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Understand the whole process. Come up with a plan. Enlist powerful people as moderators. Announce and promote your Twitter chats.Once you and your Internet marketing expert have the background, the next crucial step is setting things up.

Are you AI-First? By editor Posted October 13, 2018 In Artificial Intelligence, Digital Strategy, Technology & Design 0 An AI-First company is an enterprise that has transformed to believe and understand the incredible and disruptive potential of Artificial Intelligence. Such an enterprise not only sees the value but can see the destructive impact of being left behind. An AI-First Company understands that it might not know all the answers but realizes that it needs to seek out a path forward with AI or risk being marginalized. Key Characteristics of an AI-First Company A-First companies might not be any different from their previous form but think and act differently. Here are some key characteristics of such companies. Approach to Problems and Planning An AI-First company evolves its approach to problems. AI-First companies realize that determining the existence of a problem and selecting the most consequential problems is a function of data and analytics. An AI-First company invests in building predictive mechanisms that can signal current or upcoming problems including the severity and priority of these problems. Building these predictive mechanisms becomes the first step in determining how and when to prepare for problems or upcoming issues. In addition, these companies leverage news and information that is generated inside and outside the enterprise as it is generated and ensure that their employees and customers have access to the insights embedded in the news and information. Approach to Products and Product Development An AI-First company understands how a prediction or classification could help them deliver a better solution to a problem faced by their customers and how their existing products can be adapted or new products created that change behavior based on the predictions and classifications. Enterprises that understand the power of AI ensure that data scientists come part of the core product ideation and development team with a heavy infl

Improving Hazard Communication in the Workplace Hazard CommunicationIf you're looking for ways to improve the overall safety of your facility, one of the best places to start is with an evaluation of your current hazard communication standards. According to OSHA, hazard communication violations are the second most commonly cited violations, as of 2012. In 2012 there were 4696 citations given in this one area alone. Sadly, very little has been done to change this problem over the past several years. Understanding how your facility communicates any type of hazard, and working on ways that can be improved, is an important part of keeping everyone safe. One of the best places to start is to review the OSHA regulation on this topic, which is titled, "Hazard Communication - 1910.1200." This will give you all the requirements that you will need to follow in order to keep people safe, and avoid any citations. Key Points in Section 1910.1200 After reviewing the entire section on this topic, you will want to go back and really focus on a few key points. These are some of the areas where most of the citations were given out, and also where some of the biggest risks exist. The following key points will be great places to start when it comes to improving the way your facility handles hazard communication: 1910.1200 (b)(2) - This is the section that covers how you need to communicate hazards that apply to any chemical that exists in a way that employees could become exposed to it. This applies to both normal exposure, and exposure during a foreseeable emergency. 1910.1200(b)(3)(i) - In this section, it details the requirements a facility has concerning the labeling of chemicals that come into the facility. Specifically stating that the labels may not be removed or defaced. 1910.1200(b)(4)(iii) - This area explains in detail that employers need to provide employees with sufficient training on how to react to a potential chemical spill. This includes how to

This year, Creative Safety Supply is hosting a scholarship competition for college students. Students currently enrolled in a college, university, or technical school who have a minimum 3.0 GPA and are United States citizens are eligible to apply. Those interested can find full eligibility details, as well as two essay questions, here: https://www.creativesafetysupply.com/scholarship/ Creative Safety Supply developed this scholarship program to support students pursuing higher education. On a daily basis, we work to help businesses achieve their goals and we wanted to help students achieve their goals, too. The winner of the competition will receive $1,000 to be applied toward educational expenses in 2017. As part of the application process, we're interested in hearing from students about their career goals and about ways they have used creative thinking to achieve academic or personal success. Finding creative solutions to common safety, compliance, and productivity problems is what we do, and we believe this kind of thinking plays an important role in any endeavor, whether that endeavor is in the workplace, education, or personal life. Since we launched our scholarship program this summer, we've seen a positive response from students across the country. If you are or know an interested student, there's still time to apply: the deadline for the scholarship is next Thursday, December 15th. A winner will be selected in January. Contact scholarships@creativesafetysupply.com with any questions.

In the past decade, cell phone usage while driving has sprang up as a major driving safety issue in the United States and many other developed countries. Originally, teens were the primary target of anti-texting and driving campaigns, but now that cell phone usage is standard amongst a multitude of demographics, the issue has become more broad and is impacting a larger population. According to OSHA's page on Distracted Driving: The human toll is tragic. DOT reports that in 2009, more than 5,400 people died in crashes linked to distraction and thousands more were injured. "Texting while driving" has become such a prominent hazard that 30 states now ban text messaging for all drivers. OSHA - Distracted Driving From checking Facebook, to making phone calls, to checking in with friends and loved ones via text, cell phones have become distracting in the workplace as well, and many companies have, in recent years, implemented cell phone policies on usage to help to maintain productivity. Just like with regular driving, however, cell phones also present a safety risk to workers on the job, especially when machinery and vehicles are being used. In this blog post, we're going to cover various aspects of cell phone workplace safety with regard to work sites. Cell Phone Workplace Safety and Transportation Many of the most problematic workplace instances of cell phone distraction, just like in the rest of the world, come from those who are constantly driving. In your company, this might mean that a delivery truck driver gets distracted and hurts a worker on their way in or out of your warehouse, or it could mean that they injure a civilian or damage someone's property while out on a delivery. Either case you want to avoid, and with damage or injuries to outside parties, you have even less coverage (no worker's compensation, etc.) than if you had an incident contained to workers and company property. The best way to void these distractions are to set hard rul

Signs are everywhere! Whether you are shopping in a large mall, visiting a zoo, or simply driving in your car, there are signs helping to guide you along your visit or journey. However, one place that signs are highly utilized is within the workplace, especially within industrial work environments. With all the safety hazards possible in different types of jobsites, appropriate workplace signs are a must to help ensure safety. View our "10 Tips For Safety Signage Part 1" Slideshare Presentation Common Signs in the Workplace Signs can convey all sorts of messages from helpful directional arrows guiding employees and visitors to a specific location all the way to urgent, danger zone messages that require people to stop and use extreme caution. Let's discuss some of the most common types of workplace signage. Restriction Signs - These signs often refer to restricted areas or zones, restricted speeds for forklifts, or restricted weight amounts. When a restricted sign is used there are often certain limits in place. Danger Signs - Signs that warn employees of danger are often high-contrast and feature the colors of black, white, and red. These signs can warn of electrical shocks, toxic materials, or any other dangerous situation. Fire Signs - This type of signage is usually white and red and can either warn employees about fire hazards or provide information on where fire safety equipment can be found. Mandatory Signs - Mandatory signs are signs requiring that certain precautions be taken before entering or utilizing an area or piece of equipment. Some mandatory signs may require employees to wear certain protective clothing before entering. Hazard Signs - Often times these signs feature the colors yellow and black. Hazard signs warn employees and visitors of potential hazards in the area. Hazard signs may warn about forklift traffic, slippery floors, or radiation risks, among many other things. Guide Signs - This type of signage is often used

Lean manufacturing is a method used in factories to enhance productivity. As part of lean manufacturing, 5S strategies are quite common sense and you would expect the posters to be easily accepted in an organization. However, it is not that easy to change working habits. As a result, factory managers may decide to use lean posters to make the employees understand the need for lean practices. What is 5S? This is a strategy from the Japanese that stands for Sort, Systematically Organize, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. For a successful lean program in any organization, the management must make sure that all stakeholders understand the process. The best way of educating people about lean practices is through lean posters. After the workers have adopted the practice, the posters act as reminders as well. There are many types of lean posters that management can use in factories. These posters are very essential for reminding everybody about the 5S program. Let us look at some of these posters. Management may use strategic lean posters with the aim of encouraging the workers to work towards a common goal. These posters mainly focus on employee behavior; how to change it for the better. For the best results, it is important for management to align such posters with the organization culture. Do you have programs or initiatives that the poster is promoting? If not, you might as well not bother because the poster may not benefit you much. Posters can also be used to motivate the workers as they continue with their duties. These types of posters have been around for many years, and they are quite effective. However, the effectiveness of such posters depends on whether they are relevant to the people. For a factory that is implementing lean practices, using lean posters is a cost-effective way of educating the workers and reminding them of the firm's commitment to reach its goals.

An arc flash is a dangerous situation in which an electrical current leaves its intended path and leaps through the air from one conducting source to another, or even sometimes the ground. Many times the transfer of electrical energy resembles and arc, hence the term arc flash. However, it is important to never underestimate the power behind an arc flash. An arc flash can vaporize metals, plastics, and even flesh. Many times arc flashes cause irreversible damage and harm to people and surrounding objects. In fact, most people injured in arc flash situations often never return to the same quality of life due to severe injury stemming from heat and burns. The heat of an arc flash has been calculated to be near 35,000 degrees Fahrenheit which is four times as hot as the sun's surface! What Causes an Arc Flash? There are many possible contributors towards an arc flash, which makes it difficult to really fully stop one from occurring. Some common culprits that may add towards the probability of an arc flash include dust, condensation, corrosion, material failure, faulty construction, dropping a tool, or simply accidental touching. National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Boundaries In an attempt to help protect employees and visitors from electrically charged equipment possible of creating arch flashes, certain safety boundaries have been put into place by the NFPA. The boundary resembles a target and in the middle is the energized equipment, and then there are four outer rings around the center with each ring labeled and specified for safety. The first ring, closest to the center (energized equipment) is called the prohibited approach boundary, then the next ring further out is called the restricted approach boundary, the next ring is called the limited approach boundary, and the furthest ring out from the center is called the flash protection boundary. Let's quickly describe each boundary. Prohibited Approach: Being within this boundary during an arc flash

Improve Organization and Efficiency with Industrial Labeling Industrial labeling is an essential activity in any facility, and for many different reasons. For example, it can help to improve safety as well as organization and even efficiency. In fact, proper labeling can benefit almost every measurable area of the facility. If you don't already have a proactive labeling policy within your facility, look at the following ten points to see why it is so important. 1. Regulatory Compliance One of the most important reasons why you need to focus on proper industrial labeling is that it is often required by organizations like OSHA. If you are using certain hazardous chemicals, for example, you will need to have the containers labeled using the proper industry standards. In addition, you must put these types of labels on any products that contain these chemicals before you ship them out. There may be other regulations where you need to have proper labeling too. Machines and pipes that use or transport hazardous items will often need to be properly labeled. Even if it is just steam that is being transported, you should likely have it clearly noted so nobody accidently burns themselves while working in the area. 2. Tracking Maintenance Tasks Many facilities will use industrial labeling to distinguish different machines or vehicles within the facility. This is much easier to use than checking the VIN or serial number each time, and it can make scheduling the maintenance of these items much easier. If you have an industrial label maker, you can print off a label that has a bar code or other easily identify mark. This can then be scanned by the maintenance team every time they change the oil or perform any other type of work. This can help them to log all the activities they have done, and even make it so all their activities are tracked through computer programs. However you decide to actually track and store the information, you will find that having each machine ta

Introduction to Operational Excellence For most of us, Lean is a common concept by now. By extension, we're also familiar with the idea of continuous improvement; the way we run our business should ultimately be reflective of a chain of efforts to change for the better and reach more perfect efficiency. That's all well and good, but we've seen more and more businesses shying away from simply relying on "continuous improvement" in recent years and instead throwing around the term "operational excellence." While the two terms do ultimately work in tandem, and even though there's some overlap, it's important to understand where the two differ. A good way to think about operational excellence is as the answer or endgame to your continuous improvement actions, it's a state you want to attain through your workplace improvement endeavors. Unlike continuous improvement, however, where you're simply trying to 'always get better', operational excellence has a more clearly defined point where it can be said you've reached your goals. One of the biggest criteria for operational excellence is a horizontal and vertical (so throughout all levels and teams of a company) understanding of how workflow should look and how to correct problems when something isn't flowing correctly. This creates operational excellence because employees are now able to solve their own problems without relying on specialists or management, drastically decreasing downtime and putting them into a preventative rather than a reactive mode when solving problems. Furthermore, operational excellence then frees up your management and executives to focus on advertising and brand/market expansion planning and projects. In short, operational excellence allows a company to achieve continual improvement while still having the resources to put an emphasis on bottom line and market share growth. Operational Excellence Question Posed Sounds pretty awesome, right?! We think so, but you

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration or OSHA is dedicated to the health and well-being of employees while on the job. Day in and day out employees are exposed to potentially dangerous situations based upon their specific job functions. Whether a person is employed at a manufacturing facility, an auto body shop, or within a large warehouse, OSHA regulations aim to provide the warnings needed to keep hazards at a minimum and keep employees informed about their surroundings. One of ways in which employees are kept informed about the hazards and dangers within their work environments is through the usage of warning labels. Types of OSHA Warning Labels and Signs The term warning label or sign can be used interchangeably in regards to OSHA's recommendations for hazard warning. There are basically three types of labels or signs outlined within OSHA 1910.145 and they are used to indicate danger, caution, or general safety instruction. Danger Sign/Labels: Danger labels or signs should feature the colors or red, black, and white. Employees should be informed that whenever danger signs or labels are posted they should exercise extreme caution as many hazards are immediate. This does not mean dangers are possible, it means they are imminent if certain things were to happen. Caution Sign/Labels: Any signage or labels indicating caution should feature a yellow background with black lettering. Caution labels or signs should be used to inform employees about potential hazards. This is unlike danger signs, since dangers signs indicate certain dangers that ARE there, while caution indicates that hazards are just simply POSSIBLE. Safety Instruction Sign/Labels: The standard background should be white, with black letters upon the white background. In addition, on the panel, green with white letters may also be used. This type of warning label or sign is used when general information related to certain safety practices is available. Furthermore, OSHA indicates in 19

Digital Transformation has become a necessity for enterprises in every vertical, sector and industry. Software is indeed eating the world and there is no industry that cannot ignore the burning necessity of transforming to a software driven organization. However, the road to digital transformation is long, unpaved and full of dangers. It is a road that most enterprises that are embarking on it have never encountered. These organizations realize that their ultimate survival depends on navigating this road but are hesitant, unsure and scared because this transformation requires competencies, culture and an approach that is alien and unknown. Though, traditional IT departments have always been part of such organizations, they have always been looked upon as plumbing that ultimately is only relevant in the background to keep the lights on. Faced with impending doom, organizations have no choice but to rethink their IT. This is not simply an initiative in the IT team. CEOs and CFOs need to rethink what and how software can and will disrupt their companies. Business and IT need to come together to have a joint software driven experience strategy and needs to be prioritized by the CEO and funded, for the long term by the CFO. Do you need to think about a Digital Transformation strategy? If you answer YES to any of the questions below, you should. Are your teams, data, and systems fragmented? Are your key processes fragmented, manual? (for example, Onboarding, Decision Making, Incident Management, Support) Is your data of low-quality data (customer profile, transactions, glossary, documents) Is your regulatory compliance inconsistent and more a matter of luck than planning? Could your customer relationship, lifecycle, performance management be better? Could the information flow in your organization be matured? Do you have a weak understanding of internal and external events and how they impact your business?

The cutting edge platforms for today will be the commoditized platforms of tomorrow. As the technology matures and evolves, the previous generation of technology becomes easier to build and deploy enabling a rush of vendors to capitalize on it by making it accessible to the largest possible customer base. This puts enterprises in the nontechnology sectors in an awkward position. Often not ready to consume the latest and greatest technology due to parts of their stack unable to leverage new technology and requiring upgrade to and deployment of the stepping stone technology, these enterprises have to choose between vendor lock-in in a multi-year software and service contract or risk building and implementing a version of the older technology in-house. Business Drivers of Infrastructure-as-a-Service The biggest risk in building technology platforms in-house is the risk of commoditization. The argument played out with the debate over internal vs. public clouds. Initially, enterprises were hesitant to leverage public clouds with several of them opting to build internal, private clouds. Building a cloud is hard. Operating and maintaining a cloud is even harder. Ensuring that the cloud is running on and leveraging the best in class technology requires dedication to the cause. This is often missing in non-technology enterprises by design given they are driven by different and separate business drivers and considerations. A cloud service provider is motivated to ensure the best in class service and technology because that drives revenue for them. An enterprise whose main business is not offering cloud or software services will not be motivated by the same drivers and thus there will be an inherent difference in their approach and success with building and delivering an internal cloud. Business Drivers for Platform-as-a-Service The same argument (public vs private clouds) applies to platforms. Building the best in class platforms that offer the ability to develop cuttin

Enterprises across the board have a lot of untapped potential in their data. The data is not only relevant and useful within the enterprise but can be a valuable source of insights for the enterprise partners and customers. In some cases, the value of this data can be high that partners and customers are willing to pay extra to get access to this information at a certain fidelity, freshness or scope. Enterprises that do not have a clear and coherent monetization strategy are leaving money on the table. In addition, they stand to lose customers to competitors who gain the first movers advantage by addressing this market need. The Value of Data The first step in determining a monetization strategy is an audit of the enterprise data assets and a determination of the customers who are interesting and willing to pay a premium for access to this data. The Value of Data is proportional to the following: Freshness The more "fresh" a dataset is higher its value typically. This is because there is an advantage in the early visibility provided by first access to new information. 'Freshness' is defined the latency between the creation of data and the delivery of the data to the consumer. Consumers of data will pay a premium for fresh data if it fits into their decision and action strategy. Fidelity Higher the "fidelity" of data i.e. how much detail a particular data point carries also increases the value of the data in the eyes of the data consumer. Higher fidelity data offers more information and detail enabling the consumer to design highly valuable analysis that leverages the additional details offering a deeper insight into the situation at the present or historically. Raw The more "raw" a data set, higher its value as it can support a much larger set of analysis scenarios that a processed data set could support. Data sets that are aggregated, sampled, filtered or transformed can have a lower value as they can severely limit the type of analysis. Raw

Modern, RESTful APIs are not considered standard, table stakes and expected out of any new project, effort, application, system, service or product. It has become so normal to talk about developer interfaces, developer adoption, application development and innovation in the same breath as APIs that a distinct effort to build APIs for a new product or service seems out of place and abnormal. APIs are the defacto standard of app development. So where do we go from here? We believe that APIs are about to enter the second growth spurt. APIs will evolve from not just interfaces and integration enablers into the rockets that propel enterprises towards innovation and market dominance. Here are three key trajectories that will lead the next API evolution and revolution. Innovation - Starts, and Ends with APIs All modern technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, ChatBots, Analytics, BlockChain etc. begin and end their stories with APIs. APIs are what enables the communication between front-end user interfaces and the backend technology services. All new machine learning capabilities offered out of the big four tech companies have seen the light of day through APIs. Intent & Sentiment extraction, Topics, Categories, Summarization, Image Recognition, Entity Extraction etc. are all capabilities powered by Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing that is ultimately being delivered as APIs to application developers. Similarly, ChatBots are typically designed to get the user entered text, use an intent API to determine intent and then use a service API to respond to the user conversationally or with a service. Clouds - Multi-Cloud, Hybrid Cloud As the big three cloud providers grow their market share and attempt to attract attention, increasingly, enterprises need to think about how they minimize their risk by building in the flexibility to switch their cloud provider if and when they need. In addition, hybrid architectures or a cloud migration

One of the top reasons for digital innovation and transformation failures can be summarized as the enterprise trying to reinvent the wheel. This is the tendency of the enterprise to attempt to create technology, platforms, and applications that have already been implemented, scaled, optimized and almost perfected. This tendency almost always ends up a failed one as it does not create any net new value for the enterprise but comes with a massive opportunity cost as the enterprise spends crucial resources on reinventing the wheel than innovating for the customer. How The Wheel Is Reinvented Nontechnology enterprises can get trapped in a reinvent state where they conclude that homegrown technology is the only path towards customer and business value. This in itself is not entirely false however the type of enterprise and their decision-making process along with the capabilities they have in house have a very large impact on the success of the strategy.eRaaadada Reinventing the wheel happens when a non-tech enterprise discovers a technology trend towards much later in the hype cycle almost towards the end when the technology is hitting the mass market and decides to recreate or reinvent its own version of the technology. This is often done with the assumption that with some investment, the enterprise can have a home grown version of technology or platform that is designed specifically for its needs and is thus a better fit. However, enterprises assume that the state of the technology will remain constant and while they are attempting to home grow a version that can match the current state of the art. In reality, the state of the art shifts and the enterprise is not able to bridge the gap. Who Reinvents The Wheel Typically, technology teams often decide to go down the path of reinvention when they are allowed to make technology upgrade or technology creation decisions without business KPIs and cost constraints i.e. clear success criteria with fixed cost and clear ti

Are you searching for online content writing jobs work from home? This article will give the idea of work from home writing jobs for beginners in 2019. Content writing is the most emerging job for beginners to earn a passive income. Most of the students and freelancers choose content marketing for their career as it is the best job to do from home and part-time. Content writing is the backbone of the internet. There are many marketing services and internet services that urge for content writers. In many platforms like blogging, content is the king. If you are able to write good content that will satisfy the marketer for the blogger you will be getting a pleasant income. Every search you make on the internet will attract you with content.

If you are looking for the best mineral supplement, you are going to find it at Youngevity. With Dr Joel Wallach's over 50 years in mineral supplementation research behind every product, all of the minerals used in Youngevity products are natural plant based and as such, are far superior to others that are on the market. As you know, minerals are an important foundational part to keeping our bodies healthy, and that's why Youngevity have come up with the best quality mineral supplements possible. Giving you the best health and strongest immune system possible is the ultimate goal here!

GHS Label Information When it comes to labels, few are better known than the GHS labels (even if people don't always realize that is what they are called). GHS, or the Globally Harmonized System, is an international set of standards that are agreed upon to help ensure people from across many industries and around the world are all using universally recognized standards. This includes standards when it comes to the classification and labeling systems used for dangerous chemicals. The GHS labeling standards are used by regulatory agencies as well, including OSHA. While GHS is not itself a legal regulatory agency, most companies are required to follow their standards in this area because of the fact that their standards are adopted by governmental bodies. Common GHS Terms Whether reading GHS labels or making them, it is important to be aware of some terms that are commonly used. SDS - Safety data sheets are required to go along with most GHS labels. These data sheets can provide more detailed information about chemicals and other potentially hazardous materials. Class - Different types of hazards are broken up into different classes. Gasses that are under pressure would be one class. Acids could be another, just to give some examples. Hazard Groups - Hazardous materials are broken down into three groups, environmental, physical and health. Hazard Statement - Hazard statements are standardized to describe specific hazards. These statements give brief but essential pieces of information about the items being labeled. Precautionary Statement - This is a statement that provides instructions on how to avoid dangers when working with these materials. Signal Words - Signal words are DANGER and WARNING. Danger is to indicate a higher level of risk, while warning is for when there is a potential for harm but it is not quite as serious. Pictogram - Pictograms are the visual representation of specific risks. Typically they will just be a black image that is ea