Farms around the world are experiencing a surge in avian influenza A(H5N1) infections, commonly called bird flu, among poultry, dairy cows, and even some workers.
Here in Canada, and the USA the spread of bird flu among animal populations is being carefully monitored. While the chance of people becoming infected remains low, bird flu does pose a risk, especially to those who work with wild and domestic birds and animals. Continue reading
“Can you name the truck with four-wheel drive, smells like a steak, and seats 35?”
Back in 1998, “The Simpsons” joked about the Canyonero, an SUV so big that they were obviously kidding. At that time, it was preposterous to think anyone would drive something that was “12 yards long, two lanes wide, 65 tons of American Pride.”
In 2024, that joke isn’t far from reality. Continue reading
The headlines: “Top VC Kai-Fu Lee Says His Prediction that AI Will Displace 50% of Jobs by 2027 is ‘Uncannily Accurate’ on Fortune Magazine May 25, 2024.
If that wasn’t bad enough the next Fortune Magazine article I read said: “Elon Musk Predicts Jobs Will Become ‘Kinda Like a Hobby’: The AI and Robots will Provide any Goods and Services you Want shouted Fortune Magazine cover shouted in May 24, 2024
WTF. Not the kind of warm and fuzzy article I was expecting to read this lazy afternoon.. It’s really fearful!
So, have you asked yourself: “Will AI and robots take my job?” This is now the #1 workplace fear. It’s not quiet quitting. It’s not work life balance.
Will I have work/career/job in 5 years. Tough question. No easy answer. It seems that it depends. What do you do? How much of the work repetitive? How much is creative?
Let’s look at AI can do really well. AI can process and distill huge amounts of information. The downside is that it can hallucinate. Not good!
Jobs in jeopardy due to AI: Accountants. Mathematicians. Writers. Interpreters. This is according to a study by University of Pennsylvania and OpenAI.
The problem: Working It Hacks is an emagazine what we’d written for more than 20 years. We had 4 Working It trademarks. We owned WorkingIt.com. We had a lot invested in Working It and the future of work.
We took a hard look at the emagazine. We didn’t like what we saw. Big problems. We advocated the idea that the truth will set up free. We had to know the truth.
The problem was no one was reading or cared for Working It Hacks. It was boring. Readership was aging out. Folks were not thrilled by the pieces. All of these are kind. The emag was simply not working. What to do?
Fog of words and ideas: A few months ago, I read Smart Brevity by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz. The premise of the book is pretty direct: “Never in the history of humanity have we vomited more words in more places with more velocity.”
We’re addicted to our smart phones. We check is 350 times each day. We don’t read. We scan. We watch videos. All of our stuff was frankly boring.
The solution: Test, prototype, and iterate new material, format, look/feel, and content using Smart Brevity. We would use this format for our emagazine, videos, apps, and all our products.
Can you teach an old writer dog new tricks? Not easily. And, we’re going to talk about this a lot more. Why? AI is disrupting all work, careers, and job.
Why It Matters: Have you ever read Axios articles. Each of their book articles and emails have the same format. Intro. Date. # of words. Time to read. See below.
I was offended by this. I was used to writing 200K word professional books. Or, as my daughter calls them ‘thuds’ or ‘tomes’. Kinda tough love.
The structure of the article consists of thought bites or takeaways that may interest you. See below:
Takeaways: AI age is the new industrial revolution. AI is the new oil or electricity. Pick your metaphor.
We are pivoting and reinventing our products. The theme for the new AI Working It Hacks is we are now all AI guinea pigs. People are fearful. AI is the new work/career/job driver. Working It Hacks provides hack to succeed and even thrive in today’s World. As Smart Brevity says folks want to know ‘what’s new’ and ‘why it matters.’ This is what we’ll give you in our AI Working It Hacks emag and app. Enjoy!
AI Tools: I use AI, specifically Chat GPT and Gemini for first drafts for emails, proposals, background searches, software dev, and brainstorming. It’s great a great tool for lots of things. Each week, we’re going to provide a killer tip/tool for using and getting more comfortable with AI.
We may go into virtual dating with AI. We may go into practical uses for AI at work. Today, we’re going to talk about using AI for tough conversations. We got this idea from a Wall Street Journal article called For Conversation You Dread, Try a Chatbot.
Dreaded conversations: These are conversations that give us fear, dread, and anxiety. We all have these. Taking care of our aging parents. Giving instructions or rules with our kids. Asking for a raise at work. Talking with our ex significant others about money.
We wonder how to do these to be effective and kind. I role play with friends or even in a mirror. I also have gotten coaching. Rehearse with Chat GPT: I had not heard of this use case. But, gave it a try. It’s sorta fun to rehears with Chat GPT.
How: How to do this? Chat GPT needs to be coached and trained. The machine needs to be coached on the person it has to be and be believable. The machine has to form a basic psychological profile on who it Is supposed to play. Creating a believeable role play playing chat avatar, takes time. So, you may have to iterate a little.
Why it matters: Using a chat bot has a several advantages. It’ll introduce you to chatbot who may be future companions, coaches, and even significant others. You learn how to contextualize the machine. This will have to be done with engineering prompts and queries in the future.
It is fun. You learn prompting. You create an avatar. You get new ideas. You can finesse the propoer ‘tone and feel’ for the tough conversation.
For more info: Check out May 4 2024 For Conversation You Dread, Try a Chatbot, WSJ piece for more tips on how to do this.