Selfies Can Reveal Your Health!
Compliments of Ray Hammond again! I love this one! (Follow him here -- @hammondfuturist )
A team of researchers at the University of Rochester has developed a computer program that can help health professionals monitor a person`s mental health through the images from selfie videos the patient records while engaging in social media activity.
The method is a variation of existing health monitoring programs. The novelty here is that the user’s behavior. can be monitored quietly and unobtrusively while they routinely use their computer or smartphone. No extra information about how the user is feeling needs to be provided. No special accessories are required, either. The user just needs to go about their computer routine as usual.
During its experiments, the team, successfully measured a user’s heart rate simply by monitoring small changes in the patient’s forehead color. Other visual signals could be extracted, such as blinking rate, eye pupil radius and head movement rate, from the video data, all of this using modern computer vision and signal processing techniques.
New Startup: The Smartphone Device That Will Be Able To Detect Cancer In Your Breath
Compliments of Ray Hammond who alerted me to this cool Startup! A device developed in Israel called the “NaNose” is claimed to be able to detect cancer and other illness simply by sampling human breath.
NaNose is now being ported to be available on a smartphone as an add-on called “The Sniff Phone”.
By identifying the special “odour” emitted by cancer cells, it is claimed the NaNose system can detect the presence of tumours, both benign and malignant, more quickly, efficiently and cheaply than previously possible.
It is claimed the system is 90 per cent accurate.
IBM's New Millennial Study!
By 2020, Millennials will be approximately 50 percent of the U.S. workforce, and by 2030, 75 percent of the global workforce. (Source: Forbes study)
I am sure you've seen some of the recent studies, highlighting how millennials will be a major part of the workforce going into 2020 and beyond. A Forbes study, highlights that Millennials will be 50% of he US workforce by 2020!
This creates a great challenge for leaders who are faced with managing a workforce across multiple generations namely, Millennials, Gen X (aged 35–49), and Baby Boomers (aged 50–60). At IBM, we see the importance of understanding the preferences and behavioral patterns of each of these segments.
Today, I will share a few of the datapoints from this study from IBM's Institute of Business Value that was released today! Its a multigenerational study of 1,700+ employees from organizations across 12 countries and 6 industries
Here's a few of our findings and actions for leaders in managing this multigenerational workforce:
One surprising finding is that Millennials want many of the same things their older colleagues do. While there are some distinctions among the generations, Millennials’ attitudes are not poles apart from other employees
50%+ of Millennials are accessing their personal social networks for professional reasons less frequently than Gen X employees.
While this finding may not be a surprise, we did find that Gen Xers use social networks more frequently (60%+) to communicate with colleagues, get industry information, and promote their companies products / services. Given today’s escalating concerns about privacy and security, it’s imperative for senior leaders managing a cross generational workforce to publish social computing guidelines and ensure all employees receive direction about what can and cannot be shared externally
3 Actions for Senior leaders managing a cross generational workforce - How to get started
1. Focus on the individual (employee)
2. Foster a collaborative culture
3. Make customer experience a priority
More coming!!!
3 Pieces of Advice for Start-ups and Intrapreneurs from Unusual Places!
I am in Vegas and walked through a great museum with fun quotes and it made me think of the advice earlier from some of our Venture Capitalists!
1. Fish are the last to recognize water. Make sure that you are constantly evaluating the landscape. Sometimes startups fall in love with their products and don't see poor product-market fit with a solid business model. Remember that the product must be desired by a customer -- and there are many substitutes. At our last VC roundtable, the VCs said that they are always weary when someone comes in with an idea that has 0 competition While this seems basic, I have seen many entrepreneurs dive into creating a product that they think is totally unique, not thinking through other options.
2. It's always better to be looked over than overlooked. Many start-ups think about scale and overlook the way to get to need scale. The priority should be on developer productivity and being able to deliver the features and platform that sets your product apart. Focus on scale when it actually becomes a problem. You'll be better prepared with more information about what to fix and where and hopefully with more help to do it.
3. If you want the rainbow you better put up with the rain. Many start-ups put their energy into impressing their boards and investors instead of their customers. Of course you must work with your investors, but a great start-up filters those ides through the eyes of their clients and potential clients. Don't get distracted focusing on the wrong group.
IBM SmartCamp Finals is Almost here!!! Join us!
Join us for the SmartCamp finals with a set of AMAZING Entrepreneurs!
Monday, Feb 23
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
MGM Hotel
Rooms 312--317
http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/us/en/interconnect/devat/smartcamp/
