It's been really interesting. Early on, [security] was really not a high priority for companies, and so I often found myself in a back office somewhere, kind of far away from where the main activity was in the corporate environment, or kind of low down the totem pole. And we've seen how that's flipped over these past 20 - and especially the past 10 - years, where companies have really started to realize that the focus that they need to place on this so much more, and so from an organizational standpoint, you see so much more energy and resources being put to security.
Different sectors, same impulse. Unify the brand, centralize the risk. The reasons aren't complicated. Communications is no longer reactive. Brand building is no longer just about splashy creativity. Both functions now operate in a politicized environment where a press release, tweet or ad can move markets or spark backlash. Add in a world where the lines between brand and performance are more blurred than ever, and alignment between the two isn't optional. It's operational.
Tech execs pushing to get agentic AI projects into production will have to surmount complicated challenges to prevent their efforts from failing, according to the CEO of a San Francisco-based AI startup. Companies need to establish a roadmap, outline deliverables, and experiment to achieve successful project execution, Curtis Northcutt, Co-founder and CEO of Cleanlab, said in an interview last week with Computerworld. "The moment that these enterprises and these CIOs take a break or the moment that you think, 'Oh, we finally got it figured out' - that's the moment you fall behind," he said.
When Nokia was still the king of mobile phones in the late 2000s, its strategy seemed bulletproof. It was everywhere. It had the tech; it even had the market share. But as consumer preferences started shifting, internal teams couldn't agree on whether to invest in Symbian improvements, hardware design, or a new platform. On top of that, leadership failed to align engineers, designers, and market planners. Slowly but surely, Nokia started losing ground.
"If you just reduce compute to capital, you know, it's just money, and then you buy the physical infra," Kwon said. "We don't necessarily assume in lots of other industries or even in technology industries that if you're just the most capitalized company or organization, that you're automatically going to win." "It's how you make use of that resource and apply it to various bets," he added.
Businesses are rightly obsessed with productivity. This is the primary parameter of their profitability. And productivity, basically, is the product of three human-related factors: Individual abilities Motivation Knowledge Organizational and methodological factors could be mentioned, but they actually come down to knowledge. The methodology is only a factor of productivity insofar as it is known and controlled. To be complete, we should add a nonhuman factor: the work tool, whether robots or software.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has faced a lot of backlash recently. Once celebrated as a win-win solution that tackled systemic injustice and boosted business performance, DEI has become politicized and scrutinized within an inch of its life. As it was happening, those of us working to advance DEI didn't adjust as the ground shifted beneath our feet. DEI was recast as an anti-meritocratic overreach that prioritized identity over skills or qualifications.
According to a survey by HR Brain, only 10% of companies have a strategy to retain mature workers, despite the number of workers age 65 and older in the U.S. nearly quadrupling since the 1980s.
The idea that the CEO should shoulder all the responsibility for public representation is not only limiting but also neglects a critical element of modern leadership: the power of the collective influence of the entire executive team.