Human brain power

If you're looking for capitulation in 2022, it's in the bond market. And that tells you that investors' confidence in the global economy is very low. Inside the stock market, it's all about defense. Defensive stocks, which include big healthcare companies and dividend-paying value stocks, have been driving the gains. An index of global defensive stocks put together by Goldman Sachs, which is heavy in healthcare giants, has climbed to more than an 18-month high relative to the MSCI AC World Index. Inside the U.S., the defensive ETF ticker DEF has been outperforming the Spider ETF SPY all last week and all year. For market watchers, this feels a whole lot like a recession trade. While investors in the capital markets are battening the hatches for a recession, money in the private markets is also drying up. The value of venture capital deals in the U.S. dropped more than 25% in the second quarter to just $1 trillion, according to Dealogic . M&A activity in the United States … [Read more...] about What the Business Cycle is Telling us About a Recession

When you’re hiring new candidates, how much do you prioritize cultural fit? Your answer to this question may depend on whether you’d consider your company’s culture a broth or a gumbo. advertisement advertisement A broth has exactly one consistency and flavor, while a gumbo features distinct ingredients, each one retaining its unique flavor while contributing perfectly to the overall taste. In my years within the DEI space, I’ve observed quite a few companies adopt a “broth” recruiting approach, vetting candidates based on how seamlessly they believe they’ll fit into their existing corporate culture. Ideally, this practice should revolve around assessing how well candidates align with a company’s values and vision. In reality, it may mean something more arbitrary—using the same jargon and lingo, laughing at the same jokes, adopting the “right” business casual look, etc. Some diverse candidates do check these boxes but many others do not—and their … [Read more...] about When the push for ‘cultural fit’ creates a DEI blindspot

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Jenna Kutcher is crystal clear on what she wants in life, and she’s figured out how to get it. This 30-something Minnesota mom treasures her at-home time with her husband and two little girls. She does the things other moms do—grocery shopping, struggling with nap time, keeping tabs on house repairs, cleaning up spilled Cheerios from the kitchen floor. For Jenna, there’s nothing in the world more important than the happiness and wellbeing of her family. She clearly embraces the adage that “no other success can compensate for failure in the home.” Stay-at-home Jenna is also one of the best-known social media influencers on the planet. After buying a $300 camera on Craigslist, Jenna became an award-winning wedding photographer. She loved that. But she dreamed a different dream and decided she preferred working from her cozy craftsman home in her yoga pants. To provide practical advice to other women entrepreneurs, … [Read more...] about This Goal Digger Can Help You Tap Your Own Potential

Bloomberg filepix for illustration purpose only - A + A KUALA LUMPUR (June 28): The Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) signed last month between Malaysia and Japan will see Malaysian workers going to Japan for work and to hone their skills further, so that they can contribute to the local labour market upon their return. Japanese Ambassador to Malaysia Katsuhiko Takahashi said the MoC did not mean that Japan is going to absorb labour from Malaysia. “The basic idea of the programme (MoC) is to make them work in Japan for a specific period of time (around three to five years), among others in the hospitality and agriculture sectors. Usually, after gaining skills, those Malaysians will come back to the local labour market. “This (programme) is not a system to absorb labour forces from Malaysia to Japan, but this is rather a value-added quality and journey where we provide them training and encourage them to come back and serve their own country,” said Takahashi … [Read more...] about Japan-Malaysia’s MOC to better equip skilled workers for labour market, says envoy

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Humans love telling things what to do. Anything we can establish, predict, and control — from computers to factories — we can program to get reliable, useful results. Biotechnology has matured to the point where scientists increasingly regard living cells as programmable, but not everyone agrees with using that term. By tinkering with and editing their genes to create all kinds of useful new products, molecules, chemicals and materials at scale, leaders in this field of synthetic biology promise to fundamentally reinvent the way we make things, driven by new and emerging techniques for editing DNA and the seemingly limitless productive potential of biology. Companies like Zymergen, Amyris AMRS , and Gingko Bioworks are some of those advancing this concept, which has become a basic tenet among many in biotech. "The core idea behind synthetic biology is that biology is fundamentally programmable, because it runs on digital … [Read more...] about Biotech Says It Can Program Life To Make New Stuff. Is That True?

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Here is a hack that will make you feel more confident in your job search: the interviewer and hiring managers are more nervous than you are. It’s hard to wrap your mind around this concept, as people are indoctrinated to think that job seekers should be the ones who are nervous and anxious going into an interview. They worry about being judged. Job hunters must contend with the shame of not moving onto the next level in the interview process. Even worse, they don’t receive feedback and get ghosted. The hiring process feels—to the job seeker—like the company, human resources, management and internal talent acquisition professionals hold all of the power. What Hiring Managers Obsessively Worry About A supervisor needs to hire. They want to make sure that the applicant possesses all of the requirements listed in the job description. The interviewer also wants to feel that they can click with the candidate and forge a … [Read more...] about Surprise: The Hiring Manager Is More Anxious Than The Job Seeker

The machine learning boom is here, and it's only going to get bigger. When the pandemic decimated workforces and limited in-person interaction, artificial intelligence tools helped companies increase productivity. Industries such as hospitality , healthcare , and energy have all benefited from recent A.I. innovations, but there's more disruption on the horizon. I nstances of businesses using automated experiences are increasing, and automation is expected to grow in both the metaverse and in how companies pursue environmental, social, & governance (ESG) initiatives, according to Pranay Agrawal, co-founder and CEO of A.I. services and analytics provider Fractal. Here are three predictions from Agrawal on some of the next big steps for A.I. Customers will expect more from automation services. When the pandemic hit and businesses scrambled to adapt to a digital world, automation became much more commonplace in everyday life. People became used to seamlessly … [Read more...] about 3 Predictions for How A.I. Will Change Business Practices in the Near Future

Simone Galimberti (The Jakarta Post) Kathmandu   ● Wed, January 27, 2021 2021-01-27 01:44 518 0920e6703081f028872405a52611af54 3 Opinion ASEAN,COVID-19,recovery,plan,sovereignty,ASEAN-secretariat,EU Free With the ASEAN recently presenting its own pandemic recovery plan, officially the ASEAN “Comprehensive Recovery Framework and its Implementation Plan”, the entire region has a unique opportunity to reboot its integration process. Fully enforcing the recovery plan would certainly provide impetus to the idea that the wellbeing of the people living in the region is intrinsically linked to an ASEAN that, as an institution, must necessarily be stronger and far more united than it is now. Are the leaders of the region aware that the long-term implications of having the recovery plan realized might foresee a new scenario requiring more integration and consequentially a possible erosion of their nations’ sovereignty? Perhaps the heads of government and state … [Read more...] about ASEAN recovery plan: Business as usual?

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Melissa Fortunato is an FBI Special Agent and Crisis Negotiator. Over the course of her career, she’s been involved in a number of high-stakes scenarios that required her to lean heavily on the skills of negotiation. She joined Negotiate Anything to share her most exciting stories, as well as her best advice for winning in everyday negotiations. The Importance of a Full Assessment Prior to entering a negotiation, it’s important to complete a full assessment of your counterpart. This may require more time than expected, but the outcomes will be worth it. Fortunato shared how she once went so far as to “marry” her undercover colleague just to get closer to a group of targets. She invested the time (months legitimizing her cover) which then presented a perfect opportunity for building connections: a wedding. For Fortunato, conducting a full assessment meant finding strategic ways to connect with the targets in order … [Read more...] about Negotiating Like A Pro: Tips From An FBI Special Agent

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Automation is the key to unlock large, sustainable advantage in firms across sectors.. Big data can be a big nothing without a strategic automation approach. On one hand, we’re in a heady time of information richness, with unprecedented volumes of data on everything from equipment performance to consumer social-media behavior ( more than half of all global citizens are on social media ). But without thoughtful automation – the use of machines and algorithms to handle, process, and analyze available data – your business will lose out on large potential opportunity. Done well, automation transforms “dead” big data into a living, breathing resource you can use to drive value. So it’s no surprise many businesses aim to automate anything that can be automated , as one top Google exec said recently. To help you think about automation in your business context, I present the three main ways this technology-driven … [Read more...] about Automation Is Critical For Your Business – But Use With Care (Part One)