Tag: management

Comcast’s 1.2 TB data cap seems like a ton of data—until you factor in remote work

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The most frequent reaction to last week’s news that Comcast will subject all its residential broadband customers to a 1.2 terabyte monthly data cap has been “How could they?!” Broadband experts consistently say there’s no technical reason to enforce usage limits on wired connections such as cable internet. A less frequent reaction: “How could you?” As in, how could any one person possibly burn through that much data in a month? The threshold that Comcast will start enforcing next year on subscribers in the northeast does, indeed, allow for a lot of online life before getting socked by surcharges of $10 for each extra 50 GB, up to $100 a month. For example, streaming 200 hours of high-definition Netflix (at 3 GB an hour ) would still leave half that 1.2 TB allocation free. Read More …

‘Never let a crisis go to waste’: How 3 CEOs helped their companies thrive in a pandemic

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The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted different responses from company CEOs seeking to ensure their businesses survive. Keeping their employees safe has been the first priority, but beyond that, their task has involved understanding the situation, launching countermeasures, and trying to evolve ways of working to ensure their businesses can continue. We spoke to the chief executives of three major companies in three very different industries. In their responses to the crisis we found that Winston Churchill’s adage of “never let a crisis go to waste” was as relevant as ever, with businesses finding positives during the pandemic. Accelerate strategy Shipping giant AP Møller-Maersk embarked on a historic transformation in 2016 to become an integrated transport and logistics company—combining its shipping line, port operations, and freight forwarding businesses into a single entity. However, progress had been limited . The pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to Maersk’s customers who, faced with falling demand, had to manage their global supply networks as effectively as possible. They wanted better information across the supply chain and the ability to change outcomes while goods were in transit. These demands affirmed Maersk’s strategy to shift from being a port-to-port container transport company to an integrated, end-to-end logistics company, making use of digital technologies to provide the connectivity and visibility that customers required. Maersk’s customers turned to its blockchain-enabled supply chain platform TradeLens , where the number of transactions almost tripled from 70,000 a week in January 2020 to 194,000 a week in June. Transactions through Maersk.com increased by 20% to 25% between January and October 2020. Maersk’s CEO Soren Skou told us: “The investments we made in the last five years in digital capabilities came in very handy during COVID-19.” The pandemic accelerated Maersk’s technological transformation efforts, which led to new digital products and services while modernizing its customer interface, back-end infrastructure, and assets such as ships and terminals. Maersk also built expertise through acquisitions, purchasing warehousing and distribution company Performance Team , and customs management firm KGH Customs . Skou was able to apply what he’d learned from the financial crisis of 2008-09, when Maersk and its competitors fought for market share and ended up driving down freight rates. This time, Skou focused on profitability: cutting capacity by 20%, but filling the remaining vessels even as the pandemic caused shipping volumes to drop. The plunging price of oil also helped Maersk’s financial performance, and its earnings actually increased in the first three quarters of 2020 , despite near-paralysis of the global economy. Scale-up innovation Large companies are often seen as slow and trailing in innovation compared to smaller, more nimble competitors. Standard operating procedures mean they focus on developing “perfect” solutions, testing in pilot markets and proving the business case over a couple of years, before finally rolling out—by which time they have probably missed the boat. Mars Petcare, a global leader in pet food and pet health services, found that COVID-19 necessitated scaling up innovation Read More …

Why people are turning to robots when they’re sad and anxious at work

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The global pandemic has created a seismic shift in workplace mental health, with over three-fourths of workers saying that this is the most stressful year ever. That’s according to a global study by my company, Workplace Intelligence, and Oracle which surveyed more than 12,000 workers at all levels across 11 countries. Now more than ever, leaders need to put mental health at the top of their agenda and address this issue. Employees can’t possibly perform at their best when they are suffering inside. And poor mental health is now inescapable as employees work remotely with no separation between their work and personal lives. The study found that 85% of respondents’ mental health issues at work negatively affect their home life, causing things like suffering family relationships, isolation from friends, reduced happiness, and sleep deprivation. The mental health epidemic at work persists because of the stigma around it. Employees are afraid to speak out about how they feel due to fear of being ostracized by their teams, or even being laid off Read More …

Silicon Valley expects a chillier relationship with Biden than Obama

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Now that the Biden administration has announced a transition team and is gradually announcing key advisory and cabinet appointments, the posture of the new administration toward Silicon Valley is becoming clearer. And it’s not the look of a budding friendship. When Biden last worked at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the White House had an open and friendly relationship with Silicon Valley. For example, the Obama administration also recruited talent from Silicon Valley to form the U.S. Digital Service , the elite technology “startup” within the White House that helped government agencies streamline systems and exploit new agile development methods. Obama also created the position of U.S. chief technology officer within the Office of Science and Technology Policy. From a regulatory standpoint, the tech industry enjoyed a light touch during the Obama years. Its relationship with the Biden administration will likely be different and less trusting. That’s one of the reasons it’s closely watching the formation of the new Biden administration, now in its beginning stages. There’s a lot to watch, since so many government agencies now impact the business of tech. Some high-level appointments, such as Ron Klain as chief of staff, will deal with a broad spectrum of issues, many of which don’t touch tech directly. But others, like the appointment of Janet Yellen as Treasury secretary could, for example, have implications for digital currencies and other financial tech. “There are enormous fintech issues that will be facing the financial regulators, most principally the office of the Comptroller of the Currency, but some issues that’ll touch upon the FDIC, Federal Reserve ,and Treasury as well,” says Jeff Hauser, founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, which tracks presidential appointees who come from various industries. Antitrust under Biden Of chief concern to Big Tech is the Biden administration’s thinking on antitrust. Proposals for breaking up big tech companies in the last couple of years from people such as Massachusetts senator and former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren have ridden a wave of populist feeling in the country. The Department of Justice has already filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in federal court, and the Federal Trade Commission is reportedly in the final stages of deciding whether to file its own suit against Facebook. The agencies are also conducting investigations into alleged anticompetitive aspects of marketplaces run by Amazon and Apple. The Valley is waiting for Biden to announce his attorney general and FTC chair , which could tell a lot about the new administration’s plans to control Big Tech. I don’t think this administration is going be kind to Big Tech in general.” Eric White, Seismic Capital Company Biden said precious little about antitrust on the campaign trail, but his statements on adjacent issues give some clues to his thinking Read More …

How this program turns ordinary teens into tech superheroes

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In 2016, Ananya Chadha was just a regular 14-year-old girl struggling to fit in at her high school in Toronto. She often had sci-fi-inspired fantasies about building futuristic technologies like jet-pack shoes, going so far as to look into where she could buy parts. Then one day two brothers, Navid and Nadeem Nathoo, came to her school and described a new type of educational program they started called The Knowledge Society , or TKS. “They talked about essentially creating the next Elon Musk,” recalls Chadha, now 18 years old. “When they talked about taking crazy ideas and unconventional paths and making it real, I was like ‘Wow, I need this.’” It would sound like a rip-off of a classic superhero story if it weren’t completely true: ordinary teenagers being recruited into an elite program designed to give them the power to do extraordinary things, and maybe even save the world. While many programs like Code for America and the Flatiron School focus on teaching entrepreneurship or tech skills to high school students, TKS, which was founded in 2016, is unique for giving students both the hard skills they need to build next-generation solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems as well as the soft skills they need to communicate and create them. Ananya Chadha at TKShowcase [Photo: courtesy of TKS] Soon after enrolling in the program, Chadha was working in a gene-editing lab, where she discovered a problem with the homogeny of samples used in data sets. That inspired her to develop a blockchain-based application that compensates users for uploading anonymous genetic information to help diversify the data pool. After the app, G-gnome, was acquired by a blockchain startup, she switched her focus to computer-human interfaces. In 2018 Chadha secured a sponsorship from Microsoft to build a remote control car that she can control by meditating . Today she interns for IBM. “What I found unique was their ability to connect advances in bleeding-edge technologies to tackle hard problems our society faces on daily basis,” says Piotr Mierzejewski, the director of Db2  deployment for IBM Data and AI. “These young minds don’t seem to be discouraged by how hard and complex problems they are trying to solve are; they simply face the challenge to find solutions.” In recent months Chadha has presented her work at some of the biggest technology conferences in the world, she was named to the 2019 class of Canada’s Developer 30-Under-30 , and she won First Prize in engineering.com’s Impossible Science Challenge. Chadha, however, is just one of almost 400 students who have achieved incredible feats after enrolling in TKS. Building the next Elon Musk After the Nathoos spent three years developing the program in Toronto and Waterloo, TKS is expanding to New York, Boston, Las Vegas, and Ottawa in the fall— enrolling 80 students in each new chapter—and offering a new program in Toronto for students as young as nine. Navid and Nadeem-Natho [Photo: courtesy of TKS] “The whole reason why we’re scaling is because I strongly believe that we are not short on human potential,” says Navid Nathoo. Read More …