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 mpouraryan
11/24/2017 3:22:12 PM User Rank Platinum 
...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
..Some "Food 4 thought":
This Chatbot is Trying Hard to Look and Feel Like Us What it is: Autodesk's AVA chatbot is the ultimate customer service agent: empathetic, patient and unflappable under pressure. AVA, which stands for Autodesk Virtual Agent, was designed by New Zealand AI startup Soul Machines to have "emotions" and a virtual "nervous system" to listen to customers' voices and respond to queries with humanlike precision. Why it's important: Customer service is notoriously difficult for even the most patient of humans. If artificial intelligence models can help humans feel understood and help resolve their most urgent requests with speed and accuracy, businesses all over the world would be able to serve their market in a highly scalable fashion  dcawrey
11/24/2017 5:12:20 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
The workforce of today is certainly in flux, but one thing I think younger generations have latched onto is flexibility.
The idea of an eight hour workday and an office cube with a desk, PC and a landline phone are going away. Sometimes, they aren't even needed at all. Scary, isn't it? mpouraryan
11/24/2017 5:40:41 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
It is the reality underscored by Uber's purchase of 24K Volvos to create a driveless fleet. We have, though, somehow learn to adapt--I wish I had the answers--but at least here we're working to ask the questions and underscore the profound pitfalls.
 Ariella
11/25/2017 6:02:40 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@dcawrey Actually, I embrace flexible work conditions when they allow for greater productivity. Remote work, for example, can actually increase productivity by cutting down on employee fatigue from having to suffer through a long commute. It also cuts down on emissions and energy consumption used in such commutes.
 ms.akkineni
11/26/2017 2:59:32 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella:
Totally in agreement. I love flex work environment. There is unseen employee satisfaction in this arrangement which obviously return productivity. Employees generally tend to be more responsible / accountable as they feel that theit needs are met.  Joe Stanganelli
11/29/2017 10:33:10 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@ms.a: That word "unseen" is striking. In the old days, "unseen" meant you could be doing anything.
To some employers, it stilll means that -- and yet remote work is much more accepted today because we live in a society where exponentially more of our interactions and introductions occur "virtually." We connect with professionals in our field online. We make new friends online. We meet people to date online. It only makes sense for us to work online. ms.akkineni
12/1/2017 8:42:03 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
Joe.S:
Could be my choice of words. However there clearly is a level if satisfaction from remote options. I agree that there is good amount of culture change within industry to accept that and follow with not much hesitation, there is still a subset if employers not there yet. Personally I think it is the mindset of management. There is a significant stake for employees as well to ensure accountability. Ofcourse there is quite some exploitation too. So got to be both ways.
Ariella
12/1/2017 10:40:26 AM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
<Personally I think it is the mindset of management. > @ms,akkineni That's my view, as well.
ms.akkineni
12/7/2017 10:02:15 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella:
Good to know that our thoughts are alike in this. Yes, it is the mindset that plays a big role. It could be worthy enough for someone to educate upper management about how demotivating these simple things could be and the degree of shift it would make if things change. Unless that gets into their minds, things will never change.  elizabethv
11/29/2017 8:47:27 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella - I think remote work only increases productivity for some. I personally, excel with remote work. I love it. I have no problem turning off distractions when I need to, including a whiny 3 year-old, and I can focus and get what I need to done. My husband, on the other hand, was just offered the ability to switch to working from home 4 days a week, and he declined the offer. Because even just the noise of our kids in the house would distract him from being productive. He almost goes stir crazy. Even if he tries to seclude himself from the rest of the house, he still manages to get distracted. So while I was ecstatic about the offer for him, he was not, and had turned it down before he even told me about it. C'Est la vie.
Ariella
11/29/2017 8:59:12 AM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@elizabethv I think my husband would find it the same way. He thought he should even go out after coming home because he says he can't concentrate with the noise of the household. I also don't think he'd like being in the house for so long and is used to the routine of going out to work 00 though his commute is insane in my opinion.
elizabethv
11/30/2017 5:46:43 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella - Yeah, commute is something else entirely. It's actually a big reason why we're trying to move out of Denver and to a smaller town. Anymore it seems like "rush hour" is a thing of the past, and one should expect traffic at all times of the day. Even when I work overnights I hit traffic going into work from time to time. It's almost worse in the middle of the night because you aren't expecting it and didn't plan for it - I shouldn't say that. I do now. So I look up traffic on my phone as soon as I wake up, to decide if I need to book it out of the house or if I can proceed with my normal schedule.
Joe Stanganelli
11/29/2017 10:35:13 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@elizabethv: I sympathize with your husband. One of the other problems of taking work-from-home days -- when your partner comes home from work and complains that not every single chore is done perfectly because "you were home all day!"
Of course, I'm sure you're not like that. ;)  afwriter
11/29/2017 11:04:56 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Joe, I feel that on a personal level. I work 60+ hours a week and take care of the kids and cook supper and clean the house, but I still get the, "You didn't vacuum?" It's semi-tongue-in-cheek, but I also joke that she thinks I sit around watching Ellen and eating Bon Bons all day.
Joe Stanganelli
11/29/2017 10:31:01 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella: Yup. Time and again commute length and happiness are directly inversely linked in studies/research.
Not to mention the decreased productivity that comes from being stressed out by your morning commute! ms.akkineni
11/26/2017 3:04:33 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@dcawrey:
I am one of the great supportes of flex work environment. However i would never support geopardizong 8 hour work day. I would prefer having little flexibility in terms of how that 8 hours can be accomodated, may be start early at home to beat rush hour and then arrive at work by 10am etc., whatveer works based on individual situations. Having an option to work remotely couple days would be a great option as well. I started a new job recently and am spending 4 hours for daily commute and not much flexibility, which is already triggering resignment. I didn't expect any company would be that rigid at this age before deciding.  batye
11/26/2017 10:29:18 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@ms.akkineni yes I could not agree as in my mind/opinion it will be the way of the future and very productive work envr. at the end...
afwriter
11/26/2017 10:36:07 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
Having that flexibility is nice. I usually work for four hours in the morning, then take care of home and family, and then work another four hours at night. It can sometimes be a challenge to stay on task and motivated but overall I think I'm happier because of the flexibility. As far as the eight hour work day, I think it should always be quality over quantity. There are a lot of people out there working forty hour weeks and doing less than 20 hours worth of work.
Ariella
11/27/2017 9:44:27 AM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
< As far as the eight hour work day, I think it should always be quality over quantity. There are a lot of people out there working forty hour weeks and doing less than 20 hours worth of work. >
@afwriter Absolutely! The problem is that managers often will equate seeing a person at work with the person doing work. But work offices are rather like school in that a lot of the day is not focused on the task of learning. That's why kids who are homeschooled can learn a whole day's curiculum in just an hour or two. The same can happen for some people working remotely, but they don't usually get the credit for that, and people are still stuck in the box in thinking that value should be measured in hours worked. Because of that, many are still in contracts to be paid by the hour even when they work remotely, and some deliberately stretch things out and even do other tasks online that their employers can even see with their software to capture images of their workers' computers, but they still do it.  vnewman
11/28/2017 10:25:57 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
I’ve expressed similar sentiments in other threads - I find it astounding that it is still acceptable and expected to pay people based on the passage of time. That’s essentially what you’re doing when you pigeon-hole people into a 9-5 regimine.
ms.akkineni
12/21/2017 2:30:21 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@afwriter:
You spoke my mind. There are still many mangaers that care about that 40 hour presence at work rather than the output produced. I strongly believe as long as an individual is able to deliver, nothing else should matter - Is that happening in 8 hours or being preent in the office. It is understandable if there is extremity on either sides. ms.akkineni
11/26/2017 3:08:20 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@dcawrey:
Forgot to ask in my earlier post, what do you think is the scary factor about? Just got curious. Are you referring in sense of losing that in person interaction and collaboration? Do you consider this to be a threat for diminishing professional relationships at work places? Asking as those are couple of legitimate concerns. dcawrey
11/27/2017 3:58:48 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@ms.akkineni It's the in-person interaction and collaboration aspect.
I think we're going to have a big problem if there's an entire generation that cannot work together in one room. Ariella
11/28/2017 9:17:14 AM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@dcawrey but today you can collaborate very efficiently without being person thanks to all the tools we have available without even buying special equipment. You can video-call, share documents, see changes others on your team are making to files in real change, etc. But some peop;le -- particularly extroverts -- put a great premium on being in-person and seeing the person in the flesh. They also feel more motivated and energized when there are people around them -- or else they just like the company when they feel like taking a break from concentrating on work and asking people about their weekend and holiday plans and the like. I think a lot of our expectations of workplace norms come from that.
 Kishore Jethanandani
11/28/2017 4:05:48 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella: Lately, I have heard more people emphasizing this idea of collaborating on-premise even if the workforce is spread around the world. It started with Yahoo whose CEO Marissa Mayer insisted that those working from home will need to come to office. Similarly, IBM which used a lot of off-site workers now wants them in the office or leave. This is so bizzare--Marissa turned out to be a terrible CEO with little to show by way of achievement. Similarly, IBM has not been the most innovative company. So where does this idea of on-premise collaboration come from?
Ariella
11/28/2017 4:11:22 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Kishore Good point! If he proof of the pudding is in the eating, then perhaps the proof of a CEO (like a coach) shoudl be demonstrated by the successful performance of the teams they lead.
 JohnBarnes
11/28/2017 9:56:09 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
Ariella, Kishore,
If I recall correctly --and going out there to look it up didn't turn up anything much -- there were some studies that showed that when people work from home, they tend to solve problems and submit finished work that reflects their old tried-and-true approaches. When they meet face to face to argue/discuss, it tends to force them further off the beaten bath. But I can't find the study that said that. Have I jogged anyone else's memory? Kishore Jethanandani
11/28/2017 11:10:25 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@JohnBarnes: I have not come across bosses who appreciate arguments. I correct myself, some are open to it. In any case, there is nothing to stop you from having a conversation or discourse or argument using collaboration software.
JohnBarnes
11/28/2017 11:14:11 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
Kishore,
That's strange. The couple of R&D environments where I worked for a while were places where the most productive discussions tended to be carried out in shouts, threats, and accusations, and the bosses knew it and only intefered if things got actually frightening. Difference of cultural style? JohnBarnes
11/29/2017 2:37:08 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
WHOOPS.
Kishore, I noticed I had a duplicated message (the joy of responding on a phone while out and about....), deleted one of them, and it was apparently the one on which your message (to which I was about to respond) depended. And that was actually the next message I was going to respond to! So ... reconstructing, and I hope doing so fairly, I think you thought the difference between my experience in a couple of R&D shops and yours in industry might be because it was in industry, but I'm wondering if the actual difference might have been just that the nature of research and innovation has changed a lot. Both my experiences were in private industry "skunk works", i.e. lab-type places dedicated to trying to do things that hadn't been done before (so in that sense relatively more "academic") but doing it in a sort of contained bubble within a much larger, more staid company. (In fact at the first one, our managers were constantly struggling to avoid having inappropriate metrics and goals imposed on us; the second was a somewhat better defended space). There's not nearly as much blue-sky invention, and a lot more recipe-engineering, in present technical advances. This probably means both a different kind of knowledge worker and a different kind of environment. Perhaps R&D culture just isn't quite as different from the rest of private industry as it used to be. At the moment I'm doing a quite small pilot data science project in an industry that hasn't had much data science in it before, and the market research person I report to and the IT person I get support from are both great, so organizational clash is minimal. (And since I'm the only person actually right there doing the specific project, I find I'm quite reasonable and almost always agree with myself). Kishore Jethanandani
11/29/2017 3:02:40 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@JohnBarnes: Agreeing with oneself has to be a delightful experience! I guess it is also about the composition of people. I was working in this cloud company as a contractor where one of the ladies pressed my case. She was thrilled with the samples I submitted enough to literally sing paeans to them in a meeting. On the other side, there was my boss who was hired after me, who was not pleased when I expressed my opinion that a term like "innovation gap" was not striking or appealing enough to attract attention. Something like "valley of death" would be more intuitive and striking. Later, when he had a chance to make a direct phone call to me, on the pretext that the company collaboration software was not working, he vented his spleen and ended my contract. Sadly, some mediocre people have a way of rising to the top.
Ariella
11/29/2017 3:47:20 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
< Sadly, some mediocre people have a way of rising to the top. > @Kishore too true! I've been in similar situations and also seen people get away with shamelessly copying my work and then having the company pretend they cared a great deal about it but not doing anything constructive on that front.
Kishore Jethanandani
11/29/2017 5:35:07 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella: Good to know it's not just me. The more perplexing thing is that these mediocre people are colleagues of much better people. I guess they managed to hoodwink them in interviews. Some weird psychology is at work.
Ariella
11/29/2017 5:41:41 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Kishore Yes, it's hard to know the real story behind some hiring and promotion decisions. I once has someone so incompetent that I thought she must have gotten through on some connection or a kind of skill that does not translate into her actual job. She lacked the requisite experience and the dedication to get things done by deadline.
 Michelle
11/29/2017 10:40:13 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella was this, by chance, a position in academia? I think academia has the most most mysterious hiring practices. Universities follow all the right rules on paper, but plenty of unqualified people end up in powerful positions even though they continually show they do not belong there. It's perplexing.
Ariella
11/30/2017 8:53:46 AM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Michelle You're right about a lack of transparency in academic hiring, though for adjuncts much of the hiring just boiled down to having a class open that needed an instructor and the instructor who did it the last time aroudn was not available. This particular case I'm thinking of was a digital publication -- not any of the ones related to this board, of course.
Michelle
11/30/2017 10:41:24 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
Ahh, I see. It's too bad about the publication person. I hope they find the way to a more suitable position...
batye
11/30/2017 3:13:31 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella this day you never know what is realy behind the story or if story the truth as this days everything could be manipulated or twist and turn around... sad reality of new mass PR age...
 dlr5288
11/30/2017 11:14:31 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
Yes exactly! It’s hard to completely trust the media these days. I do think they have moments of truth and fact in them. However, it’s hard to tell the truth from the elaborated moments.
batye
11/30/2017 6:18:24 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@dlr5288 yes, it becoming process where you have to check and recheck everything trying to sort out correct info/truth... and it no longer easy or simple... sad reality we living in this days...
dlr5288
11/30/2017 8:06:20 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
And it’s hard because that’s where i get a lot of my information from. Some days I’ll wake up and go right on Facebook and see what the news is for the day. Definitely hard to trust it all the time though...
batye
11/30/2017 10:12:24 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@dlr5288 I think it only get worst before it gonna get better as it like free for all and no one one asume responsibily and tell the truth right way... truth - not opinion about opinion... truth...
dlr5288
12/18/2017 6:27:16 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
Exactly! And a lot of the things you read today are opinion driven. Not necessarily facts. Still. To save time I’ll go on social media’s..
vnewman
11/29/2017 1:53:50 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@JohnBarnes I don't remember that study, but do you mean it in a negative way where it is either a distraction or leads them to second-guess themselves?
JohnBarnes
11/29/2017 2:19:41 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
vnewman,
I'm not sure which side of the argument is the "it" here, but the general idea as I understood it was that if you have everyone teleworking on a common project, they tend to be very conservative in their approach: they do what has almost always worked before, not least because they can count on everyone else to understand it. If you pile them into an office together, they're more likely to try more innovative things, supposedly because of less fear of being misunderstood and because of greater willingness to spend a while communicating about an idea before implementing it. (I can testify from personal experience that if you have a team scattered over remote locations, they are all acutely aware that by the time they see proposed ideas from each other, those ideas might already be implemented in draft, so rather than possibly make someone tear up their work, they let anything that isn't actively awful slide by). So the "back to the office" movement a decade ago, anyway, was claiming gains in creativity and innovation. (I think those are claims that should always be regarded with very deep suspicion, anyway -- they're not meaningfully measurable most of the time and there are such things as tiny-but-very-important innovations and gigantic bogus changes of language that managment mistakes for innovations). vnewman
11/30/2017 11:12:56 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@JohnBarnes - Well it is an interesting premise. I would have thought the opposite - that bringing people together in the group encourages "GroupThink" behaviors and stifles innovation a bit as people become afraid of expressing dissenting opinions. I guess it depends on the corporate culture and environment.
Joe Stanganelli
11/29/2017 10:28:12 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@John: If you find that study, I would be mighty interested.
I'm a big remote-work advocate, but I would tend to think that one that one aspect it could go the other way because of how prone people are to misconstruing each other's emails in the worst possible way. JohnBarnes
11/29/2017 10:45:17 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
Joe,
Found a roundup article with links to several studies (naturally I couldn't find it last night when I wanted to). There's something of a battle between "offices=interaction=creativity" and "office=death" that's been raging for a few years. For a good roundup on the former, see https://www.laserfiche.com/simplicity/turns-working-office-benefits/ One of the big gurus for "so go to the office already and stop living in your pajamas, will ya?" viewpoint is Dr. Keith Sawyer. He has a book or two out and gts quoted a great deal. Ariella
11/30/2017 9:00:09 AM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@JohnBarnes I didn't read your link, but having read a lot about what goes into creativity and different approaches, I would say that the "offices=interaction=creativity" school of thought only works for extroverts, and the "office=death" would be the position of many introverts-- particularly when subjected to open office plans.
. On the introvert side, we have Susan Cain, who quoted the following from Steve Wozniak's memoir iWoz (pp. 73-74) in her book Quiet: Most inventors and engineers I've met are like me – they're shy and they live in their heads. They're almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone where they can control an invention's design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don't believe anything really revolutionary has been invented by committee. If you're that rare engineer who's an inventor and also an artist, I'm going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone. You're going to be best able to design revolutionary products and features if you're working on your own. Not on a committee. Not on a team.
The flip side is the argument made by extroverts that forced interaction leads to synergy and greater creativity. Now introverts can also get ideas from others, but they do need to think through how they want to adapt them on their own.
vnewman
11/30/2017 11:25:19 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Ariella - I read that quote awhile back and posted it in my office - almost in protest to my boss who turned every single task into a "team" issue. In fact, she opened every email with "Team" even though there were only 2 of us in the department! After awhile I started to resent not being seen as an individual.
I'm an only child and extremely independent and self-reliant. I'm not really a team-player. Of course I will coordinate and cooperate when I need to depending on the situation but I prefer to produce work on my own. My liberal arts education did not emphasize teamwork as it is extroardinarily difficult to measure individual performace based on tasks/assignments produced by a team because clearly a few individuals end up doing most of the work and carrying the the rest. The United States is a very individualistic and competitive society. I get the push to collaborate more, but I think it's gone to an extreme now. Why not value the contribution of the individual when appropriate? Kishore Jethanandani
11/30/2017 6:32:16 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@Joe Stanganelli: Email has its limits and sometimes it helps to pick up the phone and talk. Better still, use Skype because then you can follow the body language. Whats more you can have multiple people join the conference. Half of human communication is about body language, tone, inflections, and such like.
ms.akkineni
12/21/2017 12:56:31 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
Agree with you that, in person interaction and collaboration has a lot to contribute in a team environment. For a typical virual team set up, they conduct weekly/monthly meetings to bring that factor in. But again these days virual team set up is very popular especially in areas of customer service, system support, server support and administration. To keep the interactions live and going, there are many tools available like Lync, Skype business etc. That seems to be working pretty well.
elizabethv
11/29/2017 8:55:04 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@ms.akkineni - That is an excellent perspective to take on moving to more flexible working environments! Our country is already seriously suffering from the lack of human interaction we receive now that we've moved online for non-work-related aspects of life. Add work-related aspects and it's going to go to shreds. Recently, my community created a Meal Wagon for a local family whose son had a fairly serious surgery that was going to require a long recovery. I volunteered to bring a meal. When I arrived at the house, the door was open, and I could hear people talking inside the house. But there was a note on the door that said, "please just place the food in the cooler on the porch." So I did. And proceeded to have zero interaction with anyone I had made the food for. By the varying voices, it was easy to tell there were 3 or more people, inside the house at the time. But they wanted me to put the food on the porch. I suppose they could have been changing bandages, or do something that required multiple people. But to me it still seemed cold. And entirely too planned. Did they always change bandages when the daily meal was delivered? If you look at online selling communities, many people have gone to a "porch pickup." And I am sure we all do it in the name of convenience. But we also do it at the cost of human interaction.
afwriter
11/29/2017 1:25:31 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
This is such a double-edged sword that I'm sure we could all go back and forth about. Anyone who has ever worked in service or retail will tell you that they have had enough of people for a lifetime. Still, there are a lot of great points on the benefits of being in the same room. I personally limit my human interaction because I have lost a lot of hope in humanity, even though I am a natural extrovert. I guess my position would be that human interaction is important, but I'm not sure how effective forcing on people is.
ms.akkineni
12/15/2017 2:20:41 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@elizabethv:
Wow, that is interesting as well as concerning to me. If i have someone bringing a meal for me, no matter what i would make sure to interact and say 'Thanks' at the least. You raised valid questions like 'do they change bandages at the same time evrey day, etc'. But even if they do so, how long it would take for someone to answer the door and acknowledge. elizabethv
11/29/2017 8:42:08 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@dcawrey - I think a lot of us are becoming flexible. And it isn't just millenials. My goal here within the next 6 months or so is to be completely away from my traditional job and just have a few jobs that make up that pay. The scariest part of it all is really where my insurance will come from at that point. But I'll handle that situation when the time comes. I know another mom who describes herself as a Jack of All Trades, because she'll take just about any job for some extra cash right now.
elizabethv
11/29/2017 8:37:24 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@mpouraryan - That doesn't surprise me in the least! I could tell they were making a move in that direction when I left my last customer service job and every response was being scripted based on what surveys had shown them customers wanted. If customer says x, you say y. If customer says y, you say z. It was ridiculous and I was happy to pack my bags and leave shortly after. Personally, I don't fall into the category of what the "typical" customer wants apparently. Don't patronize me by telling me you've experienced a similar situation. That doesn't make me feel better. Just solve my problem. Though I never did as well in customer service until I finally accepted that any complaint a customer had, wasn't truly personal. And when you can remove that instinct, to take attacks personally, your ability to succeeed in customer service increases ten-fold. But it's hard for humans to do. So that they are creating a computer to do it - that isn't surprising at all.
vnewman
11/29/2017 3:19:23 PM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@elizabethv - At my firm, IT was actually called Information Services to underline the importance of customer service. One of the hardest “directives” were we given per our CIO is as members of the IS department we were also PR agents for the firm’s systems, which frankly, weren’t always very reliable, seamless, or intuitive. That meant we could never seem to sympathize or agree with the user when they were having problems. Sometimes I just wanted to say - you know what - you’re right, this is broken, doesn’t work well, doesn’t make sense, etc etc. And sometimes I did. And sometimes I got in trouble. But for me, being genuine with my users felt much better than pushing the corporate technological agenda.
elizabethv
11/30/2017 5:54:42 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@vnewman - I love it! Sometimes I think IT people are some of the worst with customer service. That or they are the best. There seems to be few who exist in the middle. A few weeks ago I kept having issues logging into my bank account, for a week straight the only way I could get logged into my bank account was to change my password. I finally called to complain and the lady said, "Well, ma'am, passwords are case sensitve." Like this was my first time working with a password on a website and this was supposed to be news to me.
mpouraryan
12/1/2017 3:16:40 AM User Rank Platinum
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
What you underscored was further amplified by what I have shared througout my walkabout as underscored in this (for which registration may be required): https://twitter.com/ft/status/936393652565397504
Flexiblity is a good thing--but when one of the Time Magazine 25 best innovations is a Robot, it should give us all a true moment of pause.  clrmoney
11/27/2017 10:32:15 AM User Rank Platinum
Vodafone in the digital world
Isn't Vodafone the company that sells cellphones etc. With them wanting to get into the digital world will be a plus for them. I think it will be something new to add on to their company which means more revenue.for them.
Ariella
11/27/2017 1:59:50 PM User Rank Author
Re: Vodafone in the digital world
@clmoney the way it puts it on its site: "
 Where we operateWe provide mobile networks in 26 countries (including joint ventures and associates) and fixed services in 17 of these. There are 49 countries where we hold no equity interest but have partnership agreements with local mobile operators for them to use our products and services and in some cases our brand. JohnBarnes
11/28/2017 3:03:25 PM User Rank Platinum
Flexibility comes from sharing, which works against planning
There are tensions built into the process Morawski describes. If you let people be flexible enough to work in smart ways, that is going to mean allowing innovation out in the field, and people are going to come up with solutions, which they will then share with others; after a while everyone will have shared it, there will be no standard version, and the company will depend on it (this based on the experience of once tracking dozens of variants on a simple spreadsheet calculator as they spread through four large offices of a single company; never did find the person who wrote it first, but he made a mistake in the formula he used for standard deviation, and only some users found and fixed it!) You can have careful control over quality and standards, speedy innovation, and a get-the-job-done approach ... you just can't have all of them all at once all the time.
Kishore Jethanandani
11/28/2017 11:21:41 PM User Rank Author
Re: ...and as We Are Focused on "Digital Transformation"....
@JohnBarnes: That is so strange! Sounds like a pajama fight. Perhaps, the culture of an R&D institution. In industry, it is very rare to even have a discourse--you do what you are told. I am talking about the tech industry. Some of those bosses don't tolerate free discussion on Facebook.
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