THE FUTURE OF WORK

• Want to Combat Zoom Fatigue? Have More Small Talk
• A New Coworker: Businesses Boost Workforce Augmentation Tech
• Verizon Introduces Location Tech More Precise than GPS
• IBM Just Launched the First Developer Certification for Quantum Computing
• Big Tech's Guide to Talking About AI Ethics

THE NEW NORMAL

• Work's New Normal Takes Shape and Some Companies Will Botch It
• New York State Just Passed a Law Requiring ISPs to Offer $15 Broadband
• FCC Launches Its Own Speed Test App to Chart the US Internet Landscape

INVESTING IN THE FUTURE

• AT&T, Others to Pump Billions in Funds Toward Closing Digital Divide
• Intel CEO Calls for "Moonshot" to Boost U.S. Role in Chipmaking
• Grab & Altimeter Growth Agree to Deal to Go Public in World's Largest SPAC Merger

Coherent, Inc. recently announced that its board of directors has determined that the previously disclosed acquisition proposal Coherent received from II-VI Incorporated on March 17, 2021 continues to be a "Company Superior Proposal" under Coherent's March 9, 2021 merger agreement with Lumentum Holdings Inc. after giving due consideration to the revised acquisition proposal Coherent received from Lumentum on March 22, 2021. Accordingly, Coherent is terminating the March 9 merger agreement with Lumentum and paying Lumentum the $217.6 million termination fee contemplated by their merger agreement in order to enter into a new merger agreement with II-VI. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021. (Randy Heyler, SGV)

Cornerstone and HR.com will present a free virtual event - Summit 2021 Learning Content Summit: Reunite. Rebuild. Recharge. Breaking through challenge & change - on May 12, from 9 am to 1:30 pm Pacific. It will feature dynamic keynotes, breakout sessions, and interactive activities led by inspiring Learning & Development experts and global leaders from companies such as Staples, Fossil, Henry Ford Health System, and more. And attendees will get access to four free courses. (Adam Miller, WLA)

Delphi Display Systems has launched its third generation Outdoor Digital Menu Board solution for the quick service restaurants drive-thru market. The solution is comprised of the company's latest generation Endura 55X outdoor display technology integrated with its Insight Engage 3.0 cloud-based Content Management System software. It's the first in the industry to offer a fully sealed 55" sunlight readable display that is less than two inches thick and comes with a five-year warranty. With no fans or moving parts, it's maintenance free. As a key component of the offering, Delphi has partnered with Keyser, Inc., to provide nationwide installation and support services. (Ken Neeld, OC)

Eckert & Ziegler (EZ) is expanding in Berlin, Germany, with a manufacturing facility dedicated to late-stage investigational and commercial-stage radiopharmaceuticals, to be operational Q1 2022. Together with a new U.S.-based facility, EZ will be able to provide radiopharmaceutical development services to companies looking for Europe, US and worldwide contract manufacturing.
Also, the Brazilian regulator ANVISA has provided EZ Brasil Comercial Ltda. with a license to import and distribute technetium generators - a core component for a nuclear imaging procedure called SPECT, used for the detection of medical abnormalities. EZ already services about 500 hospitals/clinics in Brazil with medical devices and radioisotopes, and hopes to start shipping SPECT products in Q3 2021.
Meanwhile, EZ announced that it will divest its tumour radiation equipment business and, as a first step, has sold 51% of the shares in BEBIG Medical GmbH to Chinese company TCL Healthcare Equipment in Shanghai. (Frank Yeager, SGV)

Electrosonic has qualified as an AVIXA AV Provider of Excellence - a recognition program for technology integrators and AV design consulting firms dedicated to upholding industry excellence by providing quality service to customers.
And, Electrosonic has launched its reimagined electrosonic.com website - with simplified navigation and enhanced visual design, showcasing the rich experiential technology solutions that the company designs, builds and supports. Meanwhile, two of Electrosonic's projects were recently featured: in the Sound & Communications article, Academy Museum Of Motion Pictures: Grand Architecture, Exhibitions And Theaters Integrate, and in The Henry Ford museum's new Drive to Win: Racing in America exhibition presented by General Motors. (Bryan Hinckley, SGV)

On April 29, GF Piping Systems (GF) will present a live, virtual event - Flow to the Future - Get ready for GF knockout innovations - where attendees will learn about the latest developments in the water treatment industry and the latest innovations by GF.
Meanwhile, GF has earned Intel's Preferred Quality Supplier Award for 2020 - one of just 26 companies in all of Intel's global supply chain to do so. (Mike Smith, WLA)

"As a proud member of the Cybersecurity Tech Accord," Jason Makevich shares a case study on his company, Greenlight, published on cybertechaccord.org, "where we show how we're helping small and midsize businesses address new cyber threats." The study reports that in late 2020, Greenlight launched Greenlight Guardian, an end-to-end cybersecurity program designed specifically for U.S.-based SMBs. (Jason Makevich, OC)

Automotive News Journal recently spotlighted myKaarma, and "Invisible Service," in an article - Service bay cameras a good look for Mini. Invisible Service enables service advisers of the Mini auto brand to communicate with customers via instant message and accept digital payments. The technology platform allows technicians to share videos to show customers the need for recommended vehicle work, helping the brand build customer trust. And it's powered by myKaarma, which tracks, manages and hosts the communications and videos on the platform. So far, 53% of Mini's 116 U.S. dealers have adopted the Invisible Service program. (Ujj Nath, WLA)

On May 6, from 8-10:30 am Pacific, Parasoft will host a live, virtual Embedded Software Testing & Compliance Summit, at which industry leaders will share their embedded software quality stories of overcoming safety-critical compliance and security challenges with automated software testing solutions. The agenda will cover a range of testing topics, including unit testing, code compliance, data and data management essentials, and modern development workflows. (Elizabeth Kolawa, Ph.D., SGV)

Chris Dyer, of PeopleG2, and Kim Shepherd have written a new book - Remote Work: Redesign Processes, Practices and Strategies to Engage a Remote Workforce - valuable whether your organization is fully remote, hybrid, or you're planning to have just a few remote employees. The book is available for pre-order now at the link above, and until May 25th, Chris and Kim are offering "volume" purchasers serious discounts on products and services from "their circle of influence."
Also, on April 28, from 10-11 am Pacific, PeopleG2 will present a webinar - Remote Work Expert Discussion: Back to Normal or Sliding Into Hybrid?
Meanwhile, PeopleG2 and JazzHR have announced a partnership in which they're streamlining the entire hiring process, from candidate-to-employee journey, to ensure a smooth new-hire transition through automated onboarding.
And, check out PeopleG2's new website. (Chris Dyer, SGV)

ProProfs has acquired Picreel, a leading conversion optimization software, which delivers powerful tools such as exit popups, overlays, on-site messages, nanobars, and surveys. These tools are key to capturing more leads and making more sales, and can be added to any website in minutes. Picreel fits nicely into the ProProfs suite of customer software tools, which include customer insights, customer experience management, and customer acquisition. (Sameer Bhatia, WLA)

On the evenings of May 6 (click here) and June 2 (click here), John Tanner, Ph.D., of Tanner Research, will present free Nutrition Science Virtual Workshops, via Zoom, where he will relay to participants the scientific information they need to avoid heart disease and other leading killers with a proper diet. The group will discuss strategies for change and John will field questions, plus give a free book to participants. (John Tanner, Ph.D., SGV)

On May 11 and 12, Xsolla will be powering Game Carnival 2021, a free virtual event that last year hosted thousands of attendees, 220+ exhibitors, and 5000+ meetings. Participants will experience speakers, exhibit hall and networking from the convenience of their web browsers.
Meanwhile, How Xsolla Launcher can save an entire generation of browser games, published on gamesindustry.biz, details how the new Xsolla launcher can be used to save Flash titles. In January this year, Adobe shut down Flash and thousands of games lost their audience overnight. However, Xsolla has created a solution, Xsolla Launcher. (Shurick Agapitov, WLA)

Dave Berkus co-hosted a recent episode of the SmartMoney Ventures Podcast, in which he and others discussed how venture ecosystems in America's heartland are birthing Unicorns and more.
Also, in When to pivot from your original plan?, Dave declares that "great teams are not bound by their original product or marketing plan. Greatness finds one definition in management's ability to "pivot," or change the plan in reaction to its early response from the marketplace."
And, in Six ways to make your site-app-product go viral, Dave shares the list he's developed. (Dave Berkus, SGV & WLA)

Jason Ciment of GetVisible has provided the following tools and resources to optimize your business:
> Get insights into your website by running a scan with Mozilla Observatory.
> This comprehensive security monitoring and defense platform protects your site and data: WebTotem.
> 12 ideas to write better emails that produce higher conversion rates.
> See how your web copy looks to different genders.
> Rhymes are catchy: Use this tool to find that word that makes your copy more interesting.
> Create your own memes: QuotesCover. (Jason Ciment, WLA)

In 8 Marketing Data Issues That Might Be Holding You Back (And How to Fix Them), Kenneth Shen, of Half Past Nine, discusses the issues of: In-House Marketing Data Integrity, including Lack of a Structured Data Model; Poor Data Governance Processes; Customer Error, or Unwillingness to Share Data; Human Error by Staff; and Data is Difficult to Extract for Analysis. And regarding In-Platform Advertising Data Integrity, he covers: Not Setting Up Conversion Tracking Properly; Enhanced User Privacy Controls; and Double Attribution.
Other recent posts by Kenneth include: Marketing Data Analytics: How to Build Your Source of Truth and Customer Acquisition: The Ultimate Guide to Turbocharging Your Digital Marketing Engine. (Kenneth Shen, WLA)

In Making Quality Fun: Creating a True Culture of Quality, Romeo Elias, of Intellect, suggests that quality management programs stand a much better chance of being embraced widely throughout an organization if leadership can find ways to make it more fun. At face value, it may seem like a stretch to put "fun" and "regulatory compliance" in the same sentence; but there are definitely some ways - which he shares - to soften your team's resistance to quality management and make it more palatable.
And, Romeo also recently published Promoting a Quality Culture Within the Workplace, where he discusses clear messaging from upper management, backed by the right actions, as setting the tone. And when employees are engaged in the process and leaders cultivate a sense of ownership across the organization, a culture of quality can flourish. (Romeo Elias, WLA)

In Infusing data culture into an organization, Pegasus One discusses the four distinctive stages on the road to data-first business models: data-aware; data-adopting; data-mature; and data-leading.
And, in Data-led digital innovation: What you need to know, Pegasus One explains what it means to take a data-led approach, and how it differs from an application-led approach. (Tushar Puri, OC)

Melissa leads Mahmee, a comprehensive prenatal and postpartum care coordination platform that increases positive health outcomes for moms and babies, backed by Serena Williams and Mark Cuban. By using its proprietary HIPAA-secure technology, Mahmee's staff of certified and trained maternity support professionals are able to deliver proactive, ongoing education and guidance to new families everywhere at a fraction of the cost. Melissa has worked in operations and strategy at startups in healthcare, education, digital media, and consumer goods. Previously, she was Assistant Director of the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School. Her modus operandi has always been to forge cross-industry collaborations and partnerships to solve big challenges, and she believes that equitable access to healthcare for women and children is a challenge we can all solve by working creatively together. Melissa has been featured in Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Cheddar TV, Black Enterprise, USA Today, and more. Named to Inc. Magazine's "2019 Female Founders 100" list, Melissa has joined the ABL-Health LA Round Table.
Meanwhile, in a recent Entrepreneurs RISING episode, Melissa explains how her company is digitizing and linking mother and baby medical records from conception through first birthday, with the goal of providing more equitable access to better healthcare across the U.S.

Axene Health Partners and Kaufman Strategic Advisors have jointly developed a strategic data tool - called Payer Intelligence and Insights (Pi2) - to help healthcare-focused organizations better understand market-wide financial data. It enables users to leverage the vast amount of available financial information from any payer in any state for any line of business by accessing data from 2,000+ health plans nationwide.
Meanwhile, in this article, Axene provides a sample of how its Market Blueprint Tool can summarize individual and small group markets in California. (John Price, ABL-Health SF)

Eliott Jones, CEO of Biospectal, wrote a recent article in Forbes - The Six P's Of Medicine: How Healthcare Technology Will Transform Access to Care and Enable Better Patient Outcomes, in which he explores how today's six P's work to provide better data, healthcare, and patient outcomes. The 6 P's are: Personalized, Precision, Predictive, Preventive, Patient Participatory Medicine, and Platform - enabled by health monitoring technologies. "Some might argue these changes will damage the doctor-patient relationship and let technology do the hard work," Eliott says. "I believe they'll improve doctors' understanding of their patients' condition because they'll now have access to data and vital parameters collected in the patient's real-life setting. All these collective changes will have a tremendous positive effect on the cost of healthcare, patient outcomes and doctor-patient relationships. Patients will contribute to and be involved in their health in a way that hasn't existed before because of real-time feedback." (Eliott Jones, ABL-Health SV)

Inc. magazine has ranked Competitive Health #163 on its second-annual "Inc. 5000 Regionals: California" list of the fastest-growing California-based private companies - moving up from #201 last year. Between 2017 and 2019, these 250 private companies had an average growth rate of 535% and, in 2019 alone, they employed 40,000+ people and added nearly $7 billion to the California economy. (Kim Darling, ABL-Health OC)

At the recent virtual SXSW, Arup Roy-Burman, MD, CEO of Elemeno Health, participated in the Texas Global Health Security Innovation Consortium, in a roundtable called "The Aftermath of COVID-19: The Hospital of the Future & Technologies for Frontline workers." Watch Arup's 6.5-minute presentation here. (Arup Roy-Burman, MD, ABL-Health OAK)

LigoLab announced that its direct-to-consumer platform, TestDirectly, is now equipped with Laboratory Information System (LIS) functionality that makes it a lightweight point-of-care option for low-volume testing facilities. For larger facilities processing thousands of samples a day, TestDirectly integrates with all LIS and Revenue Cycle Management systems to boost testing capacity and improve turnaround times. Other recent enhancements to TestDirectly include the ability to link multiple family members to one account, and the on-demand download of travel documents for air travel. To date, the TestDirectly network, made up of labs, specimen collection centers, urgent care facilities, and outpatient clinics throughout the U.S., has collected, processed, and reported nearly seven million COVID-19 tests. (Suren Avunjian, ABL-Health LA)

Newly formed DexCare, Inc. announced a $20 million investment led by Define Ventures and including Providence, Frist Cressey, Kaiser Permanente, and SpringRock Ventures. DexCare, a Platform-as-a-Service, is an intelligent digital care operating system that manages health system capacity and demand across all lines of care. Concurrent with funding, DexCare has been spun out as a separate company after being incubated at Providence within its Digital Innovation Group. (Marcee Chmait, ABL-Health LA)

In How Digitization Boosts Patient Satisfaction, Savi Group declares that, by now, we have the tools needed to reduce payment delays and increase transparency for patients looking to understand their healthcare bills. (Sumit Mahendru, ABL-Health OC)

VivaLNK has unveiled the results of its survey of hospitals and clinics on their opinions about the current state of remote patient monitoring (RPM). Findings include: 43% believe RPM adoption will be on par with in-patient monitoring in five years, and 35% believe it will surpass in-patient monitoring in this time; 20% noted having already adopted RPM, and another 23% plan to adopt within 12 months. Regarding remote data collection, 90% indicated that continuous, 24-hour data is important when compared to episodic data. The biggest challenge to adoption is cost, and 55% believe that reimbursement is essential to the overall success of RPM. Re: electronic health record integration, 65% said it's essential to widespread adoption.
Meanwhile, CEO Jiang Li, Ph.D., wrote How Remote Patient Monitoring and Biomarkers Are Changing in Clinical Research, published in MedTech Intelligence. (Jiang Li, Ph.D., SV)

Feeling a sense of belonging or connection with the group minimized fatigue after a videoconference, according to a new study from the American Psychological Association. The feeling of Zoom fatigue isn't necessarily a symptom of the number of meetings you have or how long they last, according to the study, but about the personal connection you feel with the people on the call. Authors of the study suggest scheduling time before and after meetings for "small talk" to help establish those connections with co-workers that are not as easy to make while working remotely (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/everyone-just-wants-to-get-in-and-get-out-want-to-combat-zoom-fatigue-have-more-small-talk-11618856630?mod=hp_minor_pos21)

Over half (56%) of managers and leaders say their use of technology for workforce augmentation, such as AI or chatbots, will increase over the next 18-24 months, according to the recent MIT Sloan Workforce Ecosystems survey of 5,118 managers and leaders. Amid shifting workforce dynamics, technology plays a dual role: it can become an ecosystem for scouting talent via online labor platforms, but it can also be a worker itself, according to the report. (https://www.ciodive.com/news/MITSloan-workforce-ecosystems-augmented-technology/598234/)

Verizon has announced that its Hyper Precise Location (HPL) service - real-time kinematics service - will be available in 100+ major U.S. markets, adding that HPL can outperform today's GPS technology, providing up to centimeter-level accuracy, compared with three to nine meters with GPS alone. HPL can be applied to HD-mapping, robotics, construction, manufacturing, and smart agriculture. It can also support emerging technologies that depend on high-level location accuracy, such as delivery drones, and advanced Internet of Things applications such as infrastructure monitoring, critical asset tracking, and high-value shipping. (https://www.techrepublic.com/article/verizon-announces-hyper-precise-location-service-for-more-than-100-major-u-s-markets/)

IBM has unveiled a quantum developer certification which it says, once devs have passed the 60-question test, will act as proof of at least some of the skills required to build and run quantum programs. The quantum computing industry is expected to become a $65 billion market by 2030, with many new jobs to be created along the way. With quantum computers predicted to furiously accelerate value creation in industries ranging from drug discovery to finance, many companies are already trying to understand the why and the how of quantum, to better identify where the technology might eventually serve business interests. (https://www.zdnet.com/article/quantum-computing-just-got-its-first-developer-certification-time-to-start-studying/)

AI researchers often say good machine learning is really more art than science. The same could be said for effective public relations. Selecting the right words to strike a positive tone or reframe the conversation about AI is a delicate task: done well, it can strengthen one's brand image, but done poorly, it can trigger an even greater backlash. The tech giants would know. Over the last few years, they've had to learn this art quickly as they've faced increasing public distrust of their actions and intensifying criticism about their AI research and technologies. Now they've developed a new vocabulary to use when they want to assure the public that they care deeply about developing AI responsibly - but want to make sure they don't invite too much scrutiny. Here is MIT Technology Review's insider's guide to decoding their language and challenging the assumptions and values baked in: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/13/1022568/big-tech-ai-ethics-guide/

The new normal for work is entering a trial-and-error period that may be productivity's greatest A/B test as enterprises muddle through finding that hybrid utopia. While plans for returning to the office are fluid, the biggest risk to companies is clear: Romanticizing the pre-pandemic view of work. (https://www.zdnet.com/article/works-new-normal-takes-shape-and-some-companies-will-botch-it/)
Also, Microsoft has published The Next Great Disruption is Hybrid Work - Are We Ready?, which shares "exclusive research and expert insights into a year of work like no other," revealing "urgent trends leaders should consider as hybrid work unfolds."

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed a bill that requires all Internet Service Providers operating in New York state to offer a $15 a month broadband option for low-income consumers. According to NY Assembly member Amy Paulin, the average price of broadband in New York is currently $50. This new bill caps the price at $15 for regular broadband and $20 for high-speed, but only for those who qualify as low income - over 7 million people in 2.7 million households, according to Cuomo's office. (https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/16/22388184/new-york-affordable-internet-cost-low-income-price-cap-bill)

The FCC has just launched a Speed Test app in a bid to detail America's broadband coverage. It measures the performance of your internet connection, including upload and download speeds, connection jitter, and latency. In this sense, it's like every other speed test app before it. But the commission notes that this isn't merely a tool for troubleshooting but to garner performance metrics on the state of the US's internet. The FCC Speed Test app is available on Google Play and the App Store. (https://www.androidauthority.com/fcc-speed-test-app-1217367/)

The Covid-19 pandemic has painfully demonstrated the gap that exists between those with broadband connectivity and those without. Therefore, AT&T announced it will invest $2 billion over the next three years to expanding its low-cost broadband services - double what it has spent over the last three years in bringing broadband to the underserved. Comcast announced earlier this year that it will invest $1 billion over the next 10 years to close the digital divide, and Charter Communications, which was awarded $1.2 billion from the FCC, is specifically targeting rural broadband, with plans to spend another $3.8 billion to expand its broadband coverage across 24+ states. (https://www.fiercetelecom.com/operators/at-t-will-pump-2b-funds-toward-closing-digital-divide)

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger called last week for the U.S. to spend billions of dollars over the next few years as part of a "moonshot" designed to regain lost ground in semiconductor manufacturing. The goal, he said, is to see the U.S. again account for a third of global output, up from about 12% today. Investments made now will take several years to bear fruit, so they won't do much to ease the current semiconductor shortage, but they're vital to America's long-term economic future and national security, Gelsinger said. (https://www.axios.com/intel-ceo-gelsinger-chipmaking-moonshot-boost-us-6d30b6eb-824d-4cbd-90c8-42150386d545.html)

Meanwhile, President Biden, during a virtual conference with government officials and industry executives, said his administration will provide financial help to chipmakers to stave off the semiconductor shortages. Biden also called for Samsung Electronics and other chipmakers to produce more microchips in the US. (https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20210413000252325)

Southeast Asia's ride-hailing giant Grab announced last week it is set to go public through a SPAC merger with Altimeter Growth Corp., in a deal that values the company at $39.6 billion - the largest blank-check merger to date. (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/13/softbank-backed-grab-agrees-to-deal-to-go-public-in-worlds-largest-spac-merger.html)

207 East Memory Lane
Santa Ana, CA 92705

Phone: 714-245-2400 | Fax: (714) 245-1428
Email: [email protected]