Panui 25 august
Kia ora Koutou ITP members and supporters. With travel and many late night / early morning meetings with people in different timezones this week I have not had time to keep up the reading so no AI Wrap today. Turns out all of our other blogs this week were on AI so lots of content for you.
Peter’s Editorial - Our small businesses need a bigger digital boost - talks about uptake of the government funded platform, the success for those who have leveraged it and describes the digital gap in a business context. He praises the scheme Singapore are running and explains how the big platforms pulling their services are disrupting SME’s efforts to move online.
On the same theme Peter also wrote on - Small businesses worried about AI developments outpacing regulation - with insights from a Xero survey of 3000 businesses. Great insights into areas of concern and where business owners feel we most need regulation.
Our guest blog this week is “ChatGPT and other language AIs are nothing without humans - a sociologist explains how countless hidden people make the magic” contains a great explanation of how ChatGPT works and what’s “behind the curtain”. Such a common story with new technology and reminds me of the Mechanical Turk (unfortunately this has been co-opted by Amazon now).
This inspired Brendan’s cartoon - Teaching ChatGPT. Brendan also shared a great podcast with me, called “Tech Won’t Save us” on Apple. This episode ChatGPT is Not Intelligent is worth a listen.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time with teachers in the last few weeks - at all levels of the education system - and generative AI is high on the list of discussion points, how to effectively incorporate the tool into the classroom, how to teach their students about ethics and bias. We tend to land on using tools like ChatGPT to help develop problem solving and critical thinking skills. With everything else teachers are faced with right now anything we can do to help them navigate this space is invaluable.
Bridging the Gap Podcast
Thanks for listening to our Podcast. This week’s episode is with self described huge security nerd, Erica Anderson. I loved chatting with Erica about her experiences moving to Aotearoa, moving from technical to leadership roles, growing a Cyber security business. Inspiring stuff.
You can listen to this episode with Erica on Apple and Spotify.
SFIA - what is it and why do we care?
I am conscious I mention SFIA (the skills framework for the Information Age) a lot without explanation so here is a brief overview blog - what is it and why do we care? I have been invited to join the SFIA Council to help represent the views and experiences of our workforce here in Aotearoa NZ so with the new version SFIA 9 in development it will be good to understand the good and the bad, the gaps and opportunities of those who already use the framework and those who do not.
This week I have been to two SFIA events with Daniel from the Digital Skills Agency in Wellington and Christchurch. Next week I’ll be in Ōtepoti Dunedin and Wakatū Nelson to join the events there. Come and say hi!
Professional Skills Survey
Reminder to complete our survey on Professional Skills please. This is important and will help shape courses teaching our future workforce. Early indicators are:
- Collaboration, Communication and Problem Solving are emerging as the top 3 capabilities new entrants to the workforce need to have
- Understanding Operating Systems, Databases and how they work, and Knowing many programming languages are emerging as the top 3 digital tech skills
- Python, Javascript and SQL are the top 3 programming languages so far
What are taxi drivers saying about the election?
Another couple of weeks of travelling round the country so more insights from taxi/Uber/Zoomy drivers. As the polls seem to show a stronger shift to the right the concerns about racism are being expressed more strongly. Other general insights:
- Chippy is trying hard but being let down by his team
- Devices should be banned for kids before the age of 5 - fullstop
- Winston Peters is a phoenix and will be back in the beehive
- Many expressed concern the country can’t afford the many promised policies
- A couple of comments about how trucks are causing the potholes so why don’t we focus on getting them off the road first.
I had a lovely older tane Māori driver in Auckland last week who made this interesting observation. “It’s all so ridiculous this time people won’t know who to vote for”, his conclusion? we should be prepared for a low voter turnout.
Return to the office or stay working remotely?
You will have seen things in the media this week with more tech companies - ironically even Zoom - demanding their staff return to the office, which is consistent with what I have been hearing from businesses and employees here in Aotearoa NZ, and those I speak to in Australia as well.
Covid threw us into chaos at first, then routines were formed, there are pros and cons on both sides of this equation. I’m keen to host a webinar discussion / debate to tease out the perspectives of both sides so if you have a strong opinion and evidence from your own organisations experiences and would like to join a panel discussion, drop me a line [email protected].
Meanwhile what’s happening in your workplace? This survey asks just 5 questions:
- Where do you work from - home, an office or somewhere else?
- In a typical week how many days a week do you work from home?
- Who chooses where you work from on a given day?
- Do you feel you are more productive when working from home or from the office?
- If your employer could do one thing to encourage you to come and work from their office what would that be?
This will help shape the panel discussion I’ve described above.
Finally
No Te Reo digital technology terms this week either sorry but feel free to refresh your vocab in the glossary here.
As we enter the last week of August and silly season starts to loom I hope you are all remembering to look after your mental health. Take care everyone, kia haumaru koe. Vic
