Friday Faves - What We're Reading This Week - Ripple Effect Group

Friday Faves is our weekly blog series highlighting a few select pieces from the REG team’s reading lists. You can catch up on past Friday Faves on the archive.

Your corporate trainer might be a deepfake!

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Anne says: A deepfake corporate trainer? How so?

During the past few months of various lockdowns and working from home, corporate learning and development (L&D) departments have scrambled to produce courses and content in a range of online delivery methods. Some more successfully than others (but that’s a subject for another Friday Fave). This article describes how WPP (a global advertising/creative agency) developed 20 training modules using deepfake characters, instead of real life trainers (who were in lockdown and unable to produce video content) for their 5 minute videos. Sounds rather innovative – but wait, there’s more! They also did it in several languages (and there’s more coming in the next release), and they were personalised to say your name and location. Super clever!

What is a deepfake? According to Wired, it’s:

a loose term applied to images or videos generated using AI that look real.

Deepfakes have not always been used in a constructive way, like this context. Typically they are used to harass or mislead – more so now in political environments, but also in porn! In this case, the “talking head” in their training videos is created using AI – and looks like a real person – but they’re a fake. The article describes some of the processes and the progress companies have had in their development – it’s getting exciting if you consider the possibilities. However, I think there could be an issue in the corporate training context. What is not discussed in the article is how the videos and their deepfake trainers were received by the learners. Did they know this was a deepfake AI? Did that change their attitude towards the training content – in a positive or negative way?

The user experience becomes critical in learning contexts – credibility and expertise of the trainer, for example, play a role in how effectively the message is received. If people know this is an AI-created, avatar-style-real, but not really real person, what impact will that have? If, on the other hand, the learners are advised and perhaps even given a detailed explanation as to how the deepfake has been created to personalise their learning experience, the impact may be quite different. In fact, you could expand that a step further and introduce a character, or series of characters, as your AI-created trainers (I’m avoiding using the “fake” terminology on the basis of credibility) who are part of the L&D team. This would also reduce too much attention (or cognitive load) as the learners try to figure out if this is an AI trainer or a real person – meanwhile missing the message.

I’d love to have heard how the learners experienced these videos. And the opportunities associated with their development could have some impressive outcomes – if we spend a little time ensuring we understand the impact on learning outcomes and the learners.

Read: https://www.wired.com/story/covid-drives-real-businesses-deepfake-technology/

Negotiation 101: How to get what you want at work, according to a hostage expert

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Jakkii says: I can’t lie – the headline grabbed me right away. Who isn’t fascinated by the whole concept of hostage negotiations and how they are managed?? I sure am! And so, of course, the idea of taking advice from a hostage expert as to how you can apply negotiation tactics to get what you want at work sounds good to me!

There are 4 key steps in this concise read:

Step 1: Listen, listen, and then listen some more
Step 2: Show empathy
Step 3: Then build rapport
Step 4: Put your message across

There is a fifth step listed too which is, essentially, “success!”, with a bit of advice at the end about how to act when things seem like they’re going wrong as well.

Now, if that got you interested and you want to take a bit more of a deep-dive, you might also like this HBR article that asks “what’s your negotiation strategy?” The HBR article is a good but much longer read, and covers these key strategic principles:

Rethink counterparts
Analyse counterparts’ constituencies
Rethink the deal’s scope
Rethink the nature of leverage
Look for links across negotiations
Consider the impact of timing and sequencing
Be creative about the process and framing

For me, I think they ultimately both say similar things, with the HBR article giving more context and understanding as to how you might distill the process down into the 4 key steps, above. What do you think – is it worth a try next time you need to negotiate your way to a specific outcome at work? I’d love to hear how it goes for you if you do give it a go!

Read: https://thenextweb.com/growth-quarters/2020/07/06/how-to-get-what-you-want-at-work-according-to-a-crisis-negotiator/

Around the house

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Jakkii says: This week’s roundup of ways to keep yourself occupied at home, whether you’re back in lockdown or as far into reopening as phase 3!

Friday Funnies

My friend’s daughter just entered his home workspace and wordlessly handed this note to him while he was on a conference call pic.twitter.com/qfd8SY09GP

— Helen Rosner (@hels) July 10, 2020

Due to Covid-19 I will not shake hands or hug anymore, You may either Kneel or Bow to me

— Heaven (@HeavenSentMel) July 8, 2020

Twitter: the virus is serious, you should worry
Facebook: the virus is a conspiracy, you are a sheep
Instagram: the virus is here, you should look at this 6 month old photo
Pinterest: the virus has inspired me, you should buy this floral face mask
TikTok: bupbup dadupdeee dadup

— Tim Doutré (@Timdoutre) July 14, 2020

https://del3141.tumblr.com/post/188692130618/shopkeeper-increasingly-exasperated-im-trying

Social Media Friday Five

Corona Business Insights Podcast

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This week: During the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine looks like it could lead to a more permanent shift to become a more mainstream part healthcare.

As COVID-19 sets out to change the world forever, join Sandra Peter and Kai Riemer as they think about what’s to come in the future of business.

Shownotes

Telemedicine looks like the future of healthcare

The rise of telehealth in the coronavirus pandemic

Is COVID-19 the tipping point for telemedicine

COVID-19 and collaboration in telehealth

Coronavirus and China’s healthcare system

The RPA virtual hospital

Australia’s first virtual hospital rolls out for COVID-19 patients

Listen: https://sbi.sydney.edu.au/telehealth-on-corona-business-insights/