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Showing posts from November, 2019

With RPA, Your Only Limitation is Yourself

Originally posted on HPA's website Twenty years ago when we pitched automation to clients, we would get crazy looks. At the time, macros were nothing new, but handing off an entire business process to a piece of software? Madness. Ten years ago when we formed one of the first robotic process automation (RPA) companies in the world, we still faced an uphill battle. Industry leaders remained unwilling to place their trust, and their work, in the proverbial hands of robots. Today, RPA happens to be one of the most buzz-worthy terms trending in business. In the same way that everyone was once going to the cloud or IoT, businesses are now going robotic. So what's changed? As companies take a closer look at their costs—staffing, infrastructure, and networking costs—they realize they’ve been overlooking their productivity costs. Said differently, it turns out those business processes they sought to protect happen to be very simple, straightforward tasks that are mindless and routine.

#TechlessTeaching

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For some months now I've been working on an 8-part series on teaching kids to code without tech. I'm really excited and proud to say it's now rolling out on Young Coder , a technical publication. There'll be one new article published each week. If you're a STEM teacher, or know a STEM/Computer teacher, please share it with them! #TechlessTeaching: Put Aside the Computers and Programming Toys A big thanks goes to my wife Stephanie Novin who is an amazing STEM teacher who helped with editing, and to Matthew MacDonald for the idea and encouragement.

Lady Bug Blanket

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Almost 14 years ago, back in college, I was moving in to an apartment with some friends. I needed to buy some bedding and, being a broke student, I couldn't spend much. I ended up buying a fleece blanket on clearance, not really noticing it had a lady bug on it and was a baby blanket and way too small for a twin bed... So I had to buy a bigger blanket on my credit card. Suffice it to say, my roommates teased me about it. One of those old college roommates just had a baby and emailed an announcement. I thought he'd get a kick of seeing a recent photo of my own kid wrapped in that same lady bug blanket. It sent me down a rabbit hole, going through older and older photos and realized how much that blanket now means to me. From Toronto to Vancouver to Seattle to Nashville and perfect for my niece, then my daughter and now my son. It's a good blanket.

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