I was recently asked to speak at a career day at Notre Dame Academy in Park Hills, Kentucky. One of the issues we discussed was the number of job changes you can have before being considered a job hopper. I believe this article contains valuable information regarding timing of job changes for people at any stage of their career.

The final directive to the assembled pre-teens at the first Monday caddy school was to “keep up!”  What our caddymaster Pat Higgins really meant was “stay ahead!” What golfer who has the privilege of taking a caddy wants to look for his own ball?  When I first started caddying I would lag behind my golfer when I wasn’t entirely sure where the ball had traveled thinking I would be forgiven for being a couple of steps slow but not for failing to follow the flight of the ball.  What I learned was they knew I didn’t see the ball and thought I was a couple of steps slow.  The lesson I learned was to get ahead of the game, be the first to arrive at the most likely landing area and furiously survey the area to increase the likelihood of being the one to discover the right answer.

I didn’t realize I was neglecting this lesson early in my CPA firm career until an audit manager said “make a decision and move on, we didn’t hire you because you know what to do every time, we hired you because we believed you were smart and will make good decisions about what to do!”  I struggle at times to do the work that allows me to keep up – listening to and learning from others (in formal training sessions and informal settings) and making time to read.  At a recent Ohio Society of CPA’s continuing education session the instructor (a former national firm partner) said something I made a point of writing down and capturing in the Evernote app on my phone – “Your only consistent value add is in decision making and that comes from the training and practice that informs your sound analytical thinking combined with your objectivity and judgement.”

By now we have all heard the buzz. Siri has plenty of company. Alexa and Google have invaded the home. Tesla’s artificial intelligence is, well, driving itself. Google’s Deep Mind is running the company’s multi-billion-dollar search business. Even they don’t know how it works — it just does. IBM’s Watson has its own office and is predicting cancer treatments for real patients. You can’t even date online without artificial intelligence (A.I.) hooking you up.

There are even A.I.-based autonomous ships, bots, games and investment and commerce platforms that are emerging. Eventually A.I. will be everywhere. Are you ready for the A.I. revolution? Of course, the answer is no one is ready, because this is only A.I. 1.0 — the beginning of time. So let’s review.

Artificial intelligence has finally emerged, and the prospects for it transforming the enterprise are excellent. Every enterprise should be looking at what blend of A.I. they want to investigate. From machine learning to neural nets, recommendation engines and decision bots — the landscape of the marketplace is full of choices. The real question I would pose is, “What should CIOs be telling their CEOs about the A.I. revolution?” The answer: “Show me the business strategy.”

I would challenge CIOs to work out the strategy question first. What is the business strategy that would benefit and even justify adding artificial intelligence? How could we generate a competitive advantage from investing in machine learning or automated decision support that A.I. could offer? There needs to be a business value or competitive advantage that investing in A.I. makes clear. If not, then you are not ready. Or don’t invest much until you can answer this strategic question.

Too many companies are so impressed with A.I. buzz that they are moving headlong into A.I. without clarifying what the business strategy case could be. Are we going to be able to generate better customer service? Help employees make better decisions? Enable our customer to use more of our products or services? How about fix that problem that those pesky humans don’t seem to be able to handle? How will we be able to monetize artificial intelligence?

Westboro, MA – February 13, 2017 – Trends Equity, Inc. has announced that AI World Conference & Expo 2017 – www.aiworld.com – will be held September 18-20, 2017 at the Boston Marriott Copley in Boston, MA. Now in its’ second year, AI World has become the industry’s largest event focused on the state of the practice of enterprise AI and machine learning. AI World’s mission is to enable enterprise business and technology executives to learn how to successfully harness intelligent technologies to build competitive advantage, drive new business opportunities and accelerate innovation efforts.

Congress set up the H-1B program to help American companies hire foreigners with exceptional skills, to fill open jobs and to help their businesses grow.
But the program has been failing many American employers who cannot get visas for foreigners with the special skills they need.
Instead, the outsourcing firms are increasingly dominating the program, federal records show. In recent years, they have obtained many thousands of the visas — which are limited to 85,000 a year — by learning to game the H-1B system without breaking the rules, researchers and lawyers said.
In some years, an American employer could snag one of these coveted visas almost anytime. But recently, with the economy picking up, the outsourcing companies have sent in tens of thousands of visa requests right after the application window opens on April 1. Employers who apply after a week are out of luck.
“The H-1B program is critical as a way for employers to fill skill gaps and for really talented people to come to the United States,” said Ronil Hira, a professor at Howard University who studies visa programs. “But the outsourcing companies are squeezing out legitimate users of the program,” he said. “The H-1Bs are actually pushing jobs offshore.”

#H-1B  #Visas  #Students