business

Accessibility Do’s and Don’ts for Website Navigation [boia.org]

On 05/03/2023, in accessibility / UDL, assistive technologies, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), business, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, IT in HE, training / L&D, United States, universities, usability, vendors, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Accessibility Do’s and Don’ts for Website Navigation — from boia.org

Excerpt:

If people can’t navigate your website, they can’t use it — and you miss an opportunity to connect with your audience.

Navigation controls can present a significant barrier to people with disabilities, making it difficult for them to find and interact with the content they need.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) includes a list of success criteria to ensure that navigation controls are operable (they don’t require interactions that a user can’t perform). These criteria are put in place to assist users with a wide variety of abilities, including individuals who use assistive technologies (AT).

If you’re new to web accessibility, WCAG’s requirements may seem overwhelming. Fortunately, they’re based on simple principles — and by understanding a few basic concepts, you can avoid common mistakes.

Also relevant/see:

Assistive Technology: What’s an “Alternative Input Device?” — from boia.org

Examples:

Eye-Tracking Systems
Sip-and-Puff Systems
Head Mouse
Modified Keyboards
Joysticks

“Work Shift: How AI Might Upend Pay” [Jo Constantz] + other AI-related postings

On 05/02/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Adobe, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, business, computer science, corporate / business world, design, experimentation, graphics, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning agents, learning ecosystem, programming, by Daniel Christian

Work Shift: How AI Might Upend Pay — from bloomberg.com by Jo Constantz

Excerpt:

This all means that a time may be coming when companies need to compensate star employees for their input to AI tools rather than their just their output, which may not ultimately look much different from their AI-assisted colleagues.

“It wouldn’t be far-fetched for them to put even more of a premium on those people because now that kind of skill gets amplified and multiplied throughout the organization,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, a Stanford professor and one of the study’s authors. “Now that top worker could change the whole organization.”

Of course, there’s a risk that companies won’t heed that advice. If AI levels performance, some executives may flatten the pay scale accordingly. Businesses would then potentially save on costs — but they would also risk losing their top performers, who wouldn’t be properly compensated for the true value of their contributions under this system.

US Supreme Court rejects computer scientist’s lawsuit over AI-generated inventions — from reuters.com by Blake Brittain

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON, April 24 – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by computer scientist Stephen Thaler to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s refusal to issue patents for inventions his artificial intelligence system created.

The justices turned away Thaler’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that patents can be issued only to human inventors and that his AI system could not be considered the legal creator of two inventions that he has said it generated.

Deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has quit Google — from technologyreview.com by Will Douglas Heaven
Hinton will be speaking at EmTech Digital on Wednesday.

Excerpt:

Geoffrey Hinton, a VP and engineering fellow at Google and a pioneer of deep learning who developed some of the most important techniques at the heart of modern AI, is leaving the company after 10 years, the New York Times reported today.

According to the Times, Hinton says he has new fears about the technology he helped usher in and wants to speak openly about them, and that a part of him now regrets his life’s work.

***

In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly.

— Geoffrey Hinton (@geoffreyhinton) May 1, 2023

What Is Agent Assist? — from blogs.nvidia.com
Agent assist technology uses AI and machine learning to provide facts and make real-time suggestions that help human agents across retail, telecom and other industries conduct conversations with customers.

Excerpt:

Agent assist technology uses AI and machine learning to provide facts and make real-time suggestions that help human agents across telecom, retail and other industries conduct conversations with customers.

It can integrate with contact centers’ existing applications, provide faster onboarding for agents, improve the accuracy and efficiency of their responses, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

From DSC:
Is this type of thing going to provide a learning assistant/agent as well?

A chatbot that asks questions could help you spot when it makes no sense — from technologyreview.com by Melissa Heikkilä
Engaging our critical thinking is one way to stop getting fooled by lying AI.

Excerpt:

AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Bing, and Bard are excellent at crafting sentences that sound like human writing. But they often present falsehoods as facts and have inconsistent logic, and that can be hard to spot.

One way around this problem, a new study suggests, is to change the way the AI presents information. Getting users to engage more actively with the chatbot’s statements might help them think more critically about that content.

Stability AI releases DeepFloyd IF, a powerful text-to-image model that can smartly integrate text into images — from stability.ai

New AI Powered Denoise in PhotoShop — from jeadigitalmedia.org

In the most recent update, Adobe is now using AI to Denoise, Enhance and create Super Resolution or 2x the file size of the original photo. Click here to read Adobe’s post and below are photos of how I used the new AI Denoise on a photo. The big trick is that photos have to be shot in RAW.

If you are an educator, consider more ways to collaborate with local & regional businesses. If you are a business, consider how to work more closely with your education partners at every level.

On 05/02/2023, in business, career development, collaboration, corporate / business world, education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

PricewaterhouseCoopers to Pour $1 Billion Into Generative AI [Loten]

On 04/28/2023, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, changing business models, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, training / L&D, United States, vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

PricewaterhouseCoopers to Pour $1 Billion Into Generative AI — from wsj.com by Angus Loten
Multiyear investment in U.S. business includes accessing ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s language model, training staff in AI capabilities

Excerpt:

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP plans to invest $1 billion in generative artificial intelligence technology in its U.S. operations over the next three years, working with Microsoft Corp. and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to automate aspects of its tax, audit and consulting services.

The accounting and consulting giant said the multiyear investment, announced Wednesday, includes funding to recruit more AI workers and train existing staff in AI capabilities, while targeting AI software makers for potential acquisitions.

For PwC, the goal isn’t only to develop and embed generative AI into its own technology stack and client-services platforms, but also advising other companies on how best to use generative AI, while helping them build those tools, said Mohamed Kande, PwC’s vice chair and co-leader of U.S. consulting solutions and global advisory leader.

“7 reasons to get rid of the law degree” + “A better pathway to lawyer licensing” [Furlong]

On 04/28/2023, in 21st century, accreditation, assessment, business, Canada, career development, cost of getting a degree, Cost of legal services - including access, credentialing, ideas, law schools, learning ecosystem, legal reform, legislatures / government / legal, skills, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

7 reasons to get rid of the law degree — from jordanfurlong.substack.com by Jordan Furlong
Requiring a law degree for bar admission imposes unfair burdens on new lawyers and blocks innovation in legal education. Here’s what we can do instead.

Excerpt:

Hey there, legal sector participant! Do you feel that law school is too expensive? That law students graduate too heavily in debt and deeply stressed? That legal education seems impossible to reform? That the whole lawyer development and bar admission system in general is an enormous hot mess?

If so, you’re like thousands of others who’ve grown massively frustrated with the profession’s broken-down approach to developing new lawyers. But I’m here with some good news! There’s a simple and straightforward path to resolving these and many other problems with legal education and bar admission.

We start by getting rid of the law degree.

Now, hold on, let me be clear — I don’t mean kill the law degree itself. That would be crazy.

No, I mean, let’s get rid of the law degree as a mandatory element of the lawyer licensing process. Law schools should continue to offer whatever sort of degree programs they like — but legal regulators and bar admission authorities should no longer require everybody who wants to be a lawyer to get one.

From DSC:
I need to think on this further, but Jordan could be onto something here…

A better pathway to lawyer licensing — from jordanfurlong.substack.com by Jordan Furlong
No law degree; a single knowledge exam; training in legal, business and professional skills; and a term of supervised practice. This is how we do it.

Excerpt:

Previously here at Substack, I provided a pretty comprehensive takedown of the law degree requirement for lawyer licensing. It generated a ton of fascinating and gratifying feedback, here and especially at LinkedIn, with a few objections but mostly a lot of support.

Of course, it’s easy to criticize legal education — fun, too — but look, most people in the legal profession already know all the problems with the law degree, and complaining about it is kind of a vacuous pastime. What I’m really interested in here is a bigger and more important question: How does — how should — someone become a lawyer?

A Culture of No: How to Get Past Fear and Risk-Aversion to Make Things Happen [Pickering]

On 04/23/2023, in business, corporate / business world, culture, education, education reform, Emotion, innovation, K-12 related, leadership, pathways, strategy, by Daniel Christian

A Culture of No: How to Get Past Fear and Risk-Aversion to Make Things Happen — from gettingsmart.com by Trace Pickering

Key Points

What are a few other straightforward moves an educational leader can make to ensure they can push break-the-mold, innovative changes needed in education today?
Is the culture of education simply too deep and unmovable to be creative and move forward?

I’ve had the unique privilege of moving between business and education throughout my career, including getting to work with some highly dynamic and influential business leaders in my community. One of the biggest differences between business leaders and school and district leaders has been how quickly and easily business gets to “yes” while education seems to wallow in the purgatory of the “yeah but…” and the “no.”

The 2023 Global Sentiment Survey — from donaldhtaylor.co.uk by Don Taylor

Excerpt:

This year’s Global Sentiment Survey – the tenth – paints a picture that is both familiar and unusual. In our 2020 survey report, we noted that ‘Data dominates this year’s survey’. It does so again this year, with the near 4,000 respondents showing a strong interest in AI, Skills-based talent management and Learning analytics (in positions #2, #3 and #4), all of which rely on data. The table is topped by Reskilling/upskilling, in the #1 spot for the third year running.
.

Donald Taylor's GSS 2023

.

Also see Don’s report here >>

Verified Skills — from the-job.beehiiv.com by Paul Fain
Hunting for a common thread amid the hype around skills.

Excerpt:

The glitzy ASU+GSV gathering this week was titled “Brave New World.” But Tim Knowles wanted to talk about 1906.

That was when the organization Knowles leads, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, created the credit-hour standard. The time has arrived, argue Knowles and Amit Sevak, CEO of ETS, to move away from the Carnegie Unit and toward a new currency of education based on meaningful skills and accomplishments, demonstrated through assessment.

Our old way of training Americans for ‘good jobs’ is past its sell-by date — from workshift.opencampusmedia.org by JB Holston
We’re at a pivot point in education and workforce development. Employers in the U.S. and its allies have an opportunity to accelerate their economies by collaborating to scale new pathways to prosperity. They need to seize that opportunity, writes JB Holston, former CEO of the Greater Washington Partnership.

The country is at a pivot point. COVID’s acceleration of remote work and training; an increased dedication to inclusion, equity, and diversity since the murder of George Floyd; the inexorable pace of technological change; and America’s new, well-funded industrial policy have created an opportunity for the most significant re-set in the relationship between employers and our education systems in the last 150 years.

The old path to family-supporting career positions—which depended on large employers recruiting graduates from a small universe of ranked colleges whose education stopped with that degree—is past its sell-by date.

AI in Hiring and Evaluating Workers: What Americans Think — from pewresearch.org by Lee Rainie, Monica Anderson, Colleen McClain, Emily A. Vogels, and Risa Gelles-Watnick
62% believe artificial intelligence will have a major impact on jobholders overall in the next 20 years, but far fewer think it will greatly affect them personally. People are generally wary and uncertain of AI being used in hiring and assessing workers

Excerpt:

A new Pew Research Center survey finds crosscurrents in the public’s opinions as they look at the possible uses of AI in workplaces. Americans are wary and sometimes worried. For instance, they oppose AI use in making final hiring decisions by a 71%-7% margin, and a majority also opposes AI analysis being used in making firing decisions. Pluralities oppose AI use in reviewing job applications and in determining whether a worker should be promoted. Beyond that, majorities do not support the idea of AI systems being used to track workers’ movements while they are at work or keeping track of when office workers are at their desks.

The Good and the Bad of Solo Practice, Per Clio’s Latest Legal Trends Report for Solos [Ambrogi]

On 04/23/2023, in business, career development, law schools, Legal operations, legislatures / government / legal, trends, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The Good and the Bad of Solo Practice, Per Clio’s Latest Legal Trends Report for Solos — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

Excerpt:

As a solo myself, I can tell you that there is much to be said for practicing on your own – freedom and independence not least among them. In fact, during 2022’s “Great Resignation,” a third of lawyers who quit their jobs did so to start their own solo practices, according to Legal Trends for Solo Law Firms, a report published today by law practice management company Clio.

But there are also disadvantages to practicing alone and challenges unique to solo lawyers, as this latest report documents.

The end of the Carnegie Unit?! Could be. “A New Era for Education” [Sevak & Knowles]

On 04/20/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Blockchain, business, business side of he, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education, experimentation, face-to-face, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, more voice more choice more control, reinvent, skills, society, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

A New Era for Education — from linkedin.com by Amit Sevak, CEO of ETS and Timothy Knowles, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

It’s not every day you get to announce a revolution in your sector. But today, we’re doing exactly that. Together, we are setting out to overturn 117 years of educational tradition.
…
The fundamental assumption [of the Carnegie Unit] is that time spent in a classroom equals learning. This formula has the virtue of simplicity. Unfortunately, a century of research tells us that it’s woefully inadequate.

From DSC:
It’s more than interesting to think that the Carnegie Unit has outlived its usefulness and is breaking apart. In fact, the thought is very profound.

It's more than interesting to think that the Carnegie Unit has outlived its usefulness and is breaking apart. In fact, the thought is very profound.

If that turns out to be the case, the ramifications will be enormous and we will have the opportunity to radically reinvent/rethink/redesign what our lifelong learning ecosystems will look like and provide.

So I appreciate what Amit and Timothy are saying here and I appreciate their relaying what the new paradigm might look like. It goes with the idea of using design thinking to rethink how we build/reinvent our learning ecosystems. They assert:

It’s time to change the paradigm. That’s why ETS and the Carnegie Foundation have come together to design a new future of assessment.

- Whereas the Carnegie Unit measures seat time, the new paradigm will measure skills—with a focus on the ones we know are most important for success in career and in life.
- Whereas the Carnegie Unit never leaves the classroom, the new paradigm will capture learning wherever it takes place—whether that is in after-school activities, during a work-experience placement, in an internship, on an apprenticeship, and so on.
- Whereas the Carnegie Unit offers only one data point—pass or fail—the new paradigm will generate insights throughout the learning process, the better to guide students, families, educators, and policymakers.

I could see this type of information being funneled into peoples’ cloud-based learner profiles — which we as individuals will own and determine who else can access them. I diagrammed this back in January of 2017 using blockchain as the underlying technology. That may or may not turn out to be the case. But the concept will still hold I think — regardless of the underlying technology(ies).

Perhaps blockchain will be the underlying technology to provide us with cloud-based learner profiles

For example, we are seeing a lot more articles regarding things like Comprehensive Learner Records (CLR) or Learning and Employment Records (LER; example here), and similar items.

Speaking of reinventing our learning ecosystems, also see:

ChatGPT is the hottest new job skill that can help you get hired, according to HR experts [Smith]

On 04/11/2023, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, Microsoft, skills, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

ChatGPT is the hottest new job skill that can help you get hired, according to HR experts — from cnbc.com by Morgan Smith

Excerpt:

The hottest new job qualification could be how well you work with a chatbot.

ChatGPT is the latest in-demand job skill companies are hiring for, according to recent research from the career site Resume Builder.

Since its public unveiling in late 2022, ChatGPT has been quickly adopted by companies like Microsoft and Slack which are incorporating the chatbot into their products or using it to work more efficiently.

“Hiring managers care less about whether or not you use ChatGPT, what’s more important is what you can accomplish with it,” says Juan Pablo Gonzalez, a senior client partner at the global consulting firm Korn Ferry.

Who Will Be the Academic Prompt Engineering Experts? [Boston]

On 04/11/2023, in 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty, MBA, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, United States, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Who Will Be the Academic Prompt Engineering Experts? — from wallyboston.com by Wally Boston

Excerpts:

As I mentioned in a post a month ago, prompt engineering is the term of art for prompting a generative AI tool like ChatGPT-4 to produce an answer to a question, analysis of a problem, or an essay about a particular topic.
…
It’s ironic that the “experts” providing prompt engineering courses are not academics. I happen to believe that there are academics mastering prompt engineering as I write this.
…
Last week, I wrote about generative AI tools that could be used to decrease the instructional design time required to build a college course. I also wrote an article about Villanova University professor Noah Barsky’s opinion piece suggesting that all MBA curriculums should be rewritten to teach their students how to utilize AI tools in their professions. Business schools with outdated curriculums will not prepare their graduates for businesses expecting them to be able to master state of the art AI tools.

Also relevant/see:

From DSC:
Read that again…

“In June, when students are finishing up their classes, they may be punished by their instructors for using AI as a writing tool. But in July, when they’re out on the job market, they can be punished by their employers or potential employers for not knowing how to use AI as a writing tool.”

Also relevant/see:

11 Tips to Take Your ChatGPT Prompts to the Next Level — from wired.com by David Nield
Sure, anyone can use OpenAI’s chatbot. But with smart engineering, you can get way more interesting results.

Excerpts:

You don’t have to do all the typing yourself when it comes to ChatGPT. Copy and paste is your friend, and there’s no problem with pasting in text from other sources.
…
Another way to improve the responses you get from ChatGPT is to give it some data to work with before you ask your question.
…
Your answers can be seriously improved if you give ChatGPT some ingredients to work with before asking for a response.

Stanford’s 2023 AI Index Report — from aiindex.stanford.edu

Learning Ecosystems

Accessibility Do’s and Don’ts for Website Navigation [boia.org]

“7 reasons to get rid of the law degree” + “A better pathway to lawyer licensing” [Furlong]

Verified Skills [Fain] + “Our old way of training Americans for ‘good jobs’ is past its sell-by date [Holston]

The Good and the Bad of Solo Practice, Per Clio’s Latest Legal Trends Report for Solos [Ambrogi]

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