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fuelcut · 4 years

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Silicon Valley’s imaginary Q2 2020 earnings call

[switch to long version]

CEO, MEGA TECH CORP - Hello everyone. These aren’t normal times. We’re not going to talk about our 10Q on this call. We’re here to talk about the next 10 years. So if you’re here for DAUs, ARR or CPC, you can drop off now.

We’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the race, health and economic crises our country faces. Over the last few weeks, I’ve asked our exec team to leave their homes, their [Zoom alternative] calls and their DoorDash deliveries to join protests and explore our community through new eyes.

What we now see - more clearly than ever - is that our entire company, industry, and Valley - are built on flawed foundations. A flawed social contract.

We can no longer just focus on the magical software bits and hope someone else figures out racial equity, employment, climate and health. This is Joel Spolsky’s Law of Leaky Abstractions on the ultimate scale. The abstractions are failing - and we’re seeing bugs and unintended consequences all around us. And the more we invest to deal with one-off bugs, the more likely we are to calcify change and imprison ourselves inside a failing stack. It’s like we decided to build the world’s notification service on Ruby on Rails - or building an iPhone competitor on Windows CE. Fail Whale everywhere. Unfortunately, America’s democratic institutions are in poor condition. They are struggling to deal with inequality let alone looming environmental disaster. A polarized electorate - particularly at the national level - leads to populism and makes it hard for these institutions to execute meaningful, long-term plans.

We talk a lot about speech, misinformation, fairness of targeted ads etc. But it’s becoming clear that UX, linear algebra/training data and monetization in our products is just the tip of the spear to address polarization. We believe polarization is a product of the underlying conditions of civil rights, education, health and climate debt that affect Americans differentially based on race, wealth, neighborhood and region.

So will today’s peaceful protests for racial justice expand into tomorrow’s revolution(s) for economic freedom? If you don’t think things are bad now, think about what happens when the stimulus checks run out. Take a look at the amount of debt in the public sector, use any imagination about COVID, work out what happens to their tax base / pension returns and consider the impact on public services, public servants and their votes. MMT better be a real thing. Maybe we didn’t start these fires, but that refrain won’t save us when the flames come our way.

We’re done debating why we need to act. It’s clear America needs our help. Let’s talk about how we’re going to rise to the occasion. Our mantra will be “internalize, innovate, institutionalize”.

First, we’re going to internalize our problems. I’m here to tell you that issues of racial and economic justice are not just moral issues but they’re financial issues. Racial debt, education debt, health debt, climate debt will hit us harder and harder each year. (By the way, revolution probably won’t be great for your DCF models.) So we’re going to recognize these off-balance sheet liabilities - which amount to a few hundred billion in the US alone over the next 10 years for a company at our scale. You should assume other CEOs are thinking the same things - even if it takes them a few more quarters or years to say it.

Second, we’re going to innovate against these systemic problems - but our only shot at making progress is if we realign the entire company’s mission to address them. This is not about optics. This is not about philanthropy. This is not another bet. We have no choice but to put all our chips behind one bet - America - at least to start. It's the country that backed us in the first place, it's where most of our people are and most of our profits. The job for our existing products, platforms and cash flows will be to advance four areas: place / race, skilling / manufacturing, health / food and climate / mobility - starting in America. The board will measure me based on job creation and diversity. It should go without saying that we’re pausing dividends and buybacks for the foreseeable future. Every dollar will serve our mission. Every senior leader will need to sign up for our new mission - and those who choose to stay will receive a new, back-end loaded, 10 year vesting schedule. We want them focused on the long-term health of society - not the whims of Robinhood day traders or strengthening the moats of existing products. We will need to invent entirely new ways to operate and ship products. As Joel Spolsky said, “when you need to hire a programmer to do mostly VB programming, it’s not good enough to hire a VB programmer, because they will get completely stuck in tar every time the VB abstraction leaks”. We need engineers, designers and product managers that will look deep into the stack, confront the racial, job access, health and climate debts that our products, our companies and our communities are built on top of. This is not about CYA process to protect cash cows or throwing things over the fence to policy. We will need to innovate across technical, cultural and organizational lines. This requires deep understanding and curiosity. Systems and full-stack, not just pixels. This will bring more scrutiny to our company - not less. Change must not be the burden for only our Black employees or other subsets. Everyone must be on board - so for the next 12 months, we’re giving folks a one-time buyout if they want to leave.

Third, we can’t do any of this by ourselves. The problems are too big. Our role will be to provide enlightened risk capital (from our balance sheet or by re-vectoring operating spend) alongside R&D, product, platform leverage to help leaders and innovators pursue solutions in these areas. We will work with our peers and the public sector wherever possible - buying/R&D consortia, public-private partnerships, trusts, etc. Collaboration is the default, not the exception. But the new era and landscape demands that we explore institutional models beyond global capital/startups, labor unions, NGOs or government. We need models that can more flexibly align people and purpose, that innovate on individualized vs. socialized risk/reward - and that ultimately help build and sustain local, social capital. It’s difficult to say what these will look like - but increasingly figuring this out will be existential for our core business. Right now, it doesn’t matter if you’re designing the best cameras in Cupertino or the best ways to see their snaps in Santa Monica - we’re all just building layers of an attention stack for global capital. Our Beijing competitors have figured this out. ByteDance is already eating our lunch. They’re using the same tech inputs as us - UX, ML and large-scale systems - which are now a commodity - but with vastly lower consequences for the content they show - creating a superior operating / scaling model. They’re not internalizing social or political cost. What we need in this era is the accumulation stack - where each interaction builds social capital. This is not about global likes. This is about local respect. We’ll create competitive advantage when we build products that reach across race / economic lines to harness America’s amazing melting pot and do so in ways that build livelihoods / property rights for creators and stakeholders.

With this operating model in place, we’re committing to fundamental change in four areas:

Place & Race - Over the next 10 years, 100% of our jobs will be in diverse communities that embrace inclusive schooling, policing, housing and transit policies. (Starting tomorrow, we’re putting red lines on our maps around towns with exclusionary zoning.) This is not about privatizing cities or an HQ2-style play to extract concessions. This is about investing our risk capital and our reputation to innovate alongside government. How do we bring world-class education to neighborhoods with concentrated poverty? What is the future of digital/hybrid charter schooling? Unbundled public safety? We’re done with de facto segregation. We’ll embrace “remote-first” with physical centers of gravity as a means to this end. The Bay will become one physical node alongside several others (e.g. Atlanta, DC, LA) creating a strategic network to develop diverse talent across the country. We’re going to coordinate our investment with leading peers - since after all, this isn’t about cost or cherry-picking. It’s about broadening our country’s economic base.

Skilling & Manufacturing - We’re going to 10x the tech talent pool in 10 years - by inventing new apprenticeship models that bring women, minorities and the poor into the workforce. We’ll start with our existing contractor base, convert them to new employment models with expanded benefits and paths for upward mobility. Next, we will invent new productivity tools for all types of workers - from the front office to mobile work to call center - that brings the power of AI and programming to everyone. These will be deeply tied into new platforms for work designed from the bottom-up to build social and financial capital for individual workers and teams. Last, we’re setting a goal to manufacture most of our hardware products - from silicon all the way to systems - entirely in the US in 10 years. This will require massive investment, collaboration and innovation. It may require a revolution in robotics - but we will pursue this in a way that makes the American worker competitive - not a commodity to be automated away. If we’re successful, the dividends of our investment here will have massive spillover benefits to every other sector of manufacturing in the US - autos, etc. - including ones we have yet to dream up.

Health & Food - We’re not going to tolerate a two-class system for healthcare. As we convert our contract workforce to new employment models, we’ll innovate on the fundamental quality/cost paradigm. This may feel like a step down but it will put us (and the rest of society if we’re successful) on a fundamentally better long-term trajectory. Can we use AI to help scale the reach of community health workers? Can we help them create co-operatively owned care delivery orgs that offer new ways to share risk and support behavior change? Local, social capital is critical. Food is part of Health, and we’re going to innovate there too. Free food for employees is not going to come back post-COVID. Instead, we’ll use our food infrastructure to bootstrap cooperatively-owned cloud kitchens. We’ll provide capital to former contractors - mostly Black and Hispanic - to invest and own these. We’ll build platforms to help them sell food to employees (partly subsidized), participate in new “food for health” programs and eventually disrupt the extractive labor practices we see across food, grocery and delivery.

Climate & Mobility - Lastly, we’ll be imposing a carbon tax on all aspects of our own operations - which we’ll use to “fund” innovation in this space - with a primary focus on job creation. This is an area where we’re going to be looking far beyond our four walls from the beginning. As a first step, we’re teaming up with Elon and Gavin Newsom to buy PG&E out of bankruptcy and restructure it as a 21st century “decentralized” network of community utilities. It will accelerate the electrification of mobility - financing networked batteries for buses, cars and bikes along with charging infrastructure - and lead a massive job creation program focused on energy efficiency. It will use its rights of way to provide Gigabit ethernet + 5G to everyone - which will help people and help fund some of this. Speaking of mobility, private buses aren’t coming back after COVID. Instead, we’re teaming up with all of our peers to create a Bay-wide network of electric buses (with bundled e-bikes) that will service folks of all walks of life - including our own employee base. Oh and one more thing - we’re bringing together the world’s most advanced privacy/identity architecture and computational video/audio to bake public health infrastructure directly into the buses. For COVID and beyond. None of this is a substitute for competent, democratically accountable regional authorities. This is us investing risk capital on behalf of society - with the goal of empowering these authorities.

Open technology for global progress - While we have to prioritize America given the scale of problems, the intent is not to abandon the rest of the world or hold back it’s progress. We feel the opposite - that over the coming decades each country’s technology sectors will thrive. To get there, we will continue to invest patiently - hiring, training, partnering, investing and innovating - but with a clear north star to help each country develop local leaders in new areas. Long-term, we’ll continue to contribute open technology that others can build upon.

America should be the proverbial city on a hill for everyone - not a metaverse for the rich with the poor dying in the streets. We don’t have much time so we’re getting to work now. See you next quarter.

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olivialucasusa1 · 4 years

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Amgen: A Case Study In Leading Transformation

Given that transformation is now a fixture of every leader’s job description, and since there is no more dangerous position in business than muddling along and clinging to the status quo, perhaps it’s time for the phrase “leading change” to be declared redundant. To lead is to change and it requires refining how your company operates today while simultaneously disrupting yourself before someone else does.

Yes, it can be difficult enough to master the challenges to crystallize a simple plan, build a high performing team, and create a culture that aligns everyone on behaviors that drive the strategy. The challenge of remaking and reinventing almost every aspect of a company on an ongoing basis can be overwhelming for many leaders, particularly because employees tend to prefer sameness over uncertainty, especially the uncertainty caused by disruption (nothing can set a company on edge faster than a CEO who starts asking a lot of what-if questions). Faced with the prospect of trying to overcome the powerful inertia of the status quo, some leaders instead kick the can down the road, telling themselves that their successor can deal with all the disruptive forces after they have stepped down. Or perhaps they hire a chief digital officer to handle the transformation, not recognizing that the person is likely to be pushed to the sidelines by colleagues who want to protect their empires.

What are the keys to driving transformation? The approach here is not to provide you with an eight-step process. Such frameworks are readily available elsewhere, and their usefulness can be limited by the simple fact that no single playbook can address the unique challenges that each company faces. Our focus instead is to discuss transformation through the lens of leadership and a real world case study that will be useful for any executive embarking on an effort to drive change.

Amgen: Transforming a legacy company

During the two-decade stretch when Kevin served as president and then CEO of Amgen, the company’s primary focus was growth. When his successor, Bob Bradway, took over, the new leadership team recognized that work was needed to get Amgen ready for the next phase of growth. The shorthand they used was that Amgen was “in a good spot, but…”

The “but” was that Amgen was like a 35-year-old house with the original plumbing, windows, roof and electrical systems. The infrastructure needed an upgrade. Some of Amgen’s drugs were coming off patent (meaning big drops in revenue), new product launches needed funding, and the company was planning an expansion into dozens of additional countries. Amgen recognized that if it didn’t make the necessary changes, someone was going to come along, whether a competitor or activist investors, and potentially force those changes from the outside. “We knew we were going to need several quarters to sell the idea internally and to get people moving, and a few quarters to make the changes,” said Bradway. “So we knew that we had time, but not an abundance of it. It was really a case of changing before we have to.”

Pressing for change is always harder when things are going well, but Amgen provides a useful case study on how to disrupt the status quo even when the need isn’t evident to all. Amgen’s leaders started with a simple mantra to start the necessary conversations around transformation: “Build a better company.”

“We wanted to create a language and a skill set and a methodology that would enable Amgen to keep changing a decade later,” said Brian McNamee, chief human resources officer on Kevin’s leadership team who was named chief transformation officer by Bradway. “Transformations can be serial events, but if done right, they turn into long-term continuous improvement capabilities,” McNamee added. “So, the goal was to build that capability, to build a better company. We were very careful not to put anything underneath that at the outset, in terms of specifics.”

Bradway and McNamee put a simple question on the table for the leadership team. How do we build a better company? But they did add some ground rules for the coming brainstorming sessions. For example, everybody was told they had to “concede to the middle,” shorthand for signaling that members of the leadership team had to let go of any impulses to protect their respective parts of the business, and that the company’s best interests were going to come first. That meant wrestling with some tough issues, like cost structures that needed to be reined in. “My role was to make sure they were brought into the discussion,” McNamee said. “You’ve got to set the tone up front that these things are going to get put on the table; no more just talking about them in the hallway.”

Bradway then recruited a team of high-potential younger executives inside Amgen, calling them the “Gang of 30,” to explore new approaches to solving some of the company’s challenges. But he also solicited ideas from all levels of the company, sending a clear signal that he wanted to hear every idea they had, even if they seemed a bit off the wall. And as chief transformation officer, one of McNamee’s responsibilities was to ensure that members of the leadership team did not screen out any ideas.

“The organization needs to get comfortable with the notion that they can give us the full range of options and leave us to choose the sensible options,” said Bradway. “We were trying to give the organization confidence that people didn’t have to eliminate the extreme options because they might be afraid that these idiots at the top will choose things that are harmful to the company. Very often, leaders on the rungs below will say, ‘I don’t want to give them that option because I’m afraid they might choose it, or ‘they’ll think I’m stupid for putting it on the table.’ So we had to continuously give them confidence by saying that we want all the options. You have to just keep role-modeling that idea and keep insisting that they bring you the full range of options, even the things that they think are too extreme. Because then we can see that there are a lot of different ways to attack this.”

For example, Amgen’s development process for new drugs had long been split into two divisions R&D and operations which had created inefficiencies and silo behavior in the company. The team working on that initiative suggested that the two be combined so that programs could move faster, with fewer handoffs, and eliminate overlaps and redundancies. The leaders running the separate divisions, not surprisingly, resisted the notion, but once it was put on the table for the entire C-suite team to review, they made the decision to put them together. “This was a major change from the past, and sent a signal to the organization that this transformation was going to be different in that nothing was off the table in terms of options when it came to building the best company,” McNamee said.

Bradway and McNamee also knew that the process of soliciting and sorting through ideas would have to be coupled with a deliberate communication plan to slowly win over the top 500 people at the company about the need for the transformation. In business, after all, there is a widely used metaphor of the “frozen middle” of companies, referring to the layer of managers who, to preserve the status quo, keeping ideas from bubbling up from below and freezing out directives from above. But that frozen layer can be much higher in organizations than the leaders might want to believe. So Bradway and McNamee embraced the idea of creating a “sponsorship spine” to ensure that the level of leaders below the C-suite would themselves be won over about the need to change, so that they would champion the plan to their direct reports, who in turn would advocate for the need to change with their teams.

“The CEO can stand up and talk all he or she wants about making change, but at the end of the day, the manager in France or the team leader in Tampa, Florida, is going to go to a conference room and see what his or her direct boss thinks,” Bradway said. “If his or her direct boss says, ‘Yeah, we’ll do the bare minimum,’ or ‘I don’t know what it means, we’ll figure it out later,’ then there’s no energy. If, on the other hand, you go into the conference room and your direct boss is saying, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ and they’re articulating the message in their own authentic voice rather than reading the CEO’s script, that’s the magic and that’s what we did. We recognized that we needed to enlist five hundred people in the storytelling.”

The transformation effort succeeded. It led to cost savings of $1.9 billion, faster growth, and bigger profit margins even as the company expanded into additional countries. After stepping down from Amgen in 2019, McNamee started consulting with other companies on their transformation efforts. One of the most common problems he sees is a false consensus among the leadership team members about the need for transformation in the first place. “One CEO I was working with told me, ‘This is where we’re going, and everybody agrees,’” McNamee said. “I told him, ‘Give me an hour with six of your direct reports.’ After I met with them I told the CEO, ‘There’s no agreement on the current state and there are wildly different views on how we got here.’ ”

His experience is a powerful reminder that there has to be a shared understanding about the current state of affairs before meaningful discussions can start on what needs to change. “You have to stop and focus and make sure that you’re building an objective view of what the current state is and not bending to the political sensitivities in the room,” McNamee added. “It’s like building a case for the need to change.”

Given the success of the transformation at Amgen, other CEOs often reach out to Bradway for his advice. “I always start with the same question: Are you going to lead it or are you going to delegate it?” he said. “If CEOs delegate transformation, your organization figures it out overnight, and they will be less motivated to follow through. If the CEO is really on it and devoting energy to it, the organization figures that out as well. They realize, ‘Oh, I guess we really have to do this.’”

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lewissimpson932 · 4 years

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Amgen: A Case Study In Leading Transformation

Amgen: Transforming a legacy company

The post Amgen: A Case Study In Leading Transformation appeared first on ChiefExecutive.net.

The post Amgen: A Case Study In Leading Transformation appeared first on COO Systems.

source https://coo.systems/amgen-a-case-study-in-leading-transformation/

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orbemnews · 4 years

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Larry Fink’s New Climate Goal Larry Fink’s letter has landed The BlackRock chief’s annual letter to C.E.O.s is going out this morning and Andrew has a copy, which he writes about in his latest column. Mr. Fink’s letter has driven the conversation inside corporate America’s boardrooms for years — such as his proclamation that companies must have a purpose beyond profit, which preceded the Business Roundtable’s statement on stakeholder capitalism, and his call for corporate climate disclosures, which was followed by a raft of climate pledges by companies. Now, he’s pushing out the goal posts on climate action, asking companies to “disclose a plan for how their business model will be compatible with a net-zero economy.” He defines this as limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages and eliminating net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. With nearly $9 trillion of investments, BlackRock has a lot of influence. Last year, the firm voted against 69 companies and against 64 directors for climate-related reasons, and it put 191 companies “on watch.” BlackRock is planning to create “a temperature alignment metric for our public equity and bond funds, where sufficient data is available,” and Mr. Fink added that the firm would start new products “with explicit temperature alignment goals, including products aligned to a net-zero pathway.” This could have the same effect for investors as a calorie count on a menu for diners, a nudge toward making more informed choices. In the future, big public pension funds and other investors could have firms like BlackRock create custom indexes for them based on such data. Critics say that Mr. Fink isn’t moving fast enough and still owns $85 billion of assets tied to coal. But much of that investment is in passive index funds that it can’t divest; the firm said it was working behind the scenes with coal companies to encourage them to adopt cleaner technologies. What about investment performance? Mr. Fink said that sustainability-oriented funds outperformed market benchmarks last year, especially during the worst of the pandemic downturn. “The more your firms are seen to embrace the climate transition and the opportunities it brings,” he wrote to C.E.O.s, “the more the market will reward your firms with higher valuations.” HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Janet Yellen is confirmed as Treasury secretary. The Senate approved President Biden’s nominee in an 84-15 vote, making her the first woman to hold the position (when she became Fed chair, she was the first woman in that role, too). European leaders take center stage at the World Economic Forum. Panels at the virtual summit today will discuss stakeholder capitalism, climate change and a post-pandemic world. Featured speakers include Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission; Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; and President Emmanuel Macron of France. New York City’s biggest pension funds will divest fossil fuel stocks. Two funds voted to divest an estimated $4 billion in energy stocks from their portfolios, while a third is expected to approve a similar move soon. Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech rush to protect against new Covid-19 strains. The drug manufacturers said they were studying ways to alter their coronavirus vaccines after news that the treatments were less effective against a new variant found in South Africa. In other Covid-19 news, Merck withdrew its vaccine candidates after disappointing trials. Silicon Valley donors’ new focus: recalling California’s governor. Top executives like Doug Leone of Sequoia have given thousands of dollars to a once quixotic campaign to unseat Gov. Gavin Newsom, amid dissatisfaction over his handling of the pandemic and tax policies. Another frequent critic, the financier Chamath Palihapitiya, just announced that he is running for governor. Epstein ties cost Leon Black his C.E.O. job Leon Black, the billionaire co-founder of Apollo Global Management, said yesterday that he would retire as chief executive by July 31. The announcement follows an internal investigation into The Times’s revelation that he had paid the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein millions in consulting fees. Mr. Black gave tens of millions more to Mr. Epstein than previously known. The company’s investigation into the two men’s relationship, conducted by the law firm Dechert at Apollo’s request, found that Mr. Black had paid Mr. Epstein $158 million from 2012 to 2017 for tax advice, double what The Times’s previous report had found. Mr. Black also lent Mr. Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019, over $30 million. The report asserted that there was no evidence Mr. Black took part in any of Mr. Epstein’s criminal activities. What Mr. Epstein did for Mr. Black: The biggest project, according to the Dechert report, was helping Mr. Black with so-called GRATs, trusts that let families pass wealth to future generations without paying any estate taxes. (The Times has previously explained how the Trump family also made use of the tactic.) Over all, Mr. Black reckoned that Mr. Epstein’s work saved perhaps $2 billion in taxes. The relationship created a rift between Mr. Black and a longtime partner. Josh Harris, another of Apollo’s founders, argued that the ties to Mr. Epstein showed “poor judgment,” and he tried unsuccessfully to convince fellow board members that Mr. Black should step down immediately, citing the risk of reputational damage to Apollo, Matt Goldstein and Katie Rosman of The Times report. It’s unclear how much will change. Apollo’s new C.E.O. is Marc Rowan, the firm’s third co-founder, who built Apollo’s $300 billion insurance business but had largely stepped away last year. Mr. Black is staying on as Apollo’s chairman and will keep his seat on the firm’s three-member executive committee. Apollo announced moves that could dilute Mr. Black’s power, including adding four independent directors to its board and eliminating the firm’s super-voting stock, giving each investor one vote apiece. “Too many people have fought too hard in too many places for freedom of speech to be suppressed by this awful woke orthodoxy.” — Rupert Murdoch, whose media empire includes Fox News, in a speech accepting a lifetime achievement award. Exclusive: Billion-dollar golf carts Ingersoll Rand has tapped Goldman Sachs to run a sale of its Club Car golf cart unit in a deal that could fetch more than $1.5 billion, DealBook has learned. It’s already begun to talk to corporate buyers about a potential deal. Representatives for Ingersoll Rand and Goldman declined to comment. A focus on industrial equipment. The private equity firm KKR is a large shareholder in Ingersoll Rand, an industrial giant with a market cap of about $18 billion that specializes in compressors, pumps and power tools. It has owned Club Car since 1995, when it acquired the business through a $1.3 billion deal for its parent company, Clark Equipment. Ingersoll Rand is now exploring a sale of Club Car to focus on its core industrial businesses. “Personal utility vehicles.” Georgia-based Club Car produced the first golf cart with a steering wheel in the 1960s. Its carts, which sell at $7,000 to $25,000, can be decked out with features like Bluetooth speakers and GPS technology to measure the distance to the pin on a golf course. The golf cart industry, worth $1.2 billion annually, is expected to grow at an average of less than 2 percent over the next few years, according to Ibis World, with cart makers looking for new markets, like gated communities and campus security. ‘The law is frozen’ Ben Cohen — of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream fame — is fired up about a judicial doctrine called qualified immunity, which shields police officers from liability for wrongdoing with few exceptions. “It’s a clear example of injustice and contributes to a lack of trust in police,” Mr. Cohen told DealBook. “In any other organization, everybody is accountable for their actions.” Qualified immunity was created by judges. It’s not written in a statute but developed in Supreme Court precedent, starting in 1967, ostensibly to balance between police accountability and protection. The doctrine severely limits victims’ ability to hold officers accountable for even extreme misconduct. Since the killing of George Floyd raised public attention to police brutality, a coalition of business leaders, artists, athletes, activists and advocacy groups have joined a movement called the Campaign to End Qualified Immunity. Today, they are launching a 100-day awareness effort aimed at pressuring lawmakers to end the legal protection. “The law is frozen,” Mr. Cohen said. It’s a rare issue that puts progressives and conservatives on the same page. Mr. Cohen — who is planning to release a book about immunity with the rapper and activist Killer Mike — said he was pleasantly surprised by the diverse alliances around the issue, uniting groups like the libertarian Cato Institute and the liberal American Civil Liberties Union. Last year, Representative Ayanna Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts, joined with Justin Amash, then a Republican-turned-Independent congressman from Michigan, on a bill to eliminate qualified immunity. It didn’t survive. “With momentum and support for ending this unjust doctrine evident nationwide, we must meet the moment and show the political courage to get it done,” Ms. Pressley said in a statement to DealBook. THE SPEED READ Deals Qualtrics, a survey software provider, is seeking a valuation of up to $15 billion in its I.P.O., nearly double what SAP paid for the company two years ago. (Reuters) The owner of the Boston Red Sox has reportedly called off talks to sell a stake to a SPAC founded by the financier Gerry Cardinale and the former Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane. (Axios) Politics and policy The Treasury Department resumed efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, reviving an initiative that President Donald Trump had halted. (NYT) Republican operatives are reportedly considering pushing company executives to give money to political candidates personally to make up for a potential drop in corporate funds. (CNBC) Tech A growing number of companies are finding ways to use blockchains to avoid relying on a central authority, making them harder to shut down. (NYT) The most prominent unionization drive among Amazon workers will take place next month in Alabama, a state not known for union-friendly laws. (NYT) Best of the rest Instead of airing ads during the Super Bowl this year, Budweiser will help fund public-service ads promoting Covid-19 vaccines. (NYT) The C.E.O. of a casino company who jumped the line for a Covid-19 vaccine has resigned. (Bloomberg) The World Economic Forum isn’t being held in Davos this year — and skiers and locals are grateful. (WSJ) We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. Source link Orbem News #Climate #Finks #goal #Larry

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concettolabs · 4 years

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Slack Vs Microsoft Teams: Which One Is Better For You?

In 2019, the team collaboration software market touched a new height with $9.5 billion globally.

And this COVID-19 pandemic situation has forced everyone to work remotely. During this, remote work, collaboration, and chat tools have played a major role.

To maintain productivity and increase, businesses have started using collaboration software.

If you are into the IT industry, you probably know that there are major two market leaders in the sector: Slack and Microsoft Teams.

That was a rumor that in 2016, Microsoft made the monumental decision to forgo a potential acquisition of Slack for $8 billion and instead expand on their existing Skype for Business model. This led to the creation of Microsoft Teams in 2017, which has changed the game for enterprise collaboration services.

After the launch, in just three years, Microsoft Teams reached 13 million daily active users. On the other hand, it took almost six years for Slack to reach 10 million.

After the launch, in just under three years, Teams reached 13 million daily active users when it took Slack six years to reach 10 million.

Moreover, a few months back, Microsoft has claimed the number of active users has now jumped 50% to 115 million, which is 75 million daily active users.

Even after the announcement, IBM joined hands with Microsoft. They said we would deploy Slack to the workforce of 350,000 employees. Officially, this has made them Slack’s biggest customer yet.

This heated collaboration has brought plenty of questions.

What forces users to use Microsoft Teams over Slack and vice-versa?

However, these two collaboration platforms look the same at the first glance but are completely different in their design and structure.

If you are looking to get an answer to which one would be preferred, we actively used both tools to find out their pros and cons. So, here are some key differences and our review of Slack Vs Microsoft Teams, based on real-world use from our team.

Slack Vs Microsoft Teams: Fast Facts

If you are looking for a quick overview of the two tools, here is everything you need to know.

The fact was that Teams did not have a freemium plan. This changed in July 2018, when Microsoft rolled out a new version of Teams for free, strengthening its potion as a Slack competitor.

However, when we compare Slack with Microsoft Teams, Slack is easier to set up and administrate. On the other hand, Microsoft Teams is designed for large enterprises and its setup is more complex. However, it comes up with excellent integrations with Office 365 applications, which is hard to miss.

So, if the integration is your primary concern for your team chat app, then Slack wins the race as it integrates with every other tool under the sun.

SlackMicrosoft Teams

Pricing ModelFreemium

Standard $6.67 user/month (billed annually)

Plus $12.50 user/month (billed annually)

Freemium

Office 365 Business Essentials

$5 per user/month

(billed annually)

Office 365 Business Premium

$12.50 per user/month

(billed annually)

You can try both paid plans for free for 30 days

Message History Limit10K messages in Free plan, unlimited in Standard and Plus plansUnlimited in all plans

Audio/Video CallsUnlimited 1:1 voice and video calls in Free plan

Conference calls for up to 15 participants in Paid plans

Voice/video calls with

up to 250 people

in a meeting.

Integrations10 integrations limit in Free plan, 800+ integrations in paid plans180+ apps and services (as of July 2018)

File Storage LimitFree plan: 5GB file storage for a team

Standard plan: 10GB per user

Plus plan: 20GB per user

Free plan: 2 GB/user and 10GB of shared storage

Paid plans: 1 TB per organization

Screen SharingUnavailable in Free version, available in Standard and Plus versionsAvailable in all plans

Interface Color OptionsCustom sidebar themes3 themes (light, dark, high contrast)

Conversation ThreadsYesYes

Private MessagingYesYes

Group ChatsYesYes

Pricing Models

Having mentioned earlier, both tools come up with freemium plans. However, if you are looking for all the features, then you will have to pay for it.

In Microsoft Tools, that means you need to have either a Business Premium or Essentials account to access it. In other words, you need Office 365, and Teams comes as an add-on.

Precisely, Business Essentials has the cheapest Office 365 that has Teams. Its cost is $5 per month and you have to choose an annual plan to get started. Honestly, this is quite cheaper than Slack’s cheapest plan, which is Standard and which costs $6.67 per user per month if you calculate annually.

When you realize that $5 spent on Microsoft Teams also gives you access to Office 365. If you are planning to upgrade your plan in Slack or Microsoft Teams, they cost the same, at $12.50 per user per month. However, you will get Office 365 included with Teams.

Microsoft Teams and Slack Free CapabilitiesMicrosoft TeamsSlack

Max users300 per orgUnlimited

File storage2 GB/user and 10 GB of shared storage5 GB total

Guest accessYesNo

1:1 and group online audio and video callsYesYes

Channel meetingsYesNo

Screen sharingYesYes

App integrationUnlimited10

Chat messagesUnlimited10K most recent messages

Two-factor authenticationNoYes

User Interface

Now let’s compare the user interface

Here, we will consider how easy it is for new users to try and use the tool. If you look at the first time, they both look the same. But if you ask a regular user who uses both, they will tell you the complete difference.

The user interface of Slack is sleek and it has become the industry standard.

Moreover, Slack shows a step-by-step tutorial for new users.

(Onboarding experience with Slack)

In this tab, you can easily add new users to your workspace in the “People” tab.

(Slack workspace)

If users are not on Slack, they will receive an invitation by email. If they are already on a Slack, they will be added to their workspace.

You can easily add a Slack channel by clicking the “Add a channel” link in the sidebar menu.

Moreover, you can easily send a message to your team on a channel by typing a message. You can target a message in a channel to a specific person by using @ and their username.

By mentioning their username, it will notify that person.

Now, let’s talk about Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Teams has the same UI as Slack. The touch and feel of the UI are not different though.

Once you sign up for Microsoft Teams, it offers some guidance in the form of docs and a tutorial video. But it doesn’t include a guide like Slack.

(UI of Microsoft Teams)

Microsoft Teams has replaced the “channels” word with “teams” in the menu section. Each team can have various channels/teams to keep communication separate for different projects.

If you click a button or menu, it comes up with a light-box rather than a completely new page.

In this case, you can create new channels by clicking the “Create more channels” button on any team page.

(New Channel Creation in Microsoft Teams)

Like with Slack, you can also tag someone by mentioning @ to make sure they notice your message.

Both Slack and Microsoft Teams are easy to use, but Slack has a slight edge when it comes to the step-by-step guide and general UX.

Messaging Ability

Booth tools offer a group functionality with threaded messaging, where you can create a group channel for your team.

The text box provides the edit, delete, pin your message, mention someone, start a new thread, attachment sharing, and other features.

When we talk about Slack, it doesn’t just provide users to “like” someone’s message but also leave a variety of other emojis as a reaction. In addition, Slack lets you set reminders on messages.

Here’s a handy comparison of what you can do with messages in both tools.

(Slack/Microsoft Teams)

When it comes to notifications, both offer advanced notification systems that you can set up to your liking.

However, Microsoft Teams comes up with the advanced formatting feature for the messages you send. This allows you to change the color of your font, add bullet points, and make the words bold or italic, etc.

(Formatting Options in Microsoft Teams)

Another cool feature that Microsoft Teams offers is .gif images and emojis. You can easily find an ideal emoji or gif by searching the name in the result box.

(Emoji search by name in Microsoft Teams)

But both apps miss a central notifications hub.

Storage Limits

The freemium of Slack offers 5GB of file storage for a single team. With the paid plan, it can increase to 10GB, 20GB, or 1TB per user, as per your plan. In the free version, you will also get a cap of 10,000 on message history, which disappears for the paid versions.

The freemium of Microsoft Teams offers 10GB of total shared storage for a team. It can increase to 1TB for the entire organization if you choose a Business BAsic, Business Standard, or Office 365 E3 plans. It also offers “plus 10GB per license”. Teams have no message history limits.

Video Conferencing

Both tools provide online audio and video sharing options to users. But Teams was developed under the experience of Microsoft which caters to the needs of every business – large and small. So, naturally, Team rules the video feature when it compares to Slack.

The free plan of Slack offers unlimited one-to-one audio or video calls. However, to add more callers, you will have to buy a plan, which supports up to 15 participants with a screen sharing option.

On the other hand, Teams offers you to host a meeting with up to 300 participants. When you purchase a plan, you can even conduct live events to host large meetings and webinars with up to 10,000 participants inside or outside your organization.

Teams also offer you to record meetings, which Slack doesn’t provide.

Integrated Apps

The free model of Slack offers you an app integration of up to 10. This hassle, you will not face if you upgrade your plan. Therefore, paid Slack offers more than 2200 app integrations possibilities. If you are using any other productivity app at work, there’s a very good chance it’s compatible with Slack.

Whereas, Microsoft Teams has other plans. It offers unlimited integrations with other apps for all pricing tiers but only supports around 250 apps. However, Teams does have the best integration options with Microsoft 365. This will be the most useful feature for businesses that use Microsoft 365.

Which does Collaboration App win?

Both Slack and Microsoft Teams are amazing tools for organizations. And ultimately, the choice between the two depends on your requirements and what you are looking for in a collaboration app. If you are looking for a specific type of app integration, verify with Slack and Teams to see if they are compatible or not.

Microsoft Teams has clearly overtaken Slack as the market leader in terms of active users and is rapidly booming in every organization.

On the other hand, Slack is a bit more familiar, innovative, and a bit more “comfortable” tool. It’s mainly used by many startups and smaller companies.

Slack has many integrations, a better bot, and slightly better usability. When it comes to cost, Microsoft Teams is a bit cheaper. It offers better free plans and integrates natively with Office 365 tools. That’s the reason, Slack is an ideal choice for the majority of businesses.

Which tool is the right choice for your business between Slack Vs Microsoft Teams? But in this heated battle to be the better platform, which one will you choose? Microsoft Team vs Slack?

#Slack Vs Microsoft Teams

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labourpress · 7 years

Text

Jeremy Corbyn speech to Cooperative Party Conference

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, speaking at the Cooperative Party Conference said:

***CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY***

Thank you Gareth for that introduction, it’s a pleasure to be addressing your centenary conference.

Our movement was in its early days inspired by the actions of William Morris and Robert Owen. Owen spoke of “the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each”. Those two words “union” and “co-operation” mean so much to our movement. They are our philosophy, and our institutions, our theory and our practice.

This is an important landmark in your history, but more importantly this is a significant moment for our future.

The energy and creativity of our movement helped us to deliver in June the biggest increase in the Labour vote since 1945.

And that helped us deliver nine more Labour and Co-operative MPs from Brighton to Glasgow, bringing the total now to 38 in Parliament - more than in either 1945 or 1997.

The strength of our movement - Labour, trade union and co-operative, and more importantly co-operating - has transformed us into a government-in-waiting.

Next May we have local elections in cities and towns across England. Let’s build on the 900 Labour and Co-operative councillors we have. Today let’s set ourselves the challenge to make it over 1,000 Labour Co-op councillors on May 3rd.

The Tories have devolved austerity to local councils and perversely areas with higher levels of poverty have been hit hardest. Councils have on average faced 40% cuts in their budgets. But in the face of this adversity councils such as Preston have responded with inspiring innovation. They brought together major local employers in their community, what academics call the anchor institutions, and Preston council worked with them to drive through a local programme of economic transformation. By changing their procurement policies, these anchor institutions were able to drive up spending in Preston by £75 million, protecting businesses and jobs.

And they’re looking at the pension fund they are part of to see where investment can support local businesses, keeping the money circulating in their city. But perhaps most relevantly to you, the council is actively seeking opportunities to create worker-led co-operatives where there are gaps in the local supply chain.

Our movement, the labour and co-operative movement, is brimming with passion, people and ideas. And our movement needs your ideas and I know our shadow cabinet values your input as well.

This afternoon you'll hear from shadow education minister Tracy Brabin, talking about our plans for a National Education Service, a vision for education in which institutions of learning co-operate rather than compete. And tomorrow our shadow International Development Secretary Kate Osamor, herself a Labour and Co-operative MP, will address you to outline our international policy based on our values of peace, justice and co-operation.

We live in a world riven by conflict, spurred on by ego and neo-imperial ambition. Never has the time been more important to restate our commitment to the UN Charter, the third clause of which states its aim “To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems”.

With the problems facing us of nuclear proliferation, climate change, the global refugee crisis, the humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen and of the Rohingya in Myanmar - a global vision driven by our co-operative principles is more necessary than ever. Whether its Donald Trump or Kim Jong-Un - macho posturing needs to give way to calm, rational co-operation. And across the world co-operatives play such a huge role as a spur to development, empowering women, bringing communities together. And today there are over a billion people worldwide who are members of co-operatives and I am proud to say that I am one of them.

We need co-operative values at home and abroad.

Our economy is failing to deliver.

For millions of people the current system is failing to deliver secure jobs, failing to deliver secure housing, and failing to deliver rising living standards.

Yet this is the system which exploits the many for the profits of a few, that the Conservatives want to defend. They want to conserve the privilege of the few.

Philip Hammond says that Labour poses an “existential challenge to our economic model” - Yes, we do.

I am not going to sit back when their economic model is seeing:

- homelessness double

- four million children in poverty

- over a million older people not getting the care they need

Their economic model is broken. It doesn’t work for most people. Even the International Monetary Fund thinks inequality and low taxes for the richest are harming the economy.

That’s why Labour is now the new mainstream, developing a new consensus of how to run an economy for the many not the few.

This new consensus will reward the real wealth creators - that means all of us. It will genuinely value people and communities - and invest in them. It will create an economy fit for the 21st Century with a state that’s not afraid to act when something goes wrong but, more importantly, also proactive to make sure things work in the first place.

Unlike Mr Hammond and the Conservatives I don’t think it’s acceptable that chief executives get 180 times the pay of their average worker. I don’t think it’s acceptable that when hospital A&Es are closing the government can fund another tax giveaway for big business. And I don’t think it’s right that landlords can be paid £10 billion a year in housing benefit without even the requirement that the home is fit for human habitation.

The Conservatives believe everyone is motivated by the same base interests - selfishness and greed.

For all their rhetoric they don’t even begin to understand the entrepreneurial spirit they claim to champion. When I meet entrepreneurs, and those trying to start their own business, their motivations are to express their creativity, serve their community, meet people’s needs, to create an income for themselves and jobs for others.

Their inspiration is often closer to the pragmatic principles of the co-operative movement than it is to the abstract ideology of Milton Friedman.

So I say to people thinking of starting an enterprise or those struggling to run a start-up - consider the co-operative model and get the support you need from Co-operatives UK.

But conference, we have to acknowledge the obstacles to the Co-operative model. Too often people who want to change their community or start a business don’t know about the co-operative movement. And yet co-operative start-ups are more robust than other forms of business start-up - twice as likely to still be in operation five years later.

The co-operative sector in the UK is one-fifth of the size of Germany’s - under-valued and under-appreciated. A Labour government will change that.

We will promote the co-operative option and support you to double the size of the co-operative economy. This isn’t just an aspiration - John McDonnell and Rebecca Long-Bailey have set out how we will:

- bring forward legislation to create a proper legal definition for co-operative ownership

- ensure that workers have a right to own, when a company is facing change of ownership or closure

- establish regional development banks that will help deliver low cost finance to co-operatives

- support the creation of publicly owned, locally accountable energy companies and co-operatives

Because we support co-operative principles, they are Labour principles.

To build a new high-investment economy for the 21st century we must get Brexit right. That means securing full access to the Single Market and using the powers we get back from Brussels to help transform our economy.

The Tories are transparently failing Britain in the Brexit negotiations. They are making a shocking mess of Brexit. They are split down the middle, negotiating with each other instead of the EU.

With each passing day they are driving us closer to a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Let’s be clear: no deal is the worst possible deal. It would leave us with World Trade Organisation tariffs and restrictions instead of the full access to European markets we need.

The risk would be that key manufacturers leave for the European mainland taking skilled jobs with them. In sector after sector, ‘no deal’ could prove to be an economic disaster.

Theresa May’s cabinet of chaos is risking a jobs meltdown across Britain. A powerful faction of the Conservatives want a no-deal outcome because they think they can use it to turn our economy into a deregulated tax haven. We must not let them.

So when we talk about taking natural monopolies into public ownership we’re not inspired by the centralised and remote models of the 1940s and 1950s. We’re determined to create models of ownership that involve workers and consumers based on Co-operative principles, whether that’s at community, regional or national level.

Last year the profit margins at the big six energy firms hit their highest level on record, falling wholesale costs were not passed on, and since then providers like British Gas have hiked prices again by 12.5%.

Why does this happen?

Because energy is run for profit, for the interests of the few over the many.

Our shadow energy team has just returned from Denmark, a country where the grid is publicly owned and municipal and co-operative ownership dominates.

And look at what this has allowed them to achieve:

- a 30% reduction in industry use of fossil fuels

- an overall 40% CO2 reduction

- a reduction in energy consumption

- and by 2020 Denmark will get 50% of its electricity from wind.

British people are being short-changed by a system that is failing:

- failing to provide energy at an affordable rate

- failing to invest in new technology to tackle climate change

- and failing to deliver clean air.

And I want to say a word about Royal Mail, taking legal action against the will of their own staff rather than negotiating with them and their union

And look at what has happened since privatisation: The company has made £195 million in profits through the sale of assets and closed one in 10 delivery offices, running down and asset stripping the service.

They’ve paid out over £600 million in dividends to private shareholders - that’s £344 every minute since privatisation. And of course the public business was sold off on the cheap by the Lib Dem and Tory coalition.

That’s why we have committed to bringing Royal Mail into public ownership - run in the interest of the public, Royal Mail workers and service users.

I want to end my speech with a challenge to you in the Co-op Party, and to those in the wider co-operative movement - come forward with your ideas, your enthusiasm, your energy.

We have an opportunity in this period of opposition to prepare for government - a Labour government that will transform our economy to work for the many not the few. So contribute your ideas into the Labour Party.

Two areas where I think we can do something practical in the here and now. We know that co-operative start-ups are more likely to survive than conventional business start-ups so what can you as a movement do now, to engage with entrepreneurs to take up the co-operative model, working with local chambers of commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses. Let’s get Labour councils, the co-operative movement, and small business organisations working together to promote the co-operative model.

And finally, I believe that we are entering a period of unprecedented opportunity for socialist politics and co-operative principles. New technology is empowering participation, new social movements today are horizontalist rather than hierarchical, networked rather than top-down. That’s why when I ran to be Labour leader I said I wanted our party to be a movement. And today we are with well over half a million members who joined because they want to be involved and want to participate in our movement.

The top-down model of organisation, whether in politics, the media or in business, is being challenged and is breaking down.

The technology of the digital age should be empowering workers, enabling us to co-operate on a scale not possible before and yet too often it has enabled a more rapacious and exploitative form of capitalism to emerge.

Look at Uber, Deliveroo, and others. The platforms these companies use are the technologies of the future. But, too often, their business models depend not on technological advantage, but on establishing an effective monopoly in their market and using it to drive wages and conditions through the floor.

Governments have to make sure that regulation keeps pace with changing technologies.

But sensible regulation of working conditions would not only improve the lot of existing workers – and yes, despite what some firms try to claim, they are workers – it would mean that new businesses could survive in the market.

Digital platforms are opening up huge opportunities for horizontal, more democratic, forms of organisation to flourish.

Imagine an Uber run co-operatively by their drivers, collectively controlling their futures, agreeing their own pay and conditions, with profits shared or re-invested. The next Labour Government, working with you, can make that a reality.

The biggest obstacle to this is not technological but ourselves. We must have the confidence and organisational skill to make it happen. That’s why we commissioned our report on Alternative Models of Ownership. To start asking fundamental questions about who should own our economy in the digital age, and how to ensure that it’s enormous potential benefits serve the many, not the few.

Its authors recommend that co-operatives be supported by government through access to finance, through legal changes to level the playing field for cooperatives in the market, and through a better government procurement policy, so that public money is being used to support companies that serve the public good.

To prevent just the few benefiting from the “rise of the robots” the report suggests we consider higher minimum wages, a shorter working week, profit sharing schemes, or putting the ownership and control of the robots in the hands of those who work with them and come to rely on them.

We don’t have all the answers yet but are thinking radically about how we can shape the next thirty years to use the power of new technology to make our economy work for the many not the few.

Today Labour and Co-op parties are the largest in Britain with more members than all the other parties combined. We are winning the arguments … with support for public and co-operative ownership. And we are inspiring millions.

We are a movement ready to take office and ready to shape our country for the future.

Conference, thank you.

8 notes · View notes

hub-pub-bub · 5 years

Link

‘The Narrative Must Be Broader’

As complex and layered as the scholarly publishing world is at any time, few things have triggered such debate in recent years as the so-called “Plan S” initiative announced by the European Research Council in September 2018.

The documentation of Plan S was launched by the Coalition S, an international consortium of research funders

As Publishing Perspectives readers will recall from our Frankfurter Buchmesse coverage, Plan S was created by about a dozen of the leading funders of research in Europe responsible for €7.6 billion (US$8.6 billion). Plan S says that all papers that are the product of research funded by them be free to read as soon as possible. Resistance has come from many quarters, including, most recently, from the Association of American Publishers.

“No science should be locked behind paywalls,” is the declaration in the preamble to the plan and the deadline for implementation—January 1, 2020—is almost as much of a shock as is the aggressive nature of the program’s requirement.

During London Book Fair, Copyright Clearance Center and data-analysis company Outsell will stage an invitational workshop on the afternoon of March 14 (12:30 to 5 p.m.) at London’s RSA House in John Adam Street.

Advancing Open Scholarly Communications Through Open Dialogue is the event’s title, and its intent is to make a wider embrace of the Plan S debate than some discussions do, factoring such topics as libraries’ changing roles today and the kind of infrastructure and workflow that’s needed for the Open Access (OA) future.

Speakers confirmed at press time for the event include:

Diego Baptista, Wellcome

Olivier Dumon, Elsevier

Danny Kingsley, Cambridge University Library

Petra Labriga, Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB)

Tasha Mellins-Cohen, Microbiology Society

Brandon Nordin, American Chemical Society

Annette Thomas, Clarivate

David Worlock, co-chair, Outsell’s leadership program

Publishing Perspectives has had a chance to put some questions to CCC’s lead on developing the March 14 program, business development managing director Roy Kaufman. We’ve started by asking him about the description of the program as a workshop.

Roy Kaufman

Roy Kaufman: Copyright Clearance Center organizes a lot of types of events, and our choice of the word “workshop” is intentional. There have been times in the past when a topic of extreme importance to the industry emerges, and when we at CCC believe we can help by organizing an event for people to listen, talk, and try to find workable solutions. For example, we sponsored a workshop around text and data mining after the Hargreaves report, and another on scientific social networks.

We believe Open Access is at a similar inflection point.

Publishing Perspectives: Can you give us an update on where things stand with Plan S? Is implementation still required by some point in 2020?

“Plan S should not be viewed as an end in itself, but as part of a process of gradually increasing open access. Otherwise the details of Plan S threaten to overwhelm debate.” Roy Kaufman

RK: The short answer is that the Plan S implementation comments period has closed, and we have yet to see how—and if—the policy can be implemented on that timeframe.

A longer answer is that Plan S should not be viewed as an end in itself, but as part of a process of gradually increasing open access. Otherwise the details of Plan S threaten to overwhelm debate.

Plan S does seem to favor subscription publishers over pure OA publishers, and commercial over society publishers. When you fight over details such as those, you miss the larger picture, which is that institutions and publishers are collaborating on some really innovative models, by choice.

For example, Germany has not embraced Plan S, but Wiley’s Projekt DEAL with 700 German academic institutions is groundbreaking. The narrative must be broader.

PP: Your speakers bring a broad round of inputs to the table. I think that many in publishing haven’t had a chance yet to hear Diego Baptista from Wellcome, Danny Kingsley from Cambridge, or Tasha Mellins-Cohen from the Microbiology group.

RK: There are too many great speakers for me to call any out, and frankly the attendees are all people who could otherwise present. What I’ll say is that those three, along with researchers, governmental representatives and others, will be at the event to present critical viewpoints.

Open Access is disrupting for all stakeholders in scholarly communications. Like any business model, it has advantages and disadvantages, and we need to be honest about this. Even where there’s a will, many deals are hard to implement. Surveys show that Open Access is less important to most authors than issues such as prestige, speed of publication, and ease of publication.

Unless we collaborate to make things easier for authors as well as institutions, OA will never reach its full potential.

PP: And is the Brexit confusion making things extra complicated? Or is it understood that the UK will follow the European pathway no matter what, so that the Continent remains open as a market to the presses and scholars of Britain?

RK: The UK has been the leader in the push to shift to Open Access, especially including funders such as the Wellcome Trust, but other countries have their own plans now.

It’s hard to imagine Brexit not negatively impacting collaboration and funding of science and publishing, as well as the free movement of goods and people. In regard to where people publish, if they can collaborate and do have funding, I don’t think it will make much difference given the highly global nature of science authorship.

PP: Finally, we’ve noted Jeffrey Brainard at ScienceMag quoting some research that indicates, “The required technical fixes may be too expensive for some smaller open-access journals unless Plan S provides them deadline extensions, exempts them, or helps them develop open-source publishing software that meets the requirements.” Does this align with your understanding?

“It’s hard to imagine Brexit not negatively impacting collaboration and funding of science and publishing, as well as the free movement of goods and people.” Roy Kaufman

RK: Yes, and it’s not just about technical fixes. Let’s get past rhetoric and into economics.

The Article Processing Charges (APCs) to publish in so-called “hybrid journals” (i.e. publications that blend subscription and OA business models) are typically higher than in fully OA “Gold” journals, and especially those APC fees for articles published by smaller prestige societies.

However, for many societies, the economic value of the article and the cost to produce it are both greater than the APC. In other words, even at the “higher” rates, publishers can only offer the APCs at the current prices because APCs are underwritten through subscriptions. With the Plan S talk about a fee cap, this could become an existential challenge.

Larger publishers, on the other hand, can amortize costs against a greater number of titles. If Plan S goes forward as written, we’ll see greater consolidation as a result, which cannot be the original goal.

More from Publishing Perspectives on Open Access is here and on Plan S is here. And more from us on the London Book Fair is here.

Our Spring Magazine is ready for your free download ahead of the London Book Fair–where you’ll find the print edition available, also free of charge.

Get the jump on the issues and players important at LBF and other major fairs of the season this year, plus an early look at key points interest about the coming Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20).

#scholarly publishing #Academic publishing #open access

0 notes

toldnews-blog · 5 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/lifestyle/jack-dorsey-is-gwyneth-paltrow-for-silicon-valley/

Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley

Young men are staggering around, hungry for days. They are throwing themselves into ice baths and cryotherapy pods. There are not enough beds at the silent vegan meditation centers to accommodate them. They need more near-infrared bulbs.

They are the followers of Jack Dorsey, Silicon Valley’s answer to the mega-influencer Gwyneth Paltrow. The lithe, 42-year-old tech founder has become a one-man Goop.

“In terms of influence, no one is at the scale of Jack,” said Geoffrey Woo, whose start-up, HVMN, sells fasting tools (like a liquid ketone supplement). He also heads up WeFast, an online support network for intermittent fasters.

It’s unlikely that Mr. Dorsey can embrace his wellness guru role as fully as Ms. Paltrow. He is already the chief executive of both the payments platform Square (valued at $30 billion) and Twitter (valued at $26 billion). As Twitter’s head, he spends his days navigating issues around free speech for white supremacists, online abuse and the spread of terrorist propaganda, all while facing a deluge of criticism from everyone (including the American president).

Still, Mr. Dorsey finds time for himself. For 10 days a year, he sits in silence at a meditation retreat. Before getting dressed each morning, he experiments with using his home infrared sauna and then an ice bath, sometimes cycling through both several times before he leaves home. He walks five miles to work. He eats one meal a day and has said that on the weekends when he fasts from Friday to Saturday, “time slows down.”

He talks about starting each morning with salt juice — water mixed with Himalayan salt and lemon. It is dispensed in Twitter offices around the world.

The tech world has two main personalities with cults: Mr. Dorsey and his foil, Elon Musk. Followers of Mr. Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, are drawn to his brash hyper-masculinity and angry tweets — his memes, rockets and flamethrowers.

Mr. Musk’s fans see him as a model of aggressive optimism. They swarm critics on Twitter and form Tesla Motor clubs. Some call themselves Musketeers, and there are quite a few Musk-themed tattoos posted to message boards.

He is the billionaire doing the things a billionaire in movies does. His hair has gotten thicker and his arms buffer. He dated a pop star and smoked pot on a podcast.

Mr. Dorsey, in comparison, seems to be having less fun.

He is very thin. He looks paler than usual. His beard is longer. The lines on his face have deepened, and he can seem to disappear in one of those high-end, overly long T-shirts. But to his followers, this monastic, pensive leader is a better direction for Silicon Valley. And while Mr. Musk’s acolytes seek to mirror an attitude, Mr. Dorsey’s have an 11-point lifestyle plan.

Just as an endorsement from Ms. Paltrow can make even the most spurious self-help objects instantly covetable, an endorsement from Mr. Dorsey can put products out of stock for weeks.

“We’re just really glad he’s spreading the message,” said Harpreet Rai, the chief executive of Oura Ring, which makes a sleep tracking device Mr. Dorsey endorsed.

Brian Richards, the founder of SaunaSpace, also owes something to the Twitter founder’s words. His company makes “Personal Near-Infrared Sauna” equipment. (A near-infrared sauna heats by pointing incandescent lights at you.) Its latest product is a Faraday tent, of sorts, that purports to block electromagnetic transmissions — creating “your very own EMF-free ancestral space.” Mr. Richards said his company had never been mentioned in the national press until Mr. Dorsey started talking about his personal SaunaSpace sauna on a fitness podcast, and now his products are back-ordered by a month.

“The demand’s been insane,” Mr. Richards said. “He legitimizes it. He’s a true believer. And now people are like, ‘Hey, if this guy’s doing it, maybe there’s something to it.’”

To Mr. Richards, who is based in Columbia, Mo., it makes sense that Mr. Dorsey’s tech followers would find these saunas and become one of his biggest consumer bases.

“An EMF-blocking Faraday sauna is really the only escape these people have from electromagnetic stress,” Mr. Richards said. (Though a study of middle-aged and older Finnish men indicates that their health benefited from saunas, there have been no major studies conducted of “Faraday saunas.”)

Those who run meditation centers, especially those running the specific type Mr. Dorsey endorses, Vipassana, are seeing booming wait-lists. A recent silent meditation retreat at Spirit Rock near San Francisco was completely full, with about 100 attendees — plus 603 people on the wait-list.

And the new meditators are very young. Since 2013, the number of retreatants between the ages of 18 and 29 has tripled.

Rachel Uris, the center’s director of development, said she is now getting start-up employees who want to come as a group.

“It’s not just one person going on retreats anymore,” she said. “We are in this moment where C.E.O.s are saying, ‘I’m seeing this as a really important tool that can enrich the work experience.’”

Spirit Rock is now expanding.

Many of the activities Mr. Dorsey endorses are not inherently fun, and so his personal seal of approval makes a big difference.

“It’s such a strange service — who wants to be in the cold? You need to hear about it from someone you trust,” said Michael Garrett, the head of Reboot, a spa that offers cryotherapy around the Bay Area. (Cryotherapy is when you make yourself get cold.) “And now people are getting their information from C.E.O.s. That’s where the culture is going. Mr. Dorsey’s a successful guy. So you listen.”

He said the cold therapy gives him a high, as blood rushes to his head and chest, and he believes practitioners are addicted. “I’m addicted straight up, it’s a high and I love it,” Mr. Garrett said.

But no community has embraced Mr. Dorsey as their guru more than the fasters, who spend days on end just not eating. Mr. Dorsey’s very public endorsements of this movement have led to criticism that he is endorsing eating disorders.

The WeFast community, started in 2015, now has around 25,000 members across its closed Slack and Facebook groups. They share about fasting and their blood ketone levels. There is also a private WhatsApp group for Silicon Valley power players who fast.

“We just grew up expecting three meals a day plus snacks. But why? Why does that exist?” Mr. Woo asked on a recent day at the HVMN office. Various ketone supplements were scattered around the tables.

While health trends have historically been set by Los Angeles, with people obsessing over an actor’s workout or skin routine, Mr. Woo argues that in the current economy, following the habits of a tech C.E.O. like Mr. Dorsey makes more sense.

“In L.A., there’s an economic value in appearing good, being physically strong, but we’re not physical laborers anymore. I’m not a farmer,” Mr. Woo said. “Now we need to optimize for cognitive performance and intellectual labor.”

The movement has grown so fast now, Mr. Woo has had to begin warning people not to obsess on Mr. Dorsey too much. Just as Ms. Paltrow’s Goop was fined $145,000 for claims about jade eggs, Mr. Woo cautions that even Silicon Valley’s guru can let his eccentricities go beyond science.

“People should slow down and understand what they’re trying to optimize for before just following Jack,” Mr. Woo said. “You don’t want to be in a cargo cult type thing.”

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mr-casecamp-blog · 8 years

Quote

who do you support waterfall or agile -agile is considered the method which will rule the future devlopment models

Waterfall vs. agile methodology Debate Part

Waterfall vs. agile

Speakers info:

First Person Name Satyapal Chhabra – Founder and Managing Principal at Ideliver – Waterfall

Satyapal is a household name and thought leader in the world of application delivery and testing. He has been advising companies on how to optimize their application lifecycle management process for nearly 2 decades. Satyapal is currently the Founder and Managing Principal of Ideliver, an award-winning Software Performance and Quality Assurance delivery company.

Second Person Name Mark Yarbro – Performance Test Manager at Bank of America – Waterfall

With over twenty years of hands-on, roll-up-your-sleeves experience in a wide variety of environments, both as a leader and as an individual contributor, Mark Yarbro is a Dallas application testing guru. At Bank of America, Mark is known for implementing best in class practices among his 32 performance testing engineers as they support multiple lines of business.

Third Person Name Jay Packlick – Principal, Enterprise Agile Coach at Sabre Corporation – Agile

Jay Packlick is an Enterprise Agile coach working with Sabre. He spent over twenty years of his career getting software done in a variety of roles. He’s dedicated the last fourteen years to learning and helping others implement better ways of achieving the outcomes that matter to them.

Fourth person name Shouvik Bhattacharyya – Serial Entrepreneur and Partner at B12 Consulting – Agile

Shouvik has been investing in Agile-centric practices and companies for the last eight years. These teams have been successful in enabling agile transformation in several large global enterprises, in Banking and Financial Services, Retail, Telecom, Airlines, etc. Shouvik has been CEO of public and private companies in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Names (left to right)

Left side-waterfall folks:

First Person –Satyapal Chhabra

Second Person– Mark Yarbro

Middle guy(lakshmi)- moderator

Right side-agile folks:

Third Person –Jay Pack lick

Fourth person– Shouvik Bhattacharyya

First link :

youtube

First Person (Satyapal Chhabra) – it does not necessarily address what agile world is but it has ratchets to go faster and quicker, take example talk about performance, if you look at the classical performance testing it gives you up to transition phase , it’s still a waterfall and we are going very much penetrations in a day to get the optimum state, so if you look at it , inclusion of all the aspects of people who are participating because the hype cases moves right there and you get value out of it, so chabra I am not gonna address , it’s just that the reality is how determines it , its traditional but it delivers and my argument, I am not a kings expert, I would say it’s a republican on democrats.

Second link:

youtube

First Person (Satyapal Chhabra)- That has worked which is a worenforen, we go back to basic, so agile is an adoption through new techniques of econorkia, the gap we are talking about is more of adoption from previous players, so there is something called product coring, product coring means eparchy, so eparchy doesn’t work, because I could be doing right thing in wrong direction all the life

Third person (Jay Packlick) -I am sorry

First Person (Satyapal Chhabra)-or you know it’s a classical discrepancy right, you did it right but wrong completely in wrong direction, you jock the wrong forest something like that

Middle guy moderator-great points on both the sides we realized for quite some time , moving on to the third way, this time I am going to flip the switch to the agile folks , what’s more important in your philosophy, is it the scope or the value

Third guy (Jay Packlick)- so scope or value, so first of all if you are describing them separately you have describing problem

Middle guy moderator– it’s described separately for the sake of the argument.

Third guy (Jay Packlick)-yeah it’s a false tied economy right? I mean ultimately I,

Third link:

youtube

Fourth person – Shouvik Bhattacharyya- i like to point it out in the agile world as long as you’re including the right set of

People you might decrease the scope dramatically because you will provide the right value so i think that’s why is becoming more and more

Popular because everybody speak to market today right so you cannot just think i am going to keep on increasing the scope and the customers gonna wait for me

Third person – Jay Packlick-i wanna give one real world example

Middle guy moderator –Real quick!!

Third person – Jay Packlick –Real quick!!,I was working with clients they had six months project, we had an algorithm to implement ,the potential for the algorithm was to increase revenue something like 5 million dollars per month , that was the value proposition and they were able to achieve that after 3 weeks, so now it works , they implemented the algorithm demonstrated that we can do that and it went into production in the end of four weeks so they dropped rest of the projects because there was other projects which had much higher return so I am just showing you an example decisions maximize value.if you are in business to make money tend to pay off you know!! If you update your plan

Middle guy moderator-true argument!!True argument from human value perspective. Scope or value what is the most important thing from the marching edge.

First person-Satyapal Chhabra- lets face it packlick, waterfalls perspective is the scope, not because they don’t want to deliver the value, the word inclusion right , the word inclusion has already covered every part of the scope, scope is given by someone who is qualified- (A)

B-they know the business or they are the business

Third person – Jay Packlick –They think they know, they are making a decision

First person-Satyapal Chhabra-I get it, one thing is , the waterfall again, in mean let’s face it it is something that is meant to deliver within the finite scope or finite cost and manufacture, agile means to, we can do it but we need inclusion by the right people or participation from right people that’s a Hugh assumption

Third person – Jay Pack lick –that’s true

First person-Satyapal Chhabra- that’s why agile becomes cyclic and goes for ever, it gets shelved or I don’t know, waterfall at least tends to deliver something which will be completely like a Motorola’s dynatac like a brick you can hit your wall ,I don’t you guys know about Motorola’s iridium product it was delivered like a brick you can hit your wall you can do dumbbells like that ,you can build muscles with it but you cannot make a phone call with that.

Third person Jay Packlick- the first question on the (can’t understand)

First person-Satyapal Chhabra- yes exactly, the point is that

Third person – Jay Packlick –so if you’re starting, you probably don’t want that much

First person-Satyapal Chhabra- so point is you went all the with 3 billion dollars investment, when you deliver something waterfall, yes agile would have given you the feedback early, I get the part but again it’s a where do you apply this, it’s up to the business or the IT team I would say to figure it out, what’s the best solution, right, so so, scope maybe encompassing the value

Third person Jay Packlick- so the scope raises the value is the subjective view from you. Mark do you like to add something?

Second Person Name Mark Yarbro-no I think shouvik is excited let him

Fourth person Shouvik Bhattacharyya-rise rise raise your hand if you want more stocks or more return on your investments. So raise your hands for stocks

Middle guy moderator- stock buyers come on rise your arms

Third person Jay Packlick-who want return on investment (ROI)? Yeah you are on the agile side, awesome.

Fourth link:

youtube

Second person – Mark Yarbro –develop is our singer what is , they are starting to work for the next spring, they are pulling things off the back ,when we all be planning on what are they gonna be working on the next spring, you know what that is , that’s waterfall. You’re doing four week water fall,

Third person- Jay Packlick –now he is talking

Second person – Mark Yarbro –in in historical methodology terms that’s more rare, rapid application development ,it’s a 1990’s term, that’s what most people do when theyu are calling it scrum or agile, I was trained in 2004 by people who were trained by( dash and dash-)we were trained in things they aren’t trained in anymore, its ugly, its messy, real scrum it’s so fun, its battle royal , its muddy , its sweaty and messy and you can get so much accomplished but it’s not pretty and management especially in big corporations are very on adamant, messy, seemingly off control kind of a process .The whole organization has to change and that’s when I learned the dirty secrets of scrum, agile you have to think differently act differently all up the chain and it’s hard to change people behavior

Middle guy moderator- sure

Second person – Mark Yarbro –it’s a superior methodology in a lot of ways but you don’t take it into account it’s like communism, socialism

Middle guy moderator along with the crowd– wooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Second person – Mark Yarbro –they don’t take into account the human factor no seriously you visually run out of other people’s money.

Middle guy along with the crowd- shouting and mumbling.

Fourth person Shouvik Bhattacharyya- last example, everybody is not obama here, we got two jams republicans vs. democrats so it’s our dish 480 million dollars were spent by a company in Canada, you guys know about this 480 million, what was the name of the company I forgot. yeah ok, 480 million and everything was held up right, it went blank , you couldn’t even login it was a mess, then they handed over to Accenture 90 million dollars and the guys delivered , I mean whichever side of the aisle you are , you can argue but from an IT perspective and whether you can login and deliver I do I act to it, so it’s a classic case to your point since you called us dominance, we are practical and realistic alright because we could gather to get in with, at the end of the day if you see I’ll go back to the other question scope vs. value the Canadian company were doing all the right things waterfall scope, there is Hugh scope

Middle guy making fun-a phrase

Third person Jay Packlick- so I am gonna throw myself before methodology don’t produce results; people right, so if you bring up an example we are guard less of our framework and someone is making a bad decision and I am not getting feedback on my that bad decision I am gonna!!, I am gonna!! Have a bad result

Second person – Mark Yarbro –right

Third person Jay Packlick- so its irregardless of your approach, I think where agile benefits Is if I do have a faster feedback, if I am legitimately using the information, I get it to say this words or doesn’t work then I have an opportunity at least to make a decision that leads to better results, I may ignore that data and I am gonna be 100 percent behind you

Fourth person Shouvik Bhattacharyya- he needs to change

Third person Jay Packlick- yeah , I am on the wrong side now I behave in north behavior real hard , real example, if I am gonna work right here boss , bad news I get fired, if I am working in a room where everybody shuts up when the boss walks in, if I am gonna play where people don’t give a crap, you know they just wanna get in get the paycheck and get out they don’t want to have a conversation, they don’t wanna do kumbayas and stand up, guess what they are probably not gonna succeed without framework and by all means fit your framework to meet your problems your cultural problem your problem space the worst thing you can do is to take Cinderella’s slippers and try to fit it on her big fat sister, because it ain’t gonna fit.

Fifth link:

youtube

Forth person Shouvik Bhattacharyya- The agile people when they think about planning they think about strategy in the plan, with waterfall people they think more about the plan itself , so that’s my thing you know, that’s the difference

Middle guy moderator-very well said , so strategy and blah blah blah, so having said that we have two sides of the view we’ll move on to the next war, talk about you know there are a lot of blah blah blah , talk about the activities , meanings ,inclusiveness has gravity through blah blah blah.

Second person Mark Yarbro- so inclusiveness we have 1200 applications today, and these things not all of them released, but we release 90 days later, the way that works is , we get everybody together so everyone is working locked still because it’s very difficult to release one product when it doesn’t line up with the others, we are doing like my world accordance testing , we are pushing loads through 30 different applications, they need to be ready all around the same time not just the apps , the platforms that’s been installed the ecosystems have to be released together, so we are living being we are living in space and time we move in single line that’s where waterfall hangs around because it has been working for 70 years, agile is a great way to get things done if you know what you need ,if the customer is not being clear but much more difficult to hold everyone to release the app in same time, so my argument is that you need highbred ,agile , here is the first job here agile

Middle guy moderator-keep it to your side

Second person Mark Yarbro- I will, oh (sarcasm), so you need to make doing the right things not just doing the wrong things badly

Third Person Name Jay Packlick-sure, sure.

Middle guy moderator-so your retenders and minor attributes are surely appreciated.

Second person Mark Yarbro- You’re welcome

Middle guy moderator-Thanks for that

First Person Name Satyapal Chhabra- that’s fine, just adding to it because that doesn’t prove them, methodology or the process eventually in waterfall, waterfall may be traditional tube and it has certain link available it has some fertile waterfall in which doesn’t necessarily add for agile world sense, so to look at performance, if you look at that classical performance carefully it gives you proper migration space, but instead of waterfall we are doing many penetrations in a day to get the optimum state

Please continue reading the sixth link

#waterfall agile waterfall vs agile casecamp best method of developmentsatyapal chhabra #Jay Pack lick #Shouvik Bhattacharyya #Mark Yarbro #obama corporate corporate discussion corporate insight rare debate rare corporate insight

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phooll123 · 4 years

Text

New top story from Time: Procter & Gamble CEO David Taylor Talks Equality, The Economy, and Why Leaders Wear Masks

(Miss this week’s The Leadership Brief? This interview below was delivered to the inbox of Leadership Brief subscribers on Sunday morning, June 14; to receive weekly emails of conversations with the world’s top CEO’s and business decision makers, click here.)

As the United States—and the world—continues to reckon with systemic racial injustice, David Taylor, CEO of the $67 billion multinational consumer goods company Procter & Gamble, acknowledges that “it’s time for action.” As a start, P&G announced in early June that it was launching a “Take On Race” fund to support organizations pursuing equality: the company made an initial $5 million contribution. More work, however, lies ahead. “Far too often, the burden of seeking equality rests on the shoulders of those most marginalized,” says Taylor. “This simply won’t work.”

On the sales front P&G, in its 183rd year, is one of the rare companies thriving in the pandemic. Quarantined consumers have been stocking up on P&G products like Pampers, Mr. Clean and Charmin. P&G has also adjusted its plans to meet emerging COVID-19 needs. Early on in the crisis, for example, a team at a P&G facility in Boston figured out that the plastic in Gillette packaging could be used to make face shields for health care workers. “We don’t make face shields,” says Taylor. “But they said, ‘We can. We could repurpose this, change this, work with somebody here’ and now we’re going to ship 300,000 of them by the middle of June.”

With sanitizer in short supply, a P&G plant in Lima, Ohio, repurposed some of its perfume-making equipment for detergents and fabric softeners. “They got the World Health Organization formula and then within days were making sanitizer in 55-gallon barrels,” says Taylor. The company is now pumping out 45,000 liters of sanitizer a week. “We’re not selling any of it,” he says. “We’re giving it away, or we’re using it in our plants and our operations to stay safe.”

Taylor, a Charlotte, N.C., native, has spent his entire career at P&G—he started in 1980 out as a production manager in North Carolina plant that made adult diapers. He recently joined TIME for a video conversation from his home office in Cincinnati: he outlined P&G’s response to the unrest engulfing the country, shared concerns about new COVID-19 outbreaks, and talked about how he stays energized. (Hint: running up and down stairs between meetings helps.)

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

(This interview with Procter & Gamble CEO David Taylor has been condensed and edited for clarity).

How do you lead a massive organization through what the country is going through right now?

It’s important, as a leader, to connect personally, meaningfully and empathetically with all employees. It’s also a time for action. Far too often, the burden of seeking equality rests on the shoulders of those most marginalized. This simply won’t work. The change we need is broad and deep and requires us all to be active—as friends and colleagues, and as allies and advocates.

Specifically, what is P&G doing internally?

We have and will continue to build a diverse employee and leadership base to reflect the consumers we serve, and foster an inclusive, respectful, welcoming and affirming culture. We are ensuring we view our business practices through an equality lens. We are also continuing to create safe spaces for dialogue within P&G, living our values, and demonstrating our humanity.

And what is the company doing externally?

It’s important that we step up to help create the world in which we want to live. So, P&G and our brands are stepping up our ongoing efforts to advance equality for all people, and especially, right now, for Black Americans who face racism and bias. We established the P&G “Take On Race” fund with an initial contribution of $5 million to help fuel organizations that fight for justice, advance economic opportunity, enable greater access to education and health care and make our communities more equitable.

What have you communicated to your workforce this week?

This is an important moment for listening, empathy and action. I reached to P&G people not only as a leader, but also as a concerned citizen, father and husband—reinforcing my personal continued commitment to equality and justice and to affirm P&G increased efforts in this area.

Far too often, the burden of seeking equality rests on the shoulders of those most marginalized. This simply won’t work.We know that our success is grounded in the success of our employees, consumers and communities. All of them.

Shifting to the pandemic, do you have concerns about a second wave?

If I would wish anything more broadly for society is to not dismiss this if you don’t have it or know somebody that has it. Because it is a very transmissible disease. And when you’re outside your home, just be conscious that even if you’re not wearing a mask, the risk of you infecting somebody, if you’re asymptomatic, is real. I am concerned when you see the things that you see on TV. Many, just out of frustration of being cooped up, may put their guard down. And the risk is that we start to get the seesaw. We get better, then worse. Better, then worse. And certainly, for the health of all citizens, and all people, I hope people take it very seriously.

P&G has manufactured millions of masks during the pandemic. What do you think of the President’s actions relative to masks?

What I will say is I do believe that leaders need to role model the desired behavior. So when I’m out at the grocery store, always a mask. P&G people, they recognize that role modeling matters because others look to what leaders do. And so that’s why in our plants, our plant leaders should wear masks. It’s important for all of us to recognize that people will look to others for signs of what’s the best behavior. I’ll leave it at that.

Let’s get the toilet paper questions out of the way. On March 12th, toilet paper sales increased by more than 700% year-over-year, making it the top-selling product in the country for the day. Why toilet paper?

It goes back to a very simple thing, which is if there’s uncertainty ahead and you’re not sure you’re going to be able to go to a store, think of any product in your home that if you didn’t have would be a problem. If you don’t have certain things, there’s a good alternative. But when you get to basic care of yourself, there’s not a lot of substitutes for toilet paper. What would you do for three or four days without toilet paper?

So this was a demand surge, not a supply issue? For the record, there is no shortage.

Absolutely. Supply has actually been fine. Supply is up. It’s largely over now, but there was a short-term spike where people started hoarding and stocking up. If you buy a three-month’s supply then all of a sudden the shelves get bare.

I understand that it’s a surprisingly complex product to manufacture.

We have a proprietary process that we developed many years ago that gives you the softness and strength that you want in Charmin. It’s a wet strength so that it does its job, but then it dissolves so that it can go down the toilet. And Bounty is a product that if you’ve ever gotten it wet, it doesn’t fall apart. So it’s got absorption, but it doesn’t fall apart when wet. So it’s a different technology. It is high-speed, very technical manufacturing. The technicians and managers that run it are very, very skilled.

Has this experience changed your view about “just-in-time” inventories and how much cushion needs to be built into the system?

Not largely. I’ve been with P&G 40 years and I’ve seen maybe a couple of these over four decades. So, the risk in over-rotating back to big inventories is you tie up a lot of assets and there’s inefficiency there for the whole system.

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

What other products that you make are seeing strong demand?

There’s a long list of things. Anything that deals with personal or family safety, we’re seeing spike. We’ve seen Mr. Clean do well. Even things like sleep aids, ZzzQuil, because people are at home and there’s the stresses of all of this. That category is growing faster than it was before.

What about razors and razor blades and shaving cream?

That category has been negatively impacted. And it’s because people when they’re at home, you’ll generally see less shaving. If you normally shave each day before you go to work, you may say ‘I’ll do it every two or three days.

What is your personal outlook for the economy?

I’m not an economist, but I do believe that it’s going to be a difficult period until we get to the vaccine. And even then, the vaccine may or may not be one that’s always effective. Certainly, my hope is for the fastest recovery. My belief is that we’ll be in a bumpy period for a number of months until we get probably into early ’21.

Your facilities are deemed essential and are operating at full capacity. How are you operating safely?

For the plants we’re operating, and our distribution centers, and our offices, we’ve learned from our experiences in China and in Italy, early on, when it was very bad there, in both those places, that we have to be very disciplined. When you come in at the door, temperature checks. If there’s any issue there, stay at home and get checked out. If you don’t feel well, stay at home. If you’re in a high-risk group and uncomfortable, stay home. If you have a comorbidity that causes you to be concerned, stay home, and we have very good plans and benefits to take care of people.

Then, if you clear the temperature check, you have to have a mask on; we have masks available for our people in plants. And then once you’ve cleared temperature checks and you have your mask, then we’ve gone to social distancing throughout our buildings.

China is your second largest market: Are you worried about the U.S.-China relationship?

Certainly. I think it would be very bad for the U.S. and for China and for the world, for the two largest economies to decouple and not have free and open trade. The rhetoric that we see at times is very concerning. My hope is, and I don’t have perfect knowledge, my hope is that there are behind the scenes, thoughtful, respectful dialogue, and negotiations going on. I do believe change needs to take place on some of the things like intellectual property rights. We’ve seen progress. And we believe dialogue and negotiation is much better than decoupling.

Hunger is an issue you’re passionate about. Why can’t the richest country in the world, our country, feed all of its citizens?

I spent eight years on the board of Feeding America. And it’s one of the questions, frankly, and one of the challenges we put forth to both lawmakers and to a number of other donor companies to say we collectively can do better. I don’t know the latest numbers, but over 15 million children are food insecure. There’s a lot of food that’s not harvested because there’s not a way to get it from the field to a person that’s hungry. There’s not an economic model. And those are the kind of things that Feeding America is working on addressing. There’s a food system for all of us with money. There needs to be a food system for those that for a period of time are unable to care for themselves, and that’s what the food system that Feeding America and the food banks are working on.

What was your first job at P&G?

My career is atypical. I started as a shift manufacturing manager in Greenville, North Carolina on one of our paper businesses. I worked there for five years. There were really powerful career journey learnings to work in a manufacturing environment, on shift. On third shift, nobody cares what degree you have. They care whether you can get that line back up. And it was just amazing to see the way the team would come together when you valued each other for what you can do. Not for what title you may have or what degree you may have.

What did the plant make?

The brand was Attends, we don’t have it any more, and it was for adult incontinence. So it was a big diaper. A mega-Pampers, if you will. An adult diaper.

What is the least favorite part of your CEO job?

It’s big meetings, lots of people and lots of Powerpoint. And then people feel they have to share everything they know. I’m really not interested in being presented to a lot. I’m not wild about sitting down, review, review, review. What I want to do is talk to people and add value where I can. The other thing that does happen at times in big companies is there’s a lot of filtering. And I really value when you go to a plant, or to a sales office, or to an R&D Center, talking to the person that’s closest to the consumer or the customer as opposed to going through something that may have been filtered and vetted too much for alignment.

Where do you feel you really add value?

What I don’t believe is in micromanaging. My job is not to manage. It’s to lead.

There’s two or three things that I think are most important, where I can add value because the people that run the businesses do a great job: On talent, to make sure we have the right people in a team that works together. And it’s probably one of the things I put the most energy into everywhere I’ve been in my career. I believe so much that when you have a diverse team with a lot of different experiences, and different nationalities, genders, and, it’s critically important, and you create the environment — the inclusion — where they truly feel they can come as themselves and speak truth to power.

And one of the reasons I’ve been successful is not because I have the answers. I’ve learned many years ago, I don’t have to know the answer. I don’t have to be right. I have to get the right thing done. Many people try to be right. I just need to ensure the right thing gets done. And it’s a powerful thing to believe that not one of us is smarter than all of us.

It’s a powerful thing to believe that not one of us is smarter than all of us.The second is a focused, clear, understandable strategy. When we don’t perform well, it’s not that we don’t have good people. It is for whatever reason, either our strategy is not focused, which we’ve had cases in our company where we tried to chase too many objectives, too many mouths to feed, or we created a structure that inhibited people’s creativity and capability to contribute.

Any lessons that you picked up from mentors?

I want to be present for everybody I meet with. For somebody coming in, often it’s a big deal. Even though it’s just David, it’s still the CEO of P&G. And part of what you want to do is to be fully present. I’ve learned that from some of the great leaders that I’ve worked with in the past on how great I felt when I met with them. And they actually have seemed like they paid attention to me, and listened.

You have a lot on your plate: Any time management tips?

I generally focus less on time management. I believe — and I learned this from a course I went to many years ago — in energy management. If you’ve got the energy, you’ll make good use of your time. So that’s where you get up, wake on time every day. Drink a ton of water. And if you get a little bit tired in the day, especially with jet lag, run up and down stairs, and you’re back on again. Anything that kicks your heart rate up to keep your cognitive facilities clicking is going to help.

You run up and down stairs between meetings?

Oh yeah, I’ll do that often. My office is on the 11th floor of the building. The cafeteria is on the 5th floor. I haven’t used the elevator, I can’t remember the last time, to go to lunch. I run down 6 stories, get your lunch. Run up 6 stories, and then it sets you up for the afternoon.

TAYLOR’S FAVORITES

BUSINESS BOOK: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

AUTHOR: David Baldacci.

APP: Both the app and device would be the Fitbit because it’s the way I help keep myself (healthy). I’ve got it on right now, and I make sure I get my 10,000 steps. I almost always get my 70,000 by the end of the week. If I had to do a ton on the weekend, then it’s the way I keep myself honest.

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

Link

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

(This interview with Procter & Gamble CEO David Taylor has been condensed and edited for clarity).

How do you lead a massive organization through what the country is going through right now?

Specifically, what is P&G doing internally?

And what is the company doing externally?

What have you communicated to your workforce this week?

Shifting to the pandemic, do you have concerns about a second wave?

P&G has manufactured millions of masks during the pandemic. What do you think of the President’s actions relative to masks?

So this was a demand surge, not a supply issue? For the record, there is no shortage.

I understand that it’s a surprisingly complex product to manufacture.

Has this experience changed your view about “just-in-time” inventories and how much cushion needs to be built into the system?

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

What other products that you make are seeing strong demand?

What about razors and razor blades and shaving cream?

What is your personal outlook for the economy?

Your facilities are deemed essential and are operating at full capacity. How are you operating safely?

China is your second largest market: Are you worried about the U.S.-China relationship?

Hunger is an issue you’re passionate about. Why can’t the richest country in the world, our country, feed all of its citizens?

What was your first job at P&G?

What did the plant make?

The brand was Attends, we don’t have it any more, and it was for adult incontinence. So it was a big diaper. A mega-Pampers, if you will. An adult diaper.

What is the least favorite part of your CEO job?

Where do you feel you really add value?

What I don’t believe is in micromanaging. My job is not to manage. It’s to lead.

Any lessons that you picked up from mentors?

You have a lot on your plate: Any time management tips?

You run up and down stairs between meetings?

TAYLOR’S FAVORITES

BUSINESS BOOK: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

AUTHOR: David Baldacci.

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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newstechreviews · 4 years

Link

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

(This interview with Procter & Gamble CEO David Taylor has been condensed and edited for clarity).

How do you lead a massive organization through what the country is going through right now?

Specifically, what is P&G doing internally?

And what is the company doing externally?

What have you communicated to your workforce this week?

Shifting to the pandemic, do you have concerns about a second wave?

P&G has manufactured millions of masks during the pandemic. What do you think of the President’s actions relative to masks?

So this was a demand surge, not a supply issue? For the record, there is no shortage.

I understand that it’s a surprisingly complex product to manufacture.

Has this experience changed your view about “just-in-time” inventories and how much cushion needs to be built into the system?

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

What other products that you make are seeing strong demand?

What about razors and razor blades and shaving cream?

What is your personal outlook for the economy?

Your facilities are deemed essential and are operating at full capacity. How are you operating safely?

China is your second largest market: Are you worried about the U.S.-China relationship?

Hunger is an issue you’re passionate about. Why can’t the richest country in the world, our country, feed all of its citizens?

What was your first job at P&G?

What did the plant make?

The brand was Attends, we don’t have it any more, and it was for adult incontinence. So it was a big diaper. A mega-Pampers, if you will. An adult diaper.

What is the least favorite part of your CEO job?

Where do you feel you really add value?

What I don’t believe is in micromanaging. My job is not to manage. It’s to lead.

Any lessons that you picked up from mentors?

You have a lot on your plate: Any time management tips?

You run up and down stairs between meetings?

TAYLOR’S FAVORITES

BUSINESS BOOK: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

AUTHOR: David Baldacci.

Subscribe to The Leadership Brief by clicking here.

#Blogger

0 notes

kuwaiti-kid · 4 years

Text

The Best Work From Home Jobs For 2020

At Your Money Geek, we are sticklers for the numbers, and our primary goal is to discover the truth wherever it lies – and this new study about the best work from home jobs is a massive step in that direction.

The Your Money Geek team personally invested numerous hours researching, interviewing workers, and testing all different kinds of work from home jobs to compile this list.

Our goal? We were determined to find the best and most accessible remote jobs that fit all kinds of individuals, lifestyles, and living situations that didn’t require special privileges, connections, or experience levels to get.

This guide will help you find the best work from home job, whether you are looking for constant interaction with others, a fixed schedule, an on-demand arrangement, or simply to take your career in a new direction.

We are thrilled to announce that our top pick was Symposium.

Symposium scored well across the majority of our criteria, including the upfront investment, training or certification requirements, flexibility, and earning potential. These are all key factors when considering a remote working opportunity.

Read this full guide in its entirety to see the complete list of the best work from home jobs for 2019!

Why Work From Home

If you are reading this guide, there is a good chance you are looking for a work from home job or are looking to transition away from a traditional desk job. Whether you are looking for a more laid-back work environment, more control over your time, or increase your earning potential, it’s easy to see why working from home can be an attractive option.

In the past, work from home jobs was seen as perks offered only by IT companies or startups competing for the world’s best talent. The fact is that many of the top companies in the world are now continually seeking to hire remote employees for several reasons.

Working From Home Makes You Happier (& More Efficient!)

According to a Stanford University study, which was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, employees who work from home report higher job satisfaction, are more engaged in their work, and are also more efficient workers.

It’s hard to argue with more job satisfaction and higher efficiency!

The reality is that many people simply need to work from home for health, family, or other reasons. Years ago, you had to accept lower quality or lower-paying jobs to work from home, but the tide is turning, and there are tons of excellent opportunities if you know where to look for them.

Who Should Work From Home

If you’ve ever fantasized about quitting your 9-to-5 job to work from home, there are a few things you need to know to set yourself up for success.

Today, most companies have extremely structured work environments to get the most out of their employees. After all, not every worker is a go-getter, and some require a bit of an oversight.

This means that to make sure you have what it takes to succeed in working from home, you need to be self-motivated, organized, and have excellent communication skills. If you aren’t able to do those things, you might be better off keeping that 9-to-5!

But if you’re ready to spread your wings and fly free, keep reading to see our top work from home jobs!

The Pros and Cons of Work From Home Jobs

When considering remote job options, it’s wise to keep the positives as well as the negatives in mind. Yes, there are negatives to working from home. It’s not always a good match.

The Benefits of Work From Home Jobs

By and large, the flexibility offered by work from home jobs is what makes them so appealing for so many people. Being able to work whenever you can and not needing to stick to a fixed schedule is the biggest asset of working from home.

If you are looking to work from home to avoid the commute but still want a more traditional career, there are many full-time opportunities available as well. Indeed, working from home is no longer only for those who can’t work at least 40 hours per week.

In fact, we found that many of the workers we interviewed liked working from home because they could flex their hours up and earn more money when they needed it.

And, working from home lets the worker design his or her work environment from the ground up. Using a work environment that’s free from distractions, remote workers can maximize their own living space to get the most out of where they spend their time.

The Downsides of Working From Home

When it comes to working from home, you’ll likely be spending the vast majority of your time on the computer or the telephone, depending on your role. This means that you’ll be spending less time interacting with other people in an office (unless you work from a co-working space).

In fact, the #1 downside that we heard from employees who previously worked from home and went back to working in an office was that they felt isolated working from home.

If you are someone who has limited social interaction outside of work and knows this is a critical aspect of their job satisfaction, you’ll need to specifically look for jobs that require virtual communication (our #2 job might be the perfect fit).

And the remote position requires the right amount of discipline and time management. If you aren’t a self-motivated person who can buckle down without a boss in the office, you may struggle.

And now, without further ado, here’s our Top 10 work from home positions for 2019.

Top Work From Home Jobs

Symposium

VIPKid

Amazon

Aetna

Airbnb

TranscribeMe

Rover

Belay

Magic Ears

Virtual Assistant (various companies)

1. Symposium

Symposium is one of the fastest-growing opportunities in the industry.

If you haven’t heard of Symposium before, that’s going to change. The company built a platform that gives users the ability to host or attend live pay-per-view broadcasts.

Symposium scored nearly perfect marks across the board. What sets Symposium apart from the competition? Symposium was the only company we found that didn’t require or “strongly recommend” the need for a computer. As long as you have an iPhone running iOS or Android, you’ll be able to get started on their platform.

How does Symposium work? Symposium allows you to host ‘one-to-many’ live broadcasts on a pay-per-view model. This means that you can potentially have thousands of people tuning in and paying to see your live session, which means the sky’s the limit when it comes to your earning potential on the platform.

And, it’s up to you what you talk about. Design each presentation around your level of expertise. Hold broadcasts in the middle of the night if that’s when your audience is watching. In other words, flexibility is nearly unmatched.

The platform is catered to working professionals seeking coaching, advice, tutorials, or any other type of session you can imagine. Not sure what you have to teach others? Most people have a hobby, skill, or experience, which is unique and highly valuable. Think outside of the box.

For example, if you know the holidays are approaching and you’re an expert at making a Thanksgiving meal with all the fixings, you can easily schedule a session to cover how to prepare those meals from scratch.

Symposium is the perfect platform for those who demand flexibility in their schedules, are self-motivated, and have solid communication skills.

2. VIPKid

VIPKid is a leading online education company headquartered in China and San Francisco. The company has been valued at over 3 billion dollars and has quickly established itself as a leader in the field. The company matches American and Canadian teachers with Chinese children for virtual English language lessons.

All courses are conducted entirely in English, so absolutely no knowledge of Chinese is required. The company does have educational requirements for tutors, so you must have a bachelor’s degree (in any field of study) to join the platform.

If you want to take full advantage of the platform, you should plan to work in the early morning hours due to the time difference with China. Class payouts usually start at a base rate of $8, and each class is 25 minutes. You receive a $1 bonus for completing the course, and another $1 bonus is added once you’ve taught 45 classes in a month (less than two classes a day), which means you’re making a total of $20 per hour.

Some teachers we spoke with began earning between $7.50 – $8.50 on the platform per class, but rates tend to increase as you build your reputation as a stellar teacher.

Finally, VIPKid was the one job where the word “fun” was used the most often to describe their work, which we thought was pretty awesome.

3. Amazon

Everyone is familiar with the global retail giant, but few are familiar with the fact that they are leaders in the virtual working space.

In fact, Amazon always has numerous job postings for virtual working locations on its virtual job board. These opportunities are perfect for individuals looking for a more standard work arrangement from the comfort of their home since most of the jobs are full-time.

Jobs start at minimum wage, but go up from there, with one current employee telling us they started at an annual salary of $62,000. Not bad considering they spend most days in their pajamas in their home office.

4. Aetna

You probably know Aetna as the large managed health care company, with millions of members participating in their health insurance plans. Like Amazon, they’ve established themselves as a leader in the work from home space.

Founded in the 1800s, this is a stable employer for anyone who needs a robust benefits plan, as well as a more structured work environment. Unsurprisingly for an insurance giant, many of their jobs are for data entry, data analysis, reporting, and reviewing information. This means they often require a degree or prior related experience.

The benefit of working for a company with a strong work-from-home network is that they have the support, training, and other programs to help you succeed in your remote position.

5. Airbnb

At this point, the chances are that you have either stayed at or know someone who has stayed at an Airbnb. The company started as a more affordable alternative to hotels for those on the go and is now hosting more bookings daily than Hilton hotels globally.

This means that as a host, you’ll spend less time trying to convince people to book a room in your home, and more time deciding what to do with the money that rolls in.

We spoke to several individuals who are hosts on Airbnb, and they ranged from new users hosting a single room in their home, up to power hosts with multiple properties being rented simultaneously.

There is a lot of money to be made on the Airbnb platform, but you should realize that to make enough money to live off of, you’ll likely need to be renting several rooms or properties. For example, renting a single room for $50 a night will net you $1,500 per month (before Airbnb takes their cut), which is a nice extra check to get, but you’d be kidding yourself if you think that’s enough to live off of.

However, for those that are more entrepreneurially minded, there is ample opportunity to make serious cash on this platform.

6. TranscribeMe

If you came here to see a more ‘traditional’ work from home job on this list, you’d be happy to see TranscribeMe on this list. The company offers speech-to-text transcription services and translation services around the world. You work as much or as little as you want, and you do it on your schedule. What’s not to love about that?

If you love to write, want a job that requires little training, and love to learn about many different topics, then this might be the perfect match.

Their pay starts at 33 cents per audio minute, which comes out to $20 per hour!

7. Rover

In the world of stay-at-home jobs, you can find nearly anything you can dream up. And yes, that includes playing with puppies and getting paid for it.

Rover is a dog sitting or overnight dog boarding platform, which matches dog owners who need a dog sitter for an upcoming trip, party, meeting, vacation, etc., with dog lovers looking to take great care of pets. The company also offers dog walking services.

Become a sitter on Rover doesn’t have a lot of formal requirements, but the company does everything they can to ensure that they find qualified dog sitters.

We met with a dog sitter who has relied on Rover for over two years for a full-time income, and she makes roughly $3,000 per month taking care of three dogs at a time. Those who do this part-time can earn approximately $1,000 per month, which isn’t bad for an activity.

It goes without saying, but this is only an excellent opportunity for those of you who are true animal lovers and would take incredible care of these remarkable pets.

8. Belay

Belay is a virtual personal assistant company that matches people looking for extra help so that they can be more productive, with awesome people working from home.

The services they offer include virtual assistants, virtual bookkeepers, and website specialists. They do require that all applicants go through an assessment process to make sure that you are a good fit for the company. Once approved, they will match you with a client who is a good fit for your skill-sets, abilities, and interests.

According to one insider who we spoke with on the condition of anonymity, you can expect to earn roughly $16 per hour as a virtual assistant. Virtual bookkeepers with substantial accounting experience can expect to receive more on the platform.

One person also mentioned the fact that there’s no shortage of work on the platform, but that finding the right client is critical for long-term success.

9. Magic Ears

Magic Ears is an English learning platform for students ages 4-12. The company provides a 1-on-4 teacher to student ratio, which creates a fun learning environment.

Due to the larger class size, they can pay between $22-$26 per hour, which is solid. The company, which is based in Beijing, requires that all instructors be from the US or Canada and be native English speakers. Unlike VIPKid, the company does require a six-month commitment, which we assume is there to justify the training they provide teachers.

A high-speed internet connection is also desired so that the connection with students is of high quality.

This is an excellent option for educators or individuals who seek to interact with others throughout the day.

10. Fiverr

Unlike the others on this list, Fiverr is a platform in which you can find work from home opportunities and gigs. It made the list because it was often cited as a reliable place to find excellent opportunities managing social media accounts and profiles.

To become a social media manager, you should be able to regularly create new social media content for your client, as well as manage their social media presence. One work-from-home social media manager that we spoke with focused exclusively on Pinterest, and earned $2,500 per month, working only 20 hours per week since she had several clients who needed similar work.

Fiverr gigs typically start at just a few dollars for basic projects, but the beauty of the platform is that it’s super easy to join and start earning money. If you have an excellent talking voice, you can even focus exclusively on voice-overs!

You’ll have to do several gigs to make enough money to replace a full-time income, but it’s possible if you establish yourself and build a strong Fiverr reputation!

Summary

If you are ready to start working from home, we know these ten jobs are the best of the best. While our list only includes the top 10 work from home jobs, there many more that we evaluated. This means that you should also do your own research when deciding where to apply for a job.

If the idea doesn’t convince you of working from home, that is okay because we created the ultimate guide to making a resume (some work from home jobs still require a resume!) so that you can get noticed for your dream job.

The post The Best Work From Home Jobs For 2020 appeared first on Your Money Geek.

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talabib · 5 years

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How To Implement Long-Lasting Change

You’ve got it. Out of the blue, while you’re taking a shower, it hits you like a thunderbolt: the idea that will transform your company into a unicorn – no, a decacorn! All you’ve got to do is introduce the necessary organizational changes, and it’ll be no time before you’re considering a company valuation in the double-digit billions.

After this flash of genius, your brilliant vision smacks into the brick wall of reality. As you try to convince executives and employees to follow you, you feel as though you’ve entered a swamp made of naysaying, doubt, fatigue, poor planning, scarce resources, miscommunication and any number of other corporate ills. So how do you get out of this morass and translate your transformative vision into a business bonanza?

That’s what this post is all about. From long-term planning to savvy resource allocating, team construction to team cohesiveness, you’ll learn all the skills necessary to make the change happen.

For a change initiative to work, your company needs to plan out the Middle phase.

Remember that time you decided to start jogging every morning? Remember how everything went so well at first? How, driven by the vision of a fitter, healthier existence, you sprang out of bed, put on your running shoes and clocked up a few miles?

And remember how one day of rest became two? And how two became a week? And how you don’t run at all now?

Even if you’ve never jogged a mile in your life, one thing is almost certain: you’ve experienced the Middle phase, that tedious and work-intensive period that precedes long-term results and follows the initial excitement of getting started.

Many people get bogged down in this phase, which is why dealing with it is the first concern of your change model.

So, to get through the Middle, you’ve got to stop being vague and establish small, clear and achievable targets. Here’s an example to demonstrate how this works:

Once, patty was working as a consultant for a home electronics business whose goal was as large as it was amorphous; it wanted to improve sales in Europe. She broke down this big, broad goal by asking two questions.

“What,” she asked, “would happen if we achieved this?” And the executives responded that they’d enjoy greater sales in one of Europe’s most important countries, Germany. “And what,” she pressed on, “would that look like?”

Well, the executives discussed the matter, and soon some definite steps began to emerge. They’d need to hire personnel in Germany, for instance, and create partnerships with top German retailers, as well as launch advertising campaigns in the country.

In addition to making vague aims more concrete by asking these two questions, you should also keep matters urgent by defining small interim missions.

Let’s say you have a large mission – to make bigger deals, and more of them – and that you’ve resolved to close ten such deals by year’s end. Well, since people tend to put off non-urgent tasks, you’ll have to figure out a way to add urgency to this undertaking.

So set some shorter deadlines. For instance, aim to have 30 potential deals lined up in nine months, and recognize that for this to happen you need to identify 50 target accounts within half a year. These short-term goals will keep things urgent and propel you past the long-term finish line.

During the Middle phase, allocate resources wisely and measure outcomes.

It’s an old business bromide: “What gets measured gets done.” And though this adage may contain a kernel of truth, it leaves a crucial question unanswered: by which metrics should success be measured?

Using a poor metric is a sure-fire way to throw a monkey wrench into the works, so it’s imperative that you can separate effective metrics from ineffective ones.

When measuring outcomes, you need to choose metrics that are both relevant and able to accurately forecast higher-level results. Here’s an example:

Let’s say your company, like many others, strives to provide top-notch customer service. Well, what you don’t want to do is measure things such as the speed of customer-complaint resolution. This might seem like a good metric, but it’s not. After all, it doesn’t really matter how quickly an issue is resolved; what matters is customer satisfaction, and high-speed problem-solving doesn’t guarantee that.

So, rather than focusing on isolated activities or particular stages within a process, measure only the desired outcome.

An effective metric for customer satisfaction is the number of returning customers. Another is customer referrals, since recommending a company to a friend is usually a sign of satisfaction.

Now, knowing what to measure is one thing. Actually measuring it is quite another. You may have to get creative. You could, for instance, have service representatives conclude their interactions with customers by asking whether the customer would recommend your product.

Once you figure out how to measure the important stuff, be sure to put resources toward improving those measurements.

This is usually a challenge. It’s easy to miscalculate the number of resources such improvement will require – and, of course, resources are usually in short supply. So, to make these calculations less challenging and more accurate, try using the following technique:

Sketch out two scenarios, each with a corresponding funding plan.Here’s how this might work. Let’s say a company is having a hard time acquiring customers.

For this company, the first scenario would be a low cost one. They’d neither fire nor hire anyone, and the budget would increase by only 10%. This scenario would allow them to tackle only two pressing problems in the next half year.

Scenario two, on the other hand, would be a high cost one. They’d increase their budget by 100 percent and hire two new employees – changes that would make them a tip-top customer magnet within their market.

Armed with this information, the company can pinpoint its priorities and move resources from one department to another if necessary.

Teams should be designed to deliver outcomes.

Snow spreads white as far as the eye can see. The sound of the sled dogs panting, each breath a small cloud of steam. The cold air taut with anticipation. Briefly, the tow line tenses as the team of dogs braces itself for the coming moment – and then the command: “Mush!”

Patty noticed something while on a dog-sledding trip. Each sled dog understood its job, and each was aligned with all the others, eager to begin working toward the team mission. So when the time came to “mush” – that is, to go – they weren’t only ready; they were champing at the proverbial bit.

So what imbued each canine with such purpose and energy, and how can you imbue your team members with these same qualities? Well, it’s a matter of organization.

First, you’ve got to figure out whether you have all the right pieces and if any new pieces need to be added. You can do this by using the Blank-Sheet Organization Chart.

Take a blank sheet of paper and, after you’ve determined the desired outcome and which skill sets will be required to bring about that outcome, start drawing up an ideal team. Don’t leave any role undefined, and get detailed about what will be required of each role, be it negotiation know-how or the ability to drive innovation. Finally, talk to team members you trust and flesh out the roles and requirements using their feedback.

Before patty got there, the company she restructured was a mess. Roles within its eight business units were vague, resulting in work overlap, among other problems. The Blank-Sheet Organization Chart transformed the company into a cohesive whole – which is exactly what it can do for your business.

Once you’ve figured out where current team members will be most useful and how many new members will have to be found to take on vacant roles, you’ll be well on your way to overcoming challenges of Iditarod-like proportions.

Leaders engage team members by revealing the bigger picture and showing that they care.

If someone offered you $250 to run a marathon, you might do it, right? But, at less than $10 per mile, it hardly seems like enough. If running that marathon contributed to the cure of AIDS or cancer, however – well, you might, like thousands of other people every year, even pay to run it. Why is that? When it comes to motivation, meaning trumps money.

So to motivate and engage your team, you’ve got to make its purpose meaningful. And that means forging personal bonds with team members and showing them the bigger picture.

Whether during breakfast meetings or one-on-one sit-downs, talk to the people in your company. Invest time both in learning how they feel about the work they do and in communicating how that work helps the company’s overall success.

For example, when chatting with a tech writer, you could enumerate the ways that detailed product documentation boosts customer satisfaction, and also mention how it reduces tech-support expenses and increases company competitiveness.

Making explicit the connection between the writer’s work and the company’s success will infuse his job with meaning – and, as you know, meaning adds up to engagement.

Engaged employees won’t only take ownership of projects and solve problems on their own; they’ll also contribute ideas and insights that may help the company. For example, employees may be able to point out that one department’s progress is misaligned with another’s – something that could derail your company’s long-term transformation strategy. So when employees volunteer information, give them your full attention. You won’t regret it.

Of course, your employees won’t get behind the company mission unless you, their leader, are fully dedicated to it. Indeed, patty has noticed that when she wholeheartedly shows that she cares about her company’s mission, her team not only gets inspired; they also feel free to show their own caring and engagement.

Emotion drives meaning, so even if you’re a leader at a company that produces lint removers, you’ve got to find something you can care about. If the business is as uninspiring as the product, then seek meaning in the people you serve or the people who work for you.

Lead with grit and persistence.

So your team is organized, and you’ve planned out the Middle phase. But when your team actually enters that phase and experiences all the attendant doubt and tedium, a new set of challenges will arise. Exhausted and discouraged, employees will start asking hard questions. Is this even working? Can we go back to what we know? When will we see results? During this tough period, you’ll need Valor.

Being valorous is a matter of drawing on inner and outer resources. Remember, your team members won’t be the only ones plagued by doubts and fears; you’ll have misgivings, too. But here’s the difference: rather than being paralyzed by fear and deciding to turn back, you, the leader, will accept these uncomfortable feelings and push forward.

Welcome fear as you’d welcome an old friend. “Hello, fear,” you could say, “it’s fine if you want to join me on this journey, but you’ll have to take a back seat and you certainly won’t be allowed to drive.”

In the meantime, seek out more desirable companions – that is, experts and mentors who can advise you on your change strategy. If a change initiative can be likened to Mt. Everest, then these advisors are the Sherpa guides; you’ll have a hard time getting to the top without them.

Having valor also means being firm. Once the change initiative begins, there is no going back. Just as Hernán Cortés, the sixteenth-century Spanish colonizer, set fire to all his ships when his fleet landed on the banks of what is now Mexico, you too should destroy all means of retreat. The only option should be to move forward.

Your change strategy may involve adding new processes. For instance, you might add checkpoints or guidelines to the company’s software-development program – changes that may prompt complaints from engineers. Yes, it may be challenging for them to learn the new process, but you’ll have to hold your ground. You’ll only see the benefits of a change initiative if you stay firm and implement all necessary changes. No retreat!

Prioritize ruthlessly and don’t get bogged down in the details.

Here’s a common pitfall. In the quest for organizational change and growth, companies get bogged down in the details. They spend so much time dealing with the “next” pressing issue that they lose sight of the big picture.

It’s a classic dilemma. If you’re expending all your energy on becoming a one-hundred-million-dollar company, how will you ever develop a strategy for becoming a one-billion-dollar company?

Well, if you really want to change and grow, you’ve got to use ruthless prioritization. No more nitpicking tiny, unimportant details; it’s time to tackle the tough decisions that will actually make a major difference.

Ruthless prioritization will inevitably involve trade-offs. So, in order to identify what should grow and what should go, make a list of the three things crucial to your company’s success. These are necessary and non-negotiable.

Let’s say you’re a business-to-business (B2B) company with low conversion rates. At the top of your list might be stepping up your referral marketing by implementing a new, more effective, process.

After you’ve made your list, ask your team for feedback. Other priorities will doubtless be brought to the table – but under no circumstances should they jeopardize the three top priorities. For your B2B company, the referral marketing process will be implemented.

Of course, your company isn’t infallible. If the referral marketing process doesn’t improve your conversion rate, it’s time to acknowledge that a mistake was made and cut your losses. What you don’t want to do is double down. Learn from your missteps and keep on walking.

And remember: Don’t get bogged down in the details. When upper-level managers have to review all the details, progress ceases. All managers, at each level of management, should distill details into helpful insights for the managers above them. By no means should the top manager have to spend hours doing the work of lower management. Use this rules of thumb: “Insights move up. Details stay down.”

Establish long-term change by making it familiar, safe and normal.

No matter how valorous, a leader won’t succeed in bringing her team through the Middle phase without the active involvement of the people around her.

Getting everyone involved in the change initiative is a matter of substituting conversation for command. Rather than telling employees what the change strategy is, talk to them about how it will work. This, hopefully, will encourage them to discuss it among themselves.

When team members talk strategy of their own accord, it’s a sign that real change is taking place. Indeed, it means that company strategy has become familiar, safe and normal.

Another way to get employees talking is to create spaces where strategic conversations can take place. Utopia Village, a Honduran resort, created exactly such a space by starting a WhatsApp group called “Utopia Stars.” In this space, every employee could discuss the resort’s new service guidelines, which prioritized excellence above all else.

Staff members began documenting instances of excellent service, posting pictures of each other going above and beyond for customers or writing a brief description of what they’d seen other staff members do. Thus, the group sparked a company-wide conversation and gave rise to a new sense of camaraderie. This helped Utopia Village earn a number-one rating on TripAdvisor.

And don’t forget – when change begins to happen, be sure to highlight it. This will also encourage conversation and drive further change.

Successful highlighting involves two things: everyone has to be able to see it and everyone has to be able to talk about it.

For instance, Heifer International, a nonprofit that gives support to livestock-owning families, discovered that it could increase its impact if it convinced families to pass on their livestock’s offspring to new families.

So Heifer International created a ceremony celebrating the birth of new livestock. When, for example, a goat provided by the company has a kid, there’s a ceremonial celebration and the goat-owning family passes the newborn on to a new family.

This ceremony draws people into the conversation and keeps them involved. In one community, this ceremonial tradition has been carried on for 17 years – without any involvement from Heifer International!

Establish trust and productivity by talking to team members and keeping everyone in the loop.

A leader once brought a middle-aged man to tears with a single question. No, it wasn’t a query filled with malice or implied insult; she simply asked him what he really cared about. So why the outburst of emotion?

Well, this man explained that, over the course of his entire career, nobody had ever asked him such a question. The recognition implied this question – the understanding that the man wasn’t merely a cog in a machine but a human being with his own hopes and feelings – touched him on a deep level.

Asking similar questions and paying attention to the answer will help you forge deep bonds with your employees – and such bonds are the foundation of trust and loyalty.

Such personal communication will also help you identify which issues are truly troubling your team members, something a leader learned in her first real leadership position.

During the first two weeks of her time in this role, she talked face-to-face with all her employees – 81 in total. These conversations shaped her entire strategy. For instance, she found out that a certain manager was bullying his team members and damaging company culture, something she wouldn’t have learned otherwise because he was adept at putting on a good face for his superiors. But communication must go beyond one-on-one discussions. You’ve got to keep everyone in the loop.

Communicating information both improves engagement and enables people to coordinate with each other. A case in point is an entrepreneurship course offered at Monmouth University in New Jersey.

Students are split into four departments: marketing, sales, manufacturing and product development.

Every week, each department’s leader posts a status update on an online platform, and each student within that department is required to read both it and all comments.

According to the professor, the course’s structure, which centers around communication and information-sharing, is what accounts for the students’ remarkable success rate, with most business plans going from zero to profitable within a mere four months.

So stay communicative. An environment where personal and business information can be easily shared will have a much easier time making change a reality.

To achieve long lasting change, you need to move through the Middle phase of the change process with clear and concrete strategy; establish an Organization structure with capacity for change; give Valor to make the tough decisions and prioritize change; and show leaders how to engage Everyone, thus making the change an inextricable part of company culture.

#how to implement long-lasting change.

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we-johnnygonzalez-blog · 6 years

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3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” - SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has the best examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketing to keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

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