10 major cities beginning to go car-free

The Bob Pritchard Snippet 

Urban planners and policy makers around the world have started to brainstorm ways that cities can create more space for pedestrians and lower CO2 emissions. 

 

 

Oslo announced a ban on all cars from its city by 2019, six years before Norway's country-wide ban would go into effect.  Now, the country wants to take the initiative a step further. Norway is proposing a bill banning the sale of gas-powered cars by 2025, investing heavily in public transport and replacing 35 miles of roads with bike lanes.

 

Madrid  is banning cars from its city center by 2020, with urban planners redesigning 24 of the city's busiest streets for walking rather than driving.  The plan is to reduce daily car usage from 30% to around 20%. It will be expensive to park the most polluting cars.

 

In Chengdu, China, the new city layout makes it easier to walk than drive, with streets designed so that people can walk anywhere in 15 minutes. While Chengdu won't completely ban cars, only half the roads will allow vehicles. 

 

Hamburg plans to make walking and biking its dominant mode of transport. Hamburg is reducing the number of cars by only allowing pedestrians and bikers to enter certain areas.  The project calls for "green network," of connected spaces that people can access without cars. The network is planned to cover 40% of Hamburg and will include parks, playgrounds and  sports fields.

 

Over half of Copenhagen's population bikes to work every day, thanks to the city's effort to introduce pedestrian-only zones starting in the 1960s. The Danish capital now boasts more than 200 miles of bike lanes and has one of the lowest percentages of car ownership in Europe.

The latest goal is to build a superhighway for bikes that will stretch to surrounding suburbs. The 28 planned routes will be completed by the end of 2018. The city has also pledged to become completely carbon-neutral by 2025.

 

When Paris banned cars with even-numbered plates for a day in 2014, pollution dropped by 30%. Now, the city wants to discourage cars from driving in the city center at all. 

Since last year, all drivers with cars made before 1997 are not permitted to drive in the city center on weekdays.  Paris plans to double its bike lanes and limit select streets to electric cars. The city also curbs emissions through car-free Sundays rule last year.

 

London will ban diesel cars by 2020. Currently, the city discourages the use of diesel engines in some areas of the city by charging a fee of $12.50 per day for diesel cars.

 

Brussels, features the largest car-free area in Europe. Most streets that surround Brussels' city square, stock exchange, and Rue Neuve (a major shopping street) have always been pedestrian-only. The roads make up the second largest car-free zone in Europe, behind Copenhagen.  For one day in September, all cars are banned from the entire city center.

It is proposed to turn a popular four-lane boulevard into a pedestrian-only area.  Brussels has announced that diesel cars will be banned starting in 2018.

 

Mexico City plans to ban about two million cars from the city center by prohibiting a portion of cars from the city center two days every work week and two Saturdays per month. The policy helps to mitigate the city's high smog levels.

 

While New York City isn't planning a car ban anytime soon, it is increasing the number of pedestrian areas, along with bike share, subway, and bus options.

Beginning this week, strips of popular areas like Times Square, Herald Square, and Madison Square Park are permanently pedestrian-only. On three Saturdays, hundreds of thousands of people will take advantage of Summer Streets, an annual event that prohibits cars and opens major roads for pedestrians.

Cities are coming to the realization that they need to swing the pendulum

How a little competition can focus the mind - Amazon is coming!!!!

57% believe global giants such as Amazon, which is expected to commence operating in Australia next year, are forcing the local market to embrace innovation

Inspired BY JAMES HARKNESS / EMERGING TECH, TECHNOLOGY / 02 AUG 2017

Key findings from a survey of more than 1000 business owners and directors, by MYOB's Business Monitor

Four in five SMEs believe new technologies will impact their business within the next ten years

One in four SMEs (76%) have invested in technology over the last 12 months to boost their innovative capacity 

Other insights included 

• Almost a third of respondents had acquired computer software and hardware, making it the dominant form of technological investment, followed by the acquisition of machinery and equipment.
• 78% believe technological advancements will impact their business in the next decade, while 40% expect this impact to be significant.
• 57% believe global giants such as Amazon, which is expected to commence operating in Australia next year, are forcing the local market to embrace innovation.
• 29% thought the biggest barrier to introducing and developing innovation was the cost associated with this undertaking. Other barriers included excessive government regulation (26%) and inadequate government support (25%).
• Gen Y business owners were more likely to nominate big data and machine learning as having an impact on their business - citing efficiencies, better targeting and providing better service (replacing jobs???)

SMEs can derive huge value just by making small changes.that are not major costs 

• Upskilling you and your team through continuos education - this can be done with government and industry support (see www.bbg.business and www.paulgreenberg.com for 2 examples on what you can do) 
• Social Media Presence -  Only  22% of businesses surveyed  have a social media presence. Those using it saw an increase in enquiries and, in 54% of cases, greater interaction with customers. The survey iindicated that half of the businesses on social media said it made doing business easier.
• Improved connectivity and collaboration with clients should be technology that SME's will give most impact to their business into the future, 
• Move to cloud software is a simple innovation -. “businesses are embracing online accounting solutions over old, desktop software which can often be onerous to use.

How will Amazon , Artificial Intelligence and technology effect your business ?

What are you going to do about it? 

Are you ready to change and learn? 

SENATOR WARNER'S REMARKS on the Future of Work

I want to congratulate the grant recipients today. I also want to thank Google.org for supporting the increasingly important conversation surrounding the Future of Work. 

Changing Nature of Work 

I don’t have to convince anyone in this room that we are experiencing one of the most dramatic transformations in the American workforce in decades. 

Whether by economic necessity or choice, as many as one-third of Americans now find themselves in the contingent workforce. They are working as independent contractors, as temps, freelancers, or in the on-demand, or ‘gig,’ economy. 

Some estimates have this number growing to half of the workforce over the next 10 years. 

And economists Larry Katz and Alan Krueger estimate that almost all the net job growth over the last decade occurred in independent work. 

Policy and Data 

These changes create challenges – and opportunities. 

But policymaking has lagged behind these seismic labor shifts. 

Here in D.C., I’m still working to wake up some of my colleagues in public office to the realities of working in the 21s t century. 

Part of this lag is due to lack of accurate data. 

Here in the United States, the gold standard survey on how employers are training workers has not been conducted in over two decades. 

And before this year, the last time the government had surveyed Americans on contingent work was 2005. For reference, the first iPhone was released in 2007. The app store was born in 2008. 

As an organization that provides a keyhole into the wealth of data of the internet, Google knows better than anyone the power of data in informing decision-making. 

Bayes Impact, one of today’s grantees, is already finding ways to leverage that data towards better job placements and closing the skills gap in France. 

While it may be near-impossible to predict what the future of work will hold, being prepared for that future demands an understanding of where we are today. And on the data front, we obviously need to do better. 

Worker Training 

With the nature of work changing at internet speed, if you want to be a lifelong employee anywhere today, you have to be a lifelong learner. 

My dad worked for the same firm for 30+ years. People in my generation are expected to have had six jobs over their careers. 

The jobs available today - and the jobs expected tomorrow - are higher-skill jobs that will require targeted and continuous learning to allow workers to adapt to changing technology. 

That’s why I believe we must come up with new and smarter approaches to workforce training. 

The trend toward shorter job tenure has been a disincentive for employers to invest in upskilling their workers. 

We need to make it easier and more affordable for people to access skills training by incentivizing employers to constantly up-skill their workforce. 

For instance, a Worker Training Tax Credit -- modeled on the popular R&D tax credit -- could be used by small and large businesses to invest in training for their lower- and middle-income workers. 

I want to keep working with you all to find solutions to help workers thrive in this changing economy. 

Portable Benefits Experimentation 

While the changing nature of work has opened up more opportunities and made work more independent, it’s also less stable and less secure. 

People who are not attached to full-time employment usually have no access to the suite of benefits and protections we have traditionally tied to employment status since the 1930s. 

To move the ball forward on a 21st century social safety net, we have introduced legislation establishing grant a program specifically to fund experimentation around portable benefits models. 

If we attempt a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach from Washington, we’re going to screw this up. 

Innovators need to get busy innovating before regulators rush in to regulate. 

For instance, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, here today, is already doing great work in this field, helping domestic workers access benefits like sick leave. 

Just as we’re not sure what skills the jobs of the future will require, we are not sure what the hours or work schedules of the future will look like. Or the benefits those workers will most need. 

That’s why our bill emphasizes innovation and experimentation across all kinds of benefits, and all kinds of methods of providing them. 

And this isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue. 

There are folks from both parties who recognize the changing nature of work is going to change the ways we support the workforce. 

I’m pleased that just this week, actually, Senator Todd Young – Republican from Indiana – decided to co-sponsor our bill. 

Innovation and Experimentation 

For almost two years now, I’ve been crisscrossing the country, attempting to learn everything I can about these issues of the future of work. I don’t know where this conversation ends, but here’s where it might start. 

First, we have a greater responsibility to strengthen the social contract than ever. Too many low- and middle-income Americans are getting the short end of the stick. The objectives of the social contract remain the same, but the pathways to achieving it need to be modernized to meet the demands of this new era. 

 

Second , we have to make innovation our ally, not our enemy. Solutions to these challenges should develop from some of the same technological advances and entrepreneurial creativity that are driving new business models. 

Third , we should be innovating now to design models that can support the many new ways people work, with more nimble ways of upskilling the workforce, and portable benefits attached to the individual regardless of the number of jobs they might have over the course of a day or a career. 

Fourth, as a longtime entrepreneur myself, I strongly urge forward-leaning business leaders and policymakers to do exactly what you’re doing today -- looking for opportunities and creative partnerships to further explore what works, and what doesn’t. 

If those of us in public office do not find new ways to think about and work on these issues, then shame on us: we will have learned nothing from the message sent by the voters last November. 

I know that this constant nonsense in the news makes you want to throw your shoe at the TV. I feel that way too, and I’m in the TV.

But if we can get this right and change the conversation on our economy to orient less left versus right and more future versus past, I believe we will emerge stronger because of it. 

So thank you for having me here today and thank you for the meaningful work you are doing. 

What is ListenTrust?

Article stemmed from https://www-entrepreneur-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.entrepreneur.com/amphtml/297434

Why is Telemarketing company "ListenTrust" outperforming its competitors and is a company that people aspire to be part of?

Founders Craig Handley and Tony Riccardo share their secret....

They focus on up-skilling their team ,  by treating their business as a training ground or "vocational university" - so their employees can aspire to bigger and better things.

“When we hire you, we tell you exactly what we’re doing: training you to quit,” enthuses Handley. 

This isn’t some BS corporate policy that employees secretly roll their eyes about. Handley, Ricciardi, and upper management work directly with employees to chart where they want to go in their lives and exactly how to get there.

The program targets six pillars of personal development from career goals to intellectual growth. 

The result is a clear blueprint for each employee on how to achieve their dreams and how ListenTrust fits into that picture. Employees then receive one-on-one mentorship, online training, and live events to get them there.

An example of a client result "ListenTrust took a campaign from another center doing $8 in revenue per call and within a month, agents produced $24 per call on the same campaign."

But initially there was pushback against some of the firm’s efforts to build an incredible culture—and Employees didn’t want to talk about personal issues with managers and executives, especially sensitive topics that might have related to their personal goals, like eliminating personal debt.

However, over time, when employees understood the ethos of the business, they started to embrace this culture of learning.

An interesting insight - giving creates more happiness than receiving 

“Forrester Research came in to do a study to see how we could improve happiness. An interesting insight was in respect of pay increases ......

It turned out that a raise of 50 cents an hour increased performance, but happiness stayed the same. Interestingly, giving that money to charity instead ending up improving both performance and happiness. Happier employees were found to have higher close rates. The lesson? “It was profitable to do good,” says Handley.

Machine learning with a human advantage.

Today, ListenTrust is busy solidifying its diligently forged culture across every part of the company.

With advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence, Handley and Ricciardi see the future of the call center business as one where humans and machines work hand in hand to provide better service. “We believe AI, predictive models, and algorithms are really going to change the type of calls we’re going to handle and how those calls are processed,” says Ricciardi.

This technological shift could help the company better identify who wants to buy and who doesn’t and tailor offers appropriately for the best possible outcome. That means better service and prices for customers.

Ivan's Insight

Here's the interesting thing..... the companies "pulse" has nothing to do with telemarketing - it has to do with educating enthusing and inspiring their team . They just happen to provide their customers with an outstanding telemarketing service. 

Emotional intelligence and Cognitive Dissonance

By Heidi Kaye 

For most people in the conference room, the relevance of emotional intelligence manifests in two major areas. 

Firstly, at work: To operate more efficiently in ones current workplace, expanding influence in team or networking environments and moving toward organizational excellence to generate greater revenue for the company. 

Secondly, at home: to find peace in the family home. 

For a millennial on the brink of a career,with an unprecedented potential to impact the world, emotional intelligence is the space that exists before the parachute opens and after leaping out of a moving plane. It’s a scary, painful and real sensitivity to ones surroundings. It’s an intense feeling of self-awareness. A dangerous realization of ones impact. In my definition, if true emotional intelligence was an extreme sport, most people in the room would perish.

Are the collaborations occurring between large corporations and the government, causing destruction of the planet and people, a result of emotionally intelligent leaders? 

On behalf of a desperate generation facing the impact of climate change, coal mines and a growing refugee crisis (to say the least), the meaning of emotional intelligence has leveled up and is now of utmost importance or we face impending doom. 

Empathizing with others, expressing emotions, feeling positive, confident and proud of ones achievements, having good relationships, being resilient, positive and a good judge of character is recognized as baseline self enquiry.

These revelations belong in a postcolonial paradigm when we learnt to treat humans with basic sense of humanity. 

I believe true emotional intelligence is one step further. 

It has become synonymous with critical thinking, authenticity, integrity and ethically inspiredaction. 

Emotionally intelligent behavior results in the benefit of the collective. It is interesting that the basic act of ‘listening’ is considered an emotionally intelligent act. 

Making a killing is no longer of intelligent motivation or value for those who believe they deserve of a stable climate, clean, safe jobs and a future to look forward to.

These are some of the hyper emotional thoughts that color the mind of a different generation in a corporate mastermind lunch.  

Despite everything that you have just read, she sports the following unethically produced clothing as values instilled by a capitalist society promote cognitive dissonance. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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