Category: Miscellaneous
VanTalks – How We Work: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence in the 21st Century
Here’s a video of my talk at the Vantalks 2017 event held in Vancouver, Washington on May 24, 2017.
About Bruce Elgort
You’ll find this technology professor – an award-winning instructor at Clark College – working hard to inspire and challenge his students with meaningful web development and programming experiences. With a skinny vanilla latte (no foam) in hand, Bruce loves to tinker and test the boundaries of existing and emerging technologies, to then guide hungry minds through memorable, educational journeys to showcase with passion the ever-evolving innovations of society. An industry leader, Bruce is known for co-developing Elguji’s IdeaJam software, and is recognized by IBM as an ‘IBM Champion’ for being an innovative thought leader in cloud technologies.
Yeah, this…
This conversation took place late last night on Slack:
Student: Bruce I see you the Sublime Text editor.
Bruce: I have tried many of them out and prefer Sublime.
Student: I want to be a professional web developer one day. I also have some questions about the assignment that’s due tomorrow.
Bruce: A professional web developer wouldn’t start a project the day before it was due.
Student: Only the good pros do.
Bruce: It better be perfect then.
So this Happened Last Week
Many thanks to Tommy Henriksen and Glen Sobel of the Alice Cooper band for letting me sit behind Glen’s drums at the Tacoma, Washington show. More on Tommy and the show coming soon.
Bruce’s Life Experiences No. 3394
I’m thankful for the experiences throughout my careers at UL, SHARP, OpenNTF, Elguji and Clark College that exposed me to international business, world culture, diversity, and humanity. A day doesn’t go by when I am not working or talking with people from all over the world.
Thank you to all of you who were part of those experiences.
More College Student Worst Practices
Continuing on from my list of “College Student Worst Practices” post:
Worst Practice No. 4:
Waiting until the day an assignment is due to ask the instructor for assistance. As soon as an assignment is announced or made available, read through it in its entirety at least once and maybe twice. Don’t simply do the assignment to hit the rubric marks as quite often there is more to the assignment than what appears in the rubric.
Worst Practice No. 5:
Expecting to learn everything you need to learn during class. Also, expecting to finish your work in class.
Worst Practice No. 6:
Not reading the syllabus. A course syllabus is a contract between the instructor and each and every student. It contains all of the things that a student will need to know about assignments, exams, late work policies, how a student’s grade will be determined, a statement about procedures and school policies for students with disabilities and much more. Neglecting to read it at the beginning of the class and every now and then is also not a good thing to do.
What does the syllabus really say? All of the things that you are going to ask tomorrow.
College Student Worst Practices – The First Three
Worst Practice No. 1:
From an email sent to students: “If you have read this far and want 3 extra credit points, send a message to me by Tuesday at noon.” 5 days later and only 2 people replied.
If your teacher/instructor ever offers you extra credit points for reading a weekly announcement email, respond to them as soon as you read the words “extra credit”.
Worst Practice No. 2:
Don’t wait until the assignment or exam due date to ask for an extension. It’s ok to ask for an extension (in my classes). Communicate early and often. It’s ok. I’m human and sometimes life happens and I get that.
Worst Practice No. 3:
If you are the smartest person in the classroom, and you know more than most people, don’t use that as the platform to challenge or prove that the instructor is dumber than you or that you are smarter than everyone else, use it as an opportunity to help others in the class that may be struggling.
What I Can Offer You and Your Company
A year ago I re-opened my professional consultancy and have had the pleasure of working with several local and global companies and organizations. Here’s a partial list of some of the things I can do for you:
- Provide an honest assessment of your information technology operation
- Offer executives a “plain English” explanation of technology
- Provide you a motivated and expert speaker for company events and conferences
- Personalized executive technology coaching and training
- Help you answer the question “IT tells me everything is perfect but is it really?”
- Offer you the cold hard facts about social media
- Provide opinions and constructive feedback for new software and hardware initiatives
- Help you learn more about the “cloud”, its benefits and how it can be implemented
- Assist you in determining if your company’s data is secure
Why I didn’t Look at Your Resume
If you’re looking for a new gig or career, I wanted to share this list of hiring red flags publicly. These things to watch out for will vary by industry and company, but if you’re looking for a position at a startup, an agency, or something in the online industry, this list may help you avoid ending up in the immediate ‘no’ pile.
Your Email Says Absolutely Nothing
Here’s the sound a blind person hears when their screen reader reads your email aloud that only contains a graphical image announcing an event:
“Image, Event announcement”
Pro Tip: Don’t send email messages that have all the content in your super cool Photoshop/MSPaint graphic.
Bruce Elgort 