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STEM vs. “Soft Skills”
Modern education places a heavy emphasis on STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering, and math. However, a project at Google set out to determine the value of so-called “soft skills” in their workplace. Google initially set out to hire computer science students with top grades from the best science colleges upon its conception in 1998. But in…
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A 4-Day Work Week?
Happy Friday everyone! Today, we’re discussing human productivity and the efficiency of an experimental four-day work week. Earlier this year, a firm in New Zealand ran an experiment where it let its employees work four days a week while being paid for five. Employees chose which day of the week to take off, and the…
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How To Have Better Conversations
At Steelray, every employee attends a seminar called “Fierce Conversations,” taught by Larry Hart and based on the book by Susan Scott. We hold all these lessons to heart and firmly believe that effective communication is a pillar to great teamwork, which in turn creates excellent products, and is a baseline for our really cool…
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Women’s Empowerment & Bravery
We discovered another great TED Talk, this time by Reshma Saujani, the founder of the non-profit organization Girls Who Code which supports efforts to increase the number of women in computer science. Saujani draws attention to the tough issue of the gender imbalance in the technology industry. She recognizes aspects of our socialization that affect…
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Unintended Consequences
A hunter was injured when a bear landed on top of him after he shot it on a hilltop. I am not making light of this happening, and I hope the hunter makes a full and quick recovery, but this story is a perfect metaphor for the habit we sometimes have of shooting problems and at…
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Viewer Now Sold by Subscription
As of October 1st, 2018, we no longer sell “full” and “maintenance” licenses to our products. We only sell subscriptions. Prior to October 1st, 2018, we sold our viewer as a perpetual license. On October 1st, 2018, we switched to a subscription model, which means that all new sales are sold as subscriptions. For Perpetual License…
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Alan – The Artifically Intelligent PM Assistant
Dateline: December, 2024 — Steelray launches Alan, our (fictional) Artificially Intelligent Assistant Project Manager. Let’s follow along as Alan takes on the day. Alan begins early by checking his news feed, noting that dock workers in Brazil are threatening to strike in January. He sends an alert to the risk analyst, checking to see if…