Artificial intelligence has been spread over a very large area of computing since the beginning of the computer, but we are getting closer than ever with cognitive computing models. What are these models and why are we talking about it today.
Cognitive computing comes from a mash-up of cognitive science which is the study of the human brain and how it functions and a touch of computer science and the results will have far-reaching impacts on our private lives, healthcare, business, and more.
What is Cognitive Computing?
The aim of cognitive computing is to replicate human thought processes in a programmed model. It describes technology platforms that broadly speaking, and which are involved in self-learning systems that use data mining, natural language processing, and pattern recognition to mimic the way the human brain works. With the goal to automate the IT systems that are capable of solving the problems without requiring human assistance the Cognitive computing is growing very fast.
Cognitive computing systems use machine learning algorithms; which repeatedly acquire knowledge from the data fed into them by mining data for information. These systems treat the way they look for patterns and as well as the way they process data so they have become competent of anticipating new problems and modeling possible solutions.
Cognitive computing is used in numerous artificial intelligence applications (AI), including expert systems, neural networks, natural language programming, robotics and virtual reality. While computers are proved the faster machines at calculations and meting out the humans for decades; these machines haven’t been able to accomplish some tasks that humans take for granted as simple, like understanding natural language, or recognizing unique objects in an image. The cognitive computing represents the third era of computing: it from computers that could tabulate sums (the 1900s) to programmable systems (1950s), and now to cognitive systems.
The cognitive systems; most remarkably IBM and IBM +0.55%’s Watson, depend on deep learning algorithms and neural networks to process the information by comparing it to an education set of data. The more data the systems are exposed to, the more it learns, and the more accurate it becomes over time, and this type of neural network is a complex “tree” of decisions the computer can make to arrive at an answer.
What can cognitive computing do?
As per the recent TED Talk from IBM, Watson could ultimately be applied in a healthcare setting also, this helps the administrative department of healthcare to collate the span of knowledge around conditions, which include the patient history, journal articles, best practices, diagnostic tools, and many more. Through this, you can easily analyze that vast quantity of information, and provide your recommendations as needed.
The next stage is to examine, which will be proceeded by the consulting doctor, who will then be able to look at the evidence and based on the recorded evidence the treatment options will be released based on these large number of factors including the individual patient’s presentation and history. Hopefully, this will lead to making better treatment decisions.
While in other scenarios, when the goal is not to clear and you look to replace the doctor, and the doctor’s capabilities by processing the humongous amount of data available will not be retained by any human and thus providing a summary of potential application will be overdue. This type of process could be done for any field such as including finance, law, and education in which large quantities of complex data will be in need to be processed and analyzed to solve problems.
However, you can also apply these systems in other areas of business like consumer behavior analysis, personal shopping bots, travel agents, tutors, customer support bots, security, and diagnostics. We see that there are personal digital assistants available nowadays in our personal phones and computers like —Siri and Google GOOGL -0.21% among others, which are not true cognitive systems; and have a pre-programmed set of responses and can only respond to a preset number of requests. But, as tech is on high volume we will be able to address our phones, our computers, our cars, our smart houses and get a real time in the near future when thoughtful response rather than a pre-programmed one.
The coming future will be more delightful for us as computers will become more like humans and they will also expand our capabilities and knowledge. Just be ready to welcome the coming era when computers can enhance human knowledge and ingenuity in entirely new ways.
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As a head, it’s the manager’s role to encourage his employees to surpass their expectations by taking responsible risks. An efficient leader can either embrace diverse thinking to measure one’s talent to innovate or distract the whole team to fall down. Never undervalue an employee’s ability as it will break the employee to perform. Have proper understanding before you evaluate or test your employee's abilities and potential.
A manager or a head should carry the skill to motivate his employees; as this is one of the greatest skills an entrepreneur should hold while leading a process or a team. Every organization goes through some tough growing pains, and this may be because of many reasons; like lack of infrastructure, resources, or cash would also make it extremely difficult to improve the company morale, but cash should not be a reason to discourage your employees. Even if you are wealthier, don’t show the money, which will not work.
Let us look at some better ways to boost the morale.
Be Kind & Praise
Everyone wants it and this is one of the greatest and easiest things to give. A praise from the CEO goes a lot beyond then you might think, but a small appreciation from the head is a good gesture to any employee. Praising every improvement that you see in your team members make them happy for sure, but it also increases their confidence and love towards their work.
Get Divest of the Managers
Can we not think any project without a project manager in any organization? That doesn’t seem to be happening also? But can we try it? Putting aside a project lead or a manager and empowering your staff to work together as a team rather than everyone reporting to one individual can do wonders. But which organization will think about it? The question here is what’s worse than letting your supervisor and your team down?
A manager or a supervisor will help or make the people to work together as a team, and this will often produce better projects faster. If the team is strong and united all the team members will enjoy the work and like to come in early, stay late, and devote more of their energy to solving the problems and deliver the project as estimated.
Respect their Ideas
Instead of always being the boss and telling people what they need to do. Make them share their ideas and see if that may work well. People hate being told what to do; they like others to respect their ideas and this has also worked well in many scenarios. You can add your idea to what they say to mix the ideas and promote them or proceed.
Do Not Criticize or Correct
No one will be ready to take criticism or corrections in their work. This will not only de-motivate them but also pull them down, which is not a good task for any organization. Try different options to explain to them why it will not work. Or you can even take an indirect example to get people learn and improve, from their mistakes, and fix them at the earliest. Ask, instead of pointing them for the mistakes you can ask them the best way to approach the problem and how best you can fix it.
Treat as Leaders
Making everyone leaders may sound different, but it’s not making them leaders, but making them feel that you give importance to their decision and respect it. Have top performers’ get introduced in the teams and organization and highlight their performance and strengths to let them know that because of their excellence, you want them to be the example for others. Set-up appreciations and calculation bars to show-up their performance; which will motivate them to live up to their reputation as leaders.
Give a Surprise
Take your team out and have a good talk. Introduce new policy which will help them and company grow. This is an easy way to remind them that you notice and appreciate their work and this may also help others to be close to the team and think what they are missing out.
Rewards & Recognitions
Both of them play a vital role in motivating your employees. This is an old technique, but believe me, it works wonders. When an organization thing or recognize their employee's performance and it is rewarded its self-makes your employee feel positive about their company. Announce their performance in front of teams, or stick on whiteboards or treat them with goodies. You can do this every quarter or by the half of the year. Start reward and recognition policy which will help the organization to walk closer with their teams.
Have Company Get Together
Doing things as a group will not help in many scenarios, instead, plan for a company get together once in a while; as this can go a long way. Have a company picnic or anniversary. As many companies are even missing their anniversaries due to lack of time. Holding happy hours is a good idea now and then; don’t wait for holidays to do such activities. Organize events once in a year or the time your project is out will remind your staff that you’re all in it together.
Share the Rewards
When your company does well or your project is success start celebrating it. Do not postpone your reward as this will be the best time to let everyone recognize your efforts. You can share the project in and out and if you have any disappoints too with the teams. share your future plans how you want them to support you.
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The value proposition of Cloud computing — the delivery model for digitalization and innovation has evolved from cost reduction and scalability to mobility and cognitive computing. However, the other benefit is a path to improve customer loyalty using cognitive services through a cloud to create personalized promotions and interactive customer support.
This thinking has extended the idea of a cloud assessment beyond traditional and advanced IT analytics that aimed to improve the customer experience and expectations. The purpose of this customer-centric approach is not which cloud is the best fit for any application; instead, it should, which cloud is the most innovative in adding to hosting services.
The cloud suitability assessment in traditional approach is to evaluate the IT systems using prearranged criteria and to identify the best suitable cloud hosting environment. By implementing such environment you can evaluate cost reduction, agility, scalability, and flexibility. However, such assessments often result in creating a hybrid cloud (private and public) for enterprise-level customers.
While based on every organization’s IT need and policies, it is crucial to tailor assessment criteria which are typically included on latency (performance), accessibility, hardware dependency, data security/privacy and demand certainty. Thus, the end result is to migrate your application to the cloud, but that is not enough to be competitive in many markets today.
However, these assessments are like foundations to new analysis which aims to transform traditional IT systems into cloud-based systems to enhance the customer based services.
This new cloud assessment requires added evaluation criteria’s, such as cross-platform compatibility, integration involvedness, open technologies, and cognitive computing applicabilitys. These criteria’s can overlap with architectural design principles, and enable innovative services through IT systems running in the cloud.
Here are some questions that may help you to make out any gaps and achieve your innovative goals that go beyond legacy cloud migration.
This comprehensive assessment will make your systems or applications land in a cognitive ready cloud environment so you can speed up the design and implementation phase to innovative services.
The potential for these services is every time unlimited, so you need to consider the new insights made possible by cognitive computing. With the help of cognitive services process, you can see the tremendous amount of structured and unstructured data generated by billions of mobile devices every day.
It’s time to go beyond migrating your applications and systems into the cloud, and also look into its readiness for innovations how cloud and cognitive services could revolutionize your customer experiences. By doing so you could drive your digital transformation.
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Stress in any and every organization has become common today, but excess stress can interfere your personal and professional life. This can be a cause to break down your professional network which will in fact impact on the productivity and spoil your physical and emotional health. Your ability to deal with it can mean out of the difference between success and failures.
It’s not in your hand to control everything at your workplace, but this doesn’t mean that you are powerless – when you are struck in any difficult situation. Finding ways to manage workplace stress or looking out to opt out of hat job will not be that helpful as it will give you temporary relief, but rather focusing on one thing will always be within your control.
For workers anywhere, the financial system may feel like an emotional move with layoffs and budget cuts which result increased fear, insecurity, and high-level of stress.
Your emotions should be communicable as stress can impact the quality of your interactions with others and sometimes many people lose their prospects because of this. The better you manage your stress, the more you'll positively influence those around you, and the fewer others stress will negatively affect you.
Let us look at some more tips that will help you to come out of stress and help yourselves to grow professionally and personally.
There are many ways to reduce both your personal stress and the stress you get on the job side. They include:
When you feel stress at your workplace, you lose confidence and become irritable or introvert. This is the first reason which will make you less effective and less productive in your job. Thus, it also makes your work less rewarding. When you start ignoring the warning signs of stress at your workplace it leads to bigger problems. Chronic and intense stress can also lead to physical and emotional health problems.
Signs and symptoms of excessive stress at job
Common Causes of excessive Stress
When you are unable to manage stress at work, improve your personal life, as it adversely impacts your health and makes you stress-free. When your own needs are taken care of, you will be stronger and resilient to stress. The better you feel, the better you’ll be equipped to manage your work stress without becoming overwhelmed. Taking care of yourself doesn’t mean that you overhaul your total lifestyle. Small to small things can lift up your mood, increase your liveliness, and make you feel that you’re back in the driver’s seat again.
Start your day with positives and always take things one step at a time, as this helps you to make more positive lifestyle choices, and you can soon notice a decline in your stress levels, both at home and at work. Get into regular exercise as it is the first stress burner; listen to good and soothing music, read good books, eat your favorite food which will not only increase your energy levels but help you to take the physical stress. To be positive in every situation is always suggestible by experts; so start adapting it. Break up your activities and do what you like most first, last but not least have a sound sleep as this will help you to wake up with a fresh mind and start your day with a refreshing way.
When your work and workplace stress threatens you, there are simple steps to regain control over yourself in some situations. Always be the first to adapt the ability to build a sense of self-control in stressful situations, as this will help you to be well-received by your managers, coworkers, and subordinates alike, and which also lead to good relationship building at your workplace.
As we discussed, every job today is very stressful, retaining a large measure of self-control and self-confidence by learning and practicing emotional intelligence has also become very important in today’s lifestyle. Emotional intelligence is the skill which helps you to manage your emotions in positive and practical ways and use them properly. When it comes to love your work and increase the productivity, emotional intelligence matters just as much as intellectual ability. By adapting this skill you can communicate with others and draw people to you, one can easily overcome differences, fix wounded feelings, and learn how to defuse tension and stress.
Many of us take job stress and make their jobs worse with negative thoughts and behavior. Breaking out your stress at your workplace will never help you, but it makes your job more complicated. Thus to get rid of such situations one has to turn around these self-defeating habits so that you can very easily be able to handle the situations.
No project, situation, or decision is ever perfect, so trying to achieve perfection on everything will just add needless pressure to your work and day. Setting unrealistic goals and struggling to reach them is setting you up to fall short. Always aim to do your best, so that no one will ask for more than that.
Be on time and do not run late, set your clocks and watches fast to give yourself extra time. Do not make your desk mess, throw away the clutter; and make sure that you are aware where everything is as it saves your time and cuts stress. Make to-do lists and plan your day to make feel less overwhelmed.
The manager should play the major role as to keep stress levels in the workplace to a minimum. As they can act as positive role models, particularly in times of high stress. If the manager can remain calm in stressful situations, it is much easier for employees to also maintain their calm.
In addition, there will be many organizational changes that managers and employers can make to reduce stress in the workplace. That include:
Communicating effectively at work can help you to improve the teamwork; decision making will be easy with problem-solving techniques. That means not just by understanding the words or the information being communicated, you can also understand the emotions the speaker is trying to communicate within the group.
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