Thoughts on Data, Culture, and Organizational Development
I love the pics insta sends my fees of really slick desk setups. Would love to be one of those people with the really nice. The thing is, I don’t think mine will ever get there. It tends a bit messier than I’d prefer. The reality is mess is where the work happens. So while I’d love a photo worthy desk, I don’t think it’s in the cards for me. Have some work to do.
What about you? Is your desk clean or do you have some projects to roll through?
I’m running an experiment this year. Anytime there is something that is simple and might be delegated, I see if it can be automated by tech instead of given to an intern.
I’ve been hesitant to do this over the past year due to a value for developing others, so i’m also looking for new ways to intro others into a career that involved more valuable and less busy work.
My start on it was a report I get daily. We’re in the O365 platform so I used Power Automate to
1. drop the pdf to Sharepoint
2. archive the email
3. when a new pdf shows up use a trained ai model to pull data
4. add the data to an excel doc
It’s a daily 5 minute task that won’t have to be repeated by anyone ever again. The way I figure it I’m saving about $140 per month on that one task.
AMA.
I’ve been thinking about AI a little more lately after some recent conversations. Since OpenAI launched ChatpGPT, it’s arguably taken more investment dollars relative to the return than any other investment vertical in history.
There’s a lot of buzz around it. Buzz is fine and value is better. I’ve spent the past several months working within a few AI driven tools and here’s the thing i’ve found. What’s here today, is not tomorrow’s answer. This is not a statement about the quality of the tools, it’s an assessment of the stage of the industry. We’re still incredibly early.
Let’s take co-pilot in office as the example. It’s fine and it’s limited. If I want to write a formula faster then that’s great. It does that. Honestly that’s not where most of my brain energy is spent though. Email, it’s kind of terrible. Doesn’t have the context I do for what I’m writing to the point that my feedback to Microsoft one night was that “A monkey on cocaine could write an email better than this.” Really I was missing the point. It’s a Co-Pilot, it’s not going to do my job for me yet. At the same time a human co-pilot would be better.
Predictively guessing at what I want to say next has been a thing for years that Google already gave us. When you think about how you work, that feature isn’t really that helpful.
So, as i’ve had opportunity to use it, the better value has been found in applying that to automated tasks I don’t like. Stuff like:
-capture the data from this pdf report into excel every afternoon
-find empty time on my calendar and preschedule this
-give me the tasks from this meeting
Writing my email for me though? That’s a ways off. So the question is, what’s the IRR we’re looking for on this money being thrown here and how can you capitalize on the models beyond basic use of a Chatbot GPT?
For those of you who don’t follow this type of stuff….LastPass was breached. http://blog.lastpass.com/2022/12/notice-of-recent-security-incident/
First, why does that matter to anyone? It’s a good question if you don’t follow any security news, or maybe don’t know what LastPass is exactly. The short version is it’s largest company that allows you to store passwords for all your things online. If you’re like me you already see the problem here, but to make it clearer I’ll just say that 30 Million people use this service to keep their passwords safe and secure. That kind of treasure trove is like the internet version of Smaug the Dragon’s horde of gold in the Hobbit. You’re just inviting attacks, and that’s exactly what happened.
Why would you store your passwords online? Well, there are other alternatives for how to store your passwords.
Continue reading “LastPass and What To Do Next”If Only I could clone myself
Every week at 3pm on Thursday afternoon I send an email to my staff….the only thing is that I don’t actually send it. My clone sends it.
Continue reading “Office 365 and Business Automation”
A while back I was looking into AI a little more heavily after finding some interesting use cases. Mainly two with Crisis Text Line and Bark. At some point I ran across Hannah Fry and her book “Hello World”. One of her arguments in this book speaks to algorithms and is a good understanding of ethics surrounding the creation of technologies.
Continue reading “Technology keeps growing and it gives me hope”
Full disclosure before I start. I’ve always been a bit of a Windows fan. That said I’ve also been an Mac fan. I sit typing this on my Surface Book while my Mac Book Pro that I use regularly is in the other room, my iPhone is beside me, my son is watching a show on our iPad, and my android tablet is in the bedroom. I’ve said it before, I’m a technology agnostic. Whatever you use to get the job done doesn’t matter as long as Continue reading “Trading Scalable for Happier Users?”
1. Google Chrome Launcher is tool that will allow you to open Chrome apps like Flowdock from your taskbar. (Think start menu for google apps)
a. It may install when you install Chrome
b. If it doesn’t
c. Open Chrome
d. Sign On from the Control Menu in Chrome
e. If you weren’t asked and it still isn’t installed, go http://chrome.google.com/webstore/launcher
f. If App Launcher isn’t an option from there, then go to StartAll Programs Google Chrome
g. Right click App Launcher from there and select pin to taskbar
h. If you still aren’t able to find it go to http://chrome.google.com/webstore/launcher
i. It should install and allow you to pin it to the taskbar
I have a confession. Secretly…I’ve always been intrigued by the Chrome Book. There’s something about moving fully to the cloud. I’ve never pulled the trigger. Mainly, because I love my local storage. Probably comes from being born pre-90’s. The cool thing is, I don’t have to have the constant tug of war of what it would be like to move to a Chrome Book.
Why?
Because the combo of Google’s Genius and Windows 8 is amazing. Google was wise enough to create a “middle ground”. They have created an App Launcher (shown below) that if you install Chrome, you can utilize the same way you would launching an app on the Chrome Book.
That’s not all though!
There’s also an option to launch Chrome in Windows 8 mode, which gives you a full desktop version (start section shown below). Essentially it’s what you see when you start up your Chrome Book for the first time.
I plan to post setup instructions next week for those interested in using this type of feature. Until then, I’m interested to hear if anyone has made the switch to something like a Chrome Book or other cloud hosted device. Let me know how your experience has been.
Last year I went with a few guys to a Hackathon called Code For the Kingdom. You can read about it here. The next event in Austin is happening this weekend. This is a great opportunity if you’re in the Central Texas area and you have any experience with development, graphic design, business, movie, and game creation. Come by and participate.
Register today and join us at the 2014 Austin Create for the Kingdom Hackathon