by Gary Mintchell | Jul 26, 2024 | Personal Development
Publicity people deserve much empathy. They often undertake considerable work and ingenuity to meet the goals of their client’s over-optimistic marketing plans.
I accidentally got on a press news list. Few people check for compatibility. They just send me stuff.
This is one of those. Far from my core interest, but perhaps useful to some of you in your personal life and travels, comes news relevant to your smart phone. I’ve had no problems with my carrier traveling over much of Europe, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Mexico. But perhaps you have had either difficulty connecting or discovered exorbitantly high bills for the few days in another country.
Enter a South African company called Know Roaming. Their product is an eSIM for your smart phone. An eSIM, short for embedded SIM, is a SIM card that’s built into your smartphone and cannot be physically removed. Unlike traditional SIM cards, which require swapping when changing carriers or traveling abroad, eSIMs are programmable directly onto your phone.
Depending upon your travels, this could be a solution well worth checking out.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 19, 2024 | News, Personal Development, Productivity, Workforce
- • ResumeTemplates.com Survey Finds ChatGPT Helps 4 in 10 Users Get Raises, as Workers’ Fears of AI Fizzle
- Workers report that ChatGPT helps them save time, complete tasks more efficiently, and increase their productivity
Everyone performs surveys these days. This company would not normally hit my radar. ResumeTemplates (think CV, not beginning again) provides a platform for free professional resume templates and examples. It recently surveyed 1,666 employees in the United States in order to determine the extent of usefulness or fear of Large Language Model (LLM) AI. Namely they questioned use of ChatGPT.
600 of the 1,666 reported using ChatGPT at least once a month. The survey is based on results of these 600.
According to the survey, 36 percent of workers use ChatGPT at least once a month at work. Specifically, 22 percent use it daily, 12 percent weekly, and 2 percent monthly. Workers primarily use ChatGPT to summarize documents, summarize topics, and write emails. Other common uses include brainstorming, interpreting data, writing articles or content, and translating text.
These types of results often drive my skepticism meter toward red, but they are interesting. Define saving time…
These ChatGPT users claim the AI tool has helped them save time at work. Notably, 16 percent of workers report saving one to two hours per week, 22 percent save three to four hours, and 30 percent save five to eight hours. Additionally, 11 percent save nine to 10 hours, and 18 percent save more than 10 hours per week. With the time saved, 94 percent of respondents say they reinvest “all” or “some” of that time back into the company.
“Workers report that ChatGPT assists them in completing assignments more quickly and delivering higher quality results,” says ResumeTemplates’ executive resume writer and career coach Andrew Stoner. This combination creates a win-win scenario for employers and workers, and I believe signals an eagerness on the part of workers to learn and adapt to new technology.”
Survey findings also suggest a significant impact of ChatGPT on respondents’ professional careers. In fact, 38 percent report earning a raise as a result of using ChatGPT. Furthermore, workers say ChatGPT has led to faster task completion, increased productivity, reduced stress levels, and enhanced problem-solving capabilities. Looking ahead, workers believe ChatGPT will continue to benefit their careers by helping them secure promotions, raises, more advanced roles, and better job offers.
View the complete report.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 17, 2024 | Personal Development
Cal Newport, computer science professor and author (Slow Productivity), noticed a sign while on book promotion tour in England regarding the noxious effects of overly processed food, aka junk food.
The message caused a companion thought—junk food for the mind. He had been thinking about how social media, over reliance on smart phones, and the like have corrupted the minds of many throughout the world.
What foods do you allow to fill your appetite? (In my case despite watching what I eat, I just drank 16 oz. of sugar—fruit juice plus ginger ale—just before a blood test. Really stupid.) Normally, I am careful about what goes in.
Likewise, what do you allow to fill your mind? Social media or quality fiction and poetry? TV or walking in nature?
Let us maintain a healthy body and mind.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 4, 2024 | Personal Development
Every year I suggest that all Americans take some time to read a few things to refresh our memories about the founding of our country. It’s probably not a bad practice for all of you who do not live here just for the ideals.
Read
- The Declaration of Independence
- The Preamble to the Constitution
- Actually the entire Constitution
- If not all, at least the first 10 amendments—the Bill of Rights
- Bonus points—read The Federalist Papers
These documents are full of compromises—something that has made it last so long. And something we seem unwilling to do this past decade or so.
by Gary Mintchell | Jul 2, 2024 | Personal Development
My “spare time” after thinking about industrial technology and applications involves thinking about how we grow and become mature human beings.
As humans, we like to believe that we are ruled by reason, but the truth is that our imagination and senses affect us much more than we realize.
Descartes corrupted Western thought with his maxim, “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore, I am). His thinking removed the spirit from Western thought. People became captivated that we are all rational beings.
Wrong.
Neurologist and neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, wrote about his research in Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.
Emotions play a crucial role in our outlook, decisions, relationships. How often have you made a major purchase impulsively only later justifying it with reason? Let me guess—too often.
We first recognize and deal with our emotions and then think. Do not fool yourself.
by Gary Mintchell | May 29, 2024 | News, Personal Development
Typically these posts discuss technology trends through the lens of a company’s press release about some “hot, new, breakthrough” product. Most of the time these discuss upgrades and incremental improvements. That’s all good, just unfortunately falls short of the usual marketing hype.
Sometimes I come across something important for our (yours, mine, and someone you know) personal development. Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant is a must-read book. Weaving research, analysis, and stories, Grant takes us through a number of steps and processes to help us find our hidden potential. The value extends beyond ourselves to those we parent, mentor, coach, or teach. Helping others develop is a joy beyond description.
He discusses at one point the value of teaching character traits exceeds the subject matter. I appreciate the validation. I spoke for 30 years about how when training young people to become soccer referees that I was teaching beyond just the Laws of the Game. I taught those 12-15-year-olds how to show up on time, be properly equipped, make decisions, stand up for yourself in the face of the inevitable complainers. I see many on Facebook or LinkedIn who are successful engineers, teachers, coaches, and more in their own right. I hope I helped them in my own low-key way.
Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, where he has been the top-rated professor for seven straight years.
To quote from the description on Bookshop.org:
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again illuminates how we can elevate ourselves and others to unexpected heights.
We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.
Hidden Potential offers a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations. Adam Grant weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid storytelling that takes us from the classroom to the boardroom, the playground to the Olympics, and underground to outer space. He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess–it’s about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the character skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked.
Many writers have chronicled the habits of superstars who accomplish great things. This book reveals how anyone can rise to achieve greater things. The true measure of your potential is not the height of the peak you’ve reached, but how far you’ve climbed to get there.
