Mike McBride Online

Career

Worth Reading – Why Starting Networking Conversations Feels Hard (and How to Fix It)
ByMike McBride December 3, 2025December 2, 2025 Reading Time: 2 minutes

As Greg points out, it’s pretty standard for us to appreciate it when old contacts reach out. I’d add that it’s pretty standard for people at events to enjoy the stranger who tries to welcome them into a conversation rather than ignore them.

Yet most of us go about life depriving people of that enjoyment because we somehow believe they won’t enjoy it.

There’s no evidence of it.

The holidays are a great time for reaching out, by the way. A quick, happy holiday wish can go a long way.

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Career

Worth Reading – Communication Isn’t Part of Your Job. It’s THE Job.
ByMike McBride December 1, 2025November 30, 2025 Reading Time: 2 minutes

If you’ve felt this way, I encourage you to consider that communication is a skill you can learn. Writing, speaking, presenting, training, etc., are all variations of the basic skill of communication. If you can learn how to articulate your ideas, you will likely find more success in your career. If you’re willing to teach your employees this skill, you’ll get more involvement and better ideas, rather than just hearing from the loudest voices on your team. It’s worth the effort.

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Career

Worth Reading – Purposeful Work Boosts Engagement, but Few Experience It
ByMike McBride November 24, 2025November 23, 2025 Reading Time: 1 minute

I would suggest that another partial explanation is that many jobs and businesses don’t involve work that feels purposeful because the work has no purpose. Too many jobs exist solely to make more money for CEOs and investors. They don’t sell anything that helps society. Employees don’t benefit directly from business improvements, and those same CEOs justify all of the efforts by talking about how much the stock price went up. That seems to be the entire point of the organization. That’s the purpose.

It’s not easy to feel like your work has a purpose when the real purpose is to make some number go up. It’s hard to be engaged with that.

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Artificial Intelligence

Worth Reading – AI agents are only as good as the data they’re given, and that’s a big issue for businesses
ByMike McBride November 19, 2025November 19, 2025 Reading Time: 2 minutes

In the age of AI, though, this might be the high-priority risk. That old, untrustworthy, and outdated information that no one ever bothered to clean up is actively messing up your AI implementation. Your attempt to be a data-driven business depends on having accurate data. That becomes difficult to do when you’re not actively cleaning up after yourself.

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Artificial Intelligence | Mental Health

Worth Reading – Learning AI Feels Like a Second Job
ByMike McBride November 13, 2025November 13, 2025 Reading Time: 2 minutes

It’s no wonder that people are burning out professionally. Every week there are new things to learn, changes to deal with, strategies to reconsider, projects on deadlines, etc. We don’t often get a chance to simply do the work, let alone rest.

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Artificial Intelligence | Career

Worth Reading – AI Is Supercharging the War on Libraries, Education, and Human Knowledge
ByMike McBride November 10, 2025November 19, 2025 Reading Time: 2 minutes

I think we might need a variation of the Dunning-Kruger effect to describe the people who weren’t smart enough to realize the AI was wrong when it told them their ideas were brilliant.

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