arc news

• IBM to split into two companies by end of 2021 – IBM announced earlier this month that the company would be spinning off some of its lower-margin lines of business into a new company and focusing on higher-margin cloud services. During an investor call, CEO Arvind Krishna acknowledged that the move was a “significant shift” in how IBM will work, but he positioned it as the latest in a decades-long series of strategic divestments.

• Give Your Remote Team Unstructured Time for Collaboration – As many companies are continuing to work remotely — and some are shifting to permanent WFH policies — many leaders realize that they need to develop new practices and habits to support their remote employees over the long term. Creating opportunities for employees to connect with one another is at the top of the list for many managers I speak with as part of my research and executive training.

• Transitioning to a Digital Workplace with Microsoft SharePoint & Teams – Interest in Microsoft SharePoint and Teams has grown steadily, especially while workplaces are remote. Consider attending our webinar if you’re interested in these solutions or are curious about how other organizations, such as the Real Estate Council of Alberta, have implemented them.

• One ping after another: why everyone needs a notification detox – According to one small study conducted in 2014, mobile phone users receive an average of 63.5 alerts every day, with most viewed within minutes – whether the phone is on silent or not. A 2016 study by Deloitte found that people check their phone, on average, 47 times a day – often in response to alerts. It is hardly any wonder some people are undergoing a notification detox.

• Forget Chess—the Real Challenge Is Teaching AI to Play D&D – Fans of games like Dungeons & Dragons know that the fun comes, in part, from a creative Dungeon Master—an all-powerful narrator who follows a storyline but has free rein to improvise in response to players’ actions and the fate of the dice. This kind of spontaneous yet coherent storytelling is extremely difficult for artificial intelligence, even as AI has mastered more constrained board games such as chess and Go.

Interested in what you’ve read? Want to learn more about what we do? Contact us today. In addition to keeping on top of tech trends, we provide IT and business solutions to clients across North America.