Daily Archives: June 3, 2017

When we think about how automation is changing our lives, images of a Jetson-esque world come to mind where everything just happens. Our lifestyles are curated and detailed down by the push of a button, making many of the practical activities we once took part of now obsolete. And for people in the sales and marketing world, this scares the pants off of some.

However, that fear is based more on conspiracy than it is facts. Innovations, like AI and automation, are geared towards replacing a lot of our everyday tasks, which will make our jobs not only easier, but smarter and more productive as well. Yes, it appears the automation revolution is here to stay, which is going to change the lives of sales and marketing for the greater good. Heres how:

Automation in the marketing and sales industry has been exploding as of recent, becoming one of the hottest trends in the industry. According to a report by Markets and Markets, marketing automation software is expected to become a $5.5 billion dollar industry by 2019. The growth of these types of programs has become tremendous money saving techniques, saving on both the time and labor over whats otherwise considered pretty mundane tasks.

Given how much easier automation is making the marketing and sales process, its no wonder why firms have been making such a drastic leap to adopt these technologies. Everything from lead generations to follow-ups can be conducted with much more efficiency and accuracy than ever before, which in an industry that relies heavily on volume and metrics, is a dream come true.

Perhaps one of the biggest fears I hear from people is that the entire sales process is going to be replaced by machines one day. However, this could be the furthest thing from the truth. Anyone who works in AI or Automation will tell you off the bat that the goal of these services isnt to replace the human but make them smarter and stronger at their position.

An excellent example of this is chatbots. While some believe that implementing an automated chatbot system for leads means that we can begin replacing pieces of our sales team, there are certain things that bot will never be able to understand such as emotional intelligence, tone, etc. In yet, what we can do is train bots to be smart enough to gauge responses to an end goal, such as qualifying a lead, scheduling an appointment, or even educating a potential customer on basic details. Thats the type of technology that can turn a good salesperson into a great one.

Its true that in some cases people and firms will fall by the wayside or have to grow and adapt to the latest and greatest changes. However, the world of sales and marketing are also cut-throat businesses, where sometimes only the strongest survive. That, and the smartest.

One of the most exciting innovations coming about in the automated revolution is the amount of information were about to be able to sink our teeth into. Never before have we seen such an extraordinary system of insights and data than we do now, which is making sales and marketing teams salivate.

When it comes to automating the sales process, companies like Cirrus Insights are offering platforms like Flight Plans, a system that lists out the goals of closing a deal. Not only does the software outline the proper procedure to landing a deal, but uses smart data to pinpoint the exact times and dates someone should follow up and what they should say. This software is revamping the sales process big time, with the industry taking note.

Read next: Why Live Streaming is Changing The Future of Social Content

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How Automation is Making The Sales Process Easier - TNW

Lets not mince words the loss of jobs to automation is a very real problem, increasingly affecting much of the Western world. While President Trump might be out there bellowing about creating manufacturing jobs in Americas rust belt, the fact of the matter is these jobs are long gone, and not coming back. Not when profit-making businesses have figured out a more cost-effective way to produce goods one that does not involve human labour.

A new report by the job search site Indeed.com has curated job availability across all sectors in Canada in an attempt to identify what industries are most and least prone to automation.

The results are interesting, though not altogether surprising.

Jobs that are not susceptible to automation tend to be focused in the science and tech field data scientists, healthcare professionals and cyber-security experts. For those of you in jobs that are repetitive and methodical by nature (think administrative roles), the machines are coming for you.

Jobs that had a very large non-routine component to them tended to be least susceptible to automation, Indeed.com economist Daniel Culbertson told VICE Money. The most promising careers for the future will be those that complement the work of machines, or which rely heavily on human qualities that cannot be replicated by a computer.

Data scientists, healthcare professionals, and cyber-security experts

The report found that from 2016 to 2017, the number of data scientist job postings in Canada increased by 75 percent. Thats a massive bump, but one that can be explained. The catchment of data sheerly from most people being online at least 12 hours a day has increased dramatically in the last 10 years. That data requires processing the know-how to analyze patterns and trends in different pieces of data cannot be replicated by a robot.

Job postings for cybersecurity experts also increased drastically (73 percent) between 2016 and 2017. As cyber-attacks increase in scale and sophistication, employers in Canada are racing to recruit the right staff to protect their business, fueling demand for cybersecurity professionals, said Culbertson.

The third category of people who should not ever worry about getting replaced by robots are healthcare professionals. Doctors, dentists and nurses deal with different patients everyday. Individual treatment requires some degree of discretion and creativity both are qualities that are impossible for machines to replicate. Moreover, Canada has an aging population, meaning that demand for healthcare workers will continue to rise over the coming decades.

What if youre an arts grad?

Theres good news for arts graduates too. If youre in the field of marketing, communications, design and human resources, you probably wont have to worry about losing out to robots any time soon.

Creative professions which focus on the complex interplay of ideas, words and images with shared cultural and social values are highly likely to survive the threat of automation. Social intelligence and new media literacy are key skills to be cultivated, advises Culbertson.

One interesting statistic that Culbertson discovered the share of chef postings on Indeed.com climbed by 11 percent between 2016 and 2017. Turns out, at least in Canada, people seem to be losing interest in generic, processed food, opting instead for creatively cooked meals outside.

The gig economy

Worth pointing out as well is the number of jobs that have been created in the so-called gig economy, as a result of automation. A 2016 report from the human resources consulting firm Randstad indicated that independent contractors, remote workers and on-demand workers make up between 20-30 percent of the Canadian workplace.

Culbertson argues that this isnt necessarily a bad thing, claiming that global interest in flexible work arrangements increased by 36 percent between 2013 and 2015. So its not just that were losing full-time jobs to automation were apparently choosing to opt for part-time work for the sake of flexibility.

A Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study contradicts Culbertsons claim. Their data reveals that 55 percent of Canadian workers participate in the gig economy because its the only way to make a living right now. 71 percent of gig economy workers are under the age of 40.

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These jobs are least susceptible to automation - VICE News

The threat of automation taking away jobs is real. It can entirely finish certain jobs or force companies to rationalise workforce.

The Jobs Disruption Survey of nearly 11,000 employees by ET Online has found that a large number of employees see automation taking away their jobs even though the trend is more visible in the information technology sector (IT) at this stage.

When asked if you see new technologies replacing workers in your company in future, 65 per cent of respondents answered in affirmative. Only 25 per cent said 'no' while 10 per cent chose 'can't say'. More than half of employees sensing a threat to their jobs from automation and related technologies indicates the seriousness of the threat 'robots' hold for jobs across various sectors.

The report said increasing use of digitisation, automation and artificial intelligence in businesses and organisations would hit Indian employees the hardest in the world in the short term by cutting jobs. For the questionWhere will digitization increase or decrease headcount?India had the most employers saying digitization would decrease headcount. Over a quarter of employers in India expect to reduce headcount due to automation.

While, at present, automation can impact jobs by changing work profiles, employers killing jobs altogether due to automation does not seem to be a near-term phenomenon across sectors , suggests ET Online's Jobs Disruption Survey.

When employees were asked if they think their job was going to vanish in future due to emerging technology, 44 per cent said 'yes' while 38 per cent said 'no'.

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Threat of automation taking away your job is real - Economic Times

One of the essential questions of our time is what work will look like in a decade once the powerful windstorms of artificial intelligence, automation, advanced manufacturing, decentralized workplaces, and online commerce have more fully swept the global economy.

This questionwhat is the future of work?has been driving the efforts of many of our journalists around the world, and today that coverage formally graduates to what we at Quartz call an obsession. Our obsessions are issues we identify as macro topics of essential importance to business professionals, which we cover on an ongoing, focused basis. Most are multi-disciplinary efforts involving several writers, as is the case with this newest one.

To get a sense of how well approach the future of work, you can look to some of our distinctive coverage on the issue to date. Theres the impact of AI and automation: Quartz reporter Dave Gershgorn covered investor Kai-Fu Lees prediction that machines will in 10 years replace 50% of the jobs done by humans today, and I spoke with Bill Gates about his related proposal for a robot tax. Sarah Kessler wrote an optimists take on what the doomsayers call the automation apocalypse. She profiled engravers, who have the most automated job in America according to government statistics, but wouldnt have it any other way.

In a different look at how work is changing, Sarah was also the first to write about how IBM is calling some remote workers back to the office. Then theres the rise of part-time work and the redefinition, by ride-sharing startups and other companies, of what it means to be an employee. Our colleague Alison Griswold has been exploring what their arrangements with workers say about the future of jobs, and societys support for those employed in the gig economy.

Looking ahead, youll see more coverage from Quartz as we try, along with our readers, to answer the question: What is the future of work for humans when machines are taking on more of it and companies and workers are rethinking their relationships to each other? You can look for it on qz.com each day and follow the Future of Work obsession here.

As always, we welcome your suggestions for coverage in this area and other potential Obsessions. You can reach me at kevind@qz.com

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We're launching Future of Work, a new Quartz obsession - Quartz

Edwin Yuen, an analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group Inc. in Milford, Mass., has a lot of good things to say about Chef, particularly as a network automation tool for Linux and container systems.

The Chef automation tool, Yuen wrote, gives IT operators the chance to make a bigger impact on their companies. Yuen said the programming language is a standard through which teams can communicate and eliminate roadblocks across platforms and applications.

Companies can then focus on "outcome-oriented IT," where outcomes drive both the applications and the infrastructure required to support them. That shift in strategy doesn't devalue infrastructure, Yuen said. Instead, it's about letting IT administrators -- through a network automation tool like Chef -- shift their focus from the infrastructure to apps and outcomes. "Chef has begun the shift away from simply showing the value of automationwithChefto the value of automationbecauseof Chef," Yuen said.

See what else Yuen had to say about the value of a network automation tool.

Lee Badman, writing in WiredNot, shared his experience with a simple upgrade of the Cisco controller underpinning his wireless LAN network. And the experience wasn't a pleasant one. As Badman put it, "It matters not that I've done this procedure about a hundred times through the years."

"This time, the controller had its own idea about how this code upgrade would go down."

The culprits will forever be unknown, but after a few bruises from repeatedly hitting his head against the wall in frustration, the controller -- and the associated access points -- got the required upgrade.

However, how he was able to get everything operating again makes for an interesting read.

Read about the obstacles Badman faced.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is now the cool kid on the block. At least, that's what Gartner analyst Jim Hare said in a recent blog post examining the evolution of the technology.

AI, in Gartner's estimation, has three important traits: the ability to learn, predict and, most important, to surprise. "Many people associate AI with a single technology -- chatbots, cloud APIs, computer vision, natural-language processing (NLP) or robotics," Hare said. "In reality, AI is diverse -- it is all of the above, and much more."

To that end, Gartner identified five vendors it believes have AI software that goes beyond the tools currently available. They are Chronocam, for its image processing software; Cortical.io, for its NLP software; Deepgram, for its search and classification engine; Descartes Labs; and SigOpt.

See what Hare had to say about these companies and the evolution of AI.

AI comes of age

Troubleshooting wireless connection issues

What you need to know about Chef

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Chef gets compliments for network automation tool features - TechTarget

woodworkingnetwork.com

Automation key to U.S. jobs: Reshoring Initiative woodworkingnetwork.com Will U.S. manufacturing be able to create jobs, particularly in view of increased automation displacing workers. The Reshoring Initiative has recognized the automation trend and that returning jobs will be, on average, higher skilled and fewer than ...

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Automation key to U.S. jobs: Reshoring Initiative - woodworkingnetwork.com