HR is a crucial part of every business, and you need the right tactics if you are going to have a positive outcome on your business from your HR efforts.
Showing posts with label automation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label automation. Show all posts
Monday, April 23, 2018
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Over the years, several companies in different sectors of the economy have lost so much money and suffered heavy losses for several reasons. Some of these reasons include machine downtime and human fatigue. As humans, we all have our breaking point, a point above which we just can't work or function at our best. This has led to an increasing reliance on machines to carry out tasks at the workplace.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Artificial Intelligence
According to a recent report by Hubspot, the number one issue that companies face when it comes to online marketing is gaining traffic and converting them into leads or sales. While the internet is rising and more individuals than ever have access to the internet, you’d think companies shouldn’t have these issues.
Unfortunately, less than 50% of businesses in the United States do not have an official website and the majority are focusing more on their social media channels than they do on their own website. This is one of the most crucial factors that are contributing to the low traffic rates that many companies face today.
On the plus side, the latest advancements in online marketing tools are utilizing artificial intelligence to improve the results businesses obtain through their digital marketing efforts. These developments are making it easier than ever for businesses to have their own spot on the internet and to place themselves in front of the competition. Companies are also able to save a lot of time by using AI-enabled tools to automatically post new content on their websites, social media channels and to distribute information directly to their subscribers. In this post, we’ll explore the many ways artificial intelligence in online marketing tools and strategies, and discuss how this technology is helping business owners grow their companies and brands.
Automated Website Designers
Molly (created by The Grid) and Sacha (created by Firedrop) are two examples of how artificial intelligence and web design have been combined to empower businesses and even professional individuals to create their own presence on the world-wide-web. Wix also recently introduce a brand new AI-powered website builder, named Wix ADI, to help companies build websites without having to do anything themselves. These platforms offer a simple, yet powerful system that asks the user a couple of questions and then creates a unique website that perfectly fits in with their specific brand or business. One of the most significant develops is Sacha, a bot that actually chats with the user and creates a website while the user is having a conversation with “her” – live.
Community And Influencer Platforms
Businesses are often using influencer marketing to reach more customers. This has been an effective marketing strategy for the last few years and it is growing more popular. Many platforms have also been launched that uses artificial intelligence to connect businesses with influencers in their industries. Both influencers and businesses are able to sign up to these platforms and connect to their blogs, as well as their social media accounts. The artificial intelligence technology then analyzes and classified each of the users, and then recommends suitable influencers to a business or internet entrepreneur.
Automated Content Creation
Content creation is one of the most important parts of running a business, especially when it comes to the internet marketing. Content includes text, video, audio, and images – all working together to reach an audience on different channels. Unfortunately, the process of creating content is time-consuming and can cost a company a lot of money when it is outsourced. Some writers charge as much as $25,000 to produce a single page of content for a landing page. Hiring a professional to produce a marketing video can cost as much as $50,000 or even more. Designers charge an average of $399 and higher to produce a simple infographic, which is now considered to be an effective marketing medium. Artificial intelligence has made the process of producing content faster and easier, and much more affordable. Many platforms, such as the Automated Insights system, can produce content that seems like it was created by humans based on simple data inputs. Utilizing such a system could cost a company less than $1,000 per month, which often gives them unlimited access to content-on-demand.Related articles
E-Mail Automation
Another element of internet marketing that artificial intelligence is being incorporated into is e-mails and e-mail marketing. A lot of companies and internet entrepreneurs have to filter through thousands of emails every day, which can cost them a lot of time – and, as we all know, time equals money. To speed up this process, e-mail automation can be used. These tools utilize artificial intelligent to “read” through emails and then automatically filters all the emails. The tool will also learn how the user interacts with their emails and how they respond to different types of emails. Eventually, the tool will be able to automatically reply to emails for the user and present any emails to the user that they personally have to attend to. Any emails that do not seem to be important will be filtered into a folder that the user can go through at their own convenience.E-mail automation also utilizes artificial intelligence to send e-mail newsletters and updates to the subscribers of a company’s blog based on the subscriber’s specific interests. There are different techniques that are used to accomplish this goal. For example, a subscriber’s IP address may be collected by the tool, accompanied by a list of topics they read on the website. The tool will then automatically send them an email whenever a new topic is posted that is related to any of the topics they have read on the website before. The tool could also ask the subscriber about their interests and automatically e-mail them with a link to a new article that is related to their specific interests. These are, however, only a handful of ways that artificial intelligent technology is being added to e-mail platforms to improve the productivity of marketers and to help them get more done in a single day.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence has been an excellent addition to the online world, especially when it comes to creating a presence for a company on the internet and promoting their online presence. From bots that automatically publishes content to a blog to tools that connect companies to the best audience, growing a company online has become easier than ever – the key is to utilize these tools and to take action.By  Vivian Michaels | Embed |
Author Bio - Vivian Michaels is a huge tech enthusiast who likes to write articles on evolving technology. He is also a Fitness coach with a sincere desire to help people achieve their individual fitness goals. | |
Friday, September 9, 2016
Robotics
A Seattle-based startup has announced that it has used an industrial robot to sew together a T-shirt, achieving the long-sought goal of automation for garment production. Sewbo’s technology may allow manufacturers to create higher-quality clothing at lower costs.
Sewbo Inc., a Seattle-based startup has announced that it has achieved the long-sought goal of automated sewing, by using an industrial robot to sew together a T-shirt. This milestone represents the first time that such a robot has been used to sew an entire article of clothing.
Related articles
The technology, once more fully developed could spell the end of the Asian sweat shop, according to some. More than two-thirds of Southeast Asia's 9.2 million textile and footwear jobs are threatened by automation technologies like Sewbo's. Eighty-eight percent of those jobs are in Cambodia, 86 percent in Vietnam and 64 percent in Indonesia."Our technology will allow manufacturers to create higher-quality clothing at lower costs in less time than ever before."
Despite widespread use in other industries, automation has failed to find a place in clothing and apparel manufacturing due to robots’ inability to handle limp, flexible fabrics.Sewbo has overcome these obstacles by temporarily stiffening fabrics, making it easy for conventional robots to build clothes as if they were made from sheet metal. Afterwards, the process is reversed to produce soft, fully assembled garments.
“Our technology will allow manufacturers to create higher-quality clothing at lower costs in less time than ever before,” said Jonathan Zornow, the technology’s inventor. “Avoiding labor issues and shortening supply chains will help reduce the complexity and headaches surrounding today’s intricate global supply network. And digital manufacturing will revolutionize fashion, even down to how we buy our clothes by allowing easy and affordable customization for everyone.”
Sewbo performed their breakthough using an off-the-shelf industrial robot, which they taught to operate a consumer sewing machine. Having successfully proved its core concept, Sewbo is now expanding its team and working towards fully commercializing its technology.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Businesss
Along with being a path to innovative products and services your start-up can sell, technology can also be used by your company to reduce costs, and keep you running lean and mean.
Are you paying more than you need to in overhead costs? A lot of businesses are, and technology can fix the problem. Here are seven ways you can reduce your company's expenses, and start taking home more in profits.
Related articles
Switch to Newer Apps
You could use a fancy accounting service. Or you could sign up for a service that handles billing and legal issues for less than what you spend on coffee per week. You can find apps for nearly any task imaginable, all handled through your browser or mobile device.Launch an Affiliate Program
A solid affiliate program can bring in more money than you ever thought possible. Find one within your industry, or create your own. Affiliate marketing can bring in six figures alone, per year.Get a Degree
Just knowing more about how technology impacts your business can make a huge difference in your overhead costs. So can knowing how to use it to your advantage. A degree in online masters in business analytics, for example, may help a lot.Recommend Products to Offset Web Costs
You may have noticed company blogs linking to recommended products. This is part of an incentive program with companies like Amazon. It only works with some styles of business, but it may be an option. |
| With costs decreasing, even small businesses can look to automation, like Rethink Robotics Baxter to help them keep costs low. |
Use Automation to Lessen Man Hours
Why spend more time and money than is necessary, when you can just automate some of the business processes that normally go to an employee? Automation apps are all over the web these days. From drip emails to payroll auto-pay, you will find something you can use.Go For Free Wherever Possible
You could spend hundreds on a software that gives you conference calls. Or, you can use Google Hangouts and have up to ten people on the line, with video or audio calling straight from your phone. Never pay for something you can get for free.Consider Green Technology
Putting up solar panels on your office may seem very expensive at the time. But they are a long term investment that makes a big difference. As are low flow toilets, energy saving bulbs, and climate control systems. Just the tax breaks alone could make it worth the change to green tech.Why Pay More Than You Have To?
Businesses can greatly benefit from technology, and cutting overhead is only one way. These seven tips will help you to reduce your daily, monthly and annual fees. Which means more profit to push you deeper into the black.| By Lizzie Weakley | Embed |
Author Bio: Lizzie Weakley is a freelance writer from Columbus, Ohio. She went to college at The Ohio State University where she studied communications. Lizzie enjoys the outdoors and long walks in the park with her 3-year-old husky Snowball.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Technological Unemployment
Many types of activities in industry sectors have the technical potential to be automated, but that potential varies significantly across activities. Those are the main conclusions of a detailed new study on the effects of automation on the global economy from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
A newly released study from McKinsey & Company postulates that automation will eliminate very few occupations entirely in the next decade, but it will affect part of almost all jobs to a greater or lesser degree.
Related articles
As the report point out, automation, is now going beyond routine manufacturing activities, and has the potential, as least with regard to its technical feasibility, to transform sectors such as healthcare and finance, which involve a substantial share of knowledge work.
The study is a detailed analysis of 2,000-plus work activities for more than 800 occupations compiled from data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. "We looked at every single activity that we pay people to do in the economy," says McKinsey Partner, Michael Chui.
As the study shows, even when machines do take over human tasks and activities in a job, it does not necessarily spell the end of the jobs in that line of work. Actually, their number at times increases in occupations that have been partly automated, because overall demand for their remaining activities has continued to grow.
"One of the biggest technological breakthroughs would come if machines were to develop an understanding of natural language on par with median human performance."
In one example, the widespread adoption of bar-code scanners and associated point-of-sale systems in the United States in the 1980s reduced labor costs per store by an estimated 4.5 percent and the cost of the groceries consumers bought by 1.4 percent. The technology also enabled a number of innovations, including increased promotions. But cashiers were still needed; in fact, their employment grew at an average rate of more than 2 percent between 1980 and 2013.The study also finds that just because an activity can be automated doesn’t mean that it will be. The broader economic factors still need to be considered. The authors point out that the jobs of bookkeepers, accountants, and auditing clerks, require skills and training, so they are scarcer than basic cooks. But the activities they perform cost less to automate, requiring mostly software and a basic computer.
The full report, will be released in early 2017, and will include data from several other countries, but a few initial findings are already out in public.
"One of the biggest technological breakthroughs would come if machines were to develop an understanding of natural language on par with median human performance," state the authors.
If computers gain the ability to recognize the concepts in everyday communication between people in jobs like retailing for example, such natural-language advances would increase the technical potential for automation from 53 percent of all labor time to 60 percent, find the authors. In finance and insurance, the leap would be even greater, to 66 percent, from 43 percent. Healthcare would also be impacted. "While we don’t believe currently demonstrated technologies could accomplish all of the activities needed to diagnose and treat patients, technology will become more capable over time," state the authors. "Robots may not be cleaning your teeth or teaching your children quite yet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t in the future."
Want to know if your job is about to be automated away? The McKinsey report includes an interactive map on Tableau Public, where the report data from more than 800 occupations can be assessed for the extent the jobs could automated using existing technology.
As Chui and co-authors James Manyika and Mehdi Miremadi conclude,
It is never too early to prepare for the future. To get ready for automation’s advances tomorrow, executives must challenge themselves to understand the data and automation technologies on the horizon today. But more than data and technological savvy are required to capture value from automation. The greater challenges are the workforce and organizational changes that leaders will have to put in place as automation upends entire business processes, as well as the culture of organizations, which must learn to view automation as a reliable productivity lever. Senior leaders, for their part, will need to “let go” in ways that run counter to a century of organizational development.
As technology continues to develop, robotics and machine learning will make greater inroads into our jobs that today have only a low technical potential for automation. The authors agree that new techniques are also enabling safer and more enhanced physical collaboration between robots and humans in what are now considered unpredictable environments. These developments could lead to automation of more activities in sectors where human skills are still required, such as in construction. Artificial intelligence can be used to design components in engineer-heavy sectors.
Monday, July 11, 2016
Technological Unemployment
Millions of jobs in Southeast Asia, especially in the textiles industry may be lost to automation in next two decades, according to a new report from the International Labour Organization. About 137 million workers or 56 percent of the salaried workforce from five key countries, fall under the high-risk category, the study showed.
Potentially more than half of workers in five Southeast Asian countries are at high risk of losing their jobs to automation in the next two decades, an International Labour Organisation (ILO) study found. New technology will make those in the garments industry particularly vulnerable.
the International Labour Organization (ILO) conducted more than 330 interviews, 4,000 enterprise surveys and 2,700 student surveys across Asia, as well as extensive secondary research to better understand how disruptive technologies may reshape the landscape of labour in the region.
"Robots are becoming better at assembly, cheaper and increasingly able to collaborate with people."
Fifty six percent of the salaried workforce from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam—about 137 million workers—fall under the high-risk category, the study showed. "Countries that compete on low-wage labour need to reposition themselves. Price advantage is no longer enough," said Deborah France-Massin, director for the ILO's bureau for employers' activities. The report said workers have to be trained to work effectively alongside computers and robots.
Of the nine million people working in the region's textiles, clothing and footwear industry, 64 per cent of Indonesian workers are at high risk of losing their jobs to automation, 86 per cent in Vietnam, and 88 per cent in Cambodia.
Garment manufacturers in Cambodia, who take orders from retailers such as Adidas, Marks and Spencer and Walmart Stores Inc, employ about 600,000 people.
Related articles
Vietnam is also witnessing record investment in its footwear and textiles industries, due to new free-trade pacts with major markets, including the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is the second-largest garment supplier behind China to the United States.The United Nations agency said technologies including 3D printing, wearable technology, nanotechnology and robotic automation could disrupt the sector. "Robots are becoming better at assembly, cheaper and increasingly able to collaborate with people," the ILO said.
The textiles, clothing and footwear (TCF) sector is at the highest risk of automation out of five industries analyzed in the study, including automotive and auto parts, electrical and electronics, business process outsourcing and retail.
In the automotive and auto parts industry, more than 60 per cent of salaried workers in Indonesia, and over 70 per cent of those in Thailand face the risk of their jobs being displaced.
Southeast Asia's automotive sector, the seventh-largest producer of vehicles in 2015 globally, employs more than 800,000 workers, the report said.
Thailand, known as the "Detroit of Southeast Asia", is a regional production and export hub for the world's top car makers. The auto sector accounts for around 10 per cent of Thai GDP and employs a 10th of its workers in manufacturing.
The report concludes:
Across all the sectors examined in this paper, technological advancements and innovations are challenging the existing order. Jobs – particularly in low-skilled, labour-intensive sectors – will be displaced by technology and global supply chains may start experiencing a period of flux as production relocates closer to purchasing markets. We are also witnessing the emergence of new markets, new jobs and even new sectors that mostly require higher levels of skills.
Friday, June 5, 2015
Self Driving Cars
| Senior design expert Donald Norman asks what's worse, bad drivers or bad robot drivers and comes up with a firm answer—the sooner we can get automated cars on the road, the better. |
Donald Norman has been trying to help designers create human friendly devices and interfaces for years. This includes the mobile technologies that now contribute to some of the most dangerous habits we deal with today—distracted driving.
"I am fearful of the rapid rush toward full automation and have published numerous articles about the difficulties we will face because of the mismatch of the automation and human behavior," writes Norman in a piece for LinkedIn. "However, I am even more fearful of the rapid rise of distracting devices installed in automobiles, mounted on dashboards, worn on the wrist or body, or carried on seats, pockets, and laps of drivers."
In the United States over 30,000 people die each year in automobile accidents. Over 1 million are injured. In the world, the World Health Organization estimates deaths at over 1 million and injuries between 20 and 50 million.
Self driving cars, like Delphi's that recently drove across the United States, today remain largely a research and development activity, however some estimates predict they will be common on our roads before 2020. Managing all the complexities of city driving and adverse weather conditions remain areas where the technology needs to be made better, prior to mass adoption.
Meanwhile people continue to produce large number of deaths and injuries in their vehicles. Making matters worse is the rise of distracted driving. While drivers adjust the temperature in the car, tune the radio, or try to send a text message, distractions take their attention from the road for considerable time. As Norman points out, at 60 mph (100 kph), in one second the driver has gone roughly 90 feet (30 meters). In the city, at 6 miles/hour (10 kph), this translates to 9 feet (3 meters): one second of distraction is more than enough to crash into another vehicle hit a pedestrian.
"Today’s imperfect automation is preferable to today’s distracted and imperfect drivers. The sooner we can get automated cars on the road, the better." |
Automation is imperfect, but it is continually getting better. Distractions are dangerous, and continually becoming more pervasive, more numerous. This leads to the obvious conclusion: Today’s imperfect automation is preferable to today’s distracted and imperfect drivers. The sooner we can get automated cars on the road, the better.
Laws don't work either according to Norman. "I predict that within the next decade, automation will be good enough to reduce the number of accidents and deaths in the world. More importantly, automation will be on an ever-increasing trajectory of improvement in safety and reliability."
When should we switch to automated vehicles, asks Norman. "As soon as we are determine that automation can significantly reduce deaths and injuries. We will need to do controlled tests in order to know that the cure – automation – is indeed better than the ailment – human drivers."
| Related articles |
The increasing number of distractions for drivers like infotainment systems and the every increasing number of new devices, tempt drivers and take their focus off their primary task. "Imperfect driving is potentially more dangerous than imperfect automation," writes Norman. "Add to this the other benefits to those today who are unable to drive: the elderly, the handicapped, and of course the blind."
Norman is the director of the newly established Design Lab at the University of California San Diego (which is doing research on automated vehicles), co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group, professor (Harvard, UC San Diego, Northwestern, KAIST, Tongji), business exec (former VP at Apple and executive at HP), on company boards and company advisor, and author of best-selling books on design: Emotional Design
, Living with Complexity
, and the highly influential Design of Everyday Things
.SOURCE LinkedIn
| By 33rd Square | Embed |
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Economics
| Since the inception of this blog, Ray Kurzweil and Andrew McAfee (along with Erik Brynjolfsson) have been constant intellectual thought leaders for our readers. Recently the two were interviewed on Radio Open Source. |
On a recent interview on Radio Open Source, host Christopher Lydon talked to Ray Kurzweil and Andrew McAfee about the potential for a future jobless economy. This is a discussion this blog has anticipated for some time now, with two of the intellectual inspirations for 33rd Square sharing a dialog.
Along with Erik Brynjolfsson, McAfee, a principal research scientist at MIT and associate director of the MIT Center for Digital Business. has written two books on the future of work and economics: Race Against the Machine
and The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
. The conversation starts with what McAfee and Brynjolfsson call the “Great Decoupling,” the possibility that machines are beginning to destroy more jobs than they can create.
Between 2000 and 2014, the median U.S. income has actually dropped: from $55,986 to $51,017. "There is a lot of evidence that the middle class is getting hollowed out," McAfee tells Lydon.
| Related articles |
The discussion looks at the questions about what Brynjolfsson and McAfee call the "superstar" economy, with big gains at the top, and stagnation and falling back at the middle and bottom. Increasingly too, automation—mechanical and now increasingly with artificial intelligence and machine learning is replacing jobs. This replacement rate appears to be increasing too.
As the Great Decoupling continues, the replacement of human work with machines will only accelerate, for two reasons: computers will keep getting cheaper over time and digital labor will become cheaper than human labor not only in the United States and other rich countries, but also in places like China and India.
"Off-shoring is only a way station on the road to automation," write Brynjolfsson and McAfee.
For instance, the number of American routine jobs dropped by 11 percent between 2001 and 2011. A new study by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne at Oxford University suggest that 47% of U.S. jobs might be vulnerable to loss by automation.
As a more optimistic view, Kurzweil looks at the great potential benefits of technological growth. He comments that education and our technologies help us to be smarter, and essentially race with the machines.
"Our horizons continue to change," he says. "We are going to continue to change by making ourselves smarter." Enhancing our abilities with technologies is a consistent theme with Kurzweil.
"The majority of jobs today didn't exist a quarter century ago," Kurzweil reminds Lydon. He suggests that technologies like 3D printing are allowing our jobs to be more creative. Looking further ahead he comments that, "the economy is going to become a coexistence of propriety forms of information, and open-source forms," he says.
McAfee is not quite so optimistic. "There are some trends that are worrying."
He suggests the technologies of Abundance will come, but the transition period may be extremely difficult for the great majority of workers. Abundance is far from being a mass phenomenon he states. Distribution is a core issue.
"This stuff called money still has an important role in the society," says McAfee. "how we are going to make sure people have enough of it to buy the stuff that still cost money that is going to become a more pressing issue."
"I agree that we are going to see very little and less over time absolute physical misery—starving in the streets. I do still think there are things that are expensive, and are going to continue to be expensive, in the short to medium term, and ignoring that seems a little blithe." |
McAfee totally agrees with Kurzweil when the subject turns to transhumanism. "Our humanity is not our biology," he reiterates.
SOURCE Radio Open Source
| By 33rd Square | Embed |
Thursday, September 19, 2013
| Almost half of US jobs could be susceptible to ex over the next two decades, a study from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology suggests. |
Nearly half of US jobs could be susceptible to ex over the next two decades, a study from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology suggests.
The study, echoing the book, Race Against the Machine,
was a collaboration between Dr Carl Benedikt Frey (Oxford Martin School) and Dr Michael A. Osborne(Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford), found that jobs in transportation, logistics, as well as office and administrative support, are at “high risk” of automation.More surprisingly, occupations within the service industry are also highly susceptible, despite recent job growth in this sector.
| Related articles |
The study examined over 700 detailed occupation types, noting the types of tasks workers perform and the skills required. By weighting these factors, as well as the engineering obstacles currently preventing computerization, the researchers assessed the degree to which these occupations may be automated in the coming decades.
The paper's authors make note of the fact that both machine intelligence and robotic dexterity are improving dramatically. Moreover, sensor capabilities are also further extending the potential for automating tasks.
What can we do to prepare for this? Osborne and Frey suggest that, "as technology races ahead, low-skill workers will reallocate to tasks that are non-susceptible to computerisation [sic]–i.e., tasks requiring creative and social intelligence. For workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills."
SOURCE Oxford Martin School
| By 33rd Square | Subscribe to 33rd Square |
Friday, February 22, 2013
Robotics
| MIT Researcher Annie Holladay has taught her PR2 robot to use both hands when dealing with complicated objects. Such advanced robotic programming will be necessary if we are ever to have household robots. |
At this year's IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, the premier robotics conference, students in the Learning and Intelligent Systems Group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory will present a pair of papers showing how household robots could use a little lateral thinking to compensate for their physical shortcomings.
In the video above, MIT senior Annie Holladay demonstrate and describe how her algorithm helps the Willow Garage PR2 robot adapt by using both of its arms instead of just one.
SOURCE MIT News Office
| By 33rd Square | Subscribe to 33rd Square |
