Building confidence has two distinct but essential components: managing insecurity and building self-efficacy. If you want to build confidence, you need to work on both of these two sides of confidence simultaneously<ul><li>Managing insecurity: build self-confidence</li><li>Self-efficacy: build confidence through managing insecurity.</li></ul>

Building Confidence

The best way to manage insecurity is to acknowledge and accept it rather than immediately trying to fix it or get rid of it.You need to build up the belief that you're capable of handling scary situations well. And that belief only gets built through hard-won experience, not clever insights or explorations of your childhood.

Managing Insecurity

Coined by the psychologist Albert Bandura, self-efficacy is the belief in your ability to perform well when faced with a specific challenge.It doesn't mean the absence of fears, worries, or insecurities. It means you continue to believe in your abilities despite them.

Building Self-Efficacy

<ul><li>When you repeatedly prove to yourself that you can perform well in a given situation, you slowly build up a belief in your ability.</li><li>Confidence requires managing insecurities well.</li><li>It's hard to deal with your insecurity well if you don’t have the ability to manage them well.</li></ul>

Self-Efficacy Comes From Experience

Building self-efficacy requires the ability to manage insecurities.Manage insecurity by practicing difficult conversations with your spouse or by having Chinese food for dinner instead of burgers.

How to Get Started Building Confidence

The key is that if you’re repeatedly struggling to build confidence in a specific area, you need to practice with a smaller version of a goal and continue building up both sides of your self-confidence: managing insecurities well and building self-efficacy.

Start With Small Steps

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

The 2 Sides of Confidence - Nick Wignall

And they have done that beyond the economy and financial system. What has changed is that corporations now pay attention to their social role.This shift is the result of several converging factors. Reams of analytic data are now available, so customers and investors have more ways than ever of evaluating companies—and many now expect businesses to be as green, ethical, and transparent as possible. Social media has also given consumers a greater voice. Climate change has made everyone aware of humanity’s effects on life and the planet.

Businesses have always impacted the world

<ul><li>Create a new model or market. </li><li>Transform the business. </li><li>Pursue pure-play alignment. This involves shifting to a new venture, rather than transforming an existing business. </li><li>Offer a substitute product. </li><li>Focus on operational efficiencies. </li><li>Recognize an added value. </li></ul>

Building socially responsible and profitable companies

While many industries promote green values, some may just be paying lip service. To be truly impactful is not easy to do. It requires a transformation, and not everyone will do that.Legacy industries such as transportation and auto manufacturers, in particular, are under threat of disruption. Many companies are struggling to adapt in the face of change. This requires convincing your workforce to do something different, and it’s hard for all of us humans to change.

Actions speak louder than words

A new generation of business leaders is finding innovative and profitable ways to bring about positive change in the world. In the book Purpose and Profit, George Serafeim offers a roadmap for people at every career stage who seek to align their professional aspirations with their personal values.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

business

Business

6 Strategies for Building Socially Responsible—and Profitable—Companies

Sustainability and DEI are two popular issues in the corporate world, where companies come under scrutiny if they are not making an effort to be more inclusive and responsible. This is because of the added focus on a company's<ul><li>Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - A type of business model companies voluntarily implement to help society and the environment.</li><li>Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) - A set of standards investors use to evaluate how socially conscious a company is.</li></ul>

Sustainability: CSR and ESG

Sustainability in business refers to implementing the CSR model to improve your ESG. For example:<ul><li>Improving energy efficiency by using renewable energy sources and reducing usage</li><li>Ensuring your business is climate-positive by offsetting carbon and planting trees</li><li>Encouraging sustainable behaviour amongst all staff</li><li>Using green-certified office products.</li></ul> Benefits to the company:<ul><li>Employees prefer to work for "greener" companies.</li><li>It's good for your brand reputation.</li><li>You become more attractive to investors.</li></ul>

Benefits of sustainability in business

With so many benefits, it's profitable for companies to appear sustainable. Companies spend much time to seem as if they're doing a lot for the environment rather than making a real difference. They are aware of the PR benefits of appearing like they're a sustainable business, but the company doesn't practice it. This is named greenwashing.

Is sustainability just a marketing trend?

A company that is greenwashing use vague language and consistently releases press articles about the great work they're doing, but there is no evidence to back up these claims. For example, BP spent millions on an ad campaign about renewable energy, but everything else they did was bad. Companies use jargon and scientific talk to confuse the audience to make it seem like they're doing complicated work. If you're truly interested in a company and its actual ESG status, research their owners and use your own research to validate their claims.

How to tell if a company is greenwashing

Is sustainability just a buzzword, or are companies actually trying to make a positive change?

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

Is Sustainability Just a PR Stunt?

While from home has plenty of advantages, it can also get lonely at times. Sometimes we need to be surrounded by like-minded people and have a sense of collaboration that comes from working in a shared space.  In-person coworking sprints could make all the difference.

In-person coworking sprints

There are 1.08 million workers taking advantage of coworking spaces within the U.S. Benefits include:<ul><li>The change in scenery and routine can make you happier. If your workdays at home are blending together, consider changing your workspace for a couple of days.</li><li>You can explore new surroundings and meet new people to find new ideas you might not have received from your own professional network.</li><li>It becomes easier to hold yourself accountable.</li><li>Mundane tasks are no longer an issue.</li><li>Well-designed coworking spaces will result in higher productivity and greater satisfaction.</li></ul>

The benefits of coworking spaces

Coworking spaces are projected to exceed 40,000 by 2024. <ul><li>Location. Choose a coworking space in your vicinity that makes for an easy commute.</li><li>Amenities. Choose a coworking space that offers everything you need, such as easy access to printers, top-speed WiFi, and charging ports for maximum productivity.</li><li>Facilities. Beyond aesthetics, practicality such as a community kitchen, meeting spaces, shared spaces, and booths for taking calls should be your priority.</li><li>Extra perks. A Gym, patios, and complimentary drinks often come as part of the package. Ensure to check these out before you commit.</li><li>Cost.</li></ul>

What to look for in a coworking space

A coworking space is a perfect way to break up the monotony that happens from time to time.

If you’re looking to work somewhere besides your cramped home or structured office, search for these things.


remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

5 essentials to look for in a coworking space

Anytime you use a video teleconferencing app, you’re sending your audio data to the company hosting the services. And, according to a new study, that means all of your audio data. This includes voice and background noise whether you’re broadcasting or muted.Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison investigated “many popular apps” to determine the extent that video conferencing apps capture data while users employ the in-software ‘mute’ button. The result was shocking, as it was found that all the apps send audio data to their servers even when Mute is activated.

The Software Mute Button Is A Sham

According to the researchers, this data could be used to extract meaningful information. And, with a little machine learning, that information can paint an incredibly vivid picture of a user’s reality — again, even with your microphone muted in the app.The research team was able to determine what specific audio was being sent during testing and, by extrapolating that data, they were able to predict what inferences big tech could make.

The Usage Of Raw Audio Data

Grad students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were able to build machine learning models capable of determining what a teleconference app user was doing while their microphone was muted with greater than 80% accuracy.

The Troublesome Information

Our real concern is that big tech either doesn’t care whether users know they’re being recorded even when they’re muted, or it never stopped to think users would care. Either way, it shows a disturbing level of detachment from the user experience.Big tech’s unspoken mantra is “data at all costs,” and this just goes to prove how thirsty the beast is. There’s no good reason not to explicitly inform users in large print that the mute button doesn’t stop their audio feed to the server.

The Real Concern

If you truly want to mute your audio feed, you need to perform a double mute. If you’re fortunate enough to own a headset that has a physical mute button on it, use that to mute your headset and then use the button in the app as an extra layer of muting.If your headset doesn’t have a physical mute button, or you’re using an onboard microphone to communicate, you’ll need to do a system mute by muting your microphone from the system settings in your operating system, as well as muting in the app.

The Solution

Forcing users to go into operating system menus in order to ensure they’re achieving a modicum of privacy is an anti-user policy. And, furthermore, it demonstrates how much more sensitive our audio data can be than our video data.Don’t forget to double mute! You’ll probably forget to double unmute from time to time, but the trade-off is keeping Google, Microsoft, and all the others from training their machines on the ambient sounds of your private life.

Evil Tech At Its Best

The Mute Button On Your Laptop Isn't Private

Think your muted? Better think again. A team of researchers found out Big Tech keeps recording when you mute.

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

cybersecurity

Cybersecurity

computerscience

Computer Science

Muting your mic reportedly doesn’t stop big tech from recording your audio

Research shows that the brain responds more strongly to bad experiences than good ones — and our memories retain them longer. Five positive experiences are about equal to one negative one. This five-to-one ratio, discovered by psychologist and relationship researcher John Gottman in the 1970s, still applies to our present-day workplace.

How our brains respond to bad experiences

We are all naturally wired to blame other people or circumstances when things go wrong. These propensities are partially psychological, driven by something called the fundamental attribution bias. We tend to believe that what people do is a reflection of who they are, rather than considering there may be other factors (social or environmental) influencing their behavior.

Humans are wired to blame

We don’t even notice how often we do it. And our brains interpret blame the same way they interpret a physical attack. When we’re blamed, our prefrontal cortices effectively shut down and direct all our energy to defending ourselves, which, ironically, sabotages our ability to solve the problem for which we are being blamed.
Blame also kills healthy, accountable behaviors. Nobody will take accountability for problems if they think they’ll be punished for doing so.

We blame more than we think

Switch your mindset to “We’re all still learning,” and share your mistakes.<ul><li>We all make mistakes from time to time. It’s what makes us human. No good comes from blaming and shaming each other for our imperfect nature. </li><li>You benefited from learning from your mistakes, so allow others to do the same. Use problems and mistakes as teaching moments, not shaming moments. </li><li>If you’re a manager, discuss your own mistakes and the lessons learned from them. Doing so creates a psychological safe space that will encourage others to follow suit.</li></ul>

Eliminate blame culture on your team

Want to build a high-performing team? Start with creating a safer work evironment

books

Books

problemsolving

Problem Solving

teamwork

Teamwork

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Fostering Psychological Safety In The Workplace

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

Blame Culture Is Toxic. Here’s How to Stop It.

The Metaverse is the next step in the Internet’s evolution. It is the convergence of physical, augmented and virtual Reality in a shared online space.The Metaverse is a 4D version of our current Internet. And it can be thought of as an Internet that you’re inside of, rather than one you’re merely looking at.

Metaverse: A Primer

The Metaverse is intended to grow beyond video games and social media platforms as it develops. Remote work, decentralized government, and digital identification are some of Metaverse’s possible features. It can also become more multidimensional with the introduction of networked VR headsets and glasses, allowing users to roam around and explore 3D settings.

Beyond Recreation

This is an experience that simulates realistic situations. Real-life use cases include gaming, social networking, education, and job training. Unity Software CEO John Riccitiello predicts AR and VR headsets will be as common as game consoles by 2030.By providing a virtual reality (VR)-based wearables that transport people to an alternate virtual world from the comfort of their own homes, the Metaverse can potentially disrupt various industries further using this technology.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: Virtual reality 

VR gloves will likely explode in popularity. There are already multiple platforms that can allow you to connect with other VR users. Facebook horizons let you explore virtual worlds where you can connect with people across your world, participate in fun challenges, and even create your virtual worlds.

Role of VR Technology in Metaverse

AI is filling the gap between humans and robots. AI tech will benefit the Metaverse in numerous ways; as stated by Eric Elliot in this <a href="https://medium.com/@_ericelliott?utm_source=makeanapplike">medium article</a>, realistic-looking artificial intelligent technology can wonder the Metaverse and interact with us and each other. They could be programmed with their own life stories, motivations and objectives. Depending on the type of virtual world, we could participate in pre-planned scenarios with these characters or create our scenarios.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: Artificial Intelligence

Unreal Engines made a human creator play a major part in creating these characters. And if and when these characters can exhibit general artificial intelligence, the results can be amazing and surreal. AI technology can help us streamline the creation of Metaverse assets, such as characters, landscapes, buildings, character routines, and more; we may see a future where advanced AI capabilities are integrated with game engines such as Unreal Engine.

Role of AI in Metaverse

<ul>
<li>Accurate avatar creation</li>
<li>Digital humans</li>
<li>Multilingual accessibility</li>
<li>VR world expansion at scale</li>
<li>Intuitive interfacing</li>
</ul>
Without AI, it will be impossible to develop an interesting, authentic, and scalable metaverse experience. That’s why firms like Meta are collaborating with think tanks and ethics organizations to mitigate the hazards of AI without limiting its promise.

Use Cases For AI Technology In the Metaverse

This is an experience where designers enhance parts of a user’s physical world with computer-generated input. Eventually, AR contact lenses and AR glasses could be used to augment the world around us and facilitate virtual assistants with the help of sophisticated artificial intelligence. This AI would help us navigate both the real and virtual worlds.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: Augmented Reality 

Blockchain technology in a decentralized Metaverse would be an ideal currency for facilitating quick and secure digital transactions, even though blockchain technology came into existence with Bitcoin BBlockchain as for reaching potential outside of cryptocurrency. Blockchain is a shared database that allows multiple parties to access data and verify that data in real-time.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: Blockchain Technology 

Blockchain technology offers a decentralized and transparent solution for digital evidence of ownership, digital collectibility, value transfer, governance, accessibility, and interoperability. Cryptocurrencies allow people to transfer value in the 3D digital environment while working and socializing.

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

Brain-computer interfaces allow us to control avatars, various objects and digital transactions with our brain signals. This technology is expected to gain an initial foothold in the video game and workforce productivity markets. This technology won’t play a major part in the early years of the Metaverse. However, by the mid-2030s, some early adopters might begin using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain%E2%80%93computer_interface?utm_source=makeanapplike">brain-computer interfaces</a> to connect to the neocortex. The neocortex is part of the human brain’s cerebral cortex, where higher cognitive functioning originated.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: Brain Computer Interface

Startups and IT infrastructure alike are attempting to overcome the difficulties of delivering a real-time, immersive virtual world. The Metaverse is not a service that operates on top of an application. It is neither a world nor a game. It’s the next generation of the Internet, allowing for real-time interactions. Infrastructure is what the Metaverse is.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: Internet Infrastructure

The Metaverse would require extremely high internet speeds, high bandwidth, and low latency, especially when the user enters a vast virtual world with highly detailed textures and unbelievably high polygon counts. 5G enables extremely high frequencies at the millimetre wave spectrum, which opens up possibilities like VR experiences that include the sense of touch and AR experiences that let visitors have in-depth conversations with AI characters in real-time

Beyond 5G

With Web 1.0. Content creators were scarce, with the vast majority of users simply acting as content consumers. For the most part, recurrently in the Web 2.0 era. Web 2.0 bothers the web as a platform where software applications are built on instead of just desktop computers. This enabled masses of users to participate in content creation on social networks, blogs, sharing sites, and more.
However, Web 2.0 greatly empowers centralized tech giants and enables surveillance and exploitive advertising.

Web 1.0 And 2.0

When Web 3.0 has a primary advantage, it enables decentralized blockchain protocol, enabling individuals to connect to an internet where they can own and be properly compensated for the time and data. This is more advantageous than a web where giant centralized companies on the lion’s share of the web can siphon large percentages of the profits.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: Web 3.0

Number seven mobile device processors for augmented Reality to appeal to the mainstream public will likely need augmented Reality to work on normal-looking glasses. This would require small superfast mobile processors that can be fitted on normal-looking glasses, VR devices, fast mobile processors to handle hyper-realistic graphics, low latency, high refresh rates, high frames per second, and so forth. As processes require more cores and components. We may also see the introduction of optical components that would work with standard Silicon components.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: Mobile Device Processors

Mixed Reality is created when a user can interact directly with the Metaverse in a physical setting. It describes a view of the real world with the addition of virtual objects that look and act like real objects. Users can interact with both virtual objects and real ones.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: Mixed Reality

One of the applications of IoT on the Metaverse is to collect and provide data from the physical world. If we can add metaverses to the present Internet of things (IoT), our economy’s acceleration will be on a whole new level. IoT may connect the 3D environment to a vast number of real-world devices seamlessly. In the Metaverse, this allows for the production of real-time simulations. IoT could employ AI and machine learning to handle the data it collects to enhance the metaverse environment further.

Interconnected Tech Of The Metaverse: IoT (Internet Of Things)

The Metaverse will become more accessible to the rest of the world as we develop new types of connected devices. Infrastructure for the Internet of Things and 5G mobile networks is being heavily invested in and will continue to expand over the next decade.While the Metaverse is still in its early stages of development, many businesses are already looking into its possibilities. Decentraland and The Sandbox are significant efforts in the crypto sector, but major corporations such as Microsoft, Nvidia, and Facebook are also getting involved.

Metaverse Future

An inside look at why the Metaverse matters, it's economics, challenges and the future

crypto

Cryptocurrency

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Metaverse

List of top metaverse technologies for Metaverse development. List of top technology used to make Metaverse. Metaverse technologies that will create future

Which Technologies is Used To Make A Metaverse? Metaverse Development Technologies

<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-chong-4534152/" target="_self">Jenny Chong </a>is the Head of Innovation for <a href="https://www.kogopay.com/" target="_self">KogoPay</a>, a mobile payment platform built on the values of “Pay it Forward” and helping the socially disadvantaged. She also sits on the non-executive board of the <a href="https://www.medway.nhs.uk/" target="_self">Medway NHS Foundation Trust </a>for Medway Maritime Hospital.

The World Will Be a Very Different Place

07:30: Drag myself out of bed. I am not an early bird. Thankfully WFH means no more 5:50am alarms to miss rush hour!08:30: Much screaming and bribing to get the kids ready for school09.00: First coffee of the day and a cupful of multi-vitamins to slow down the journey to death’s door9.10pm: Ride the hamster wheel of emails, conference calls, report skimming, news catch up. Work with Asia and Europe12pm: Pit (or pee) stop, coffee top-up.

What does a typical day look like for you now?

There has never been a time when we have to work closer together in fighting this war; a war that we don’t know how to win; a war that we don’t even know if we’re winning at the end of each day; a war where we don’t have the right weapons and armour but our troops in blue still bravely man the frontline every day. Together we stand and fight but from a socially isolated position.

How has Coronavirus impacted your life/work?

Conferences: <a href="https://medium.com/u/c4c2efc9bc0a?source=post_page-----2cd250c8c27c--------------------------------" target="_self">Zoom</a>+ Good WiFi + Good set of noise-cancelling headphones for calls. Kids School Work: WhatsApp + Non-stop memes from other frustrated mums.

What productivity tips have you found useful whilst working from home?

Right now, I’m determined to first get through the stacks of&nbsp;Bloomberg Businessweek and Stylist magazines… I’m a hoarder, I never throw away a magazine until I’ve read it.Then tackle all the books I’ve bought over the years but never got a chance to read. So maybe ask me this question in six months!

What five books would you recommend during this time at home?

Economically and politically, the clean up is going to be tough. The community spirit has given everyone hope in these dark days. This crisis has opened up opportunities in data collaboration, and broken down barriers across Countries/Governments/Institutions in fighting a common enemy. It has also focused attention on sustainable health services.

When this is all over, what will the opportunities look like?

Radical, tough decisions are being made to get us through; equally radical and tough measures will be required to get us back. This the tenth interview in the Beyond Work series looking at how…

The company's culture is dependent on everyone who works in the building and when an employee starts to have growing negative feelings towards the company, leaders need to be ready for that.
As a leader, you must be able to communicate to your team effectively about what's troubling them and see if you're able to make compromises. simply ignoring and avoiding the topic will only let frustration grow.

Acknowledge the frustration

Take the time to do some digging and ask around if your company offers any benefits and programs that would best suit your employees' needs.

How employees can be helped

Being a leader is like being a parent. When an employee suffers from frustation and "shuns" you out, sometimes the best you can do is to just leave them with options and have them decide what they want to do.
Handling anger and frustration can be tricky and being their leader, you must help them manage their emotions by giving them the tools that they can use to do so.

Offer resources

Moving through an intense situation with a co-worker or a team can be demanding and arduous.
As employees make the effort, don't forget to recognize it and let them know that you're aware of how hard they're working. Let them know that they have support.

Hand out recognition

Leaders and managers have to learn how to deal with anger in the workplace today. Here are 4 things to help company culture and engagement.

Leaders Need to Prepare for Anger In the Workplace

TDD should simplify code, not make it more complicated. If your code becomes harder to read or maintain when you make it testable, you're doing TDD wrong. You can learn two things: <ul><li>You can write decoupled code without dependency injection, and </li><li>Maximising code coverage results in diminishing returns. </li></ul> More complex code often means more cluttered code. Cluttered code is a convenient place for bugs to hide. It's also easier to find things when there's less clutter.

TDD should lead to better design

A code smell is a surface indication that points to a deeper problem in the system. Different types of code need different levels (and different kinds) of mocks. Some code exists primarily to facilitate I/O, in which case, there is little to do other than test I/O. Reducing mocks might mean your unit test coverage would be close to 0.

Code smell

Unit tests test individual units (modules, functions, classes) in isolation from the rest of the program. <ul><li>Generally, units are tested using the public interface of the unit, known as black-box testing. It leads to less brittle tests.</li><li>In white box testing - where tests are aware of implementation details - any change to the implementation details could break the test, even if the public API continues to function as expected.</li></ul>

What is a unit test?

Code coverage is the amount of code covered by a test. Increasing coverage beyond 90% seems to have little continued correlation with lower bug density.There are two kinds of coverage: <ul><li>Code coverage: how much of the code is exercised, and </li><li>Case coverage: how many of the use-case scenarios are covered by the test suites.  </li></ul>Coverage reports identify code-coverage weaknesses, not case coverages weaknesses.

What is test coverage?

Less coupling makes code easier to extend and maintain. Tight coupling makes code more rigid and brittle and more likely to break when changes are needed.Coupling takes different forms: <ul><li>Subclass coupling is dependent on the implementation and hierarchy of the parent class.</li><li>Control dependencies. Code that tells its dependences what to do. If the control API of the dependency changes, the dependent code will break.</li><li>State shape dependencies. Code that only uses a subset of the data structure.</li><li>Event/message coupling. Code that communicates with other units via message passing, events, etc.</li></ul>

Tight coupling

Tight coupling has many causes: <ul><li>Mutation vs immutability  </li><li>Side-Effects vs purity/isolated side-effects  </li><li>Responsibility overload vs Do One Thing (DOT)  </li><li>Procedural instructions vs describing structure  </li><li>Class Inheritance vs composition  </li></ul>Imperative and object-oriented code is more vulnerable to tight coupling than functional code.

Causes of tight coupling

All software development is about the process of breaking a big problem down into smaller independent parts, combining the solutions to form an application that solves the big problem. Mocking is necessary when the decomposition strategy failed. When decomposition succeeds, a generic composition utility can be used to compose the pieces together.

Composition and mocking

One of the biggest complaints I hear about TDD and unit tests is that people struggle with all of the mocking required to isolate units. Some people struggle to understand how their unit tests are…

The 2 Sides of Confidence - Nick Wignall

6 Strategies for Building Socially Responsible—and Profitable—Companies

Is Sustainability Just a PR Stunt?

5 essentials to look for in a coworking space

Muting your mic reportedly doesn’t stop big tech from recording your audio

John Pineda