By Roger Crawford. This was originally published on Roger's blog.
While a winning mindset along with motivation is undoubtedly the key to success, one important factor individuals and organizations sometimes overlook is consistency! When people learn I became a division 1 college athlete despite having four impaired limbs, they often ask, “How did you do that.” Certainly, the element of surprise worked in my favor. When my opponent realized they were competing against someone with a “disability,” the pressure for them to win increased significantly. I remember playing a match in college, and since it was chilly, I was wearing warmup pants. The person I was playing was clearly frustrated and thought losing to a guy with three fingers was unbearable. After the competition was over, I removed my warmup pants, my opponent said, “What, you have a fake leg?” Once he realized besides having three fingers, I also had an artificial leg; he took the loss a lot harder. On the tennis court, I wasn’t the most powerful or the fastest so I focused on what I believe can be your superpower, and that’s consistency. Here’s why, “If you hit the ball over the net one more time than your opponent, you win the point and if you remain consistent, you’ll likely win the match! Isn’t this true in life as well? To build a consistent mindset, it’s important to prioritize progress over perfection. While a winning mindset along with motivation is undoubtedly the key to success, one important factor individuals and organizations sometimes overlook is consistency. I’ve found that consistency can overcome obstacles and is more important than ability. Many people with immense talent fall short of reaching their potential because they are inconsistent with their efforts. Your skillset alone does not determine success; what you do with your skillset consistently determines success. No matter how much natural ability you have, your true potential won’t be realized without consistent action and consistent discipline. If you apply the principle of consistency, it will beat the inconsistency of others and become your competitive advantage. It’s what we do repeatedly that will shape our lives and determine our future. Consistency is what separates those who succeed from those who don’t. Your ability to stay consistent is greater when you are crystal clear on your goals. If you only have a vague idea of what you want to achieve and the action it takes to get there, you will struggle to maintain persistence over time. Establish clarity on what you want to achieve, scale up on your efforts, and most importantly, stay consistent. Being persistent will give you the courage to never give up, and being consistent will elevate your level of success. As we begin a New Year, commit to being the person who consistently hits the ball over the net one more time every day! Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success!
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By Laurie Guest
As our year begins its slow fade out, I like to take a moment of thankful reflection for all that has transpired over 2022. My family is healthy and happy. Life on the road has resumed at full strength following two years of being mostly grounded. And, I’ve picked up a few new hobbies that bring me great joy. But this isn’t to say the year was all rosy. A stress fracture of the left foot had grounded me from a daily exercise routine I worked hard to build over the year. Traveling with the extra hassle of the boot required that I wait for wheelchairs and deal with the pain on the opposite hip caused by an uneven limping walk. I have several friends who require a wheelchair for life in order to be mobile and I thought of them daily as I struggled to do the simplest tasks knowing they have faced so much more. My job requirement is to arrive with energy, focus, and joy when I speak in front of a crowd, and that’s hard when all the energy is going to healing and figuring out how to get myself to the next stop. I’m extremely grateful to the clients who showed such grace when, immediately following the injury, my performance on the platform couldn’t be as robust as usual. I’m thankful to work for such amazing humans. My special story comes from the action of a friend that impacted me profoundly. Meet Terri Langhans and her best friend Donna. They decided to “Walk the Camino” for a third time. In case you aren’t familiar with this journey, it is a network of trails across Europe with all routes leading to Santiago de Compostela, in northern Spain. The most popular route is the 500-mile “French Way,” starting at the foot of the Pyrennes in France. Four years ago, Terri and Donna walked 300 miles starting from Burgos, Spain. This time, they tackled Pyrennes and set out to complete the whole 500 mile trail. They mapped out walking 12-18 miles a day. Every day. For 35 days in a row. Being a person who struggles with foot issues, this personal challenge is one I could never consider, so I vicariously enjoyed it through Terri’s blog posts. She shared what they saw, who they met, and some of the thoughts that occurred to her while she walked…and walked…and walked. Terri is blessed with a wicked sense of humor, profound thought-processing, and an amazing writing skill. I’m hoping her blog turns into a book because their actions along the trailer can have a real impact on people. For example, this time they took a handful of seashells with them in their pockets. (The scallop shell is a symbol of the Camino, and one dangles from almost every back pack.) Each of the little shells had a person’s name written inside, and whenever they came across a meaningful location related to one of the people named on a shell, Terri or Donna would say a prayer for that friend, and leave the shell behind. How cool is that? Fast forward to the end of the walk. No matter where you start your Camino, everyone’s walk culminates in front of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compestella. Turns out that Terri was still carrying “my shell,” the one with my name in it, when she walked into Santiago. She sent me this text the next day: I carried your shell the whole way and was tempted to leave it in a cornfield, you being the farmer’s daughter and all. But I know your feet have to rest right now, so I figured if I carried your shell 500 miles, some of that strength and joy will come your way and you’ll be back walking your own version of a Camino soon. I left the shell on the Cathedral itself, tucked away in the corner of a pillar with a giant shell engraving. Who knows how long it may hide there? Thank you for all you do and for being such a great friend. I’ve experienced a lot of kind gestures from friends over the years but I gotta say, this one ranks right up there at the top. The note came on a day when I needed a splash of joy. To know that I got to “ride in her pocket” for 500 miles and land in a spot that is so amazing is really special. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Steve Gilliland
Typically, a business owner or manager wishes the best for their organization, and part of that entails ensuring their staff members give it their all. However, there’s a fine line between supporting or motivating and micromanaging employees. Micromanagement is a management approach characterized by intensely careful supervision and control over minute parts of an employee’s work. Many inspirational speakers speak about this and showcase how it can have a detrimental impact on your staff. Read on to learn how it can affect your business as a whole. LOW MORALE Micromanaged employees feel their work autonomy slipping away. Ultimately, it leads to employees who cannot take pride in their work and the results they produce. They may no longer wish to go above and beyond for their organization. Motivational speakers consider micromanagement a morale killer. Whether on purpose or not, those who engage in micromanagement neglect the skills and information that staff members have developed throughout their careers. This prevents the latter from pursuing additional career-related growth. LOW PRODUCTIVITY LEVELS Maximum productivity is challenging to accomplish under constant observation. Micromanagers frequently interrupt their staff by asking questions and making arbitrary changes to their work. Employees are compelled to slow down and reschedule important tasks to accommodate ongoing input and modifications to their procedures. Additionally, micromanagement can make workers doubt their skills and knowledge, ultimately increasing their reliance on supervisors for direction. Keynote speakers highlight the employee’s importance and how their creativity is important for a company to operate well. POOR MENTAL HEALTH Great effort goes into maintaining proper mental health at work, but micromanagement strongly affects people’s emotional well-being and makes them feel unappreciated in the workplace. Professional motivational speakers emphasize the significance of mental health in the workplace. Although it may sound severe, employers can incur an annual productivity loss expense of up to $51 billion due to their staff’s mental health struggles. HIGHER EMPLOYEE TURNOVER Micromanagement can cause people to leave a company as they become exhausted by constant and relentless monitoring. A business’s momentum could decrease further when employees leave—due to the need to train new personnel and retrain current staff for new responsibilities. Motivational speakers suggest companies recruit and hire the right people who don’t showcase micromanagement abilities. LOW CREATIVITY AND ENGAGEMENT LEVELS Creativity is driven by engagement. Workers will feel less responsible for an organization’s success if they’re alienated and disempowered due to constant micromanagement. Since micromanagement hinders employees’ ability to innovate, it gives them little to no room to reflect on their own performance and work toward improvement. The most prosperous companies grow when many people present ideas and thoughts for their improvement. Teamwork also declines due to a micromanager’s judgment and opinions. Teamwork fosters improved communication, increased creativity and organization, and general contentment inside an organization. In comparison, a lack of cooperation and synergy can substantially harm your business over time. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Ron Culberson. With a master’s degree in social work, Ron Culberson spent the first part of his career working in a large hospice organization as a clinical social worker, middle manager, and senior leader. As a speaker, humorist, and author of "Do it Well. Make it Fun.The Key to Success in Life, Death, and Almost Everything in Between", he has delivered more than 1,000 presentations to associations, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and corporations. His mission is to change the workplace culture so that organizations are more productive and staff are more content. He was also the 2012-2013 president of the National Speakers Association and is a recognized expert on the benefits of humor and laughter.
Does this sound familiar? It’s the Saturday of your high school prom. You had a crush on another student for several months and a few weeks before the prom, you got up the nerve to ask them to go with you—and they said yes. You rented a tuxedo or bought a dress, made dinner reservations, and arranged for transportation to the big event. When you go into the bathroom to take a shower that Saturday morning, you look in the mirror and see a pimple the size of Rhode Island on your forehead. Panic sets in. You search online for 24-hour emergency dermatology clinics and discover that apparently, dermatology is not a 24-hour emergency business. You run to the drug store and pick up concealer cream but since it doesn’t exactly match your skin color, once it’s applied, it looks like a patch of Silly Putty with a bubble in the middle of it. It reminds you of a joke involving carpet layers, a lump in the carpet, and a missing hamster. You then try to cover up the pimple by combing your hair across your forehead. Not only does this look ridiculous, the pimple pokes through the locks of hair like someone peeking through the shower curtain looking for a towel. By noon, you’re exhausted from trying to hide, cover, and conceal, so you simply give up, realizing that you have little control over human biology. Later, when you finally get dressed, you look in the mirror and realize that your clothing fits perfectly and the muted colors blend nicely with your drab alabaster skin tone. But there in the center of your forehead, all you can see is a red neon sign that warns, “Bumps A Head.” Later, at the prom, you’re convinced that your date keeps staring at your forehead. At the same time, you notice that they have a wart on the side of their ear that you never noticed before. It’s actually more obvious than your pimple. (Please note that the previous example may or may not have been based on real events. Let’s not focus on that right now but instead, let’s look at the problem.) As much as I would like to think that I can overlook the occasional blemish in my life, I must admit that I’m terrible at it. Early in my career, one of my front teeth looked like it was heading for the exit. It seemed to bend more and more every day until it was approaching a right angle. As a speaker, I’m very aware of anything that might distract the audience from my profound insights and engaging repartee. That’s why I don’t typically call attention to my good looks and chiseled physique but rather try to make my appearance blend into the background. This tooth, however, was projecting my Appalachian-ness a bit too blatantly and I was very self conscious. Ironically, no one ever mentioned the angle of my tooth and when I pointed it out to a friend, he said, “Oh, I didn’t notice.” And that is the problem with my perspective. I am acutely aware of problems that are usually of no concern to others. For instance, a few weeks ago, I was dining at a nice restaurant and excused myself to go to the restroom. Before returning, I started to wash my hands but the water pressure was so high, the water shot out of the faucet, up the side of the sink, and directly onto an area of my pants where no moisture should exist after a trip to the restroom. All the way back to my table I kept brushing my pants and saying, a bit too loudly, “Wow, that water pressure in the bathroom is like Old Faithful. Boy, those sinks can sure spray the water. I’m drenched. Gee, gosh, wow!” When I arrived at my table and continued my nervous declarations, everyone just glanced my way but never paid any attention to my pants. I was sure they would accuse me of having an unfortunate toilet incident or suggest that my bathroom skills were not what they should be. But alas, I was the only one who cared. As we go through life and in particular, as we go into the holiday season, perhaps it would be helpful if we didn’t always focus on the pimples, the crooked teeth, and the wet spots in our lives. Instead, maybe we should try to see the good around us rather than the one thing that’s creating a challenge. When we realize that the problem is only a small part of who we are and that our lives are full of smooth skin, straight teeth, and dry pants, the blemishes might not seem so important. I guess what I’m saying is that maybe, we should get better at seeing what’s right rather than what’s wrong. It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? Well, it is. In fact, it’s as obvious as the pimple on my face. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Kenneth Kaufman
A couple of months ago, I got a call from a CEO of a regional health system—a long-time client and one of the smartest and most committed executives I know. This health system lost tens of millions of dollars in fiscal year 2022 and the CEO told me that he had come to the conclusion that he could not solve a problem of this magnitude with the usual and traditional solutions. Pushing the pre-Covid managerial buttons was just not getting the job done. This organization is fiercely independent. It has been very successful in almost every respect for many years. It has had an effective and stable board and management team over the past 30 to 40 years. But when the CEO looked at the current situation—economic, social, financial, operational, clinical—he saw that everything has changed and he knew that his healthcare organization needed to change as well. The system would not be able to return to profitability just by doing the same things it would have done five years or 10 years ago. Instead of looking at a small number of factors and making incremental improvements, he wanted to look across the total enterprise all at once. And to look at all aspects of the enterprise with an eye toward organizational renovation. I said, “So, you want a makeover.” The CEO is right. In an environment unlike anything any of us have experienced, and in an industry of complex interdependencies, the only way to get back to financial equilibrium is to take a comprehensive, holistic view of our organizations and environments, and to be open to an outcome in which we do things very differently. In other words, a makeover. Consider just a few areas that the hospital makeover could and should address: There’s the revenue side: Getting paid for what you are doing and the severity of the patient you are treating—which requires a focus on clinical documentation improvement and core revenue cycle delivery—and looking for any material revenue diversification opportunities. There is the relationship with payers: Involving a mix of growth, disruption, and optimization strategies to increase payments, grow share of wallet, or develop new revenue streams. There’s the expense side: Optimizing workforce performance, focusing on care management and patient throughput, rethinking the shared services infrastructure, and realizing opportunities for savings in administrative services, purchased services, and the supply chain. While these have been historic areas of focus, organizations must move from an episodic to a constant, ongoing approach. There’s the balance sheet: Establishing a parallel balance sheet strategy that will create the bridge across the operational makeover by reconfiguring invested assets and capital structure, repositioning the real estate portfolio, and optimizing liquidity management and treasury operations. There is network redesign: Ensuring that the services offered across the network are delivered efficiently and that each market and asset is optimized; reducing redundancy, increasing quality, and improving financial performance. There is a whole concept around portfolio optimization: Developing a deep understanding of how the various components of your business perform, and how to optimize, scale back, or partner to drive further value and operational performance. Incrementalism is a long-held business approach in healthcare, and for good reason. Any prominent change has the potential to affect the health of communities and those changes must be considered carefully to ensure that any outcome of those changes is a positive one. Any ill-considered action could have unintended consequences for any of a hospital’s many constituencies. But today, incrementalism is both unrealistic and insufficient. Just for starters, healthcare executive teams must recognize that back-office expenses are having a significant and negative impact on the ability of hospitals to make a sufficient operating margin. And also, healthcare executive teams must further realize that the old concept of “all things to all people” is literally bringing parts of the hospital industry toward bankruptcy. Healthcare comprises some of the most wicked problems in our society—problems that are complex, that have no clear solution, and for which a solution intended to fix one aspect of a problem may well make other aspects worse. The very nature of wicked problems argues for the kind of comprehensive approach that the CEO of this organization is taking—not tackling one issue at a time in linear fashion but making a sophisticated assessment of multiple solutions and studying their potential interdependencies, interactions, and intertwined effects. My colleague Eric Jordahl has noted that “reverting to a 2019 world is not going to happen, which means that restructuring is the only option. . . . Where we are is not sustainable and waiting for a reversion is a rapidly decaying option.” The very nature of the socioeconomic environment makes doing nothing or taking an incremental approach untenable. It is clearly beyond time for the hospital industry makeover. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By John O'Leary. This was originally posted on JohnOLearyInspires.com. When John O'Leary was 9 years old, he suffered burns over 100% of his body and was expected to die. He is now an inspirational speaker and bestselling author, teaching more than 50,000 people around the world each year how to live inspired. John's first book, ON FIRE: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life was published March 15, 2016. John is a contributing writer for Huff Post and Parade.com. John is a proud husband and father of four and resides in St. Louis, MO. Order John’s book today anywhere books are sold.
Have you ever had a hangover? Stayed out a little too late. Had one too many drinks. Come on, we’ve all been there! But the kind of hangover I’m referring to isn’t the kind that a glass of water and a few Tylenol can cure. No, I’m referring to the holiday hangover. Several years ago, a Live Inspired Community member named Helen asked me on January 5 how she could get over the holiday hangover she was suffering from. All the build-up and excitement had passed, time had been spent away from work, family had gathered, gifts exchanged. All the preparation, cooking, eating, opening of presents, racing to parties, watching the clock strike midnight, and flipping the calendar had left her in debt, tired and a little down. And now she had to head back to work, to school, to real life. Helen wanted to know how we cure this kind of hangover. Rather than wait until after the hangover sets in this year, I thought I’d share some sage advice now from a woman with nine and a half decades of experience to help prevent it from starting in the first place. At our family Christmas Eve celebration several years ago, my parents hosted their six children and spouses, 17 grandchildren, a few friends, and my then 94-year-old grandmother, Caddy. She’s an amazing woman and right before dinner I had a wonderful 15-minute conversation just with her. Grandma’s short-term memory was beginning to fade, but her zest for life and natural beauty remained perfectly intact. During our conversation I asked about her childhood, how she met my grandpa, what it was like during World War II when he was in the Pacific, raising kids during the 50s, and a few of her favorite memories. I then asked what advice she’d give me as I continued along this path in life. She looked me in the eyes, patted my right leg, and responded thoughtfully, “Seems like today everyone is so busy racing. All that racing means they’re busy doing things, but also more likely to miss the gifts that are in front of them right now.” After 94 of years of living life, raising kids, losing friends, enduring recessions and wars, learning through mistakes and savoring the good stuff, my grandma realized that the very success many sprint toward professionally, relationally, in parenting is elusive because we don’t slow down enough to notice gifts that are already ours to celebrate. So, my friend, as we step into another busy holiday season, I encourage you to embrace this sage advice from Grandma Caddy. As we clean up from Thanksgiving and prepare for the Christmas season, rather than making a list of all the things you have to get done, places you need to go, presents you feel obliged to buy, parties you must attend, instead consider making different lists. Make a list of what truly matters most this holiday season. Then make a second list of all the things you’re going to not do to ensure you focus on what matters most. A beautiful lady once shared with me that everyone is so busy racing and busy doing things, but all that racing means we are more likely to miss the gifts that in front of us right now. Let’s choose to be less frantic this season. Because the best way to avoid a hangover is to not participate in activities certain to give you one. Today is your day. Live Inspired. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Kristin Baird
When working with organizations on culture change, I like to lead the executive team on an exploration. We discuss times when they have been successful at implementing a major change. In addition to the successes, we discuss times when their attempts were foiled. From there we draw out comparisons between the two. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CHANGE I’ve had these discussions with dozens of executive teams over the years. Two clear themes emerged as fundamental to success.
COVID aside, one of the burning platforms often cited in these discussions is the implementation of a new EMR. The burning platform was crystal clear to everyone. At a specific date and time, a switch would be flipped and there would be no turning back. That fact forced action to align everyone. CHANGE TAKES TIME You can’t flip a switch and change your culture. You cannot say that Monday at 8 AM we will have a new and improved culture. But what leaders can do, is learn from what helped make other types of changes successful. These include:
Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By LeAnn Thieman. This was originally published on LeAnn's blog.
At first, I thought my message, “We are always role modeling whether we want to be or not,” was for parents, but now I know it is for everyone, because indeed, we are all always role modeling. No matter how old you are, those younger than you are watching to see what you do and say, then they decide their behavior. This includes not only our children, but candy-stripers, patients, visitors, staff members. Much is written today about obesity and inadequate physical activity in the younger generation. There is a lot of-finger pointing to the supposed blame…fast food, TV, computers, lack of exercise, video games, changes in society’s values. One that doesn’t get as much press is the importance of role modeling. We’ve likely all heard, “Do as I say, not as I do.” But they do as we do. Studies consistently show that parents are the most important role models for their children. Peers and media have less influence. Children are constantly observing their parents’ values and how they handle their lives. A Stanford University School of Medicine study found that 64% of children with overweight parents became overweight, compared to 16% of those with normal weight parents. Genetics was a factor, but environment, food types and amounts, and exercise that kids observed were significant factors. When children see their parents and other grownups actively involved in physical activity, sports, and exercise, they likely adopt those values and behaviors too. What are you role-modeling to those younger than you? Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Steve Berkowitz
In a previous blog, I discussed the first step in the critical analysis of artificial intelligence in healthcare—an operational or working definition of artificial intelligence. I would now like to take that definition and take the next step—develop a descriptive model of AI that would illustrate the evolution of artificial intelligence and help us better understand the future of AI in healthcare. The model I propose has three components. Each one can evolve separately as well as influence the progress of the others. The ultimate AI application or outcome is a function of the effectiveness of all three:
HARDWARE – THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF PROCESSING POWER When I talk about the evolution of the individual processing unit, I am primarily referring to the unprecedented progress that has been made in the past sixty years in terms of fulfilling the mantra: faster, smaller, cheaper. Moore’s Law, coined in 1965 by Gordon Moore, an engineer at IBM, stated that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit will double about every two years. This doubling process has continued unabated to this day. Processing speed and efficiency are essential in the ultimate evolution of AI, and until very recently, it has been the rate-limiting step in the development of advanced capabilities such as language processing and complex machine learning. It has only been in the last five or so years that we have had the processing capability to have such entities as GPT and deep learning applications. Now that this limit has been attained and exceeded, true advanced intelligence is operationally and commercially feasible. One can only imagine what will be possible as this capability continues to double. The recent development of quantum computers, for example, which rely on using quantum mechanics and subatomic particles to power the processing, is currently in the research stage, but it promises to further jumpstart this cycle of “faster, smaller, cheaper.” AI will operate more effectively, a million times faster and more efficient. CONNECTIVITY – INTEGRATION OF INDIVIDUAL UNIT INTO NEURAL NETWORKS AND THE INTERNET Put simply, not only is the individual processor becoming faster, smaller, cheaper at exponential rates as mentioned above, but each individual computer unit now has the capacity to become interfaced and connected to multiple units and form large computer networks. These neural networks have the potential to give each computer access to enormous amounts of data, including becoming part of the internet of things, or the “cloud.” The ability to work as large systems makes the AI process much more robust. All systems would have the potential to communicate with each other and learn from each other… and even influence each other. Neural networks using artificial intelligence resemble the human brain, in which thousands or millions of individual units become interconnected and organized into layers. The output of one of the individual entities is now the input of another entity. This synergistic interaction further empowers AI to do extremely complicated processing such as deep learning and to do so faster, smaller, and cheaper. SOFTWARE – THE EVOLUTION OF MACHINE LEARNING AND COMPLEX REASONING Now that the hurdles of requisite speed and power as well as the ability to interconnect on complex levels have been considered, the model now moves on to the actual application of learning algorithms and logic models. As algorithms and systems become more sophisticated, more complex logic that simulates or even exceeds human logic, are incorporated into the model. Supervised learning, where models, trained with labeled data sets and pre-set algorithms, can now progress to unsupervised learning, and even reinforced learning. This allows the AI to evolve and move beyond the initial data sets and algorithms. As I mentioned in my last blog, not only can this learning bear enormous benefits, but it also has the downside of potential negative effects of emergent properties, and even hallucinations. Not only can the model readily incorporate the most basic form of reasoning, deductive reasoning (going from the general to the specific), but it also can begin to develop more complicated patterns of inductive reasoning (going from the specific to the general). The potential further exists to incorporate or “learn” more advanced forms of the human reasoning process such as creativity, emotions, and even empathy. AI has not acquired these traits yet, but if the human brain can learn these traits, why couldn’t AI too? And do so more quickly and efficiently. I believe we will see increasing complexities of AI resulting in applications that combine deductive, inductive, and more creative forms of reasoning. Once again, we can only imagine what the ultimate applications will be able to accomplish as the three stages of hardware, interconnectivity, and software come together and mutually advance. MODELING THE FUTURE OF AI IN HEALTHCARE As healthcare executives better understand the application of AI, it is valuable to conceptualize the model into these stages in looking to the future. I hope this model gives us a better framework in which to analyze the evolution and future of artificial intelligence, particularly AI in healthcare. Putting the model back together, we see there are three major components: the hardware, connectivity, and the software. All three will continue to quickly evolve, and work collectively and synergistically to improve the ultimate sophistication of the application outputs. Products that now flood the media daily have resulted from the evolution and development of these three stages. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! By Ron Culberson. With a master’s degree in social work, Ron Culberson spent the first part of his career working in a large hospice organization as a clinical social worker, middle manager, and senior leader. As a speaker, humorist, and author of "Do it Well. Make it Fun.The Key to Success in Life, Death, and Almost Everything in Between", he has delivered more than 1,000 presentations to associations, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and corporations. His mission is to change the workplace culture so that organizations are more productive and staff are more content. He was also the 2012-2013 president of the National Speakers Association and is a recognized expert on the benefits of humor and laughter.
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I’m not as handy as I would like to be. One of my friends can completely gut and then rebuild a bathroom without cutting the wrong wires, puncturing any water pipes, or falling through the floor into the basement. I’ve done damage to drywall by simply trying to replace the toilet paper roll. In fact, when it comes to repairs, it typically costs me more to fix what I did than to have hired someone to do the work in the first place. But that doesn’t stop me from trying. I own a utility trailer and I use it to haul items that are too large for my car. Mostly, I’m transporting wood from a fallen tree in the yard to our church’s wood ministry. Last weekend, before transporting a load of wood, I checked to make sure that the brake lights were working properly. My lights quit working a couple of years ago when squirrels had chewed through the wiring. Ever since, I always check them before heading out on the road. However, unless my trailer is parked in front of a mirror, checking the brake lights is not that easy. And if it’s daytime, it’s even harder. On the day in question, the trailer was parked in front of a row of bushes. I pushed on the brake pedal several times but just couldn’t see if the lights were working. Then I remembered an old television movie from 1971 called Duel. It starred Dennis Weaver who played a man who was being pursued by a menacing tractor trailer driver. At the end (spoiler alert—but if you haven’t seen a 1971 movie by now, I’m guessing it’s not high on your watch list), Weaver wedges his briefcase between the seat of his car and the accelerator pedal to send his driverless car into the truck. Thinking this was a brilliant idea, I looked around the garage for a brief case. Since I’m not really a briefcase kind of guy, I grabbed a large rock instead. I lowered the rock onto my brake pedal and quickly ran to the back of the trailer to see if the lights worked. Unfortunately, the lights didn’t come on but I suspected that it was because the rock was not depressing the pedal far enough. I had to try something else. As I removed the rock, it got stuck between the brake and the accelerator pedals. As I struggled to un-wedge it, I broke off two finger nails. I probably don’t need to point this out but I had not even attempted any handy work and I already had a malfunction with one of my tools (the rock) and a personal injury (two bleeding fingers). I should have seen this as an omen sent by the spirits of Bob and Norm from This Old House. But, of course, I ignored the warning and simply asked my wife to help determine if my brake lights were out. She said one was working but the other was not. A repair was in order. I inspected the trailer to make sure the squirrels had not eaten through any of the exposed wires. Everything looked fine except for one section where two wires were hanging loose. I figured this had to be the problem. Now, I’m not an electrician but my gut tells me that wires should not be hanging loose. I mean, we don’t live in Hawaii (see “surfer Shaka Sign”). So, I did what any home repair novice would do—I reconnected the two wires and called my wife down to check the lights again. Please understand that when I call my wife during any home repair, I’m not just asking for her assistance. I’m also hoping that I get the opportunity to say, “Hey look at that. I fixed it.” For the record, it doesn’t happen that often. Oh sure, I’ve written four books and entertained audiences around the country—but I’ve never repaired a utility trailer. I was clearly on the cusp of a major engineering achievement. My wife took her position behind the trailer and I pushed on the brake. There was no reaction on her face. I flipped the turn signal in both directions. She did not respond. Then, as if she had been oblivious to my actions, she said, “Go ahead. Whenever you’re ready.” Clearly, the lights no longer worked at all. So, I unhitched the trailer, went back inside, and ordered a trailer light replacement kit. When the kit arrived, I read the instructions several times and committed them to memory. The whole repair seemed pretty straightforward (see “Naïveté”). Once I removed the old lights and wiring, I just needed to feed the new wires through the protective tubes that were installed on the trailer frame and then connect the wires to the new taillights. I installed the new lights without any issue. But when I tried to install the wiring, I encountered a problem. Apparently dirt and debris had built up over time in the protective tubes and there was a blockage about half way down the first tube. I tried multiple times to push the wires through the tube but they kept getting stuck. After about an hour of lying under the trailer, working with two injured fingers by the way, I tried another approach. I fed a stiffer wire from the other direction. Luckily, it went through. So, I tied the two wires together and pulled the new ones back through the tubes. One thing I didn’t realize though was that the edge of the protective tube was sharp. So, every time I pulled the new wire through the tube, it shaved off a bit of the wire’s protective coating. That required twenty minutes of taping over all of the damage I had done. Don’t worry about the extra work. I’m used to it. Eventually, I got the entire system installed and just needed to connect the lights into the proper wires. In this particular repair kit, I was given T-tap splicers. I had never used these before so I watched a video online to learn how to operate them. That’s when it occurred to me that I had actually seen these devices before. In fact, the previous wiring system on my trailer had used T-tap splicers. I rummaged back through trash and saw that the two wires that were “hanging loose” weren’t supposed to be tied together after all. Instead, they just needed to be reattached to the T-tap splicer. In other words, I didn’t need a new wiring system. After a few choice words, I connected all the wires and my wife confirmed that the lights were working properly. I looked at my watch. Between reading the instructions, watching online videos, and struggling to feed the wires through the protective tubes, I had logged in about six hours of repair time. If I owned a handy man business, I would be earning about ten cents an hour. And yet, I can’t wait for something else to break. In life, if we don’t try new things, we don’t get to experience adventures that might be unknown to us. If we try new things and fail, we can learn valuable life lessons from those experiences. And if we just take our utility trailers to someone who knows what they’re doing, we might get the six lost hours of our Saturday afternoon back. And that, my friends, is a handy lesson to learn. Planning your next event? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to schedule your ideal speaker and make your event a success! |
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