📚Book Previews | CES 2024

Open Talent book review and takeaways from CES 2024.

Author

Eryn Peters
January 14, 2024

👀 Sneak Peek: Open Talent 👀 

That’s right, your girl is part of the cool kids club that gets books before they’re released. 💅 

I had the honor of previewing Open Talent: Leveraging the Global Workforce to Solve Your Biggest Challenges by John Winsor and Jin Paik before its upcoming release on January 16th.

The book is a masterclass in integrating Open Talent strategies in organizations. From creating centers of excellence to experimentation frameworks, Open Talent enables readers to build internal talent marketplaces, external talent clouds, open innovation capabilities, and accelerate adoption.

It was an easy and delightful read that pulled relevant real-life examples and case studies from Open Talent early adopters such as Airbus, NASA, and Microsoft. If there’s a single piece of literature that key stakeholders at enterprise companies need to read to accelerate the adoption of freelancers and open innovation, this is it.

Platform pals - I sense a great gift idea for clients 👀 What a great way to increase wallet share.

Thanks for the early access, John!

🤖 CES 2024 🤖 

The 2024 Consumer Electronics Show took over Las Vegas again this week with 130,000 attendees, its largest post-pandemic turnout yet. The massive tech show is the ultimate gadget-fest with major tech companies revealing their newest concepts, futurist takes, and demoing this year’s releases.

For guests, it’s an exciting week of playful and immersive experiences. For floor workers, it’s about 12 hours of standing, sensory overload of lights and sounds, and a good cry in the shower at the end of the day before you do it all again tomorrow. 😅 Speaking from experience.

The theme was “AI for all” - here’s what it delivered.

The Future of Work

💻️ AI Shortcuts. Microsoft announced earlier this month that they will include AI shortcuts directly on their new keyboards. We saw several Windows laptops and devices that included the “Copilot Key”. While this may seem like a natural progression given Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI, it is a pivotal moment as they put a stake in the ground around AI in the workplace.

Windows has long leaned into workplace productivity, making it the butt of many jokes in Apple marketing campaigns. I can’t wait to see a new generation of these ads featuring Macs as the very good looking but dumb friend as Apple seems to be getting left behind in the great AI race.

🖥️ Foldable, portable monitors - making digital nomads 🤤 . Weighing in at only 2.65 lbs, Asus announced the ZenScreen Fold OLED Monitor featuring a 17.3-inch display that folds like a book to pop into your bag. Reviews were glowing as the display crease virtually disappears when expanded and its resolution and colors are highly regarded.

As hybrid work continues to become more commonplace, we see a growing need for portable setups that can be used both at home, in cafes or on trains, and in a more “hot desking” style of office environment. Companies are already starting to design office spaces without dedicated desks to optimize space for dwindling attendance rates, so we’ll see more trends emerge around office “flex spaces”.

🤖 A “Zero Labor Home”. With the introduction of its two-legged Smart Home AI agent, LG attempts to reduce both labor and mental loads within the home. This device patrols the home to gather environmental data including temperature, humidity, and indoor air quality then triggers devices accordingly. It can act as a security guard and help to see and care for pets while away. Upon your return, it will even greet you at the door, gauge your emotions by analyzing voice and facial expressions, and select music, lighting, and other environmental settings to match.

In a world where you no longer need to worry about whether you left the stove on or changed over your laundry, we are liberating brain power and capacity to focus on other things.

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