Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing - Issue #94
Are We Ready for the Deep-Fake Election Cycle?
Welcome to this week’s collection of thought-provoking things. I write this weekly newsletter so subscribers can see some of the things I’m writing and sharing without depending on social media algorithms to show them to you. 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.
If you haven’t seen it by now we have a political ad using generative AI images of things that never happened from a DeSantis group.
DeSantis attack ad uses fake AI images of Trump embracing Fauci
It’s only June 2023. We aren’t even in the Primary season yet. This is going to get worse. This is going to make all those little fears that maybe the social media algorithms were influencing what we saw regarding the election coverage in 2020 and how it might affect our vote look like child’s play.
Images are everything in elections. Nixon sweating during the debate, the Willie Horton ad, photos of Gary Hart on his yacht, Monkey Business, and every other photo op that every single candidate has taken advantage of over the years have all left some sort of indelible mark on our impression of them.
And now, we have images that hundreds of thousands, or millions of people will see and not bother to understand that they are fake. We already know there is an epidemic of reading the headline and not the article, what do you think people are going to do with these images? They will see the photo and form their opinion.
We’re not prepared for this. I fear for this next election cycle. We already have large groups of people who believe things that never happened. Now they’ll have photos and videos of things that never happened.
God help us. Be skeptical out there.
Careers and the Workplace
Linked - Be Intentional About How You Spend Your Time Off
We are expected to work harder and harder and then use our time off to rest so that we can go back and do it some more. It's all focused on being a good worker, but this study seems to indicate that we are all better off focusing on other parts of our lives during the time we spend away from work. Maybe, just maybe, we are more than our jobs. Maybe when we spend the energy and focus on other parts of our lives enough to plan them out and be intentional about them, we're happier.
What a concept.
Mentorship Opportunities Shouldn't Depend on Proximity - I'm quoted in the article saying some of the same things I've been writing about proximity bias on my blog. Always good to contribute to quality reporting.
Sharing this mostly so I can share Seth’s quote. “Humans aren’t resources, they are the point”. Also looking forward to reading his new book:
Finally, something from the archives:
The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Work
In the workplace, we talk a good game about employee wellness and work-life balance, but who wins all the accolades at the end of each project, or quarter? The folks who put in the “extra effort”. (aka “hours”)
Training and Development
Here’s something we should be training everyone in our organizations to do much better than they do now - Let’s Talk About Effective Meetings
In Change Management, do you Skip the Unlearning Phase?
I often refer to it as the "I've been doing this job the same way for 20 years, why should I change anything?" attitude. And, they aren't wrong. They have been successful in doing the job that way for years. But now, there's some change that will make that impossible, and no one has bothered to explain that to them until you're trying to teach them something new.
Good training includes good stories - Why Storytelling Matters in the Workplace--and How to Welcome It
Mental Health in the Workplace
Well-being at Work Is More than Just Not Being Depressed
All of these things are interwoven. The people who work for you are human, that's how we are. We aren't just a worker for eight hours and then everything else for the rest of our time. We are human 24x7 and our wellbeing affects us in the workplace. The workplace also impacts our well-being.
This reminded me of a link I shared last year around this time- Linked: Addressing employee burnout: Are you solving the right problem?
Privacy, Security, and Legal Tech
A preview of my new creation covering M365 and eDiscovery if you missed the announcement earlier this week: (you can now follow the company page on LinkedIn too.)
On a similar note, there’s also this link from Hanzo - Ediscovery Best Practices for Slack and MS Teams from Information Governance Through Litigation
Five Organizational Data Privacy Risks Caused by Digital Illiteracy - when you don’t know what data you have, where it is, and what rules should apply, you’re asking for trouble.
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.