Monthly Archives: November 2014

Is the Arc Important? YES IT IS!

The United Nation undoubtedly, is one of the most recognized organizations in the world. For those who aren’t aware of the United Nations, its an organization that was created right after the Second World War, whose purpose is “to maintain international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.”

With such a large organization, many would argue that the United Nations is by far the most influential organization. I would argue against this. This is because the Arc Initiative is an organization that is different compared to the United Nations. After reading about the Arc, I realized that its an organization that simply does not help individuals, rather it focuses on building an “arc” whose purpose it to exchange knowledge and business skills. Unlike the UN, the Arc teaches individuals skills that allow them not to rely on these non-governmental organizations.

 In the end, I feel like that even though the United Nations and the Arc focus on the same group of individuals, these two organizations are different. The UN focuses on helping these individuals while the Arc plans to provide these individuals with specific tools that the UN fails to provide them with.

Student Experience:

A Response to James Young’s and Derek Cormier’s “Can Robots Be Managers, Too?”

robotmanager

James Young and Derek Cormier, discuss in their blog how many of us tend to rely on robots. As a result, they felt that due to the rapid development of robots in the past couple of years, robots one day might be able to take over managerial roles. In order to confirm this theory, they ran an experiment, which showed that 86% of participants followed orders until the 80-minute mark, while 46% obeyed the robot till the end.

Although the whole concept of robots taking over managerial roles might sound productive, I personally think it’s a recipe for disaster. This is because, recently I learned about how, Zappo, a startup company functions. Learning about how different Zappo is from many companies, I felt that a robot, someone who does not share an emotional connection with its employees, would simply fail. I think that replacing managers with robots would simply result in a workforce whose only purpose is to follow orders. I feel like this would result in many employees facing depression, something I discussed in one of my previous blogs.

In the end, companies should strive to become more like Zappo. Zappo takes its entire workforce, and creates a big family. I feel like that although this may raise the costs, it ensures that its employees are dedicated to their work.

Bibliography:
“Can Robots Be Managers, Too?” Harvard Business Review. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2014.