Information Today’s Featured Book of the Month is by my friend Mike Gruenberg. It’s a good read and a balanced approach to all sides of the negotiation and relationship table by an experienced and talented expert.
Buying and Selling Information
A Guide for Information Professionals and Salespeople to Build Mutual Success
by Michael L. Gruenberg
Both sides of the negotiating table are represented in this practical and much-needed guide by Michael Gruenberg, a veteran of the electronic information field. With over 30 years selling information to a wide variety of libraries, Gruenberg’s time-tested tips, techniques, and strategies will be welcomed by both information professionals and sales professionals. The author’s personal stories are geared to helping librarians and salespeople understand what the “other guy” is grappling with in order to achieve the best possible outcome for everyone.
Stephen
Artificial Intelligence is held up as a potential replacement for librarians. In the past the measurement was the Turing Test (Yes, that Turing – the one portrayed in the Oscar nominated film this year). The Turing Test is that the AI has to convince a panel of judges that it is a person (famously a 13-year-old boy named Eugene who speaks English as as second language). An AI or two has passed that test.
Other AI systems are quite specific – like Watson (here and here) which does well in certain domains (Jeopardy, lung cancer treatment) and might not be able to pass the 13 year old Turing Test (but not many people could work passably in librarianship at 13).
Here’s the list of questions that Facebook proposes to test AI. I think it’s interesting as we see innovations in interfaces that focus on questions versus retrieval of lists and potential answer candidates. The Holy Grail, is, of course, a service that provides (actual) answers and not just candidates for answers.
“Developed by a team in Facebook’s AI lab in New York, the questions test whether a system is “able to answer questions via chaining facts, simple induction, deduction and […] more,”according to a research paper published on arXiv. The researchers believe that “many existing learning systems can currently not solve them.”
All told, the team has put together a series of 20 questions that test different types of reasoning and the ability to process language. Some are simple questions that require the recall of facts, while others require the answerer to count objects through the use of language, manipulate timelines or reason about the qualities of objects.”
Stephen
A peek into the mind of the CEO:
What CEOs Are Afraid Of
https://hbr.org/2015/02/what-ceos-are-afraid-of
- “The biggest fear is being found to be incompetent, also known as the “imposter syndrome.” This fear diminishes their confidence and undermines relationships with other executives.
- Their other most common fears, in descending order, are underachieving, which can sometimes make them take bad risks to overcompensate; appearing too vulnerable; being politically attacked by colleagues, which causes them to be mistrustful and overcautious; and appearing foolish, which limits their ability to speak up or have honest conversations.
- About 60% said those first three fears affected behaviors on their executive team, although 95% said that executive team members had a very limited view of their own fears. About two-thirds believed they had “some” self-awareness.
- The five top fears resulted in these dysfunctional behaviors: a lack of honest conversations, too much political game playing, silo thinking, lack of ownership and follow-through, and tolerating bad behaviors.
- Asked to think about the fallout from those dysfunctional behaviors, the executives mentioned more than 500 consequences. Those mentioned most frequently were poor decision-making, focusing on survival rather than growth, inducing bad behavior at the next level down, and failing to act unless there’s a crisis.”
Stephen
Reading Among Teenagers in Decline: INFOGRAPHIC
http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/reading-among-teenagers-in-decline-infographic/99575
“Almost half of seventeen year-olds who read for fun at the age of nine have stopped reading, according to The National Book Foundation’s BookUp organization.
BookUp has created an infographic called, “Reading Among Teenagers in Decline,” outlining a decrease in readership among teens.”
Stephen
3 things that will change user experience design in 2015
http://mashable.com/2015/02/24/user-experience-design-2015/
“If 2014 was dubbed the “year of the customer” then 2015 is surely the “year of experience.” Here are three key trends that will reshape the corporate landscape in the year to come (and beyond).
1. Power has shifted to consumers and their experience matters
2. Enlightened vendors will take responsibility for the entire experience
3. Design thinking and lean soup isn’t just for startups”
Stephen
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