professional wordpress themes

How top liberal arts colleges prepare students for successful lives of leadership & service [Williams]

On 03/25/2016, in career development, colleges, community colleges, creativity, ethics, higher education, liberal arts, morals/values, universities, by Daniel Christian

How top liberal arts colleges prepare students for successful lives of leadership and service — from educationdive.com by John I. Williams, Jr.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

This year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, discussed the top ten skills that will be needed for careers in 2020:

  1. Complex problem solving
  2. Critical thinking
  3. Creativity
  4. People management
  5. Coordinating with others
  6. Emotional intelligence
  7. Judgment and decision making
  8. Service orientation
  9. Negotiation
  10. Cognitive flexibility

The list is remarkable, both for what it includes and for what it doesn’t; and for the fact that it is as timeless as it is forward-looking. For our purposes, it serves as a useful gauge for the value of the education our students receive at highly-selective liberal arts colleges.

As I reflect upon the list, I realize graduates of top liberal arts colleges will smile as they read it, reminded that their education focuses on skills that will be valuable across a lifetime.

 

Going forward, college graduates may work for nine or more organizations over the course of their careers.

 

Yet, for all this techno-wizardry, the critical skills on WEF’s list for careers in 2020 resemble closely those that have defined the leaders who have emerged from top liberal arts colleges for decades. 

 

At the same time, top liberal arts colleges have always been committed to preparing students for more than just career success, including contributions to society more broadly. These colleges have always focused not only on the development of students’ intellect but on their character as well.

 

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

Interactive app brings 4th-century thinker to life [Fuhrman]

On 02/09/2016, in computer science, digital learning, digital textbooks, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education technology, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, faith, higher education, history, ideas, innovation, IT in HE, maker movement, mobile learning, morals/values, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, religion, student-related, tools, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, by Daniel Christian

Interactive app brings 4th-century thinker to life — from campustechnology.com by Toni Fuhrman
At Villanova University, a student-developed app version of Augustine’s Confessions brings contemporary vitality and relevance to a classic 4th-century work.

Excerpt:

Augustine of Hippo, who lived from A.D. 354 to 430, might be surprised to find his Confessions in circulation today, including a number of e-book versions. Still widely read, popular in great books programs and studied in university classes, The Confessions of St. Augustine is autobiography and confession, spiritual quest and emotional journey.

One of the most recent electronic versions of the Confessions is an interactive app developed at Villanova University (PA), the nation’s only Augustinian Catholic University. Released three months ago on Augustine’s birthday (Nov. 13), the Confessions app is required for all freshmen as part of a “foundation” course. Available for both Apple and Android devices, the app includes the 13 books of the Confessions, authoritative commentaries, photo gallery, timeline, map and text-highlighted audio, as well as search, note-taking, annotation and bookmark options.

 

“What better way to reflect on and update this struggle than for today’s students to use technology to bring the text to life through visual, audio and analytical components?”

 

 

 

Confessions-Feb2016

 

 

From DSC:
Love the idea. Love the use of teams — including students — to produce this app!

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

The need for ethics, morals, policies, security, & serious reflection about what kind of future we want [Part III]

On 01/28/2016, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, business, Canada, career development, change, emerging technologies, ethics, Europe, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, India, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, morals/values, pace of change, relationships, robotics, social media, UK, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

We can do nothing to change the past, but we have enormous power to shape the future. Once we grasp that essential insight, we recognize our responsibility and capability for building our dreams of tomorrow and avoiding our nightmares.

–Edward Cornish

 

From DSC:
This posting represents Part III in a series of such postings that illustrate how quickly things are moving (Part I and Part II) and to ask:

  • How do we collectively start talking about the future that we want?
  • Then, how do we go about creating our dreams, not our nightmares?
  • Most certainly, governments will be involved….but who else should be involved?

As I mentioned in Part I, I want to again refer to Gerd Leonhard’s work as it is relevant here, Gerd asserts:

I believe we urgently need to start debating and crafting a global Digital Ethics Treaty. This would delineate what is and is not acceptable under different circumstances and conditions, and specify who would be in charge of monitoring digressions and aberrations.

Looking at several items below, ask yourself…is this the kind of future that we want?  There are some things mentioned below that could likely prove to be very positive and helpful. However, there are also some very troubling advancements and developments as well.

The point here is that we had better start talking and discussing the pros and cons of each one of these areas — and many more I’m not addressing here — or our dreams will turn into our nightmares and we will have missed what Edward Cornish and the World Future Society are often trying to get at.

 

 

Google’s Artificial Intelligence System Masters Game of ‘Go’ — from abcnews.go.com by Alyssa Newcomb

Excerpt:

Google just mastered one of the biggest feats in artificial intelligence since IBM’s Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov at chess in 1997.

The search giant’s AlphaGo computer program swept the European champion of Go, a complex game with trillions of possible moves, in a five-game series, according Demis Hassabis, head of Google’s machine learning, who announced the feat in a blog post that coincided with an article in the journal Nature.

While computers can now compete at the grand master level in chess, teaching a machine to win at Go has presented a unique challenge since the game has trillions of possible moves.

Along these lines, also see:
Mastering the game of go with deep neural networks and tree search — from deepmind.com

 

 

 

Harvard is trying to build artificial intelligence that is as fast as the human brain — from futurism.com
Harvard University and IARPA are working together to study how AI can work as efficiently and effectively as the human brain.

Excerpt:

Harvard University has been given $28M by the Intelligence Advanced Projects Activity (IARPA) to study why the human brain is significantly better at learning and retaining information than artificial intelligence (AI). The investment into this study could potentially help researchers develop AI that’s faster, smarter, and more like human brains.

 

 

Digital Ethics: The role of the CIO in balancing the risks and rewards of digital innovation — from mis-asia.com by Kevin Wo; with thanks to Gerd Leonhard for this posting

What is digital ethics?
In our hyper-connected world, an explosion of data is combining with pattern recognition, machine learning, smart algorithms, and other intelligent software to underpin a new level of cognitive computing. More than ever, machines are capable of imitating human thinking and decision-making across a raft of workflows, which presents exciting opportunities for companies to drive highly personalized customer experiences, as well as unprecedented productivity, efficiency, and innovation. However, along with the benefits of this increased automation comes a greater risk for ethics to be compromised and human trust to be broken.

According to Gartner, digital ethics is the system of values and principles a company may embrace when conducting digital interactions between businesses, people and things. Digital ethics sits at the nexus of what is legally required; what can be made possible by digital technology; and what is morally desirable.  

As digital ethics is not mandated by law, it is largely up to each individual organisation to set its own innovation parameters and define how its customer and employee data will be used.

 

 

New algorithm points the way towards regrowing limbs and organs — from sciencealert.com by David Nield

Excerpt:

An international team of researchers has developed a new algorithm that could one day help scientists reprogram cells to plug any kind of gap in the human body. The computer code model, called Mogrify, is designed to make the process of creating pluripotent stem cells much quicker and more straightforward than ever before.

A pluripotent stem cell is one that has the potential to become any type of specialised cell in the body: eye tissue, or a neural cell, or cells to build a heart. In theory, that would open up the potential for doctors to regrow limbs, make organs to order, and patch up the human body in all kinds of ways that aren’t currently possible.

 

 

 

The world’s first robot-run farm will harvest 30,000 heads of lettuce daily — from techinsider.io by Leanna Garfield

Excerpt (from DSC):

The Japanese lettuce production company Spread believes the farmers of the future will be robots.

So much so that Spread is creating the world’s first farm manned entirely by robots. Instead of relying on human farmers, the indoor Vegetable Factory will employ robots that can harvest 30,000 heads of lettuce every day.

Don’t expect a bunch of humanoid robots to roam the halls, however; the robots look more like conveyor belts with arms. They’ll plant seeds, water plants, and trim lettuce heads after harvest in the Kyoto, Japan farm.

 

 

 

Drone ambulances may just be the future of emergency medical vehicles — from interestingengineering.com by Gabrielle Westfield

Excerpt:

Drones are advancing everyday. They are getting larger, faster and more efficient to control. Meanwhile the medical field keeps facing major losses from emergency response vehicles not being able to reach their destination fast enough. Understandable so, I mean especially in the larger cities where traffic is impossible to move swiftly through. Red flashing lights atop or not, sometimes the roads are just not capable of opening up. It makes total sense that the future of ambulances would be paved in the open sky rather than unpredictable roads.

.

 

 

 

Phone shop will be run entirely by Pepper robots — from telegraph.co.uk by Rhiannon Williams

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Creator company SoftBank said it planned to open the pop-up mobile store employing only Pepper robots by the end of March, according to Engadget.

The four foot-tall robots will be on hand to answer questions, provide directions and guide customers in taking out phone contracts until early April. It’s currently unknown what brands of phone Pepper will be selling.

 

 

 

Wise.io introduces first intelligent auto reply functionality for customer support organizations — from consumerelectronicsnet.com
Powered by Machine Learning, Wise Auto Response Frees Up Agent Time, Boosting Productivity, Accelerating Response Time and Improving the Customer Experience

Excerpt:

BERKELEY, CA — (Marketwired) — 01/27/16 — Wise.io, which delivers machine learning applications to help enterprises provide a better customer experience, today announced the availability of Wise Auto Response, the first intelligent auto reply functionality for customer support organizations. Using machine learning to understand the intent of an incoming ticket and determine the best available response, Wise Auto Response automatically selects and applies the appropriate reply to address the customer issue without ever involving an agent. By helping customer service teams answer common questions faster, Wise Auto Response removes a high percentage of tickets from the queue, freeing up agents’ time to focus on more complex tickets and drive higher levels of customer satisfaction.

 

 

Video game for treating ADHD looks to 2017 debut — from educationnews.org

Excerpt:

Akili Interactive Labs out of Boston has created a video game that they hope will help treat children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder by teaching them to focus in a distracting environment.

The game, Project: EVO, is meant to be prescribed to children with ADHD as a medical treatment.  And after gaining $30.5 million in funding, investors appear to believe in it.  The company plans to use the funding to run clinical trials with plans to gain approval from the US Food and Drug Administration in order to be able to launch the game in late 2017.

Players will enter a virtual world filled with colorful distractions and be required to focus on specific tasks such as choosing certain objects while avoiding others.  The game looks to train the portion of the brain designed to manage and prioritize all the information taken in at one time.

 

Addendum on 1/29/16:

 

 

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

The need for ethics, morals, policies, security, & serious reflection about what kind of future we want [Part II]

On 12/15/2015, in 21st century, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), Australia, biology, Canada, collaboration, disruption, emerging technologies, engineering, ethics, Europe, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, India, leadership, Microsoft, morals/values, policy, research, robotics, society, UK, United States, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Below are some further items that discuss the need for some frameworks, policies, institutes, research, etc. that deal with a variety of game-changing technologies that are quickly coming down the pike (if they aren’t already upon on).  We need such things to help us create a positive future.

Also see Part I of this thread of thinking entitled, “The need for ethics, morals, policies, & serious reflection about what kind of future we want has never been greater!“  There have been so many other items that came out since that posting, I felt like I needed to add another one here.

What kind of future do we want? How are we going to insure that we get there?

As the saying goes…”Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should.” Or another saying comes to my mind…”What could possibly go wrong with this? It’s a done deal.”

While some of the items below should have very positive impacts on society, I do wonder how long it will take the hackers — the ones who are bent on wreaking havoc — to mess up some of these types of applications…with potentially deadly consequences? Security-related concerns must be dealt with here.

 

5 amazing and alarming things that may be done with your DNA — from washingtonpost.com by Matt McFarland

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Venter is leading efforts to use digital technology to analyze humans in ways we never have before, and the results will have huge implications for society. The latest findings he described are currently being written up for scientific publications. Venter didn’t want to usurp the publications, so he wouldn’t dive into extensive detail of how his team has made these breakthroughs. But what he did share offers an exciting and concerning overview of what lies ahead for humanity. There are social, legal and ethical implications to start considering. Here are five examples of how digitizing DNA will change the human experience:

 

 

These are the decisions the Pentagon wants to leave to robots — from defenseone.com by Patrick Tucker
The U.S. military believes its battlefield edge will increasingly depend on automation and artificial intelligence.

Excerpt:

Conducting cyber defensive operations, electronic warfare, and over-the-horizon targeting. “You cannot have a human operator operating at human speed fighting back at determined cyber tech,” Work said. “You are going to need have a learning machine that does that.” He did not say  whether the Pentagon is pursuing the autonomous or automatic deployment of offensive cyber capabilities, a controversial idea to be sure. He also highlighted a number of ways that artificial intelligence could help identify new waveforms to improve electronic warfare.

 

 

Britain should lead way on genetically engineered babies, says Chief Scientific Adviser — from.telegraph.co.uk by Sarah Knapton
Sir Mark Walport, who advises the government on scientific matters, said it could be acceptable to genetically edit human embryos

Excerpt:

Last week more than 150 scientists and campaigners called for a worldwide ban on the practice, claiming it could ‘irrevocably alter the human species’ and lead to a world where inequality and discrimination were ‘inscribed onto the human genome.’

But at a conference in London [on 12/8/15], Sir Mark Walport, who advises the government on scientific matters, said he believed there were ‘circumstances’ in which the genetic editing of human embyros could be ‘acceptable’.

 

 

Cyborg Future: Engineers Build a Chip That Is Part Biological and Part Synthetic — from futurism.com

Excerpt:

Engineers have succeeded in combining an integrated chip with an artificial lipid bilayer membrane containing ATP-powered ion pumps, paving the way for more such artificial systems that combine the biological with the mechanical down the road.

 

 

Robots expected to run half of Japan by 2035 — from engadget.com by Andrew Tarantola
Something-something ‘robot overlords’.

Excerpt:

Data analysts Nomura Research Institute (NRI), led by researcher Yumi Wakao, figure that within the next 20 years, nearly half of all jobs in Japan could be accomplished by robots. Working with Professor Michael Osborne from Oxford University, who had previously investigated the same matter in both the US and UK, the NRI team examined more than 600 jobs and found that “up to 49 percent of jobs could be replaced by computer systems,” according to Wakao.

 

 

 

Cambridge University is opening a £10 million centre to study the impact of AI on humanity — from businessinsider.com by Sam Shead

Excerpt:

Cambridge University announced on [12/3/15] that it is opening a new £10 million research centre to study the impact of artificial intelligence on humanity.

The 806-year-old university said the centre, being funded with a grant from non-profit foundation The Leverhulme Trust, will explore the opportunities and challenges facing humanity as a result of further developments in artificial intelligence.

 

Cambridge-Center-Dec2015

 

 

Tech leaders launch nonprofit to save the world from killer robots — from csmonitor.com by Jessica Mendoza
Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other tech titans have invested $1 billion in a nonprofit that would help direct artificial intelligence technology toward positive human impact. 

 

 

 

 

2016 will be a pivotal year for social robots — from therobotreport.com by Frank Tobe
1,000 Peppers are selling each month from a big-dollar venture between SoftBank, Alibaba and Foxconn; Jibo just raised another $16 million as it prepares to deliver 7,500+ units in Mar/Apr of 2016; and Buddy, Rokid, Sota and many others are poised to deliver similar forms of social robots.

Excerpt:

These new robots, and the proliferation of mobile robot butlers, guides and kiosks, promise to recognize your voice and face and help you plan your calendar, provide reminders, take pictures of special moments, text, call and videoconference, order fast food, keep watch on your house or office, read recipes, play games, read emotions and interact accordingly, and the list goes on. They are attempting to be analogous to a sharp administrative assistant that knows your schedule, contacts and interests and engages with you about them, helping you stay informed, connected and active.

 

 

IBM opens its artificial mind to the world — from fastcompany.com by Sean Captain
IBM is letting companies plug into its Watson artificial intelligence engine to make sense of speech, text, photos, videos, and sensor data.

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence is the big, oft-misconstrued catchphrase of the day, making headlines recently with the launch of the new OpenAI organization, backed by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other tech luminaries. AI is neither a synonym for killer robots nor a technology of the future, but one that is already finding new signals in the vast noise of collected data, ranging from weather reports to social media chatter to temperature sensor readings. Today IBM has opened up new access to its AI system, called Watson, with a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow other companies and organizations to feed their data into IBM’s big brain for analysis.

 

 

GE wants to give industrial machines their own social network with Predix Cloud — from fastcompany.com by Sean Captain
GE is selling a new service that promises to predict when a machine will break down…so technicians can preemptively fix it.

 

 

Foresight 2020: The future is filled with 50 billion connected devices — from ibmbigdatahub.com by Erin Monday

Excerpt:

By 2020, there will be over 50 billion connected devices generating continuous data.

This figure is staggering, but is it really a surprise? The world has come a long way from 1992, when the number of computers was roughly equivalent to the population of San Jose. Today, in 2015, there are more connected devices out there than there are human beings. Ubiquitous connectivity is very nearly a reality. Every day, we get a little closer to a time where businesses, governments and consumers are connected by a fluid stream of data and analytics. But what’s driving all this growth?

 

 

Designing robots that learn as effortlessly as babies — from singularityhub.com by Shelly Fan

Excerpt:

A wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked, babbling human baby hardly looks like the ultimate learning machine.

But under the hood, an 18-month-old can outlearn any state-of-the-art artificial intelligence algorithm.

Their secret sauce?

They watch; they imitate; and they extrapolate.

Artificial intelligence researchers have begun to take notice. This week, two separate teams dipped their toes into cognitive psychology and developed new algorithms that teach machines to learn like babies. One instructs computers to imitate; the other, to extrapolate.

 

 

Researchers have found a new way to get machines to learn faster — from fortune.com by  Hilary Brueck

Excerpt:

An international team of data scientists is proud to announce the very latest in machine learning: they’ve built a program that learns… programs. That may not sound impressive at first blush, but making a machine that can learn based on a single example is something that’s been extremely hard to do in the world of artificial intelligence. Machines don’t learn like humans—not as fast, and not as well. And even with this research, they still can’t.

 

 

Team showcase how good Watson is at learning — from adigaskell.org

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence has undoubtedly come a long way in the last few years, but there is still much to be done to make it intuitive to use.  IBM’s Watson has been one of the most well known exponents during this time, but despite it’s initial success, there are issues to overcome with it.

A team led by Georgia Tech are attempting to do just that.  They’re looking to train Watson to get better at returning answers to specific queries.

 

 

Why The Internet of Things will drive a Knowledge Revolution. — from linkedin.com by David Evans

Excerpt:

As these machines inevitably connect to the Internet, they will ultimately connect to each other so they can share, and collaborate on their own findings. In fact, in 2014 machines got their own ”World Wide Web” called RoboEarth, in which to share knowledge with one another. …
The implications of all of this are at minimum twofold:

  • The way we generate knowledge is going to change dramatically in the coming years.
  • Knowledge is about to increase at an exponential rate.

What we choose to do with this newfound knowledge is of course up to us. We are about to face some significant challenges at scales we have yet to experience.

 

 

Drone squad to be launched by Tokyo police — from bbc.com

Excerpt:

A drone squad, designed to locate and – if necessary – capture nuisance drones flown by members of the public, is to be launched by police in Tokyo.

 

 

An advance in artificial intelligence rivals human abilities — from todayonline.com by John Markoff

Excerpt:

NEW YORK — Computer researchers reported artificial-intelligence advances [on Dec 10] that surpassed human capabilities for a narrow set of vision-related tasks.

The improvements are noteworthy because so-called machine-vision systems are becoming commonplace in many aspects of life, including car-safety systems that detect pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as in video game controls, Internet search and factory robots.

 

 

Somewhat related:

Novo Nordisk, IBM Watson Health to create ‘virtual doctor’ — from wsj.com by Denise Roland
Software could dispense treatment advice for diabetes patients

Excerpt:

Novo Nordisk A/S is teaming up with IBM Watson Health, a division of International Business Machines Corp., to create a “virtual doctor” for diabetes patients that could dispense treatment advice such as insulin dosage.

The Danish diabetes specialist hopes to use IBM’s supercomputer platform, Watson, to analyze health data from diabetes patients to help them manage their disease.

 

 

Why Google’s new quantum computer could launch an artificial intelligence arms race — from washingtonpost.com

 

 

 

8 industries robots will completely transform by 2025 — from techinsider.io

 

 

 

Addendums on 12/17/15:

Russia and China are building highly autonomous killer robots — from businessinsider.com.au by Danielle Muoi

Excerpt:

Russia and China are creating highly autonomous weapons, more commonly referred to as killer robots, and it’s putting pressure on the Pentagon to keep up, according to US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work. During a national-security forum on Monday, Work said that China and Russia are heavily investing in a roboticized army, according to a report from Defense One.

Your Algorithmic Self Meets Super-Intelligent AI — from techcrunch.com by Jarno M. Koponen

Excerpt:

At the same time, your data and personalized experiences are used to develop and train the machine learning systems that are powering the Siris, Watsons, Ms and Cortanas. Be it a speech recognition solution or a recommendation algorithm, your actions and personal data affect how these sophisticated systems learn more about you and the world around you.

The less explicit fact is that your diverse interactions — your likes, photos, locations, tags, videos, comments, route selections, recommendations and ratings — feed learning systems that could someday transform into super–intelligent AIs with unpredictable consequences.

As of today, you can’t directly affect how your personal data is used in these systems

 

Addendum on 12/20/15:

 

Addendum on 12/21/15:

  • Facewatch ‘thief recognition’ CCTV on trial in UK stores — from bbc.com
    Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
    Face-recognition camera systems should be used by police, he tells me. “The technology’s here, and we need to think about what is a proportionate response that respects people’s privacy,” he says.
    …
    “The public need to ask themselves: do they want six million cameras painted red at head height looking at them?

 

Addendum on 1/13/16:

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

The need for ethics, morals, policies, & serious reflection about what kind of future we want has never been greater!

On 11/19/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), Australia, business, Canada, change, communities of practice, computer science, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, Europe, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, India, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, machine-to-machine communications, morals/values, Near Field Communication (NFC), pace of change, policy, political science, programming, psychology, real-world assignments, relationships, robotics, society, sociology, strategy, surviving, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, trends, UK, United States, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
This posting is meant to surface the need for debates/discussions, new policy decisions, and for taking the time to seriously reflect upon what type of future that we want.  Given the pace of technological change, we need to be constantly asking ourselves what kind of future we want and then to be actively creating that future — instead of just letting things happen because they can happen. (i.e., just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.)

Gerd Leonhard’s work is relevant here.  In the resource immediately below, Gerd asserts:

I believe we urgently need to start debating and crafting a global Digital Ethics Treaty. This would delineate what is and is not acceptable under different circumstances and conditions, and specify who would be in charge of monitoring digressions and aberrations.

I am also including some other relevant items here that bear witness to the increasingly rapid speed at which we’re moving now.

 

Redefining the relationship of man and machine: here is my narrated chapter from the ‘The Future of Business’ book (video, audio and pdf) — from futuristgerd.com by Gerd Leonhard

.

DigitalEthics-GerdLeonhard-Oct2015

 

 

Robot revolution: rise of ‘thinking’ machines could exacerbate inequality — from theguardian.com by Heather Stewart
Global economy will be transformed over next 20 years at risk of growing inequality, say analysts

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

A “robot revolution” will transform the global economy over the next 20 years, cutting the costs of doing business but exacerbating social inequality, as machines take over everything from caring for the elderly to flipping burgers, according to a new study.

As well as robots performing manual jobs, such as hoovering the living room or assembling machine parts, the development of artificial intelligence means computers are increasingly able to “think”, performing analytical tasks once seen as requiring human judgment.

In a 300-page report, revealed exclusively to the Guardian, analysts from investment bank Bank of America Merrill Lynch draw on the latest research to outline the impact of what they regard as a fourth industrial revolution, after steam, mass production and electronics.

“We are facing a paradigm shift which will change the way we live and work,” the authors say. “The pace of disruptive technological innovation has gone from linear to parabolic in recent years. Penetration of robots and artificial intelligence has hit every industry sector, and has become an integral part of our daily lives.”

 

RobotRevolution-Nov2015

 

 

 

First genetically modified humans could exist within two years — from telegraph.co.uk by Sarah Knapton
Biotech company Editas Medicine is planning to start human trials to genetically edit genes and reverse blindness

Excerpt:

Humans who have had their DNA genetically modified could exist within two years after a private biotech company announced plans to start the first trials into a ground-breaking new technique.

Editas Medicine, which is based in the US, said it plans to become the first lab in the world to ‘genetically edit’ the DNA of patients suffering from a genetic condition – in this case the blinding disorder ‘leber congenital amaurosis’.

 

 

 

Gartner predicts our digital future — from gartner.com by Heather Levy
Gartner’s Top 10 Predictions herald what it means to be human in a digital world.

Excerpt:

Here’s a scene from our digital future: You sit down to dinner at a restaurant where your server was selected by a “robo-boss” based on an optimized match of personality and interaction profile, and the angle at which he presents your plate, or how quickly he smiles can be evaluated for further review.  Or, perhaps you walk into a store to try on clothes and ask the digital customer assistant embedded in the mirror to recommend an outfit in your size, in stock and on sale. Afterwards, you simply tell it to bill you from your mobile and skip the checkout line.

These scenarios describe two predictions in what will be an algorithmic and smart machine driven world where people and machines must define harmonious relationships. In his session at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016 in Orlando, Daryl Plummer, vice president, distinguished analyst and Gartner Fellow, discussed how Gartner’s Top Predictions begin to separate us from the mere notion of technology adoption and draw us more deeply into issues surrounding what it means to be human in a digital world.

 

 

GartnerPredicts-Oct2015

 

 

Univ. of Washington faculty study legal, social complexities of augmented reality — from phys.org

Excerpt:

But augmented reality will also bring challenges for law, public policy and privacy, especially pertaining to how information is collected and displayed. Issues regarding surveillance and privacy, free speech, safety, intellectual property and distraction—as well as potential discrimination—are bound to follow.

The Tech Policy Lab brings together faculty and students from the School of Law, Information School and Computer Science & Engineering Department and other campus units to think through issues of technology policy. “Augmented Reality: A Technology and Policy Primer” is the lab’s first official white paper aimed at a policy audience. The paper is based in part on research presented at the 2015 International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, or UbiComp conference.

Along these same lines, also see:

  • Augmented Reality: Figuring Out Where the Law Fits — from rdmag.com by Greg Watry
    Excerpt:
    With AR comes potential issues the authors divide into two categories. “The first is collection, referring to the capacity of AR to record, or at least register, the people and places around the user. Collection raises obvious issues of privacy but also less obvious issues of free speech and accountability,” the researchers write. The second issue is display, which “raises a variety of complex issues ranging from possible tort liability should the introduction or withdrawal of information lead to injury, to issues surrounding employment discrimination or racial profiling.”Current privacy law in the U.S. allows video and audio recording in areas that “do not attract an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy,” says Newell. Further, many uses of AR would be covered under the First Amendment right to record audio and video, especially in public spaces. However, as AR increasingly becomes more mobile, “it has the potential to record inconspicuously in a variety of private or more intimate settings, and I think these possibilities are already straining current privacy law in the U.S.,” says Newell.

 

Stuart Russell on Why Moral Philosophy Will Be Big Business in Tech — from kqed.org by Queena Kim

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Our first Big Think comes from Stuart Russell. He’s a computer science professor at UC Berkeley and a world-renowned expert in artificial intelligence. His Big Think?

“In the future, moral philosophy will be a key industry sector,” says Russell.

Translation? In the future, the nature of human values and the process by which we make moral decisions will be big business in tech.

 

Life, enhanced: UW professors study legal, social complexities of an augmented reality future — from washington.edu by Peter Kelley

Excerpt:

But augmented reality will also bring challenges for law, public policy and privacy, especially pertaining to how information is collected and displayed. Issues regarding surveillance and privacy, free speech, safety, intellectual property and distraction — as well as potential discrimination — are bound to follow.

 

An excerpt from:

UW-AR-TechPolicyPrimer-Nov2015

THREE: CHALLENGES FOR LAW AND POLICY
AR systems  change   human  experience   and,  consequently,   stand  to   challenge   certain assumptions  of  law  and  policy.  The  issues  AR  systems  raise  may  be  divided  into  roughly two  categories.  The  first  is  collection,  referring  to  the  capacity  of  AR  devices  to  record,  or  at  least register,  the people and  places around  the user.  Collection  raises obvious  issues of  privacy  but  also  less  obvious  issues  of  free  speech  and  accountability.  The  second  rough  category  is  display,  referring  to  the  capacity  of  AR  to  overlay  information over  people  and places  in  something  like  real-time.  Display  raises  a  variety  of  complex  issues  ranging  from
possible  tort  liability  should  the  introduction  or  withdrawal  of  information  lead  to  injury,  to issues   surrounding   employment   discrimination   or   racial   profiling.   Policymakers   and stakeholders interested in AR should consider what these issues mean for them.  Issues related to the collection of information include…

 

HR tech is getting weird, and here’s why — from hrmorning.com by guest poster Julia Scavicchio

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Technology has progressed to the point where it’s possible for HR to learn almost everything there is to know about employees — from what they’re doing moment-to-moment at work to what they’re doing on their off hours. Guest poster Julia Scavicchio takes a long hard look at the legal and ethical implications of these new investigative tools.  

Why on Earth does HR need all this data? The answer is simple — HR is not on Earth, it’s in the cloud.

The department transcends traditional roles when data enters the picture.

Many ethical questions posed through technology easily come and go because they seem out of this world.

 

 

18 AI researchers reveal the most impressive thing they’ve ever seen — from businessinsider.com by Guia Marie Del Prado,

Excerpt:

Where will these technologies take us next? Well to know that we should determine what’s the best of the best now. Tech Insider talked to 18 AI researchers, roboticists, and computer scientists to see what real-life AI impresses them the most.
…

“The DeepMind system starts completely from scratch, so it is essentially just waking up, seeing the screen of a video game and then it works out how to play the video game to a superhuman level, and it does that for about 30 different video games.  That’s both impressive and scary in the sense that if a human baby was born and by the evening of its first day was already beating human beings at video games, you’d be terrified.”

 

 

 

Algorithmic Economy: Powering the Machine-to-Machine Age Economic Revolution — from formtek.com by Dick Weisinger

Excerpts:

As technology advances, we are becoming increasingly dependent on algorithms for everything in our lives.  Algorithms that can solve our daily problems and tasks will do things like drive vehicles, control drone flight, and order supplies when they run low.  Algorithms are defining the future of business and even our everyday lives.
…
Sondergaard said that “in 2020, consumers won’t be using apps on their devices; in fact, they will have forgotten about apps. They will rely on virtual assistants in the cloud, things they trust. The post-app era is coming.  The algorithmic economy will power the next economic revolution in the machine-to-machine age. Organizations will be valued, not just on their big data, but on the algorithms that turn that data into actions that ultimately impact customers.”

 

 

Related items:

 

Addendums:

 

robots-saying-no

 

 

Addendum on 12/14/15:

  • Algorithms rule our lives, so who should rule them? — from qz.com by Dries Buytaert
    As technology advances and more everyday objects are driven almost entirely by software, it’s become clear that we need a better way to catch cheating software and keep people safe.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

What are we doing?! We will all pay for these broken strategies — for generations to come! Time for some new goals!

On 02/22/2013, in communities of practice, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, experimentation, faith, hearts -- matters of the heart, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, instructional design, interactivity, K-12 related, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, love of learning, morals/values, more voice more choice more control, real-world assignments, social learning / networks, strategy, student-related, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Some very frustrated reflections after reading:

Excerpt:

Right now, boys are falling out of the kindergarten through 12th grade educational pipeline in ways that we can hardly imagine.

 

This situation continues to remind me of the oil spill in the Gulf (2010), where valuable resources spilled into the water untapped — later causing some serious issues:
.

From DSC:
What are we doing?!!! We’ve watched the dropout rates grow — it doesn’t seem we’ve changed our strategies nearly enough! But the point that gets lost in this is that we will all pay for these broken strategies — and for generations to come!  It’s time to seriously move towards identifying and implementing some new goals.

What should the new goals look like? Here’s my take on at least a portion of a new vision for K-12 — and collegiate — education:

  • Help students identify their God-given gifts and then help them build up their own learning ecosystems to support the development of those gifts. Hook them up with resources that will develop students’ abilities and passions.
    .
  • Part of their learning ecosystems could be to help them enter into — and build up — communities of practice around subjects that they enjoy learning about. Those communities could be local, national, or international. (Also consider the creation of personalized learning agents, as these become more prevalent/powerful.)
    .
  • Do everything we can to make learning enjoyable and foster a love of learning — as we need lifelong learners these days.
    (It doesn’t help society much if students are dropping out of K-12 or if people struggle to make it through graduation — only to then harbor ill feelings towards learning/education in general for years to come.  Let’s greatly reduce the presence/usage of standardized tests — they’re killing us!  They don’t seem to be producing long-term positive results. I congratulate the recent group of teachers who refused to give their students such tests; and I greatly admire them for getting rid of a losing strategy.)
    .
  • Give students more choice, more control over what their learning looks like; let them take their own paths as much as possible (provide different ways to meet the same learning objective is one approach…but perhaps we need to think beyond/bigger than that. The concern/fear arises…but how will we manage this? That’s where a good share of our thinking should be focused; generating creative answers to that question.)
    .
  • Foster curiosity and wonder
    .
  • Provide cross-disciplinary assignments/opportunities
    .
  • Let students work on/try to resolve real issues in their communities
    .
  • Build up students’ appreciation of faith, hope, love, empathy, and a desire to make the world a better place. Provide ways that they can contribute.
    .
  • Let students experiment more — encourage failure.
    .

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •  

Not your typical recruiting/”now hiring” piece!

On 07/16/2012, in 21st century, career development, engineering, ethics, Europe, hearts -- matters of the heart, morals/values, robotics, by Daniel Christian

.

From DSC:
Note the job descriptions further on down the page at shapetheworld.fr!  These are the types of jobs that may likely be in demand in the near future. Are we ready?

See also:

 

From DSC:
The above video reminds me why I posted this one.

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • • •  

What happens in our hearts has very practical, relevant implications in our daily lives

On 07/12/2012, in business, economics, ethics, faith, hearts -- matters of the heart, morals/values, relationships, society, United States, by Daniel Christian

Below are but a few examples that focus on money — is it any wonder that Jesus talked so much about this very subject!?!
(Second only to talking about the kingdom of heaven.)

 

 

.

.

 

 

 

.

 

.

.

 

 

Addendum on 7/23/12:

  • Wealthy hiding $21 trillion in tax havens, report says — from cbcnews
    ‘Debtor countries’ are actually wealthy when hidden money is accounted for
    Excerpt:
    The “super-rich elite” are hiding more than $21 trillion US in tax havens around the world, an amount roughly equal to the combined GDP of the United States and Japan, according to a new report.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • • • • • •  

In a world of extremely powerful technologies and data mining mechanisms, we need *people* to do the “right thing.” [Christian]

On 07/03/2012, in 21st century, analytics, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, ethics, hearts -- matters of the heart, morals/values, policy, reading, social media, strategy, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Readers of this blog will know that I am pro-technology — at least in most areas. However, as our hearts can sometimes become hardened and our feet can sometimes find themselves on slippery ethical ground, we really need hearts, minds, and consciences that prompt us to care about other people — and to do the right thing as a result of that perspective.

 

Example articles that brought this to my mind recently include:

 

7 sinister technologies from Orwell’s 1984 that are still a threat — from dvice.com by Hal Rappaport

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Technology is a wonderful thing, but in the words of Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” If we are not careful, the technology we know and love could be used against us, even subtly. In the year 1984, Apple thought IBM was the bringer of “Big Brother.” In reality, the technology of today better resembles George Orwell’s dystopian vision than a 1980s era PC.

Every day we are in the process of becoming a more connected society. With social networks, cloud computing and even more specific, less-thought-about tech such as Internet-connected home surveillance systems, we may find ourselves in a delicate balance of trust and paranoia.

…

While we are grateful that we don’t live in a world as bleak as Orwell’s Oceana, it’s clear that the technology now exists to make his world possible if we let it. Keeping our paranoia in check, we should all be mindful of our technology and how it’s used. Security is a good thing and so is saving money, but consider how much of each your personal freedom is worth.

Wiping away your Siri “fingerprint” — from technologyreview.com by David Talbot
Your voice can be a biometric identifier, like your fingerprint. Does Apple really have to store it on its own servers?

Excerpt:

“What I’ve discovered through building and running very targeted online ad campaigns using this data is that users respond favorably to ads that are more targeted, but only if the ads don’t make it clear that I’m targeting sensitive information about them,” he said. “What’s most interesting, and what I’m learning, are which attributes are considered too creepy, and which ones are acceptable.”

“Google Now” knows more about you than your family does – are you OK with that? — from readwriteweb.com by Mark Hachman

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Google Now aggregates the information Google already collects about you on a daily basis: accessing your email, your calendar, your contacts, your text messages, your location, your shopping habits, your payment history, as well as your choices in music, movies and books. It can even scan your photos and automatically identify them based on their subject, not just the file name (in the Google I/O demo, Google Now correctly found a picture of the Great Pyramid). About the only aspect of your online life that Google hasn’t apparently assimilated yet is your opinions expressed on Google+. But that’s undoubtedly coming.

Social network privacy settings compared — from techhive.com by Nick Mediati

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

It should go without saying that protecting your privacy online is kind of a big deal. While people are generally good at not giving out their personal information to just any website that asks for it, those same people can be found filling their Facebook accounts with everything from their birthday to where they live and work. Putting this sensitive information onto a social network not only leaves your data exposed to third-parties (advertisers and so forth), but also to anyone who happens across your profile.

Facebook, Google+, and Twitter all have settings that let you tweak what others can see on your profile—but navigating them can be a bit of a mess. Not all social networks give you complete control over your privacy online, so here’s a quick overview of what Facebook, Google+, and Twitter allow you to do.

U.S. companies lost at least $13 billion to espionage last year — from ieee.org by Robert Charette

Google Glass & Now: Utopia or Dystopia? — from extremetech.com by Sebastian Anthony

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

If you didn’t watch the Google I/O keynote presented by Vic Gundotra, Hugo Barra, and Sergey Brin, let me quickly bring you up to speed.  Google Now is an Android app that uses your location, behavior history, and search history to display “just the right information at just the right time.”  For example, if you regularly search for a certain sports team, Now will show you a card with the latest scores for that team.  When Now predicts or detects that you’re leaving home in the morning, it will display a card with any relevant traffic information.  If you have a lunch meeting in your Google Calendar, Now will show you the route you need to take to get there — and when you need to leave to get there on time.  If you search Google for an airline flight, Now will show a card with the flight details (and any delays).

Big e-reader is watching you — from PaidContent.org  by Laura Hazard Owen

Why privacy is big business for trial lawyers — from technologyreview.com by Antonio Regalado
Tech companies that make privacy mistakes can expect a lawsuit.

Legal discovery: The billboard is imaginary, but the trend is real.
Trial lawyers are ramping up lawsuits over online privacy breaches.
Flickr Creative Commons | AdamL212 and istock/stocknroll

Addendums
On 7/6/12:
  • Your e-book is reading you — WSJ.com by Alexandra Alter
    Digital-book publishers and retailers now know more about their readers than ever before. How that’s changing the experience of reading.

On 7/16/12:

On 7/23/12:

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •  

Some items re: a thumbs up to liberal arts degrees!

On 05/25/2012, in ethics, faith, hearts -- matters of the heart, liberal arts, morals/values, motivation, society, student-related, by Daniel Christian

The Service Patch — from The New York Times, OP-ED piece by David Brooks

Let’s put it differently. Many people today find it easy to use the vocabulary of entrepreneurialism, whether they are in business or social entrepreneurs. This is a utilitarian vocabulary. How can I serve the greatest number? How can I most productively apply my talents to the problems of the world? It’s about resource allocation.

People are less good at using the vocabulary of moral evaluation, which is less about what sort of career path you choose than what sort of person you are.

In whatever field you go into, you will face greed, frustration and failure. You may find your life challenged by depression, alcoholism, infidelity, your own stupidity and self-indulgence. So how should you structure your soul to prepare for this? Simply working at Amnesty International instead of McKinsey is not necessarily going to help you with these primal character tests.

Furthermore, how do you achieve excellence? Around what ultimate purpose should your life revolve? Are you capable of heroic self-sacrifice or is life just a series of achievement hoops? These, too, are not analytic questions about what to do. They require literary distinctions and moral evaluations.

When I read the Stanford discussion thread, I saw young people with deep moral yearnings. But they tended to convert moral questions into resource allocation questions; questions about how to be into questions about what to do.

 

Also see:

Excerpt:
If you’re in college, or happen to be about to graduate, and you’ve been mocked for getting a liberal arts degree, here’s a piece of welcome news: You’re actually in more demand than those who are getting finance and accounting degrees. That’s one of the findings of a new survey of 225 employers issued today by Millennial Branding and Experience Inc.

 

From DSC:
My thanks to Mr. Will Katerberg, Dir. Mellema Program and Professor of History at Calvin College, for these resources

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • • • • •  

Reflections: What are we modeling in higher ed and what are the goals — and states of the hearts — of students about to enter the workplace? What about our hearts?

On 05/04/2012, in Daniel S. Christian, ethics, hearts -- matters of the heart, higher education, morals/values, by Daniel Christian

For Indiana University business grads, a tough final lesson
Those who failed to pick up tickets for ceremony now face black-market prices.

 Excerpt:

“I can’t believe it. It’s absolutely distressing,” said Beatty, a senior from Fishers who missed the pickup time for free graduation tickets for herself and her parents last month and now faces paying several hundred dollars to attend the ceremony in the auditorium on the Bloomington campus.

“My parents spent $70,000 to send me here the last four years, and they won’t be able to attend,” she said Wednesday. “It’s really opened my eyes about Kelley students. What have we been taught here? Why are my fellow Kelley classmates charging me extortion rates?”

From DSC:
I can’t comment on Beatty or the other students who didn’t take immediate action to acquire their tickets to the event (perhaps that’s one lesson to be learned here).  But more troubling to me were the reflections I had after reading this article:

  • What lessons did these soon-to-be graduates really learn here? It seems that these students have learned to make a buck in whatever way they can.  After all, that’s capitalism, right? (But capitalism without true stewardship, values, leadership, and caring about others can be destructive — as we are witnessing and experiencing these days within the United States…and most likely within higher ed as well.)
  • What was modeled by IU? Were the “customers” treated right after spending tens of thousands of dollars at IU? What are the rest of us doing along these lines within higher ed?

Which got me to thinking…what are the motivations of today’s graduates as they enter the workplace? What are their goals in life? What are institutions of higher ed really teaching and modeling about such goals? 

Which got me to thinking…what are the states of their hearts? Our hearts? 

Deep thoughts from just a graduation event…
but the streams we swim in run deep and
we don’t have know how powerful they really
are until we try swimming upstream.

Daniel

 

 

 

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • •  

Christian Education for the 21st Century [Vancouver Symposium]

On 05/01/2012, in digital learning, future, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, K-12 related, morals/values, online learning, society, by Daniel Christian

21stcenturyeducators.com

 

Year two notable delegates

  • Dr. Len Stolyarchuk – Moscow International School of Tomorrow, Russia
  • Dr. Mark Daley – Heritage Christian Online School, Canada
  • Megan Strange – North Cobb Christian School, USA
  • Barend Blom – Dalat International School, Malaysia
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • •  

Blowing the dust off the Bible: The Word — or lack thereof — affects hearts

On 03/16/2012, in business, corporate / business world, ethics, hearts -- matters of the heart, morals/values, relationships, religion, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I couldn’t help but reflect again on the state of our hearts here in the United States when I read Greg Smith’s Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled, “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs”. It’s a depressing accounting of the rampant greed on Wall Street, with a disregard for deeper qualities and a true attention to meeting a customer’s/client’s needs and goals. It speaks to employees not giving a damn about clients, but only looking to make as much money as possible. (It’s fine to make a living, but how about sincerely trying to make a contribution to society at the same time?)

Some excerpts from Smith’s article:

And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

…

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.

…

I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

From DSC:
I don’t know this man and I’m sure Goldman Sachs will try to discredit him; and yes, he was part of that culture and made a serious living off of it for years.

However, my focus is not on Greg Smith but upon the type of culture he spoke of; such a culture is not only bad for relationships — and ultimately for souls — but regardless of what you believe in terms of faith-based items, it’s simply bad business and it doesn’t benefit our society. In fact, it destroys it and it’s a significant contributing factor to the anger that continues to mount in the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon that is sweeping the nation.

 Some relevant graphics come to my mind:

.

 

 .

The State of the Heart

 

 

Addendum on 3/21/12:

  • This CEO should be ashamed of himself — from fool.com by Sean Williams
    Excerpt:
    CEO gets 44% pay raise while “Pfizer is in the midst of a multiyear cost-cutting campaign instituted in 2005 that includes eliminating a grand total of 55,400 jobs. That’s not a misprint — that’s 55,400 jobs gone, eliminated, axed! Pfizer announced the final phase of those jobs cuts recently, which will target 16,300 jobs and save the company a purported $1 billion in 2012. I have to wonder, how out of touch with reality do you have to be to give yourself a 44% raise as you are in the process of eliminating 16,300 jobs?”
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • • • • •  

“Bully” shows that we have too many hearts of stone

On 03/07/2012, in 21st century, ethics, faith, hearts -- matters of the heart, morals/values, United States, by Daniel Christian

"Bully" shows that we have too many hearts of stone

Please also see:

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • • • •  

Thomas Friedman at LinkedIn inDay Speaker Series — 10/20/11

On 01/13/2012, in career development, corporate / business world, creativity, disruption, economics, future, global / globalization, innovation, morals/values, political science, reinvent, society, staying relevant, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

LinkedIn inDay Speaker Series with Thomas Friedman - October 20, 2011.

.

That Used To Be Us

 

From DSC:
I originally saw this at Gerd Leonhard’s MediaFuturist.com where he entitles a blog posting:

 

Some of my notes on this video — Friedman’s main talk finishes around 35:45 w/ a Q&A beginning at 36:00
(From DSC: I’ve added my own thoughts in red)

  • Non-routine work — is the kind of work that you want to be able to do (there’s also the non-routine, local work — butcher, grocier — but that wasn’t the focus here)
  • Routine work — has been crushed via algorithms, outsourcing, (robotics), etc.

The bar has risen in non-routine work as we’ve moved from connected to hyper-connected world.

We are in the middle of an IT revolution/transformation — cloud, mobile, social, other — where Information Technology changes and globalization are creating global supply changes.  Tom’s key point is that the United States needs to be involved in these changes or we’ll get left in the dust.

In their Help Wanted chapter, the following skills are wanted:

  • Critical reasonsing
  • Problem solving
  • Non-routine work oriented
  • But most of all, you must be able to invent and reinvent your job WHILE you are doing the job
  • Creative
  • Innovative
  • (Pulse-checker and responder; which is why universities and colleges must begin offering classes on futurism/developing scenarios)
  • Unique value creation
  • Be able to bring your EXTRA

Average is over.  Now that we are hyper-connected, “average” is over.  If average is over — you must bring your “extra”.

From DSC:
If “average” is over, are we developing and raising up a generation of students who are learning how to bring their “extra”?  Does standardized testing help us or hurt us in this regard?

3 key attitudes you need if you want to “lean into this world”:

  1. Think like a new immigrant
    No legacy place waiting for me; I better figure out what world I’m living in, and then I better work hard to uncover and pursue the opportunities that current world presents; nothing is owed to me
  2. Think like an artisan
    Unique, hand-made; one-off’s, work in ways that you would be proud to carve your initials into your work
  3. Think like the waitress at Perkins Pancake House in MN
    Where she gave Thomas’ friend extra fruit and she mentioned that to them both; she brought her extra in areas where she had the control to do so

United States may be in relative decline — as we experience the “rise of the rest”; but what the US has to worry about it absolute decline

American exceptionalism — hogwash; no one owes us anything; have to earn our way; formula for success was a great private public partnership going back to Alexander Hamilton and built upon by Lincoln, Eisenhower, other (person asking question used the word ecosystem).  5 main pillars of this formulate for success/ecosystem:

  1. Education
  2. Infrastructure
  3. Open immigration policy
  4. Best rules for capital formation and risk taking
  5. Solid gov’t funded research

We’ve moved away from these 5 puillars of success and we’ve treated our nation like it’s a football that can be dropped w/ no resulting issues; the reality is we’re more like an egg; in another analogy, we can cut and hit arteries quickly…doing actual damage.

We misread environment — at end of cold war we put our feet up, thinking victory was won; the U.S. chased Al Queda instead of China, Brazil, other

Q&A

  • Q: Influence — how changed and how stay the same
    A: To have influence, must get substance  right — content is key; diamond-hard realities are key; not the spins; still need to do grunt, basic work; can never be a Thor throwing down lightning bolts from on high
  • Q: Labor arbitrage
    A: Rebalancing happening, but may take time; what was outsourced may not stay where originally went to
  • Q & A about Occupy Wall Street — was/is about injustice; taking $ and treating it like they were in a casino; people doing that got away with it; what will leadership look like in a hyperconnected world?

Final thoughts:

  • Idea of OODA loop from the world of Air Force pilots — observe, ___ decide, act  — speed of OODA loops are key; our political leaders are talking about A when X,Y, and Z are really happening (and the two circles rarely intersect)
  • How long can we be a great country when our political systems cannot deliver optimal results?
  • Our political system needs shock therapy — Friedman argues that we need a 3rd party — see AmericansElect.org

From DSC:
Each of us must be able to continually do pulse checks on a variety of forces that may be affecting our domains/places of work. We must be able to develop future scenarios and our responses to those scenarios. The ability to do that will become even more important as we move forward at ever-increasing speeds. 

We can’t be looking 5-10 feet ahead when we’re driving at 180 miles per hour in this new, hyper-connected world!

The pace has changed significantly and quickly

 

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • •  
Previous Entries Next Entries
© 2025 | Daniel Christian