business

Upskilling the top priority for L&D leaders, LinkedIn report finds [Stepanova]

On 05/09/2023, in adult learning, Asia, business, career development, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, culture, leadership, Microsoft, reinvent, skills, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, training / L&D, by Daniel Christian

Upskilling the top priority for L&D leaders, LinkedIn report finds — from hcamag.com by Ksenia Stepanova; with thanks to GSV for this resource
L&D is becoming critical to business strategy – but are leaders keeping up? LinkedIn reveals its latest insights

Excerpt:

Learning and development (L&D) has taken centre stage in recent years, and has become vital to business strategy across the globe. In Singapore, upskilling employees has become the number one priority for L&D professionals in 2023, according to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report.

DC: For people who are thinking of going to law school — do YOU know about these things? Go forth with your eyes WIDE OPEN.

On 05/09/2023, in business, Canada, career development, corporate / business world, Emotion, health, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legislatures / government / legal, trends, UK, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Send in another victim of industrial disease — from jordanfurlong.substack.com
The legal profession is drowning in psychological and emotional distress. One change, right now, could help save the next generation of lawyers from the flood.

Excerpt:

But don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a problem just at Paul Hastings or in the AmLaw 100. It’s everywhere. Mental distress and emotional anguish are endemic throughout the legal profession, driven by pathologies inextricably intertwined with our malignant cultural impulses and exploitative business models. And it’s getting much worse, very fast.

Take a deep breath, and then work your way through this list of findings from seven separate reports into the legal profession’s state of mental and emotional sickness:

Massachusetts: 77% of lawyers reported burnout from their work; almost half thought about leaving their job. 40% considered leaving the profession entirely due to stress. 7% experienced suicide ideation in the weeks before the survey.
California and DC: Lawyers were twice as likely as the general population to experience thoughts of suicide, and those with high stress were 22 times more likely to have such thoughts.
Midsized law firms: Nearly 3/4 of lawyers, paralegals and administrative professionals at midsized law firms report feeling stress, burnout, or being overwhelmed in the past year.
Canada: 59% of legal professionals report psychological distress. 56% report burnout. 24% say they’ve experienced suicidal thoughts at least once since starting practice.
UK: 62% of lawyers have experienced burnout as a result of their work in the last year. 57% put “an unmanageable caseload” at the top of their list of stressors at work, followed by a lack of work/life balance (42%).
In-house counsel: Legal department lawyers face burnout and attrition internally, and supply chain issues and high inflation externally. “The environment legal departments are operating in now is an extremely challenging one.”
Law students: Over 75% reported increased anxiety because of law school-related issues; over 50% reported experiencing depression. A majority reported experiencing anxiety (77%), disrupted sleep (71%), and depression (51%).

Every one of the percentages laid out above is higher for new lawyers, higher for women, higher for visible minorities, and higher for members of the LGBTQ+ community. And all but one of these reports were released just in the first two months of 2023.

From DSC:
One of the enormous surprises that I learned about while working at a law school (from 2018-2021) is the state of mental health within the legal industry. It’s not good. Beware!

Students in college — or to anyone who is thinking about entering law school and then practicing some area of law — get educated on things. Talk to lawyers of all kinds — especially in the area(s) that you are thinking of going into.

Then go forward into your decision with your eyes wide open. Know that you will need to put up some serious boundaries; if you don’t do that, you too may suffer the consequences that many lawyers have had to deal with.

I caught up with an old college friend of mine a year or so ago. He was absolutely exhausted. He was emotionally at the end of his rope. He was the owner of his own law firm and was working non-stop. He didn’t want to disappoint his clients, so he kept saying yes to things…to almost everything in fact. He later got out of owning his own firm — thank God — and went to work for an insurance company.

Furlong: Law school curricula and bar admission programs in every jurisdiction should be upgraded, starting today, to include significant instruction to aspiring lawyers about the deadly serious threats to their lives and health posed by choosing a legal career.

I just want to pass this along because I don’t think many younger students realize the state of mental health and stress within the legal field. And while you’re reflecting on that, you should also pulse-check how AI is impacting the legal field. Along these lines — and also from Jordan Furlong — see:

In the post-AI legal world, what will lawyers do?
Legally trained generative AI will “free up” lawyers by taking away millions of hours of work. The profession’s future depends on what comes after that.

This company adopted AI. Here’s what happened to its human workers [Rosalsky]

On 05/09/2023, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, productivity / tips and tricks, research, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

This company adopted AI. Here’s what happened to its human workers — from npr.org by Greg Rosalsky|

Excerpt:

What the economists found offers potentially great news for the economy, at least in one dimension that is crucial to improving our living standards: AI caused a group of workers to become much more productive. Backed by AI, these workers were able to accomplish much more in less time, with greater customer satisfaction to boot. At the same time, however, the study also shines a spotlight on just how powerful AI is, how disruptive it might be, and suggests that this new, astonishing technology could have economic effects that change the shape of income inequality going forward.

The article links to:
Generative AI at Work — from nber.org by Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li & Lindsey R. Raymond

We study the staggered introduction of a generative AI-based conversational assistant using data from 5,179 customer support agents. Access to the tool increases productivity, as measured by issues resolved per hour, by 14 percent on average, with the greatest impact on novice and low-skilled workers, and minimal impact on experienced and highly skilled workers. We provide suggestive evidence that the AI model disseminates the potentially tacit knowledge of more able workers and helps newer workers move down the experience curve. In addition, we show that AI assistance improves customer sentiment, reduces requests for managerial intervention, and improves employee retention.

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:

Learning Ecosystems

Upskilling the top priority for L&D leaders, LinkedIn report finds [Stepanova]

DC: For people who are thinking of going to law school — do YOU know about these things? Go forth with your eyes WIDE OPEN.

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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