Friday Fives
Friday Fives
A round up of five things that have caught our eye (or ear) this past week.
1. THE PROSPERITY PARADOX
Disclaimer - we haven’t actually finished this book yet as it was only released earlier this week - but it’s shot straight to the top of our reading pile for 2019. The Prosperity Paradox - How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out Of Poverty is the latest from Clayton M. Christensen, author of such business classics as The Innovator's Dilemma and the New York Times bestseller How Will You Measure Your Life.
It examines a problem that has been a big topic of conversation for us at O/TG headquarters over the past year - global poverty and inequality. Christensen and his coauthors, Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon, suggest tackling this problem by moving away from current solutions which in some cases have exacerbated the problem, and propose another approach using a new framework for economic growth based on entrepreneurship and market-creating innovation.
Examples of where this approach has worked are drawn from America’s own economic development past as well as similar models globally. There are no quick fix solutions to the poverty problem, but The Prosperity Paradox does offer up a sustainable model which has the potential to be a game changer.
2. THE CITY AND YOU
Anyone who knows the O/TG team knows that Richard Florida has been a thought leader and influencer for us over a number of years, right back to 2009 when Jonah was first setting up BizDojo in New Zealand.
Florida is one of the world's leading public intellectuals on economic competitiveness, demographic trends, and cultural and technological innovation, and has been on our radar ever since his seminal work, The Rise of the Creative Class, appeared in 2002.
Here, Florida has worked with the University of Toronto where he is a professor and Director of Cities, to come up with a free Coursera offering that looks at cities, why they matter as drivers of economic prosperity, the key characteristics of an innovative and creative city, and the challenges facing cities as we look forward to the future.
Take a leaf out of our book - always be learning! Sign up for the free, online 4-week course here:
https://www.coursera.org/learn/city-and-you-find-best-place/home/info
3. AI, AND HOW WE CAN PROTECT WORKERS
Often the conversation around AI and the impact on our future is focused in on how it will take over our jobs. In this recent article from Kai-Fu Lee, author of AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order (which we reviewed at the end of last year), he addresses this fear of job displacement and offers up jobs which he believes will not be impacted as we rise to the coming AI revolution.
Lee’s thesis is that increasingly the human element will be even more important as AI becomes ubiquitous, and he identifies four job types which he predicts are not at risk at all: creative jobs; complex strategic jobs; empathetic and compassionate jobs (e.g. teachers, nannies and doctors); and a whole new class of jobs created by AI that we don’t even know about yet.
While the crux of the article is about job displacement, Lee also discusses areas which we should be concerned about in an AI future - security, privacy, manipulated bias and manipulation. He calls for a new rule book for AI applications jointly developed by governments, businesses and technologists.
Read more here:
Artificial Intelligence Is Powerful—And Misunderstood. Here's How We Can Protect Workers
4. FINLAND PLANS TO TEACH ANYONE AI BASICS
This education story really caught our eye this week, not just because of the interesting AI angle, but more importantly because of the novel approach that a country is taking to try and better inform its citizens on a disruptive technology.
Finland has embarked on an ambitious challenge to teach the basics of AI to 1% of its population, or 55,000 people. At the heart of the economic push to up-skill Finnish workers is another push to create a more informed democracy, and it is Finland’s first steps in addressing a problem that countries are facing around the world: inadequate public comprehension of a technology whose development needs to be governed carefully.
Citizens take a free online course that is specifically designed for non–technology experts with no programming experience. As of mid-December, more than 10,500 people, including at least 4,000 outside of Finland’s borders, had graduated from the course. More than 250 companies have also pledged to train part or all of their workforce.
Finland are really leading the charge here globally, and it’s something that we’d love to see more of from other countries, including our own here in New Zealand. Great stuff.
Read more here:
5. BRAD FELD ON MANAGING YOUR TIME
For our cofounder, Tracy, someone who is chronically on time and running to schedule, leading startup ecosystem expert Brad Feld’s tips and tricks on how to manage your time in this recent blog post seemed no brainers. It did make us snort/laugh out loud though at O/TG HQ as we often refer to “Jonah time” for our other cofounder - and he confirms that these tips are really useful. So we figured that we’d include this in this week’s Friday Fives for the “chronically late” or “chronically over-scheduled” amongst you.
Happy reading - and we hope the tips help!
https://www.feld.com/archives/2019/01/manage-the-clock.html