Category: Learning

AI and deciding to go to University…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Education, Information Technology, Learning, Life, university

What do you say when a youngster comments that it’s pointless taking on a Student Loan to attend university when AI will deliver knowledge faster, cheaper, and on demand? The Badger faced this dilemma a few days ago when his nephew, an intelligent, motivated, tech-savvy youngster striving for good exam results to study a STEM subject at his first-choice university, said exactly this. He’s starting to doubt if university is the right path given the expense, the ever-developing and impressive capabilities of AI, and the potential struggle of finding a graduate-level job after graduating. Many youngsters in the same position probably have similar bursts of doubt, but what did the Badger say in response to his nephew’s comment?

It seemed essential to respond with something objective, balanced, and relevant to the fast-changing world of today and the foreseeable future. The youngster is completely digital native and already dealing with the day-to-day reality of AI. He’s finding this makes decisions like going to university more difficult, but the Badger thinks deciding to go to university is something that should not be influenced by advancing AI capabilities. The gist, therefore, of the Badger’s response to his nephew’s comment was as follows.

Youngsters would be nuts to go to university if the only thing they wanted was to accrue expert knowledge/information, because AI will deliver that faster, cheaper, and conveniently on a device in their bedroom at home! The real value of university is in the accrual of knowledge/information with everything that’s wrapped around this. AI can tell you facts and help you learn, but university teaches you how to argue, critique, question, navigate institutions, defend a position, collaborate with strangers, work with those who disagree with you, and to handle stress, deadlines, and ambiguity. It’s the dealing with pressure at university that gives you identity and self-discipline. These aspects are very important because graduating with a degree signals to others, especially employers, that you can operate in a structured system, work with others, and apply yourself to achieve deadlines and good results. Furthermore, you don’t become a mature adult by sitting in your bedroom with a chatbot! You become a mature adult by leaving home, negotiating shared living, budgeting, dealing with conflict, failing and then recovering, gaining exposure to ideas that you didn’t choose, and discovering who you really are. AI gives you answers, but university provides answers and an environment that shapes your identity.

The Badger’s nephew was thoughtful for a moment before admitting that their main worry was how long it takes to find a graduate-level job after graduation (see here and here). He’s especially worried that AI means dire employment prospects when he graduates. The Badger’s advice? If university is your dream, then follow it and become an educated, disciplined adult with the strength of character to face the challenges ahead, if and when they arise…

Required leadership qualities – Competence, Consistency, Clarity, Communication and Charisma…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Education, Information Technology, Leadership, Learning, Project Management, social media, Training

Early in the Badger’s IT career before the internet arrived, training for delivery people – project and team leaders, and technical staff – took place face to face in a group led by a senior delivery person and a professional trainer. Such training was often a one or two-day event conducted away from the hubbub of the workplace so that participants were not distracted by their normal work activities. At one course the Badger attended, participants were challenged to express the qualities that the members of project teams look for in their delivery leader. Participants, all team, or project leaders with various levels of experience, had ten minutes to produce five words for discussion with the course leaders and the wider group.

Many found it more difficult than expected because they struggled to think about delivery leadership from the perspective of team members who were not, and never aspired to be, leaders. Nevertheless, at the end of the exercise and subsequent discussion, the group converged on the following five words as required leadership qualities: Competence, Consistency, Clarity, Communication and Charisma. These words became known as the 5Cs and provided the theme underpinning the rest of the course. Whilst their context related to what delivery people look for from their delivery leader, the Badger’s found over the years that they are a good reference point for what to look for in leaders more generally.

The Badger’s worked for, and with, many senior leaders of all kinds over the years. They all had different personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. Some were more competent than others, some were more consistent and clearer than others, and some were better and more inspiring communicators than others. None were extroverts, but they all had a charisma that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. Underpinned by the 5Cs, the Badger considered some as much better leaders than others. There’s lots of broader and more detailed information available about the traits of good leaders, but the Badger’s routinely used the simple, qualitative, 5Cs as his mental ‘initial leadership quality’ checklist over the years to shape an initial opinion – which sometimes has subsequently changed. Sometimes, however, that initial opinion has not been very flattering and has not changed.

With the 5Cs concept in your psyche, you can’t help but use it to judge leaders who regularly appear on broadcast or social media even though you’ve never met them. Inevitably that’s unfair, but rather than relying on instinct alone, the 5Cs provides some structure in forming an opinion about where that person is on the POOR to GOOD leadership qualities spectrum. Ego, wealth, and having a powerful position is not the same as having good leadership qualities. For example, any leader who rants publicly and profanely on social media is unprofessional and sets a bad example for online behaviour. Someone with GOOD leadership qualities would never do this…

Rage against the screen…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Education, Engineering, Information Technology, Learning, Lego, Life, Online Safety, social media, Transport

The Badger’s 6-year-old grandson likes trains! Books about trains, Brio train sets, and Lego trains are favourite toys, but seeing and riding on real trains brings a special sparkle to his eyes. He loves to watch steam engines chuff along the Watercress Line, see historic locomotives in museums, ride miniature railways at visitor attractions, and travel on the regular trains that commuters use every day. He’s fascinated by how trains work, which is great, but his persistent questions about ‘how’ and ‘why’ can sometimes be wearing!

Last weekend the Badger and his grandson did something that didn’t relate to trains. We visited the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum, a small place with a number of static military jets as well as memorabilia from when Tangmere was a World War II RAF fighter base. The visit spawned an observation about 6-year-olds that he had not anticipated. At each exhibit there’s a computer that can be used to engage with the exhibit’s story, pull up photographs, and watch film clips. At many exhibits it’s possible to sit in the cockpit, peer into the fuselage, and use a computerized simulator. The Badger’s grandson observed that planes are engineered and work differently to trains!

It was all fun, but the Badger noticed that his grandson preferred using the computers rather than engaging physically with the exhibit itself. For example, the Canberra has part of the fuselage removed so visitors can easily lean in to see the environment around the pilot and crew. Adjacent to the jet is a computer showing images streamed from a camera mounted inside the fuselage. The camera can be panned through 360 degrees using a mouse and the user can zoom in on any part of the pilot and crew area. This 6-year-old used this computer rather than physically looking inside the fuselage. This preference was clear with other exhibits too. Seeing that ‘the screen’ had a greater pull with the youngster than exploring the exhibit physically made the Badger uneasy. If youngsters in their early formative years prefer screens to engaging with the physical real world, then we should surely all be worried.

On the car radio driving home, the Badger listened to the CEO of Mumsnet, being interviewed about Mumsnet’s ‘Rage against the Screen’ campaign which is calling on politicians to ban social media for under-16s, stop Big Tech using data to target children with addictive algorithms, and to put children’s safety and wellbeing ahead of platform profits. The Badger found himself agreeing with the points made. In the UK, you must be 16 years or older to do many things (see here), so why not ban social media for under 16s? If the Badger’s grandson is already ‘virtual rather than physical world first’ at the age of 6, then ‘Raging against the Screen’ is surely a campaign that needs to succeed…   

‘Do what’s necessary to fix this fast’ – Would you be up for the challenge?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership, Learning

Here’s a situation. A contractor has a large fixed-price contract to develop a major system (hardware and software) that’s crucial to the client’s business. The project is in serious difficulty. Contracted deliverables to date have been of poor quality and late. Lots of software has been developed but there are severe test and integration problems. Hardware from a subcontractor is also late, exacerbating the difficulties. The client has constructed a new building which has been sitting idle for six months waiting for the new system to be installed. They are threatening punitive litigation. The project is causing the contractor significant, company-level, financial damage and resolving the situation has become a business-critical issue. Client and contractor executives have agreed that the contractor has one last chance to deliver the system and avoid litigation, ostensibly because unrelated matters within the client’s wider enterprise have delayed for some months when the building must become operational.

If you, an employee of the contractor not associated with the project, were asked to ‘Do what’s necessary to fix this fast’, what would your reaction be? The Badger once pitched this scenario and question to a group of IT sector project managers. Their responses were interesting. Most of those with cost-plus project management experience said they wouldn’t take on the challenge because being associated with a problem project might damage their career prospects. Others said they’d accept the challenge but only if it were accepted that their need to review the project, establish committees, and rebuild stakeholder management meant it was unlikely the project could be ‘fixed fast’.

Only one person, someone who had run a couple of modest fixed-price contracts, said unequivocally that they’d take the challenge. When the Badger asked them why, their response was – ‘If you’ve successfully run software and hardware intensive fixed price projects then you’ve learned that you’re a highly focused, demanding, disciplined and decisive individual with limited patience. You’ve learned that you need to be respected by your team and your client but not necessarily liked. You’ve learned the importance of dynamism, belief, team spirit, and having a positive attitude, and the importance of looking forward and taking speedy action to head off emerging threats to success. You’ve also learned that decisions must be good ones but not necessarily popular, and that ‘No’ is an immensely powerful word. Having learned all this, taking on the turnaround of a seriously troubled project threatening the company seems like a great personal opportunity rather than a foolhardy thing to do’.

The Badger smiled. Here was a kindred spirit! Fixing troublesome projects is always a challenge and a great opportunity to expand one’s capabilities. The contrast in attitude between those with cost-plus and fixed-price contract PM backgrounds was stark. If you were asked to ‘Do what’s necessary to fix this fast’ today, would you be up for the challenge?

A musing about social media and ‘Black Friday’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Education, Information Technology, Learning, Legal matters, Security, social media

It’s ‘Black Friday’ in the UK on Friday and High Street and online businesses are marketing their ‘epic deals’. This year the Badger’s received a plethora of email notifications from organisations warning to be wary of online shopping scams as ‘Black Friday’ approaches. One from a UK bank has the opening line ‘Did you know that 70% of online shopping scams start on social media?’  Yes, the Badger already knows this. It’s just one of many facts about social media that illustrates that diligent wariness is necessary when using these platforms.

Today the public feel uneasy about the world which is the most unsettling and unstable it’s been for decades. Global tensions abound. Politics is highly polarised. Economies are fragile. Conflict abounds. Shocks are more frequent. Power seems to rest with the handful of billionaires that dominate the digital world, and so on. Earlier this week, the Badger and a plumber friend chatted over a seasonal mince pie and coffee about factors that may have facilitated the instability the public observes. The internet is to blame, the Badger’s friend suggested. However, we dismissed that and decided instead that while social media can’t be blamed for all the world’s woes, it has certainly played a part.

We concluded this because social media platforms often say they are ‘free speech zones’ while simultaneously curating communication to protect their own business models. They are, after all, not democracies but huge, controlled, money-making ecosystems where the primary liability for what’s posted rests with the poster, not the platform. The persistent misinformation, disinformation, and offensive, inflammatory, and deceptive material that can often be encountered on them polarises opinions and facilitates scams from any part of the globe. The US President’s suing of the BBC, we decided, simply illustrates that there’s one rule for social media and another for everyone else. Why? Because the platforms often provide equally reprehensible edited videos that appear to go unpunished. Many will disagree, but we decided that social media has poisoned attitudes and thus contributed to fuelling an unsettled world.

The message here is not that social media is completely bad. It’s simply a reminder to understand their underlying business model and to think carefully about what you post or view. Think about whether your social media interactions are contributing to the very unsettled and disrupted world we are currently experiencing. Remember that these platforms are not the bastions of free speech that many would have you believe. Free speech, at least here in the UK, existed long before the advent of giant money-making social media platforms. Finally, take care when shopping online for ‘Black Friday’. Be wary of ‘limited time’ or ‘selling fast’ offers from organisations with social media profiles that don’t seem right. If something looks too good to be true, then it’s probably not what it seems…

Identifying the cleverest person in the room…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Information Technology, Leadership, Learning, Meetings, Project Management, Psychology

IT professionals have experienced rapid innovation, constant engineering process evolution, progressive professionalism and quality improvement, and the commoditisation of technology and services over the last five decades. As an IT professional, the Badger’s worked with many clever and intelligent leaders, managers, and technical people who thrived on this continual dynamic change. Clever and intelligent people have always been at the heart of IT, but clever people don’t always have the greatest intelligence, and vice versa!

While fixing a dysfunctional project decades ago, the Badger had to attend a meeting involving the company’s Managing Director (MD) and other senior company staff and their opposite numbers from the customer to decide the project’s future. It was the Badger’s first time attending such a senior-level meeting. During the pre-meeting briefing, the MD sensed the Badger’s nervousness and reassured him that others would be doing the talking. As we entered the room containing the customer’s team, the MD winked at the Badger and whispered, ‘Tell me afterwards, who’s the cleverest person in the room?’  The meeting was difficult, but it concluded with agreement on a way forward. Deciding on the cleverest person in the room was also difficult. Afterall, how do you tell who is cleverest in a room of clever and intelligent people?

After the meeting, the MD playfully repeated the question and the Badger answered with what he thought the MD expected, namely that it was the MD! They chuckled, shook their head, said it was one of the customer’s team, and then went on to tell the Badger that cleverness and intelligence are different, but related, traits and that he should understand the difference to judge people and situations well. Cleverness is about speed of thought, ingenuity, emotional insight, adaptability, and creative problem-solving, while intelligence is about deep understanding and learning capacity. Clever people can think quickly, improvise, and solve problems in novel or unconventional ways, characteristics that are valuable in dynamic situations like debates, negotiations, or tricky interpersonal circumstances. Intelligent people, however, can acquire, understand, and apply knowledge in one or more domain, characteristics that are valuable in the likes of scientific research, planning, and the mastering of new disciplines. Clever people can be intelligent, and intelligent people can be clever, but the cleverest person in the room is always the person who has the best blend of both traits.

Learning more about the distinction between cleverness and intelligence over the years has been extremely useful. Since people are at the heart of the operations of any organisation, learning more about the difference not only arms you to pick out the cleverest person in the room, but also changes your perspective of those with impressive job titles who, the Badger’s learned from experience, are often unlikely to be the cleverest person in a room of other clever and intelligent people!

The imagination of children – Lego and AI…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Education, Information Technology, Learning, Lego, Risk, Toys

While returning home from a stroll through a glorious deciduous wood resplendent with Autumn colour, the Badger saw an interesting book in a charity shop window. He popped in and came out with a carrier bag half-full of Lego bricks of all shapes, sizes, colours, and types rather than the book! The Lego was in great condition at a bargain price and buying it for his grandson to play with when he visits seemed a no-brainer. On arriving home, the bag was emptied onto a table. There were standard bricks and bases, Technik bricks, wheels, motors, and arms, legs, torsos, heads, and hands from Lego figures, and much more. The Badger was hooked. He spent the rest of the afternoon using his imagination to produce a number of creative masterpieces! Indeed, everyday since, the Badger’s improved his masterpieces and created new ones. It’s addictive!

Lego empowers creativity, provides immediate gratification from having built something with your hands, and it helps to develop spatial reasoning, design thinking, and problem-solving. Furthermore, it encourages an understanding of mechanics through trial and error. It’s fun, educational, and great for kids (and adults) of all ages with building things often a collaborative and social activity. Kids, for example, learn from each other when they play with it together and when adults help them. Building Lego models together strengthens the bonds between individuals.

As the Badger built his own masterpieces, he remembered that Lego has been an excellent teaching aid at home and in education establishments for decades, as the recent announcement about a teenager building a robotic hand using Lego illustrates. It also struck him that Millennials were shaped by the emergence of the internet, Gen Z were moulded by social media’s evolution, and that Gen Alpha – his grandson’s generation – will be defined by the rapid expansion of AI use. The Badger senses a danger, however, that Gen Alpha may simply ask AI for ideas and instructions of what to build from a bag of bricks rather than use their own imagination and individuality to create masterpieces. Always inquisitive, the Badger asked CoPilot what could be built with a bag of mixed Lego bricks. It replied with ideas and instructions, and thus neatly illustrated that the danger of Gen Alpha outsourcing their imagination, creativity, and physical trial and error learning to AI is real.

A recent UK study found that ~22% of 8 to 12 year-old children already use generative AI tools, which – let’s remember – have not been designed from the outset with children in mind. Have the  lessons from social media’s impact on children been learned? The answer’s not obvious, which is why the Badger will be encouraging his grandson to produce his own Lego masterpieces without engaging in virtual world interactions. Another reason, of course, is that the Badger will be able to transfer knowledge and enjoy helping to build his creations too…

Expect up to 20% of people on your project to be ‘problematic’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership & Management, Learning, Training

After completing a couple of IT project leader roles early in his career, the Badger’s employer sent him on the company’s 3-day residential Project Management training course. In those days, attendance on the course was seen as a stepping stone to career advancement within the company. The Badger, however, wasn’t convinced about Project Management as a career path. He’d also heard that the course focused mainly on ‘processes’ rather than leadership. His boss, however, was adamant that the Badger attend, and so reluctantly he complied and joined ten others drawn from across the company in a small hotel in the Chilterns. The course’s focus was, indeed, mainly on Project Management processes, but it was quickly apparent that its real value was in providing an environment for attendees to share their experiences and learn from each other.

At the end of one afternoon, a guest speaker – the company’s most senior and experienced Project Manager (PM) – gave a formal talk and then took questions. They stayed for an evening meal with the attendees and subsequently adjourned to the bar to continue conversations. They were impressive, relaxed, and keen to pass on their knowledge. They communicated many insightful nuggets gleaned from their experience, and the Badger’s found many of them to have been valuable reference points throughout every facet of his working life. Process is, of course, important in delivering projects of any kind, but the most significant  and memorable learning points from this particular course were not from formal sessions, but from this senior PM’s experience and the experiences of the other delivery people attending.

One insightful nugget from the senior PM was: ‘Expect up to 20% of those on your project to struggle, underperform, or have questionable capability and character. Act to reduce that percentage but recognise it will never be zero.’ From the Badger’s experience since,  IT projects operating well will always have ~10% of the project complement that fall into the senior PM’s categories. The reasons why range widely from personal crises, and character, personality, and behavioural flaws, through to poor skills, inadequate management, training, or simply mismatched skills for the specific role. These people can drain management time and impact project morale and so it’s essential to strive to keep this component of a project’s complement at a sensible level.

The senior PM’s insightful nugget embodies an underlying truth, namely that in any group of people there’s always a portion who are ‘problematic.’ This is as true for a project group as it is for a group of business managers, a group of politicians, and even a group of world leaders! The next time you observe,  engage with, or simply watch media content of a group of people, have some fun deciding what percentage are in  the ‘problematic’ category. It can be fun and therapeutic…but be warned, it can also be depressing if it’s a group of politicians…

Do acquisitions disproportionately shed older staff?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Acquisitions, Business, Education, Human Resources, Information Technology, Leadership, Learning, Legal matters

A youngster about to join a large enterprise after completing a degree at University asked an interesting question last weekend. ‘Does an enterprise that acquires another company use the purchase as a smokescreen to shed older, long-serving, higher-paid employees?’  That’s an interesting and unusual question from someone at the very start of their career. So why did they ask it? Well, firstly their new employer has acquired another substantial company and restructuring activities are underway. Secondly, they knew the Badger had some experience in navigating a number of mergers and acquisitions. Lastly, the tech-savvy youngster had come across online chatter that his new employer’s older staff with long service were being disproportionately targeted during restructuring. The youngster, with no experience within large enterprises, anticipates a long career with their new company, but they were a little perturbed that their new employer might possibly be engaging in age discrimination, something that’s prohibited under the UK Equality Act 2010.

Answering required words that were balanced, honest, and rooted in personal experience of post-acquisition integrations. So, what did the Badger say? Firstly, that acquisitions often lead to reorganisations which can legally justify redundancies based on performance or role duplication at any age or level of seniority. Loyalty and long-service counts for nothing in such a scenario, and older employees may be more vulnerable because they typically have higher salaries and benefits, which means shedding them can significantly reduce payroll costs. Secondly, an acquisition can be a vehicle to change an enterprise’s culture, especially in fast moving industries subject to rapid innovation pressures. This always favours the retention of younger, tech-savvy staff and those with in-demand skills. Thirdly, not every acquisition is a smokescreen for eliminating older, higher-paid employees, but, in reality, some acquirers do quietly use their purchase to shed older, higher-paid employees because they know that it’s normally difficult in these circumstances for individuals to prove age discrimination for their redundancy. Do acquisitions disproportionately shed older staff? Some do, some don’t.

The youngster nodded, reaffirmed their intent on a long career with their new employer, and asked if the Badger had any advice for the long term. Yes. Maintain skills that are current and valuable outside your company, as mergers and acquisitions rarely reward loyalty or long service. As you get older and more experienced, watch out during acquisition integration activities for a) silence about future roles for you or your peers, b) performance reviews, and c) role redefinitions. These often signal something is afoot that affects you personally. Also, never forget that HR works in your employer’s interest, not in yours.

The youngster grinned and said they obviously had lots to learn! The Badger smiled too, pleased that he’d sown a few seeds of awareness in a youngster who will soon learn that things are never quite what they seem inside organisations when it comes to workforce matters.

A career as a TikTok/Instagram influencer?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Education, Information Technology, Learning, social media

If a student says they intend to develop a career as a social media influencer on TikTok, Instagram (and other platforms), and they ask your opinion on their intent, what would you say? The Badger was put on the spot and asked this question during a discussion with a sizeable group of University students midway through their degree courses. Most in the group were studying various flavours of science, engineering, computing, or IT-based subjects. So, what did the Badger answer?

Well, to create a little time to marshal his thoughts, the Badger asked the group to raise a hand if they thought being a TikTok or Instagram influencer was a career path that needed a degree-level education? Only two students put a hand up. A couple commented dryly that most social media platform influencers had little underlying talent or expertise and were focused on their egos and gaining celebrity, notoriety, and money rather than something beneficial for today’s world. That’s harsh, but it’s an understandable perspective. Whether we like it or not, however, becoming a social media influencer is the aspiration of many young digital natives because it’s seen as an easy and convenient way to generate an income.

So, is being a social media influencer a real career path? Many believe so, ostensibly because some with that label make considerable sums of money through brand partnerships, sponsorships, advertising, and selling merchandise. They also perceive that influencers don’t need high educational qualifications although they must be adaptable and adept at analysing trends and staying relevant as audience preferences change. There’s no doubt that some influencers have skills in content creation, marketing, and audience engagement, and a natural charisma, and flair for storytelling, but the reality is that only a small percentage succeed in making a reasonable living from their efforts. Like in any career, success as an influencer on the likes of TikTok and Instagram requires some competence and skill, and so it would be foolish to suggest that being a social media influencer is not a legitimate career path in today’s world.

The Badger was thus careful when answering the student’s question. He simply communicated the advice given by his father when the Badger was first deciding to further his own education at University, namely ‘Get the best education you can in a subject you enjoy and are good at. Don’t pre-suppose how you’ll use that in the future because life has a habit of taking you in unexpected directions’. The students thought this was wise counsel because none of them thought they would secure jobs directly relevant to their degree subject. That’s a shame, but ever that’s been the case. They unanimously concluded that if you intend to have a career as a social media influencer, then it’s prudent to get the best education you can first.