Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing - Issue #170
Do we really need Teams meetings in the car?
Microsoft and Mercedes-Benz appear to think we do.
As if that isn’t weird enough, take a look at any post on LinkedIn about this and be prepared for the number of people super excited about this because of all the lost productivity from having to drive.
Here’s a thought. Don’t force your employees to commute.
But, I digress.
Welcome to this week’s collection of thought-provoking things. For each issue, I will share information about careers and workplace culture, mental health in the workplace, talent development, and key insights into privacy, security, and legal technology.
You can learn more about me here: Mike McBride Online.
The more important point is one I coincidentally wrote about in 2023:
Which got me thinking, if we are taking vacation time, sick time, or even going with a four-day workweek because it will help us come back and be more productive workers, then why bother? Is that all we are? Does everything we do, including what we do outside of work, have to revolve around our jobs?
Now we can’t even have time to drive without using the time we have for meetings. I thought all this technology was supposed to make our lives better?
Careers and the Workplace
Hint: It’s not great.
How tech workers really feel about work right now
Generation Stuck - Our career advice to young people is totally out of date, and they’re paying the price.
The numbers don’t lie:
Artificial Intelligence
It's the classic conundrum for workers. If you're the most productive member of your team, what's your reward?
More work.
If you're the most productive member of your team using AI, what's your reward?
More work, while being more isolated, to work with the AI.
Somewhere, there is a good manager who knows this is not the way to retain talent, but there aren't that many of them in the wild.
Worth Reading - Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default - This is the logical next step in the escalating conflict between website publishers and AI scrapers.
Worth Reading - AI Is Killing The Billable Hour (And It’s About Time)
For lawyers and other professionals, billing hours is indeed a dumb approach. It hasn't made sense in years. If AI finally pushes that out of our way, we'll owe it thanks for that alone. I don't think AI is good enough to do work on its own, though, so the question then becomes, what are we billing for? Where's the work? Do you have solid baselines for how much value AI brings versus how much a human is having to contribute to make up for times when the AI falls short, and who decides that?
This is a problem, and a security headache:
Employees Are Adopting AI Tools Before IT Can Even Assess Them
Training and Development
This could be a good place to start learning more about AI - AI Fluency: Frameworks and Foundations.
Rest is an essential part of learning, which is an integral part of productivity:
Why Rest is the Biggest Productivity Hack for Your Brain
In times of tremendous technological change, you need more of these on your team:
Mental Health in the Workplace
It’s in your business interest, and it’s also just the right thing to do! - Why mental health support in group plans is key to employee retention and productivity.
I think young people trying to change the workplace are on to something….
I suspect there are many workplaces where talking about your mental health struggles would only serve to get your name on the layoff list.
Sharing - Why Lifelong Learning Feeds the Soul
That description of restlessness is familiar to me. That's how I feel when I'm not engaged in learning something. That's why I remain curious about the things I care about and why I share so much here and elsewhere online. It's a motivation for me to continue learning, and that, in turn, helps my mental health.
It's self-care for me.
Privacy, Security, and Legal Tech
If you’re still active on the platform, what's your motivation? - Twitter Is Dead, X Is Elon’s Personal Propaganda Platform, Where Grok Checks His Feed Before Answering.
This is important advice for lawyers and everyone else! - Avoiding the Third Rail of Legal AI: Don’t Let the Machine Think for You.
Perhaps we should include a bullet point or two in our business continuity plans for addressing AI outages. Of course, we might also consider the continuity plan for AI tools, or any SAAS solution, going under as well. It's just good risk management.
How much of your AI work would be negatively impacted by even a few hours of downtime?
That’s me, talking to Tom O’Connor on the eDiscovery Channel.
That’s all, folks. If you found something interesting in this week’s newsletter, please share it with your friends. It’s the best way to help support the effort I put into sharing this with you each week.