AI and the Future of Work: Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace, Business, Ethics, HR, and IT for AI Enthusiasts, Leaders and Academics

We enjoyed our discussion with Charlene Li, analyst and best-selling author of The Disruption Mindset, so much last December that we invited her back to discuss the impact of the pandemic on leaders, culture, and the evolving nature of work. Charlene's advice for disruptors is more relevant than ever.Charlene's advice to leaders who have themselves been disrupted: "Now is the time to be a better leader. Take this opportunity to get to know the whole person - where they live, their families, their hobbies. These intimate work interactions allow us to be more empathetic."Listen and learn… How Charlene has made use of time spent not traveling and speaking at live eventsWhat's the single most important skill for managers leading in periods of uncertainty The new definition of work. Hint: it’s no longer defined by physical space. 

In this week’s episode of AI and the Future of Work, Slack Senior Vice President of Engineering Allan Leinwand shares how he’s leading his teams through the pandemic and what it means within Slack when CEO Stewart Butterfield says “we were made for this.” Allan helped develop, launch, and manage some of the most-loved technology products in history including Cisco’s routing products, Zynga’s social gaming backend, ServiceNow’s platform, and of course Slack. Listen and learn…What it’s like to develop the app that quite literally makes it possible to WFH.What teams that build iconic products do differently than others.What technology trend will define the next decade like cloud and AI have defined the past decade.How Allan defines his success as a leader.What leaders need to do now to keep employees productive and create cultures that are stronger on the other side of COVID-19.

On this week’s episode of AI and the Future of Work, we discuss the future of post-pandemic consumer behavior and AI in retail with Breinify CEO Diane Keng. Breinify develops a predictive personalization engine used by brands like BevMo! to understand how we buy and optimize the buying experience. She’s building a great culture and learning fast as a first-time founder and CEO. Listen and learn… How Diane thinks about company culture and how she keeps her team motivated in the face of uncertainty. How AI is delivering a better consumer experience and how to use data to predict behavior without violating consumer privacy. How Breinify uses data signals to identify “moments that matter”. Diane’s superpower and her advice for the next generation of female founders.

In this week’s episode of AI and the Future of Work, Dan Turchin discusses Silicon Valley culture pre and post pandemic, SaaS metrics, and the mistakes that get CEOs fired with Dave Kellogg, Silicon Valley luminary, investor, advisor, and CEO. Listen and learn...What’s the single most important metric for venture-backed SaaS companies… and why you’re probably calculating it wrong. What makes a great high-tech culture and why Dave is particularly proud of one slide that summarizes his philosophy on building successful teams.Why most CEOs fail because of one specific way they mis-manage board expectations.Dave’s biggest regret and how he has learned to overcome it as a leader.Dave's excellent blog: https://kellblog.com/Twitter: @kellblog

In recent weeks, we’ve been discussing what leaders do in a crisis. This week, we share an update from a discussion last November with Tess Posner, CEO of AI4ALL. In the past six weeks, AI4ALL has…Released a new Open Learning course about AI and COVID-19 for students and educators. Published a sentiment analysis and NLP curriculum. Made more than 65 hours of AI curricula and teaching guides available for free at olp.ai-4-all.org.Transitioned many 2020 high school summer internships online. Shifted its entire team to fully remote work.Tess is a force of nature. We need more leaders like her who see opportunities in the crisis not to help themselves but to help others first. In Tess’ case, she’s on a mission to bring AI education to high school students around the world. In this episode, listen and learn...What's the future of AI education for high school students?How can we mitigate the impact of AI bias in hiring?How high school students are solving real world problems with AI.How a natural disaster inspired Tess to launch her career in AI education. 

In this week’s episode of AI and the future of work, we discuss enterprise bots and natural language processing with Socrates.ai CEO Randy Womack. Randy is a 30-year Silicon Valley enterprise software veteran who has built successful teams and products at amazing organizations like SuccessFactors (now SAP) and Castlight Health. Listen and learn... What is an employee experience platform and how do great companies think about employee experiences? Why was Randy an early advocate for remote work and why do distributed teams outperform others? Hint: it’s not what you think. What do tattoos and blue hair have to do with company culture and what are the attributes of the best company cultures? Why is Marc Andreessen right about the need to build… as long as we don’t build keyboards. Thanks to Brian Ascher from Venrock for the introduction to Randy. 

This week, we discuss the human toll of the pandemic on day 35 of the shelter in place order. We also discuss what life on the other side will be like. We're learning from organizations like TaskRabbit whose CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot shares her organization's journey with Bob Safian on Reid Hoffman's Masters of Scale. We're re-publishing an episode that originally aired last August with former ServiceNow Vice President and next level leader Craig Pratt. In it, Craig discusses...Lessons for leaders looking to make an impact in or outside careers in technologyWhy empathy and intuition are timeless skills that transcend technology and will never be replaced by AIWhat inspired his career in technology from humble beginnings as a golf caddyFear is subsiding. Hope is returning. We're strong. We're resilient.Enjoy!Links referenced in this week's episode:https://mastersofscale.com/stacy-brown-philpot-keep-humans-in-the-equation-masters-of-scale-podcast/https://podcasts.apple.com/ne/podcast/next-level-leader/id1461652719

This week, you’re stuck with my voice sharing my thoughts on the situation. We'll get back to interviews about AI next week.It’s a confusing time for all of us. There’s no way to comprehend the magnitude of what is happening right now.In this podcast, I discuss...What's ahead for company culture as second curve effects hit the workplace.Why organizations are more like organisms than machines.How strong organizations are growing stronger using new technology to embrace what makes them unique.Please react with your own thoughts and coping mechanisms. We're all in this together.Enjoy!

This week, we’re sharing a conversation I recorded a few weeks back with Shane Carlson and Laura Araujo on their Techno Biotic podcast. It was before the pandemic so, shockingly, we didn’t share work from home tips and there was no discussion about toilet paper hoarding. Shane and Laura geek out weekly about the intersection of post-humanism, technology, and culture. In this discussion, we cover:What it means to be human... augmented by machines.What human skills transcend technology... and which will be less valued in the future.What can employees do now to embrace technology change... instead of fear it.What is the actual state of AI... and where is it headed.Hope you enjoy!

We’re joined by Barclay Rae on this week’s episode of AI and the Future of Work. Barclay has consistently been named one of the top 20 influencers in IT Service Management. He’s an accomplished speaker, consultant, and author having recently contributed to the ITIL 4 content library. Barclay joined us to discuss the impact of the pandemic on service management and what leaders should know about the future of work.  In this episode, hear Barclay discuss… How remote work is forever changing company culture. Why the best technology leaders are really the best people leaders. Why IT must stop “shouting from the basement” to be perceived as leaders. The common traits of the most effective (and dysfunctional) organizations. What’s new in ITIL 4 and why the concept of sustainability is critical for organizations interested in delivering better employee experiences.