Hard work: sleeping on the job and picking up a paper clip

I read a fascinating  article today about what a humanoid robot would have to do in an office environment. It neatly shows (with video) how simple movements are actually extremely complex. It's going to be a long time before a robot could do what we do constantly, without even thinking about the micro-motor controls involved. 

There's also an item on 'Sleeping on the job: the cultures of sleep and napping around the world'. Apparently, in Japan taking a nap at your desk or during a meeting is a sign of hard work. So now you know how to respond to your boss when you doze off during the next budget review. But seriously, the benefits of taking a nap during the day, especially for creativity, are proven in many studies.

These articles come from Insight, the magazine published by Mark Eltringham. I highly recommend subscribing to the curated content of Insight for topical items on People/Places/Tech in the workplace. Incidentally, mark will be coming to the Innovation Network's Spring Workshop 'Work 2030 - it may not be what you think'. 

Favourite resources from a KM researcher and facilitator

The Innovation Network is a non-profit practitioners" network of large, predominantly blue-chip, organisations that share innovation and organisational learning practice.

As one of three facilitators for the network, my role is to look at how various emergent and innovative technologies are changing the way that work is done. This research is presented to the network in the form of masterclasses, roundtables, webinars and quarterly workshops. These are some of the sources I use: 

• Essentials - The Future of Work: This is one of the weekly newsletters from Faveeo.com, which uses an AI-driven curation tool to find and follow the most trusted and valuable sources. I like the convenience of having an intelligent bot do the heavy lifting for me, with the results presented in a structured and well-designed newsletter. It covers blockchain, digital transformation, smart contracts, smart assets, industry 4.0, security and more.

• Essentials - AI & ML: Another Faveeo newsletter, this covers AI and machine learning news, automation, robotics, AI in business, and data science. Other Faveeo newsletters include Future of Mobility, Future of Money, Future of News & Journalism, Future of Energy and Future of Food.

• National Geographic - The future of medicine: I've been a paid subscriber to National Geographic magazine for over 30 years. It covers an enormous spectrum of topics but if there is a common theme it is human endeavour and innovation, which neatly fits in with my work for Warwick Business School. This article describes 12 innovations that will revolutionise the future of medicine, from bionics to virtual reality consultations.

• CognitionX: This (free) subscription daily curated news service covers all things AI. It's a useful resource for keeping updated on technology, services and products in this fast-moving domain. It provides filters for topics, industry sectors, products, technologies and use-cases. It's part of my "must read" list at the start of each day.

For fun:

• Josh Bernoff's writing: His blog has a slightly irreverent title but I enjoy the no-nonsense style of blogger and author Josh Bernoff at Without Bullshit. Josh and Charlene Li co-authored the best-selling book "Groundswell". Josh is a fairly acerbic critic of poor writing style, particularly corporate communications and marketing messages that use passive voice and jargon. His blog includes some useful tips to improve customer communication and detect fake news. 

An article in Jinfo I found particularly interesting:

• Given my current interest and research into all things AI, I was drawn to the article by James Mullan on "How technology is transforming the legal sector". Though the title refers specifically to legal, the article was broader, looking at the role of the information professional for identifying the most appropriate information and tasks to apply to AI tools, and training users on how to effectively utilise these tools. I wonder how many information professionals recognise the important role they can play in the successful adoption of AI?

I hope you find some of these resources useful to you in your search for knowledge. The world of work is changing....very quickly! 

Steve Dale

KIN Facilitator

Is your CV fit for 2030?

Many years ago I recall a business coach advising me to keep my typed CV to no more than two pages, preferably one. It comes as no surprise that the CV in that form is long dead, in favour of a host of social media and online searches.
However there may still be a place for a more formal or structured resume. Michael Page has put together a useful interactive tool
'to see what a typical CV in your sector looked like in 2000, what it looked like in 2018, and what it may look like in 2030'.

It's rather ironic that the typeface for '2030' looks like it's from Back to the Future'. Anyway, choose your sector, then your decade to see what skills you will need to drive your career into 2030.


The next KIN members' Quarterly workshop 'Work in 2030 - It may not be what you think' will be held on 28th March 2019 at The Shard London.

*Thanks to Steve Dale for suggesting this item

The Human Machine Interlace

No, 'The Human Machine Interlace' is not a typographical error.
The article by Kevin McCullough*, is a thought-provoking, optimistic piece about our future relationship with technology.

Amazing bio-mechanical developments are already available to provide external mechanical aids, such as exoskeletons to help heavy or repetitive lifting jobs. It won't be long before these are actually incorporated into the body - for example to help those with disability. If this seems fanciful, roboticist Hugh Herr believes that one day physical disabilities will not exist. Listen to him on the TED Radio Hour podcast 'Transformations'.

In his article, McCullough suggests that the myriad of articles and quizzes that ask 'will robots take your job?' is unhelpful and misleading. He posits that the purpose of AI is not to replace humans, but to make machines less dumb and remove the drudgery of repetitive or dangerous work to release human potential. As always, leading edge technology development leaves ethics and legislation trailing behind. If we can manage our way through this, the future is looking good for machine-augmented work.

*Kevin McCullough is one of the presenters at The Innovation Network' spring workshop 'Work in 2030 - It may not be what you think' to be held on 28th March 2019 at The Shard, London.

Innovation and turf wars

I have this quotation from James Martin on the wall of my home office, from my time as a battle-scarred project manager.

'Coping (with a disaster) is visible and dramatic. Prevention is unpopular, because it usually means changing something that is not yet failing; it is thankless, because the only testimony of its effectiveness is a non-event'.

The same could be said of organisations, particularly successful ones, that struggle with the adoption of innovative ideas. In July 2018 the Harvard Business Review reported on a survey that looked at blockers to innovation in large organisations and concluded:

'Change-makers trying to conduct experiments are rarely greeted with open arms — especially when they’re working on an idea that may cannibalise stable businesses or upend today’s distribution model'.

I witnessed a perfect example from in the early days of retail outlet stores. A large, hugely successful multi-national retailer wanted to experiment with this store format in the UK. A bright, young high-flyer was chosen by the CEO to lead this innovation, given a substantial budget and told he could have the pick of the bunch to join his small team. Having cherry-picked individuals and assembled resources, a two store trial was started. It was an abject innovation failure. Not because of the concept or execution, but because of turf-wars and resentment by other senior managers. 

The report charted the factors that leaders thought that most stymied innovation. Top of the pile, unsurprisingly, were cultural issues (politics and turf wars are symptomatic of cultural mores). One factor that appears to be missing is attitude to risk. It's not clear whether this was because survey recipients were not offered 'tolerance to risk' as an option, or it wasn't considered by them to be a major factor. From my discussions with many organisational leaders, most successful innovative organisations have an overt policy towards risk and its attendant inevitable misses.
The KPMG sponsored report (excerpt available here) goes into some detail about the negative actors and barriers to innovation. It is worth looking at each for your own organisation or division and what mitigations you can put in place for each. As with all cultural issues, particularly 'politics and turf wars' the only way to effect change is through leadership action and modelling behaviour.