Tag / online
Can 10 Minutes of Meditation Make You More Creative?
Photo by Toia Montes In more and more occupations, creativity is part of the job description. Whether you are trying to reconcile conflicting stakeholder priorities, finding a solution to a customer’s issue, or launching a new product line, your solution probably won’t come out of a textbook. But it’s hard to keep having great ideas day after day. What do you do when you run out of good ideas? How do you “get your mojo back”?
One increasingly popular solution is mindfulness meditation. Google, Goldman Sachs, and Medtronic are among the many leading firms that have introduced meditation and other mindfulness practices to their employees. Executives at these and other companies say meditation is not only useful as a stress-reduction tool but can also enhance creativity, opening doors where once there seemed to be only a wall.
To gain a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of short meditation sessions in boosting creativity, we looked first at the literature and then conducted our ..
A Survey of 19 Countries Shows How Generations X, Y, and Z Are — and Aren’t — Different
In the near future, three of the most studied generations will converge on the workplace at the same time: Generation X, the age cohort born before the 1980s but after the Baby Boomers; Generation Y, or Millennials, typically thought of as those born between 1984 and 1996; and Generation Z, those born after 1997, who are next to enter the workforce.
In a survey of 18,000 professionals and students across these three generations from 19 countries, we found some important differences in their aspirations and values. We hope that results from this survey, conducted by the INSEAD Emerging Markets Institute, Universum, and the HEAD Foundation, will be useful to companies seeking to retain, develop, and attract employees from these talent pools. However, it’s important to note that our findings are a snapshot of where these employees are at this moment in time; employees’ needs and expectations often evolve over the course of their careers, and we hope future surveys will update these findi..
Removing Friction In UX: Last-Minute Travel Planning And Activity Booking (A Case Study)
Most travellers make last-minute decisions, even though they spend significant time researching things to do before embarking on their trip. Finding a hotel and flight is relatively easy, but when it comes to tours and activities, the problem is that late or last-minute bookings are not always available.
And if they are available, the process of making a purchase online is often hard. The mobile experience can also be limited because many websites are slow or their booking process is long and complex.
The post Removing Friction In UX: Last-Minute Travel Planning And Activity Booking (A Case Study) appeared first on Smashing Magazine.
3 Ways Companies Are Building a Business Around AI
There is no argument about whether artificial intelligence (AI) is coming. It is here, in automobiles, smartphones, aircraft, and much else. Not least in the online search abilities, speech and translation features, and image recognition technology of my employer, Alphabet.
The question now moves to how broadly AI will be employed in industry and society, and by what means. Many other companies, including Microsoft and Amazon, also already offer AI tools which, like Google Cloud, where I work, will be sold online as cloud computing services. There are numerous other AI products available to business, like IBM’s Watson, or software from emerging vendors.
Whatever hype businesspeople read around AI — and there is a great deal — the intentions and actions of so many players should alert them to the fundamental importance of this new technology.
This is no simple matter, as AI is both familiar and strange. At heart, the algorithms and computation are dedicated to unearthing novel patter..
References Should Come from a Candidate’s Coworkers, Not Just Their Boss
One of the most common ways to reference check a job candidate is to talk with their former managers over the phone. In a traditional workplace defined by a clear hierarchy and static job descriptions, this type of feedback may be sufficient. But in today’s dynamic, knowledge-based workplace, where work is often accomplished by teams working closely together, is talking to a manager really the best way to assess a potential employee’s fit? They may be able to speak to a person’s performance, dependability, and level of knowledge about their industry, but can they accurately speak to their interpersonal work styles?
The feedback of others, especially coworkers, seems like it would be essential to understanding whether a person has the necessary skills to work effectively in a collaborative environment. For decades, coworkers have had their say in 360 surveys used for employee developmental purposes. The same can’t be said for reference checking, and until now, there has been no systema..
Firing James Damore Could Be a Setback for Google’s Diversity Goals
One of the mistakes CEOs often make with their diversity efforts is assuming everyone shares their goals. In my experience — consulting on gender with hundreds of companies — this is rarely the case. Leadership teams are usually not aligned on gender issues and objectives. And if they’re not, you can bet the rest of the organization isn’t either.
Gender balance is not a generally accepted goal. If you think it is, you haven’t been listening. Leaders need to acknowledge this — and meet people where they actually are.
For recent evidence of this, look to Google’s firing of James Damore. The software engineer sent a lengthy written commentary around the company, characterizing Google’s efforts to create a more gender-balanced workforce as an ideological crusade. The lesson companies should learn from this is simple. If you don’t engage with your “in-group,” their frustration and emotions will come out in the only space they feel is available to them: online, at the water cooler, in your..
Success with the Internet of Things Requires More Than Chasing the Cool Factor
Many companies begin an internet of things (IoT) journey with great expectations, only to end up with disappointing business results. Gartner recently estimated that through 2018 “80% of IoT implementations will squander transformational opportunities” and fail to monetize IoT data. And a new survey by Cisco found that one-third of all completed IoT projects were not considered a success. In my experience with dozens of organizations implementing IoT solutions, those that achieved their expected ROI changed their traditional business approaches in one or more of the following ways:
They Developed a Partner Ecosystem The essence of IoT is interconnectivity. Interconnectivity is about more than the connections between devices — it is about the connections between customers, partners, and suppliers.
Accordingly, IoT is driving a shift in business structures from a one-company-does-it-all model to a let’s-work-together approach. This means that companies must leave behind traditional mod..
How Consumer Brands Can Connect with Customers in a Changing Retail Landscape
When news broke earlier this year about Amazon’s courtship of some of the world’s biggest consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, it touched off a wave of speculation. Was the e-commerce giant engaged in a long game to alter the relationships between consumer goods makers and their brick-and-mortar retail partners?
However it plays out, Amazon’s outreach exposed a digital divide in the consumer products world. On one side is the growing interest of brands in direct-to-consumer (D2C) models. On the other side are persistent worries about conflict — not just with traditional distribution channels but also with retailers carrying the brand. To bridge this gap, we’ve identified seven tactics that pioneering brands have used to arrive at an effective digital strategy:
Understand how digital serves different consumer segments. Brands can deepen engagement by bringing people together for shared experiences. Kimberly-Clark, for example, specifically designed its Huggies rewards club to attract..
Analytics Training Isn’t Enough to Create a Data-Driven Workforce
Vincent Tsui for HBR When it comes to creating a more data-and-analytics-driven workforce, many companies make the mistake of conflating analytics training with data adoption. While training is indeed critical, having an adoption plan in place is even more essential.
Any good adoption plan should focus on continual learning. This might include online or recorded refresher sessions; mentors; online resources for questions, feedback, and new ideas; or a certification process. It might even mean rethinking your organization’s structure or core technologies. Based on my experience, here are three ways leaders can shift a company culture from a one-and-done focus on “training” employees in analytics to an “always on” focus on analytics adoption:
Form competency centers. At a high level, a competency center is a collection of domain experts who are given a goal to improve agility, foster innovation, establish best practices, provide training (and mentoring), and be a communications engine...
Are Sales Incentives Becoming Obsolete?
To motivate, manage, and reward B2B salespeople, many companies use sales incentive plans that link large commissions or bonuses to individual results metrics, such as territory quota achievement. As digital channels continue to reduce and redefine salespeople’s role in customer buying, these traditional sales incentive plans are becoming less effective at driving sales outcomes.
The right sales incentive plan creates a double win. Salespeople win because they are rewarded for their hard work and good performance. The company wins through a better-motivated sales team that produces short-term results and is more likely to achieve company goals.
For a sales incentive plan to produce this double win, there are two necessary conditions:
Salespeople must have a large impact on sales results by focusing on activities that add value and directly influence customer buying decisions. The company must have the ability to measure individual results by separating out each salesperson’s contrib..