a job took me at least a day per job application. Over time, not hearing anything back was discouraging. It’s hard not to take things personally, even though I knew these were business decisions. (But I also strongly believed that I faced age discrimination.) Putting oneself out there in a job search can be highly grueling and discouraging.

As any good job searching firm will tell you, networking is key. Students — know that up front. Go find out about networking, and if you aren’t doing it now, start doing it as soon as you can. Start to:

Share relevant and useful information via a blog, out on LinkedIn, or via other types of social media
Develop contacts and help them out whenever possible
Connect people to each other

Don’t just initiate something with your network when you need something. Feed your network constantly. (Though I will say, my network on LinkedIn was very little help to me. It turned out that the people I knew locally came through for me the most.)

The AI Tools that L&D Teams Are Building (Rather than Buying) — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
Aka, how build skills are changing how L&D thinks & works

More and more of my advisory work is no longer about helping organisations choose a vendor; it’s about helping their teams build their own AI tools, and build them well. Over the last couple of years I’ve watched several hundred L&D practitioners do it, and in this week’s post I share what they built, why, and what it tells us about what L&D actually needs from AI.

A Tool of One’s Own
So, what do these tools look like in practice? I did some analysis and the tools that L&D teams are building first fall into three categories:

1. Tools that support the work before and after the course
2. Tools that make the learning experience more dynamic
3. Tools that do L&D tasks to the team’s own methods, processes and standards

Priority 1: Getting a View and Setting a Vision Across Systems — from michaelbhorn.substack.com by Michael B. Horn, Angela Jackson, Mallory Dwinal-Palisch, and Danny Curtis

The shift required to prepare learners for a labor market defined by rapid skill change and more complex transitions cannot be accomplished by any one system. Nor is it enough for K–12, higher education, and workforce development to improve independently. They must work together—aligning programs, sharing resources, creating smoother transitions, and building models that combine academic learning with real workplace experience. Career readiness is not simply a goal these systems share. It is a shared outcome that they produce together as parts of a single talent pipeline.

For that reason, the first priority for states is not a single programmatic reform. It is creating a coherent, cross-system strategy. K–12, higher education, and workforce agencies— and the providers they oversee—need a common understanding of the current system, the future state they are trying to build, the changes required to get there, and the progress they are making toward those changes.
.

Your Next Job Interview Could Be With a Bot. Here’s How to Prepare. [Rumage]

On 09/23/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, communications, corporate / business world, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Your Next Job Interview Could Be With a Bot. Here’s How to Prepare. — from builtin.com by Jeff Rumage
More employers are using AI to screen candidates before they ever speak with a recruiter. Here’s what to expect from an AI interview and how to put your best foot forward.

Summary: AI-led interviews are becoming a common early-stage hiring screen as employers use conversational AI to evaluate applicants at scale. Candidates can prepare by practicing aloud, keeping answers concise, using mock AI interview platforms and avoiding scripted responses.

Learning used to cascade—now it must circulate [Ravitch]

On 09/22/2026, in business, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, ideas, instructional design, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, training / L&D, United States, by Daniel Christian

Learning used to cascade—now it must circulate — from chieflearningofficer.com by Sharon M. Ravitch
Long-held structural and procedural assumptions undergird how organizations promote and deepen learning that precedes its flow through organizations. What replaces the cascade isn’t a smarter platform. It’s a deliberate act of leadership; a set of adaptive mindsets that make circulation possible in the first place.

Admitting “I don’t know what I’m doing with this yet” felt like exposure, a confession of falling behind, and surfacing a workaround carried the calculated risk of “going rogue.” By the time the CLO scheduled a refresher, the tool had evolved again, and whatever either camp learned in the meantime had nowhere to go.

The issue wasn’t adoption. It was circulation. Without this step, learning cannot move through the organization quickly enough to keep pace with technological adoption.

The problem has both widened and deepened. Organizations are moving to roughly double AI investment as a share of revenue, with 72 percent of CEOs now personally directing AI strategy. Capability requirements are shifting at the pace of leadership attention, not curriculum cycles.

When Learning Feels Like a Vulnerability [Hall]

On 09/14/2026, in adult learning, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Emotion, ideas, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, training / L&D, vendors, by Daniel Christian

When Learning Feels Like a Vulnerability — from learningguild.com by George Hall

Why do some adult learners interpret training as a judgment about their competence, status, or identity?

Learning and development professionals often focus on content, platforms, courses, tools, and performance support. Those matter. But they are not enough. Learning is never just cognitive. It is also emotional and social.

A new skill can feel like evidence that old competence is no longer enough. Feedback can feel like judgment. A new model can feel like criticism of past practice. A request to change can feel like a loss of face.

It means learning can feel personally exposing. Adult learners do not only receive training. They interpret what needing training seems to say about their competence, status, identity, and future value. That interpretation can either open learning or shut it down.

Learning Ecosystems

[In case you missed this event, a gifted article] Massive crypto hack probably the largest theft of digital currencies in history [Waldvogel]

If we truly cared about our employees, would this be the case? [Christian]

Learning used to cascade—now it must circulate [Ravitch]

When Learning Feels Like a Vulnerability [Hall]

Categories

Tags