Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing - Issue #156
Sometimes I speak too.
Just a little announcement about a webinar panel that I will be part of next week. If you’ve been reading but haven’t heard me yapping about technology before, here’s your chance:
It’s Dec. 11 at Noon Eastern. I’ll discuss AI risks and opportunities with my good friend Maureen Holland and Haystack’s Nate Latessa.
Welcome to this week’s collection of thought-provoking things. For each issue, I’ll share information about careers and workplace culture, mental health in the workplace, talent development, and important information about privacy, security, and legal tech.
You can find out all about me here - Mike McBride Online.
If the prep call discussion was any indication of what is to come, it should be lively and honest.
Also, I have an honest question for you. I saw this recent podcast episode, and I think they are on to something. Has Microsoft “Copiloted” everything to the point where they’ve just created a confusing mess of a brand?
Microsoft Places, Teams Features, and Copilot Confusion: The Practical 365 Podcast S4 E32
How often do you have to stop and explain different versions of Copilot, different licensing, and which enterprise license covers which features of all of their products?
It’s not just Copilot, either. It’s Teams/Teams Premium, SharePoint/SharePoint Premium, and so on.
It’s become a weekly cycle:
MS is rolling out a new feature.
The documentation explains how it works.
There’s a demo of it somewhere.
No one details the licensing needed.
We spend hours determining if we can use the feature with our current license.
Is it included in e5? Does a free Copilot do that, or is it a paid Copilot for M365 or one of the specialty Copilots? (Security, Sales, Finance.) Does it require a Copliot Studio license, or can I create it without the Studio license? Does the automated function from Copilot need a premium product license to interact with Teams or SharePoint? How much would that add to my costs?
It’s a full-time job to keep track of which product falls under which license, and that kind of confusion is normally bad for business. That being said, if anyone out there is a licensing expert and wants to volunteer to answer my questions about licensing when I’m testing new features for my M365 newsletter, feel free to get in touch.
Careers and the Workplace
Do You Know What Will Prevent Your Best Performers From Hopping?
As I mentioned, I've left some jobs for reasons that had nothing to do with more money. Whether it was relocation, a desire to travel, a need to travel less, or the desire to work remotely, the one thing those changes had in common was that they were specific to my situation and preferences.
The other thing they had in common was that the place I was leaving did not have the flexibility to offer me what I wanted. Could the role have centered on doing more online training so I could travel less? Could a little remote work availability have kept me there longer? Could a fully remote position have allowed me to continue working and relocate?
We'll never know because that wasn't offered. Thus, I've switched jobs a few times.
I probably should have thought of this. It’s a way to reduce headcount without calling it a layoff. It’s just as damaging to those left behind, though. - The hidden costs of petty firing: When employers use minor infractions as a back door to layoffs.
Speaking of layoffs - White Collar Jobs; worst hit jobs.
With all these petty firings, forced RTO, and layoffs that we still call layoffs, keep this handy - 7 Proven Activities to Grow Your Career Using Networking.
Artificial Intelligence
If it's public data - someone is using it to train an LLM
Bluesky is developing an open protocol, and Mastodon uses an open protocol (ActivityPub). The idea seems to be that we can create a social media platform without a walled garden where users don't own the data, which is also completely protected from someone grabbing that public data to build an AI model.
That's not going to happen. We are all going to have to make a choice.
Once again, I'm left with this question: Why are so many Bluesky users pro-AI yet so opposed to using their public posts to train it? Where do they think the data has been coming from?
It’s essential to start somewhere instead of waiting to learn it perfectly:
Let’s hope it’s not all bad - Algorithms Are Coming for Democracy—but It's Not All Bad.
Is this the first step toward enshittification? - ChatGPT could eventually bake in ads, OpenAI's CFO says.
I’ve seen this claim a few times on Bluesky. It’s a misunderstanding of what MS is doing combined with unclear documentation. - Microsoft does NOT use your private data from Word, Excel, and Microsoft 365 apps to train AI models, but I understand why people are scared.
Training and Development
Some workplaces value learning, and some don’t. If you want to be the former, you might want to look at Strategies for Cultivating a Culture of Learning in the Workplace.
Mental Health in the Workplace
Linked - Are employees getting enough mental health support in 2024?
However, what I want to talk about is the 46% of employees who are not "confident that employers care at least moderately about their mental health."
That's a lot of employees at risk of leaving. After all, why continue to work for an employer who doesn't appear to care about you? Consider the wording of that survey; they only asked if you feel confident that your employer moderately cares. Not that they care deeply. Not that you feel important to them, just whether there is evidence that you moderately care about their mental health. How much effort does it take to show that you care just a little? Yet almost half of employees don't see it from their employers.
That's a shame. The improvement is nice, but there's a long way to go on this issue.
The mental health benefits are significant - The Science Behind Daily Wins.
Privacy, Security, and Legal Tech
I couldn’t have said it better. Encryption apps are the best way to be secure. This is the article she links to - U.S. officials urge Americans to use encrypted apps amid cyberattack that exposed live phone calls.
Worth thinking about:
Sigh:
Scammers target vulnerable jobseekers with high-paying remote work, FBI warns.
Sigh again:
Majority of social media influencers don’t verify information before sharing it, study finds.
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 in each week to share this with you.