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Silos allow staff to specialize in their unique talents, give them accountability, and provide clarity about tasks that need to be accomplished. “When we start talk about silos, it goes immediately to the negative,” Clancy says. “It's important for leaders to talk about what silos add. They do have a place in organizations to allow for focus on what you're responsible for, moving things forward and getting jobs done. To a certain degree, they are a necessary requirement to getting work done.” Of course, the problems begin when the intensity of organizational silos shifts to the extreme, and inefficiencies and animosity bubble to the surface. Fortunately, there are many ways to break down silos. It's an ongoing process, and nonprofits are continually striving to improve the way people interact with one another.

Keeping Your Skill Set Current Can Be Key to Keeping Your Job Small and midsize companies can’t afford to not keep up with technology, and neither can enterprise-level companies. This past fall, IBM notified employees, who it had determined needed additional training, they were required to step up their technological game, and that they would receive only 90% of their salary while embarking upon this additional training. Talk about an incentive to stay on top of changes in technology ! According to the article in the New York Times covering this move, some IBM workers received an email letting them know that an assessment had determined certain members of the team had “not kept pace with acquiring the skills and expertise needed to address changing client needs, technology and market requirements.” While some criticized the move, the reality is that employees can no longer be complacent when it comes to their grasp of technology and how to use it to help their businesses grow. That’s something to keep in mind, for sure, whether you’re just embarking on a career or whether you’re already in the workforce and want to make sure you have the skills you need to stay marketable.

The Modern Worker Needs to Be Constantly Learning

1. "We can do it"

2. "Good job"

3. "That was worth it"

What is a learner profile?  A learner profile includes three elements: Learning transcript: grades, courses (and/or learning levels), state and district achievement data Personalized learning information: supplemental achievement data, record of services received, feedback on work habits, record of extracurricular activities and work/service experiences. Portfolio of student work: collection of personal best work products.

What about children with disconnected parents? As the number of learning options expands many students and families would benefit from a chosen guide. The Donnell Kay Foundation imagines a new system of education where learners create customized paths with advocates who work with them to connect their present learning to their desired future. This role of mentor/advocate/coach could benefit all students but particularly students without the benefit of engaged parents. In some cases, parents/guardians will choose to allow designees (e.g., mentors, relatives) to manage learner profile privacy settings. Young people in the foster care and juvenile justice system may have a court (or state) appointed guide that would manage privacy settings.

Data Quality Campaign recently noted, “With access to current education data child welfare staff can help the highly mobile students in foster care achieve school success by providing support such as the following: helping with timely enrollment and transfer of credits if a school change is needed, identifying the need for educational supports, working with school staff to address attendance and discipline issues, and assisting with transition planning to post-school activities such as higher education.”

So far, many companies have tried to dispel such fears by noting that the data they gather, store and analyze remains "anonymous." But that, as it turns out, is not entirely accurate, in that it sells the power of data analysis radically short. Take the analysis of anonymous movement profiles, for example. According to a current study by the online journal Scientific Reports, our mobility patterns are so different that that they can be used to "uniquely identify 95 percent of the individuals." The more data is in circulation and available for analysis, the more likely it is that anonymity becomes "algorithmically impossible," says Princeton computer scientist Arvind Narayanan. In his blog, Narayanan writes that only 33 bits of information are sufficient to identify a person.

A study by New York advertising agency Ogilvy One concludes that 75 percent of respondents don't want companies to store their personal data, while almost 90 percent were opposed to companies tracking their surfing behavior on the Internet.

But for a modern society, an even more pressing question is whether it wishes to accept everything that becomes possible in a data-driven economy. Do we want to live in a world in which algorithms predict how well a child will do in school, how suitable he or she is for a specific job -- or whether that person is at risk of becoming a criminal or developing cancer?