Many articles have been floating around on navigating the waters of this big, evil business world. In case you missed it (ICYMI!), here is a recap of the ones that caught our eye this week. We thought you would like to read them.
Robots: The jobs that are least vulnerable to automation tend to be held by women
Intelligent machines might be taking over in the not-too-distant future! If you followed the HitchBOT story this week, you might know what I’m talking about!
This week’s article, published in The Atlantic, picks apart a new study by two Oxford researchers analyzing which jobs are susceptible to job automation. The study surveyed the skills required for over 700 occupations and found that 47% of today’s jobs will be automated in the coming decades, and men hold most of those jobs.
What are intelligent machines good at, you ask? They excel in jobs requiring physical exertion (think construction workers), perception (think truck drivers), and manipulation. The article states, “Many occupations that might appear to require experience and judgment—such as commodity traders—are being outdone by increasingly sophisticated machine-learning programs capable of quickly teasing subtle patterns out of large volumes of data.”
On the other hand, intelligent machines do not perform well in chaotic environments where they have to read and make decisions based on emotion.
How to hold a meeting people want to attend
Few things are more miserable than attending a poorly organized, pointless meeting. They are the worst. Not to mention, an estimated $37 billion is wasted every year on unproductive meetings. Your time is valuable and shouldn’t be wasted sitting in meeting rooms or dialing into conference calls, listening to meaningless chatter. Fortunately for us, the good people over at The Muse put together a great list of four ways to start a meeting that will grab people’s attention. The list includes:
- Tell everyone what the meeting is about
- Encourage positivity
- Share a surprising statistic or poignant quote
- Tell a story
Building a transparent company culture
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is building a transparent company culture. Building transparency and trust takes work, but it seems to pay off. Employees with greater access to information are better equipped to contribute to the business and make more informed decisions. This week, Mashable organized a list of 5 tips for building transparency into your company culture. See the list below for great examples, resources, and advice!
- Have an open, anonymous message board for questions that you address at weekly all-hands
- Connect with execs through collaboration tools like Slack
- Write down values, paint them on the wall and evangelize them in a fun way
- Trust your team