New York City is notorious for allowing towers of foul-smelling trash bags to line the streets. Currently, many restaurants and bodegas set trash out in bags at 8 p.m., and they can sit there for hours before private carting companies take them away.
Mayor Eric Adams’s new rat czar, Kathleen Corradi, said last month that she would focus on reducing the presence of food waste, a move that scientists say would do the most to control the rat population.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word notorious in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.
If you want a better idea of how notorious can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
Running a business is not easy. It requires time, energy, a dedicated team to drive and achieve objectives, and a leader to show the way. Leadership is a valuable trait that lies at the core of every successful project, event, and corporation. But great leaders are sometimes difficult to come by. This is because leaders are not born, they are made. In this article, we’ll show you how to improve leadership in an organisation.
How to improve leadership in an organisation
At a certain point in one’s career, you need to depend on more than hard skills and a desire to work hard to get ahead. These are great qualities to have but to take the next step in your role, you need to showcase a set of skills that will allow you to lead a team, department, or even your company in later years. the traits that get you here are leadership skills.
What are leadership skills?
Leadership skills are the traits and abilities an individual has that motivate, inspire, and direct others toward a certain outcome. It’s a set of skills that when developed, can move someone from being a team member to delegating, managing projects, and stepping out to charter a way forward.
What are the examples of leadership skills?
Leadership skills are not about possessing one skill but rather it’s having a combination of different skills that make you excel as a leader. Some examples of leadership skills are:
Delegation: you can’t do it all as a leader. It’s more effective and efficient to delegate tasks to individuals to make the best use of the available resources and time available. This opens your time to focus on other tasks without spreading yourself thin and developing skills in others.
Critical and strategic thinking: this helps you look at challenges with a wider lens and set priorities, make decisions, and allocate the necessary resources to deal with obstacles. You perform a SWOT analysis of the situation at hand and from the data, analyse, adapt, and resolve problems.
Discipline:discipline is what will help you cross the finish line when motivation runs low. Leaders need to follow through on plans and promises and ensure that they and the team do what needs to be done to meet the set objectives.
Communication:good leaders can communicate clearly, concisely, and effectively with others. This means not just speaking, but listening to opinions, views, and reading body language and other non-verbal cues. It’s about giving a voice to others and creating a safe space and platform for them to feel heard.
Emotional intelligence: a healthy EQ makes for a good leader. You need to be able to feel and control your emotions without letting yourself be overcome by them or letting them get the better of you in trying situations. Your team will be looking to you for calm, direction, responses, and reactions.
Interpersonal skills: as a leader, you will be required to build and maintain strong and healthy relationships. You need to be able to do this not only with your team but with other supervisors, stakeholders, business leaders, clients, and more. Alongside this, is being able to engage with people at different levels, conflict resolution, and a balance of negotiation skills and assertiveness.
Integrity: integrity is not limited to doing the right thing when others see you. Instead, it’s about having a strong set of values and ideals and sticking by them even if no one is around and watching. Integrity is being honourable about whom you say you are and what you do.
Creativity: a creative mindset lets you see a problem from different angles and come up with alternative solutions to overcome them. You think differently and approach issues in a way that others don’t but will achieve results.
What is the difference between leadership and management skills?
Leadership and management are terms that are used interchangeably at times. There is some overlap but it’s important to distinguish between the two skill sets. Leadership skills are more attuned to having a vision, mobilising, motivating, and inspiring others toward the goal and objective. Management skills are directed at coordinating, planning, and organising.
Why are leadership skills important in your day-to-day work?
As good as the leadership skills are to have, why and how are they important in your day-to-day tasks you may be asking? For one, and possibly the most important reason, they help drive an organisation closer to meeting and passing its goals. Secondly, they ensure each individual unearths and lives up to their fullest potential. When employees reach this point, there is fulfillment, meaning, and purpose to their days which will result in higher output and improved performance.
What are the challenges leaders and managers face every day?
Like any role, both leaders and managers have to face often overwhelming, challenging, and delicate tasks. This includes the operational issues and processes, strategic plans, and managing their team and themselves. The evolving markets, technological advances, competitor outputs, and the often-unstable economic landscape add to the mix of problems leaders and managers must weigh. They have to learn how to position themselves and the company they represent in the best possible light to stay operational and successful in turbulent times.
Good leadership skills lead to satisfied employees and customers
Good leaders set the tone for the atmosphere of the team. It’s believed that high-quality leaders can influence their teams and thereby create a cohesive, productive, and happy workforce. Flowing this, employees extend better service to their customers by meeting their needs and creating memorable customer experiences.
How can Alison help your management improve leadership skills?
Alison’s free learning management system (LMS) is unlike other e-learning platforms. It has over 4000+ courses across a wide range of subjects and industries that you can register for. Here, businesses, schools, and philanthropic organisation can design customised learning paths based on their unique business and personnel needs.
Unlimited number of team members
Quick and easy set-up time and process
Aggregate and individual reporting: set up your group’s training progress with a choice of daily, weekly, or monthly reports, you can keep track of the academic progress your team makes.
Everyone has the potential to lead. The market shifts and changing business and economic climates mean you need to get ahead of the curve and equip yourself, your team, and your business with the latest trends and developments. Upskill your team, nurture the leader in you, and watch your organisation flourish with the help of Alison’s LMS.
Digital transformation, automation, and globalization are reshaping the labor market and creating an unprecedented need for reskilling and upskilling worldwide. The rise of generative AI further accelerates new workforce imperatives as businesses embrace the transformative power of this technology.
Every year, we do a deep dive into various countries to unlock and understand the skills trends that are shaping the global workforce. Today, I’m pleased to introduce our fifth annual Global Skills Report, which draws on data from millions of learners on Coursera to help leaders in business, government, and higher education understand the rapidly changing skills landscape and the availability of skilled talent worldwide.
Emerging talent and technology hubs are redefining the idea of a globalized workforce, with in-demand skills becoming more distributed. The global rise in enrollments for industry micro-credentials corresponds with the simultaneous rise of remote work, bringing with it unprecedented career opportunities for people around the globe.
Key global findings:
Rising demand for STEM education and industry micro-credentials for digital jobs. STEM course demand has increased to 23.6 million annual enrollments globally as of March 31, 2023. An increase of 1.8 million from the previous year, with women accounting for 35% of enrollments. Entry-level Professional Certificate enrollments grew to 3.4 million globally, up 61% year-over-year, with STEM certificates amassing 2.3 million enrollments, up 47% year-over-year. Low-income countries and regions have the greatest enrollment growth in entry-level Professional Certificates, including the Philippines (253% increase), Brazil (231%), Pakistan (228%), Indonesia (176%), and Sub-Saharan Africa (80%).
Learners in lower and middle-income countries prioritize digital skills more than high-income countries. Within these countries, learners are more likely to invest in acquiring skills such as software architecture, mobile development, and programming principles, enabling them to participate in local and remote talent opportunities. With learners in India and Nigeria second and third only to the U.S. in Professional Certificate enrollments, with 654,000 and 142,000 respectively.
AI skills are trending globally across education levels. Learners with postgraduate degrees are more likely to invest in advanced AI skills over-indexing learners with less formal education in subjects such as artificial neural networks (1.24x), applied machine learning(1.18x), and computer vision(1.22x). While learners with less education are focused on foundational digital skills needed to enable and implement AI technologies in the workplace such as network architecture and programming languages. Learners in Europe are more likely to invest in AI skills than other regions. Top skills include artificial neural networks, applied machine learning and deep learning, with learners in Germany more likely than learners in any other country to enroll in AI related courses.
Countries sustain gender parity in online learning. North America has the highest share of women learners of all regions globally with 51%, including Canada (55%) and the U.S. (51%), followed by Latin America (49%). Outside of North America, many emerging markets have closed the gender gap in online learning, such as the Philippines (51%), Thailand (51%), Mexico (51%), Spain (50%), Chile (50%), and Colombia (50%).
The U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, Rachael S. Rollins, misused her office to “boost” a political ally, flouted ethics rules to obtain free tickets from the Boston Celtics and lied under oath to investigators, the Justice Department inspector general said on Wednesday.
… Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz opened an investigation into Ms. Rollins last year after a published report that she had attended a July 2022 Democratic National Committee fund-raiser headlined by Jill Biden, the first lady.
His team determined that those actions violated policies and laws against electioneering. But the inquiry rapidly expanded to encompass a striking range of apparent misconduct, including efforts to discredit a political rival and her acceptance of flights and a stay at a resort that were paid for by a sports and entertainment company, he said.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word ethics in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.
If you want a better idea of how ethics can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
In Susan Linn’s engrossing and insightful new book, “Who’s Raising the Kids?,” she shows how tech companies like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat have morphed into a society-wide incarnation of these Brothers Grimm monsters. They pose as caregivers, cultivate affection and attachment in children, use psychological insights to prey on their weaknesses, patiently fatten them up — that is, train them in consumption — all the while viewing children as profit centers. The human and democratic cost, Linn argues, is immeasurable. Given hours a day in which to “raise” the children, these companies replace play with screen time and parental bonds with connections to devices. In the process, they deprive the child of awe, competence, compassion, security, self-confidence and a sense of meaning.
… Linn is compassionate toward parents, but unsparing on the inaction of lawmakers. When Steve Jobs announced that he kept his kids off phones, the message, she points out, was invidious: It told Congress that this was a private matter between parents and children, and parents that they were doing a bad job resisting. Linn quotes a marketing expert: “I’m sure it’s annoying when a child screams for sugar, but the [in]ability to say ‘no’ is a reflection of ineffective parenting rather than advertising being a malicious force.” In Linn’s view, it is our societal — not individual — job to protect children. Our anger and attention must be trained on Congress, the state houses and enforcers.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word invidious in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.
If you want a better idea of how invidious can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.
I’ve been really into the Dark Blue & Coral color palette lately. It features a range of colors, including navy, beige, coral, and orange. I love how these shades play off each other – the dark blue provides an excellent base, while the coral and orange add a pop of color. The beige ties everything together and creates a cohesive look.
Dark Blue & Coral
Whether you’re looking to add a pop of color to your wardrobe or create a striking accent piece for your home decor, this palette has so much to offer. With these colors, you can create stunning abstract paintings or even a unique piece of pottery. The possibilities are truly endless!
As always, we have put together a mood board with some inspiration. It is in perfect Pinterest format, so feel free to pin it for later.
See our collection of other gorgeous color palettes by visiting our color palette section.
What do you think about this Dark Blue & Coral color palette? We would love to hear about the places you see yourself using it. Your feedback means a lot to us, so please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Lastly, learn about the power of color in blog design in our blog post to see how important colors are in all the projects you create.
If you’re a fan of today’s color scheme, you should definitely take a look at June’s Free Wallpaper. It was inspired by the beautiful palette we saw today!
And, of course, don’t forget to check the 2023 Ultimate Planners! Over 100 pages that will help you grow your blog and social media and plan your perfect year!
If you create something using today’s color palette, don’t forget to share it with us!
As an executive vice president of Lincoln Center, Leah Johnson was involved in a project to tell what she called “the origin story of Lincoln Center,” about the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood that was cleared in the 1950s to make way for the travertine citadel of concert halls and theaters.
… The project to tell the story of the neighborhood became “Legacies of San Juan Hill,” a website that went live this week and includes archival photographs, interviews with former residents and scholarly essays. “Legacies” was created in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (whose eponym, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, lived in San Juan Hill in the 1890s) and the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word eponym in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.
If you want a better idea of how eponym can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
When Gary Goldman was working as a consultant for the United Nations, he met activists and grassroots organizations that were working hard to change oppressive policies and create LGBTQ+ communities in countries where homosexuality is outlawed. Gary noticed a pattern: the organizations all needed technical support.
“They basically said ‘we know how to do our job; what we don’t have are websites and technical tools to fundraise more easily, report incidents of violence, and help people feel less lonely,’” Gary, who is the Senior Program Director at Out in Tech, says.
So, Out in Tech, the world’s largest LGBTQ+ nonprofit for people who work in the tech industry, formed the Digital Corps program to help support grassroots LGBTQ+ movements around the world with free web services and development.
“The goal is to support and amplify the voices of the LGBTQ+ organizations and activists who operate in the countries where it’s explicitly illegal to be gay,” Gary says. To date, Out in Tech has built 230 websites in over 50 different languages — and volunteering with Digital Corps can be a rewarding way to help make a difference and get some valuable experience.
To help aspiring QTBIPOC programmers reach their goals, we donated 100 free Codecademy Pro subscriptions to QTBIPOC folx learning to code with Out in Tech. “This really goes a long way; investing in marginalized folks is important — especially when it comes to coding,” Gary says. “Even though there’s less representation for LGBTQ+ people in tech overall, people of color and trans folks are still the ones who have the most barrier to entry.” Want to get involved with Out in Tech? Here are a few ways you can lend your skills, support the mission, and start contributing today.
Learn something new for free
Apply to volunteer
Four times a year, Out in Tech gathers volunteers to help build 10 free websites for LGBTQ+ organizations in need. “It’s a really cool way for people to give back in a concrete manner, whether they’re engineers and developers who build the websites or UX designers who build logos and brand identities.”
Some of Digital Corps’ noteworthy achievements include building the website for the African Queer Youth Initiative and creating the website for Almas Cautivas, an organization that helps rehabilitate and advocate for trans people in the Mexican prison system. They also created The Lavender Book, a web app that helps cultivate safe spaces in the DC area for Black queer and trans people, in partnership with the National Black Justice Coalition.
You don’t need to be a professional programmer to get involved with Digital Corps. If you know a little HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can get started with building websites. Out in Tech also partners with WordPress.com, so some experience with the platform is a bonus (the WordPress team is on-hand to help train volunteers).
Feeling inspired? Learning how to code so you can help further the causes you believe in is awesome. We have lots of free courses that you can take to learn the basics of web development. Start by tackling the backbone of the internet with Learn HTML and Learn CSS. Then discover how to make your websites dynamic with Learn JavaScript. Or if you’d rather learn it all at once, try our skill path Build a Website with HTML, CSS, and GitHub Pages.
Even if you aren’t a programmer, you can still lend a helping hand. “If you’re a graphic designer you can help with the visual identities,” Gary says. “If you know how to write, you can help with the user guides.” They also need volunteers who can operationalize processes, lead a team, and write documentation, so it’s worth it to apply and see how you might be useful.
And remember: you don’t need to identify as LGBTQ+ to join the Digital Corps. “We have incredible allies who have some connection with the community, whether it’s a family member or a cause they really care about, and want to give back to these organizations,” Gary says.
Build your network and experience
Along with making a difference, volunteering can also give you the opportunity to meet and connect with other like-minded developers. Not to mention, you’ll build relevant experience that can help you find a job. “Our events are a fantastic way to spend a day doing something meaningful,” Gary says. “You end up with a hundred friends and a website that you can add to your portfolio.”
The way Soren Hamby describes their entry into UX: “Some people aspire to break the internet. I decided that I wanted to fix the internet,” they say.
As a queer nonbinary person who has been disabled since they were 13, Soren has experienced firsthand how confusing it can be to navigate some websites and apps using assistive technology. “I went through so much frustration with name changes to my first name as a trans person,” they say. “I never want anyone to feel that frustration or exclusion.” Their love of digital and experiential art and their passion for inclusive design led them to UX design.
Now, Soren leads product design, accessibility, and DEI at the paint, color, and coating company Benjamin Moore. A big part of their role is working with a team of designers making digital color technology and paint e-commerce products, “with a not-so-secret directive to contribute to a more inclusive and accessible experience for everyone,” they add. Soren, who has a degenerative eye condition and low vision, also does a lot of Accessibility Ops and sits on Benjamin Moore’s DEI Advisory board.
Learn something new for free
Here’s how Soren discovered UX design, developed the skill set needed to break into the field, and their tips for fostering cross-functional accessibility standards at your workplace.
What got me interested in the job
“My father is a software engineer, and my mom was a graphic designer and printmaker, so we were one of the first families I knew in Alabama in the early ’90s that had a computer in the house. I grew up on PC gaming and Adobe Photoshop. My dad and I built my computer from parts, and I started doing digital art and coding simple websites in high school. Working in my 20s as a freelance designer, I designed many proposal covers and data visualizations for government contractor clients. As a visual designer, I was often asked to match a ‘vibe,’ which felt subjective and frustrating. UX education drew me in with great SEO emphasizing objectivity and de-centering the decision makers. It felt like my brain’s natural habitat.
I had a tough decision to make, as I didn’t know if I would be as good at UX design. I didn’t know I was neurodivergent the first time at university. I went back to college in 2009 determined to read a UX book or complete an extra class or project a week. The design department at our school was very small, and when a required illustration class conflicted with another class, I eagerly made a case for an independent study in UX. I was lucky to have built strong relationships with my faculty and had their support even though UX was pretty new then. I was the first student to graduate from the BFA program in Design.”
How I got in the door
“I love color and experiential art. I love immersing myself in experiences that give me a break from concentration and allow me to feel something unexpected or novel. When it comes to paint, ordinary places can be transformed through intentional color and style. The opportunity to help people bring the extraordinary into their home, to make it a place of belonging and expression is what made me take the jump to Benjamin Moore.
I think one of my selling points was that I’m committed to building a team that reflects our aspirations of diversity and inclusion, and I had the skill set to assist with the multi-step transformation.
Soren Hamby
Product Design, Accessibility, and DEI at Benjamin Moore
My ‘getting in the door’ moment was this conversation I had with my boss where we connected on the solutions Benjamin Moore was embarking on building. I think one of my selling points was that I’m committed to building a team that reflects our aspirations of diversity and inclusion, and I had the skill set to assist with the multi-step transformation. In small UX outfits, you have to take a ‘no-job-too-small’ approach, which is another way of saying: be humble enough to do any work you’d assign your team.”
What I actually do all day
“What I love about starting a new UX practice from scratch is that there are no ‘typical days.’ I can show proof of concept, work on design or accessibility operations, coach someone in accessibility best practices, evaluate a new AI API, or even be doing a UXR [user experience research] visit with a retailer. Whatever is most important, my job is to make sure we focus where we need to.
My team works in Figma, but we also use Atlassian’s Jira and Confluence a lot, as well as Stark’s products for Figma and Chrome. Personally, I use an AI calendar and spreadsheets to keep things organized. I love sketching out ideas on Procreate on my iPad; I’d like the notes version of Procreate. I’m particularly excited to be turning my attention to a new design system we are implementing. I’m also going to be looking forward to what’s next for Benjamin Moore and its digital color products. Part of UX is not just delivering the right solution, but evaluating if we’re solving the right problems!
At Benjamin Moore, we have a cross-functional sharing of decision-making when it comes to accessibility. When I started 2 years ago, I brought my past experience with accessibility so I did evaluations, made recommendations, and helped with hiring for roles not reporting to me. In the last year, I’ve spent time writing guidance for our vendors and tech partners, copywriters, developers, product owners, and QA testers. I lean on my front-end web experience to coach our designers and provide updates on noteworthy accessibility advancement.”
Here’s what you need to get started
Fortunately, there are lots of different entry points for UX design, so whether you have a background in research, web development, or visual design, you probably have some transferable skills that can help you break into the field.
A crucial skill for all UX professionals is the ability to comprehend data trends and combine them with an understanding of human behavior and bias, Soren says. “Being able to apply that knowledge to cross-functional relationships as well as observing users makes it truly remarkable,” they say. Getting out of your comfort zone and broadening your perspective so you can learn about other people’s life experiences and cultures is key to understanding your users and the problems they face. This is especially true for historically marginalized communities: “Part of the power of design is the way UX can influence and challenge existing mindsets, but not if you don’t truly understand the problem, including its history,” they say.
As far as learning design principles and UX tools goes, you should “learn however is best for you,” Soren says. “Libraries have a lot of UX books in their ebook library now!” If you like to learn by doing, we have a free interactive course Introduction to UI and UX Design, which will teach you how to build wireframes using Figma, one of the industry-standard tools Soren (and lots of other UX pros) uses. Or if you’re more interested in the research aspect of UX, check out our free course Learn User Research: Generative.
Folks who want to incorporate accessibility practices in their own organizations can start by making accessibility a collective responsibility from the beginning of the product development process. (Check out this blog for an overview of what accessibility is and why it’s important.) And be patient when it comes to tracking and results of this new way of working. “I just remind myself that accessibility is a journey, a ritual, and a practice,” Soren says. “It isn’t supposed to have an endpoint.”
