What We're Reading

Facebook is getting into a new type of networking.

The social media giant said this week that it is rolling out new features in the US and Canada to let businesses post job openings, and prospective workers find and apply to them through Facebook. “This new experience will help businesses find qualified people where they’re already spending their time—on Facebook and on mobile,” the company said in a blog post.

The system Facebook debuted on Feb. 15 aims to minimize hassle for job-seekers and employers, while also giving both more reasons to use Facebook products. Businesses will be able to post jobs and track applications directly from a company Facebook page, as well as communicate with applicants through Facebook Messenger. They can also pay Facebook to promote their job listings to a wider audience.

Job-seekers will see posts in their news feed and integrated with other posts on business pages. They’ll also be able to check “Jobs on Facebook,” a designated landing page for job list

There’s been plenty of chatter about what consumers want from wearables and what they’ll use them for, such as mobile payments and health and fitness tracking. Based on recent research, wearable devices are also set to change the business world.

In a March 2015 study by Salesforce.com, nearly eight in 10 US enterprise wearable adopters agreed that wearables would reshape their companies’ future success. More than three-quarters of users had already seen improvement in their business performance due to wearables, and 86% of adopters intended to increase spending over the next 12 months.

Enterprises were most interested in using wearables to track workplace productivity, but beyond that, improving the customer experience thanks to real-time access to customer data, business analytics and alerts, and customer instruction and coaching were all top use cases.

Salesforce noted that professionals viewed wearables devices as a huge opportunity for data collection—but they’re a long way off fr

We've spoken of this from time-to-time in Chat and I never leave feeling very reassured for my children's children. 

Remember the milkman?  The corner newspaper paperboy?  The assembly line workers at Detroit automotive plants?  How about the shrinking postal service and empty ghost plants that were once steel mills?   Then there are travel agents and printing press operators; both almost eliminated at this juncture.

As we speak, millions of algorithms created by computer scientists are frantically running on servers all over the world, with one sole purpose: do whatever humans can do, but better.  According to some, the displacement of labour by machines and computer intelligence will increase dramatically over the next few decades. Such changes will be so drastic and quick that the market will not be able to abide in creating new opportunities for workers who have lost their jobs, making unemployment not just part of a cycle, but structural in nature and chronically irreversible. I