Posted on

How a Decade-Old Game Helped Me Cope with Seasonal Depression | WIRED

During a bleary fall and winter, the open world of Skyrim gave me the motivation and joy I couldn’t find in the real world.
— Read on www.wired.com/story/skyrim-seasonal-depression/

About 10 to 15 percent of Maine’s population struggles with seasonal affective disorder, could we use a virtual primary and specialty care model and apply gamification staregies to reach more patients while balancing the warning signs of gaming disorder? As Martin’s Point next CIO, let me figure this out and reach the next generation of patients and provide care to our fellow Mainers and beyond.

Posted on

The CIO’s biggest challenge? It’s nothing to do with technology | ZDNet

CIOs need to rethink how they present themselves or they will be defined by others.
— Read on www.zdnet.com/article/the-cios-biggest-failing-is-still-holding-them-back-heres-what-they-need-to-change/

The new year is the traditional time for management gurus to start dispensing their wisdom to guide us through the next 12 months and this year has been no exception. 

Yet one thing I’ve noticed: CIOs are conspicuous by their absence from this horde. While there’s a lot of back-patting and self-congratulating from some business leaders, still IT chiefs tend to keep a much lower profile.

In many ways, the reticence of CIOs to talk big about what they do best is a reflection of the position they hold. More like a service provider than a business leader, CIOs have been expected to make sure – above all else – that the IT just works. 

SEE: Guide to Becoming a Digital Transformation Champion(TechRepublic Premium)

For all the well-intentioned talk from consultants like Deloitte and McKinsey about the need for modern CIOs to engage and innovate, the real proof-point of success for a tech chief is still a solid, secure and dependable technology infrastructure. 

Many CIOs are happy to let their work do their talking. If systems and services are online, then a large part of the job is done. 

This focus on operational stability has been truer than ever before in the past 12 months. CIOs have rightly pushed pioneering tech-led projects on to the back burner to focus on establishing cloud services and maintaining network uptime.

That was the correct focus, of course – the tireless efforts of IT chiefs and their teams meant businesses and their employees could carry on working in the extremely challenging conditions we have been experiencing. 

While the coronavirus pandemic continues to hold a tight grip on economies and societies, there is also hope that 2021 will eventually mark the start of a post-COVID era, with a radical change in the way we work and the locations we work from. 

For CIOs, this transition is another huge challenge to tackle. Boards are on the lookout for CIOs who can help shape the workplace of the future, says analyst Gartner, suggesting IT leaders are increasingly hired for their emotional intelligence not just their technical acumen.

Gartner’s research suggests CEOs want determined CIOs who make timely decisions while also displaying the emotional dexterity to be tactful and supportive to their colleagues and peers.

The analyst defines what those characteristics look like in a next-generation CIO: determination refers to a firmness of resoluteness and an ability to turn decisions into actions, despite how tough those calls might be; sensitivity, on the other hand, is the quality of feeling empathetic toward others’ difficulties and acting accordingly.

Future CIOs, in short, will think business first and technology very much second. They’ll focus on the issues their organisation faces – whether that is new working conditions, fresh customer demands or disrupted business models – and then work with their peers across the organisation to think about how technology might help provide a solution to these challenges.

Moving beyond digital change and towards this concentration on true business transformation means tech leaders will need to take a more proactive executive position. CIOs will need to work alongside their C-suite peers as trusted advisors, rather than just being IT managers who are best-known for delivering reliable services.

This transition in role and responsibility will be a bigger issue for some IT chiefs than others, especially those who still feel more comfortable tinkering in the data centre than talking in the board room. 

While there’s nothing wrong with showing a keen interest in the finer details of technology implementation, that’s not the kind of CIO the business needs. Gartner says the most in-demand leadership skills now and for the next 10 years are soft skills. 

The good news for CIOs is that the CEO’s desire to find determined yet sensitive leaders plays well into the tech chief’s core characteristics. While IT leaders might have been quiet in shouting about their successes traditionally, the past 12 months have shone a light on their quiet determination to get vital jobs done at a rapid pace.

As one CIO said to me recently, tech leaders are great at what they do; now is the time to just be a little bit more open about how they do it. CIOs must ensure they engage honestly and effectively about the challenges their team and the rest of the business faces. 

That’s something that resonates with Gartner, who says transparency is the most admired emotional dexterity leadership competency, followed by authentic communication and collaboration. 

Pioneering CIOs already use communications techniques to promote the work of the IT department and to create a two-way dialogue with the rest of the business. 

Some CIOs create regular newsletters to update the rest of the business on their team’s activities. This can also be used to prompt feedback on current issues and likely priorities.

Others run town-hall meetings that showcase the work of the IT department. These meetings often include a keynote speaker – such as the CEO or CFO – who reflects on the digital strategy being adopted by the business.

Whatever techniques they call upon, the key to success will be to stop worrying about infrastructure and to start embracing broader interest in IT. 

Laura Dawson, CIO at the London School of Economics, says she often thinks of that move away from traditional IT management as “shedding the cardigan”.

She says CIOs must take every opportunity to influence beyond their authority: “They must start being more confident and assertive and comfortable in the role.”

IT professionals looking to develop their leadership style must ensure that everyone everywhere knows how they and their teams will help the organisation to pursue its digital-led business transformation through 2021. 

You don’t need to be self-indulgent when it comes to self-promotion but you do need to make sure you’re determined to help the business meets its new objectives. CIOs have a good story to tell about the work they’ve done and the challenges ahead. And if you have a compelling story, you should be willing to tell it.

Posted on

2021 could be the year automation and AI truly accelerate the economy – Axios

Productivity growth has been stagnant for years, but new technologies are finally set to change that.
— Read on www.axios.com/productivity-growth-j-curve-automation-ai-23bf33a3-ebf9-4407-9668-006db8984497.html

Bryan Walsh  – Technology

The coronavirus pandemic hit the global economy hard in 2020, but the economy may be close to consolidating years of technological advances — and ready to take off in a burst of productivity growth.

Why it matters: Productivity is the engine that makes the economy grow for everyone. If long-gestating technologies like AI and automation really are ready to fulfill their potential, we’ll have the chance to escape the great stagnation that has choked our economy and poisoned our politics.

What’s happening: Hidden in part by the human and economic suffering of the pandemic, 2020 saw a collection of remarkable technological breakthroughs, including a mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 and advances in AI language generation.

Context: In a blog post published last month, the economist Tyler Cowen added in a few others, including affordable solar power and remote work, and asked whether total factor productivity (TFP) — a rough approximation of the effect technological and strategic progress has on economic productivity — in 2021 “will be remarkably high, maybe the highest ever?”

• Cowen’s musings matter because he literally wrote the book on “the great stagnation” — his term for the curious and persistent slowdown in wage and productivity growth in the U.S. over the past few decades, even as the internet and everything that grew out of it seemed to transform life as we knew it.

Flashback: After a few postwar decades of scorching growth, labor productivity began to decelerate sharply in the 1970s, and aside from a period of 3% growth in the mid-1990s to early 2000s — which economists attributed to the widespread effects of the computer — it’s stayed mired at about 1.2% a year ever since .

• Some experts have argued that conventional economic metrics fail to fully measure the productivity benefits of newer technologies like social media and the internet, but even so, they don’t compare to the advances of the past, like widespread electrification and antibiotics.

It looks increasingly possible that the last decade plus of sluggish productivity growth isn’t a sign that the benefits of new technology have permanently plateaued, but that businesses were using the time to invest in and adjust to those new advances — and that we may now be ready to reap the benefits.

• Economists like Erik Byrnjolfsson have argued that we’re experiencing a “productivity J-curve.”

• When powerful new technologies are introduced into the economy, productivity may flatten or even dip a bit as initial investments are made — the first part of the J. But once those technologies have been fully digested, productivity can swoop upwards — the second part of the J.

• That’s what we’ve seen in the past. Computers began to filter into the workplace in the 1970s and 80s, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that the productivity gains of all those PCs were finally felt.

What they’re saying: “Often times in the short term it can be costly to invest in new business processes and skills, and during that time you won’t see productivity rising,” Byrnjolfsson told me earlier this year.

• “But in the years after you’ll see the upwards part of the J, and COVID-19 has catalyzed the energy and creativity around this process.”

By the numbers: A survey by the World Economic Forum in October found more than 80% of global firms plan to accelerate the digitization of business process and grow remote work, while half plan to accelerate automation.

• About 43% expect those changes to reduce their workforces overall, which implies an expected increase in productivity.

The catch: If those gains don’t filter down to workers — or worse, end up eliminating jobs without replacing them with better ones — even a faster, more productive economy won’t ameliorate the inequality-driven political divisions that have dogged the U.S. in recent years.

The bottom line: As bad as 2020 has been, we may look back upon it as the year that finished the launchpad for a new Roaring ’20s.