As many of you know, while I work remotely for a firm not based in Louisiana, Mardi Gras is still considered a local holiday, so I take the day off. This year, we had additional friends staying with us the week prior, family events over the weekend, and more friends visiting New Orleans on Monday before heading out for Cajun Mardi Gras on Tuesday morning.
It’s a lot. It’s also fun. It is fun in ways that you have to experience yourself.
But that’s not why I bring it up here. I bring it up here because we all need those kinds of adventures—the opportunities to connect and have experiences with the people outside of work.
Welcome to this week’s collection of thought-provoking things. Each week, 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.
This week, Anne Helen Petersen published an interview with Rhaina Cohen about her book The Other Significant Others. The interview's main focus is how we have centered our lives around marriage and romantic partnerships, leaving behind our friendships. I agree, but I would also add work to the equation too. Think about it: between our always-on work culture, our definition of what marriage or partnership should look like, and the pull of our extended family, who has time to grow real friendships? And yet, how much fuller could our lives be with those friendships?
This is why I advocate for more flexible working arrangements. We need the time and freedom to be connected to the important people in our lives, and that’s more than just time for kids. Spending 10+ hours every day getting ready, commuting, and working doesn’t allow for much else, and it might just be damaging our mental health.
Careers and the Workplace
Australia Close to Becoming the Next to Recognize a "Right to Disconnect"
Will it benefit employee's mental health? Based on what we've seen in other countries, it's undetermined. The language is often vague, and there are exceptions for emergencies, which there should be. But that opens up loopholes in who gets to define "emergency." (I have worked with lawyers for years; their definition of emergency might be anything that prevents them from billing time right this very second.)
This is an interesting read - What’s next for the masterminds behind the four-day week push?
For Productivity, Engage Team Members with Emotional Intelligence.
It's interesting to consider that everyone on the team influences engagement. Engagement is history if we don't trust the leader or each other.
Here are some interesting thoughts for those of us who struggle with small talk:
Training and Development
Make Succession Planning a Priority
As skills get more and more specific, the question of who takes over when someone is not available or leaves the organization becomes paramount.
How Trauma Impacts Our Ability to Learn
The impacts on children are clear, but we should remember that this carries through to adulthood for many of us and the people we work with.
Mental Health in the Workplace
We’ve covered this before, but it’s all about the workplace culture - Rethinking Workplace Wellness: Why Culture Matters More Than Apps and EAPs.
On a similar note - The hidden ways sleep deprivation warps your reality
Privacy, Security, and Legal Tech
Linked - The Making of a Myth: Big Tech, Billionaires, and the Wild West
As the article explains, this cowboy myth we all grew up with is a myth. Success often came at the expense of others and with plenty of assistance. From taking Native lands by the government to then handing it out for free, the men who went on to become the land and cattle barons of the West did not earn it solely through their hard work. They were given handouts. They were ignored and allowed to break the rules until they did what everyone with that kind of power does: go too far and force the government to step in and regulate them. (And let's not even get started on the fact that only white men were allowed to participate in this program.)
Kara Swisher looks back - Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media.
The rise and fall of robots.txt
It’s not a perfect system, but it works. Used to, anyway. For decades, the main focus of robots.txt was on search engines; you’d let them scrape your site and in exchange they’d promise to send people back to you. Now AI has changed the equation: companies around the web are using your site and its data to build massive sets of training data, in order to build models and products that may not acknowledge your existence at all.
Everything seems to be a scam these days, and I thought maybe it was just me, but it’s not - If it feels like scams are thick on the ground - it's because they are.
Thanks to Jordan for including this little ‘ol newsletter:
Will AI kill off keyword searching in eDiscovery? - The End of “Search” is Upon Us!
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.