Business Improvement and Social media

Mazin Gilbert has an ambitious goal. As vice president of advanced technologies at AT&T, Gilbert wants to make AI technologies widely available throughout the corporation, especially to those who might not have a computer science background and may not even know how to program. Call it the “democratization of AI.” To accomplish that goal, AT&T is building a user-friendly platform with point-and-click tools that will enable employees — up to one-quarter of the company’s workforce — to build their own AI applications.

AT&T and a host of other companies are trying to address a crucial issue in business: the severe shortage of AI talent. According to some estimates, only about 10,000 programmers in the world have the necessary expertise to develop advanced AI algorithms. But that’s barely a drop in the bucket for what companies will need in their future workforces. Tools like AT&T’s platform will help spread AI technologies well beyond just a limited number of “haves” and reach the “have nots” that may lack the technical knowledge and experience.

This democratization of AI will happen in two ways. First, it will enable employees across a large organization like AT&T to develop their own AI applications to make them better at their jobs. But it will also allow smaller firms to deploy some of the same AI capabilities that have heretofore been limited to large corporations. Think of how spreadsheets like Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel helped democratize data analysis, enabling even mom-and-pop shops to perform invaluable “what-if” analyses.

The vast majority of humans throughout history worked because they had to. Many found comfort, value, and meaning in their efforts, but some defined work as a necessity to be avoided if possible. For centuries, elites in societies from Europe to Asia aspired to absolution from gainful employment. Aristotle defined a “man in freedom” as the pinnacle of human existence, an individual freed of any concern for the necessities of life and with nearly complete personal agency. (Tellingly, he did not define wealthy merchants as free to the extent that their minds were pre-occupied with acquisition.)

The promise of AI and automation raises new questions about the role of work in our lives. Most of us will remain focused for decades to come on activities of physical or financial production, but as technology provides services and goods at ever-lower cost, human beings will be compelled to discover new roles — roles that aren’t necessarily tied to how we conceive of work today.

Successful entrepreneurs have a lot of things in common; one is knowing how to make the best use of their time. When the clock is ticking and they are under pressure to deliver, many have a favourite productivity hack to ensure things get done on time. Here, seven entrepreneurs share their tried and tested ways of being more productive.

Create artificial deadlines

Business expert and author of The Startup Coach Carl Reader uses a clever technique of creating artificial deadlines to guarantee a productive finish.

“One of my favourite tricks is the ‘train journey to nowhere,” he said. “I book a return train ticket, don't take my mobile phone, and set a completion target for the journey. With a clear deadline and no distractions, I find that I often produce more than I would in the office in a whole day. It's great if you can tie this around meetings that you need to travel to, but if not, the productivity boost is well worth the cost of a train ticket.”

You had a great idea for a product. Your prototype got great reviews from focus groups or even from a crowdfunding campaign. Now you’re planning for mass production, ready to launch your own website, prepping for massive online sales, and practicing poses in the mirror for your picture on the cover of Forbes. Whoa! 

Having something to sell is the easy part. Getting it into the hands of consumers is sometimes the more complicated step. E-sales may make marketing easy, but that can be deceptive. Ben Wong is the Head of Startup Launchpad at Global Sources. He helps startups understand the distribution channels they need to leverage, and the different challenges they need to address to get their products into the hands of paying consumers in an offline setting. Global Sources runs the largest electronics sourcing trade show in the world.  This October, more than 63,000 distributors and retailers from around the globe will wander the aisles at the Asia-World Expo in Hong Kong, stopping — or not — at 6,000 manufacturers’ booths. Among those will be about 300 booths where ambitious, hopeful, sometimes naïve, startup companies will beam with pride, burst with anticipation, and sweat with anxiety as they demonstrate their products and hope for a chance to launch a product, start a business, and scale to meet demand.

The success of a leader has more to do with intrinsic motivation, skills, capabilities, and character than with whether his or her pay is tied to shareholder returns. If leaders are poorly equipped for the job, giving them more “skin in the game” will not improve the situation and may even make it worse. (Part of the problem with equity-based pay is that it conflates executive skill and luck.) The challenges of corporate leadership—crafting strategy, building a strong organization, developing and motivating talented executives, and allocating resources among the corporation’s various businesses for present and future returns—are significant. In focusing on incentives as the key to ensuring effective leadership, agency theory diminishes these challenges and the importance of developing individuals who can meet them.

An INSEAD alumnus takes on the global beverage business.

It's good to do the right thing in the face of many unknowns, and, although this can be hard. Do you make it easy for your workers to do the right thing?

From the Etsy store owners, Upworkers, and Uber drivers of the gig economy to the thousands of start-ups taking their place on the starting blocks in the great race to start-up success every year, there’s no doubt that technology has enabled a new era beyond the Information Age. It can take many forms, but entrepreneurialism …

Business strategies – especially in the tradition sense – are rather pushy. If you have a product, your strategy is to explain why a customer should use it.

Design thinking as a strategy flips this. Instead of forcing a product on customers, instead, it sees things from the customer’s perspective. A design mindset is not problem-focused, it is solution focused and action-oriented towards creating a preferred future. Design Thinking draws upon logic, imagination, intuition, and systemic reasoning – exploring the possibilities of what could be. This train of thought creates desired outcomes benefiting the end user.

When design principles are applied to strategy and innovation the success rate for innovation dramatically improves.

Leaders of courage inspire their teams to achieve more than they may have thought possible.

The Trust Maturity Model from www.giveleaderhip.com...

What is the level of trust in your team?

Chaos? Learning? Optimizing? Or, Innovating?

Tired of chasing down your ideal clients and ultimately scaring them away? Good. To be honest, this method isn’t good for business anyway. But I don’t have to convince you of that — poor results will. Thankfully, there is a better way, a more profitable and enjoyable way. The following six methods are ones you can implement immediately to earn clients online without spamming them — no tech expertise required.

1. Host an online workshop.

The days of showing off a certificate or a degree on the wall are over. The best thing you can do to demonstrate you are the right expert to work with is to add value to your target audience. In just 45 minutes, an online workshop affords you an opportunity to educate, entertain and inspire people so that they know why you are (or aren’t) the right fit for them to work with.

If you are not sure what topics to cover, consider the questions you are most frequently asked and/or how your ideal client group's most common costly mistakes. At the end of the workshop, you can invite them to continue learning with you in your coaching program. 

2. Send value-rich emails.

One of the most common reasons people will give for not working with you is that it’s not the right time. That’s an easy one to solve — simply keep in touch via email and continue adding value, inviting them to future online workshops and sharing testimonials from your current clients.

When the time is right, they will have all the information they need to make a well-informed buying decision about joining your program. This is a great and low-pressure way to increase your positioning, elaborate more on your brand and values and build more trust with them. By the time they do sign on to work with you, they will feel more confident than ever about their investment.

Behind every great athlete there is an even greater coach. There isn't a top athlete--from Muhammad Ali to Tiger Woods to Serena Williams--who did not need a mentor to help them reach the top of their profession.  

If you think about it, your business is similar to that of an elite athlete. You may have the drive, the skills, and the vision, but there are times when you need professional guidance to ensure you stay on the right path, and how to best utilize your talents and work on your shortcomings in order to reach your goals. An executive coach can be that person.

No matter where you are on your career path--from eager up-and-coming manager to a seasoned senior executive to an entrepreneur--there will be times when you can benefit from some professional coaching.

One of the keys to any successful business, regardless of its size, is innovation. Developing new ideas is the fuel which will keep your business up to date. Innovation will keep operations, products, and services fresh. Adding this fuel will make your business more competitive.

According to a study from PwC, an overwhelming 93 percent of business executives believe that “organic growth through innovation will drive the greater proportion of their revenue growth.”

But, what exactly is innovation? The answer to this question can and will vary depending on your industry or market.

Don't you wish marketing were as easy as waving a magic wand? Unfortunately, marketers must create their own magic to drive sales, raise awareness and generate qualified leads, in the face of ever changing customer needs and expectations.

In order to capture, cater to, and retain a customer's interest, CMOs and entrepreneurs need to make it more rewarding to choose their company. In the words of Hilton Chief Marketing Officer Geraldine Calpin, "We have to get customers really engaged and addicted to what we as a brand stand for. The way you get brand loyalty, love and stickiness, is through world class hospitality and technology. Simple, beautiful, useful technology makes travel easier."

A new book says focusing intensely without distractions on a cognitively demanding task leads to peak productivity.

There it is: your dream job. There’s just one problem. You don’t meet all the qualifications.

It's a conundrum. Should you channel your inner life coach and go for it? Or should you follow the rules and wait until you have the right experience or credentials? If you sit it out, you may miss a great opportunity. On the other hand, you don’t want to waste your time or, worse, alienate hiring managers by wasting theirs.

It’s a tough question, but you should almost always err on the side of "go for it," says career expert Cynthia Shapiro author of What Does Somebody Have to Do to Get a Job Around Here? 44 Insider Secrets That Will Get You Hired. After all, everyone has to take a job that stretches skills if they want to move ahead. Before you do, these career coaches and recruiters recommend asking yourself these six questions.

Now collaborate is synonymous to power.