• IN TODAY’S WORKPLACE, surveys find up to two-thirds of candidates saying they “will accept a job offer only if they know and agree with a company’s purpose,” and that 90% are willing to trade a percentage of their lifetime earnings for greater meaning at work. [ECONOMIST- WORLD AHEAD 2023] Employee recruitment & retention is primarily – even more so than compensation – related to meeting workers’ “emotional & psychological needs for work to be interesting and meaningful, absence of frustration felt when being micromanaged or anger experienced after being treated unfairly, and a sense of reward when they accomplish something.”  A global survey of nearly 50,000 people found only 16% who rated ‘high income’ as more important than having an ‘interesting’ job, and that, regardless of income level, ‘well-being’ at work (including being part of a group) is one of the most important factors in decisions whether to stay or go.  “Employer practices that can make an enormous difference include: (1) Recognizing competence with regular feedback oriented toward problem solving; (2) Giving workers discretion over appropriate decisions; (3) Allowing time for employees to socialize and build connections; (4) Discussing goals to explain the ‘why’ behind tasks and instill meaning to their work.” [McKINSEY QUARTERLY – 6/28/22]    DCG have decades of experience in developing strategies to attract, motivate and retain employees. Let us help.
  • ABOUT TIME! SOME SENSIBLE POLITICAL STEPS ARE FINALLY BEING TAKEN FOR CYBERSECURITY. None dispute that TikTok is a tool of espionage, controlled and used by the Chinese Communist party to collect data on American users, spread political misinformation, and represents a threat in varying degrees to national security.  A Trump-era order that sought to ban the app altogether was repealed by the Biden Administration, instead calling for ‘broad review’ of the platform. But, exasperated by delay, (1) Congress just voted to at least bar federal employees from accessing the app on government devices; (2) The app is also now banned on military devices; and (3) Six Governors so far have now signed orders blocking the app from State electronic devices. Responsible parents should especially do their best to educate and keep kids away from TikTok.  [WASHINGTON EXAMINER – 12/13/22]
  • BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE (BCI) – converging Brain Science/ Artificial Intelligence/ Computation/ & Robotics – is now on a fast track toward high-bandwidth connection through the cloud. Near term implications are help for neurological disorders including spinal cord injuries, epilepsy, vision & hearing loss. Already, Neuralink (another Elon Musk company) digital devices have helped people with paralysis and restored vision, after “insertion of electrodes in the brain through a small hole in the skull, as easy as Lasik surgery.”  Blackrock Neurotech implants have also allowed a stroke patient to ‘write’ messages through brainwaves read by AI. It’s been nearly four decades since development of Cochlear hearing implants, but technologist & Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that BCI will emerge full scale in this next decade.  [PETER DIAMANDIS – 12/18/22]
  • DIRECT CONFRONTATIONS WILL BE INCREASING BETWEEN OUR FOUR LARGEST STATES, which represent over a third of U.S. population and of national GDP. The issues reflect “opposing ideologic divisions, embodying the idea that America is becoming increasingly split.” California & New York have similar models, with high taxes, regulations and a generous social safety net; Florida & Texas have the opposite. All four have singular political party control over governor & legislative (along with 33 other ‘trifecta’ states), which allows “partisan policy experiments that do not reflect voters’ will – like liberal green-energy/ abortion/ undocumented immigrant benefits, versus conservative fuel production/ no income tax/ and barring investment decisions based on environmental or social principles… This year, battlefronts will be numerous – from immigration enforcement to abortion, and in Governors’ rivalry as next presidential contenders, imploring voters to choose which vision best serves the whole country in 2024.” [ECONOMIST – WORLD AHEAD 2023]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

“Software controls the world – from business operations to smartphones to engines to nuclear weapons – with Programmers being the critical piece of future advances.  But a new Artificial Intelligence system, developed by researchers under Google’s parent company, are closer to having AI actually write computer code. In testing and competitions, ‘Alphacode’ solved over a third of challenges, utilizing computing power for “tens of billions of trillions of operations per problem.” [SCIENCE.ORG – 12/8/22]

“Reality is messy. Real life does not fit today’s media narratives, where every person and story is pushing a concept of some kind, where facts are subordinated to false narratives engineered with a takeaway in mind, to be viewed through an ideological lens, with transparent attempt to influence behavior…  In broadcast news, magazines, newspapers, and ‘content’ that goes viral on social media, the narratives feel manipulative, intended to advance agendas, and so often are flat-out false – telling us stories about how the world isn’t more than how reality is.”  [THE FREE PRESS – 12/14/22]

“America has no problem with speech. It has a problem with listening. Focusing on the right to speak rather than the obligation to listen substitutes the easy question for the hard one, and a freedom secured by law for a discipline that must be instilled by culture. It also ensures that any debate remains futile…  Media tend to default to framing their purpose in terms of protecting the right to speak – as though their purpose is meant to serve their interview subjects and op-editors – rather than of protecting readers’ opportunity to understand the world.”  [ECONOMIST – 12/24/22]