Continuing Education Benefits

In many Chinese schools, students pause class for 1–3 minutes and move together — inside the classroom. Are you taking breaks during your office hours? Not a dance. Not military. System design. It’s called 广播体操 (Radio Calisthenics) and it’s been used nationally for decades to reset posture, circulation, and attention. • Prolonged sitting reduces cognitive performance after 30–40 minutes • Short movement breaks improve focus and working memory by 10–15% • Light physical activity increases blood flow to the brain by up to 20% • Even 2 minutes of movement measurably reduces mental fatigue Now apply this to tech and business. Knowledge workers sit 9–11 hours/day, live in back-to-back video calls, and are expected to make high-quality decisions at speed. That’s not a productivity issue. It’s a human-system mismatch. As AI scales execution, human attention becomes the bottleneck. The next performance upgrade may not be more software — but movement designed into workflows. China implemented it at national scale. Optimize the human. Then optimize the system. #FutureOfWork #AI #Productivity #Leadership #HumanPerformance #Neuroscience #TechLeadership #DigitalTransformation #WorkplaceDesign #CognitivePerformance

He saved his patient from pain. But he couldn't save him from despair. This is the story of Dr. M.R Rajagopal and his four-decade mission to bring dignity to the dying in India. The patient was a 42-year old professor with cancer. Dr. Rajagopal treated his pain with a nerve block. The man went home pain-free, but when he realized that his cancer was incurable, he took his own life. That tragedy brought a lesson that changed the course of Dr. Rajagopal’s life: A human being is more than nerves and tumors. They have emotions, relationships, and a need to feel valued. He vowed to ensure every dying person in India could get pain relief and dignified care by making palliative care accessible. The journey wasn’t easy, and the obstacles, brutal. The hardest was this. The 1985 Narcotic Drugs Act made morphine licensing nearly impossible. Patients suffered because doctors couldn’t access basic pain relief. Dr. Rajagopal spent eight years working to change this. In 2014, his advocacy led to an amendment of the NDPS Act, making narcotic drugs accessible for medical use. To fulfill his purpose, → He co-founded the Pain and Palliative Care Society in Calicut in 1993. What began in 7 districts of Kerala became a WHO demonstration project by 1995. Today, Kerala has over 350 palliative care centers backed by tens of thousands of volunteers delivering home-based care. → In 2003, he founded Pallium India to spread palliative care nationwide, reaching 21 states by 2016. → In 2006, he established the Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences. It became a WHO Collaborating Centre in 2012. It led to: + The National Programme for Palliative Care in 2012 + Inclusion of palliative care in India’s National Health Policy + Integration into medical and nursing curricula + Kerala’s State Palliative Care Policy, ensuring monthly nursing to homebound patients Despite these efforts, Less than 4% of Indians who need palliative care can access it. For Dr. Rajagopal, palliative care goes beyond pain management. It addresses physical, psychological, social, and spiritual suffering. It restores meaning when everything feels lost. One example says it all. A woman dying of cancer was heartbroken she would never meet her first grandchild. His team helped her record audio messages for every birthday of the child’s life. She found purpose again. Known as the father of palliative care in India, Dr. Rajagopal received the Padma Shri in 2018, the Human Rights Watch Alison Des Forges Award in 2014, and many international honours. Though the real reward, for him, is this: “The freedom to no longer turn away from suffering, and the privilege of walking with the weary.” His story reminds us that sometimes the most revolutionary act is simply sitting beside someone in pain and reminding them they are not alone. I recently hosted Dr. Rajagopal on The Health Worker Podcast by Azim Premji Foundation. Link in the comments. #DrRajagopal #PalliativeCare #BoundlessWithRamG

In Brazil, reading can shorten your sentence. With the Redemption for Reading program, inmates can reduce up to 48 days a year if they read books and write an essay that demonstrates understanding. Each work approved by an educational commission equals 4 days less penalty, with a maximum of 12 books per year. The initiative, which has been in effect since 2012, seeks to promote literacy, critical thinking and social reintegration in a prison system marked by overcrowding.

After spending three decades in the aerospace industry, I’ve seen firsthand how crucial it is for different sectors to learn from each other. We no longer can afford to stay stuck in our own bubbles. Take the aerospace industry, for example. They’ve been looking at how car manufacturers automate their factories to improve their own processes. And those racing teams? Their ability to prototype quickly and develop at a breakneck pace is something we can all learn from to speed up our product development. It’s all about breaking down those silos and embracing new ideas from wherever we can find them. When I was leading the Scorpion Jet program, our rapid development – less than two years to develop a new aircraft – caught the attention of a company known for razors and electric shavers. They reached out to us, intrigued by our ability to iterate so quickly, telling me "you developed a new jet faster than we can develop new razors..." They wanted to learn how we managed to streamline our processes. It was quite an unexpected and fascinating experience that underscored the value of looking beyond one’s own industry can lead to significant improvements and efficiencies, even in fields as seemingly unrelated as aerospace and consumer electronics. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s more important than ever for industries to break out of their silos and look to other sectors for fresh ideas and processes. This kind of cross-industry learning not only fosters innovation but also helps stay competitive in a rapidly changing market. For instance, the aerospace industry has been taking cues from car manufacturers to improve factory automation. And the automotive companies are adopting aerospace processes for systems engineering. Meanwhile, both sectors are picking up tips from tech giants like Apple and Google to boost their electronics and software development. And at Siemens, we partner with racing teams. Why? Because their knack for rapid prototyping and fast-paced development is something we can all learn from to speed up our product development cycles. This cross-pollination of ideas is crucial as industries evolve and integrate more advanced technologies. By exploring best practices from other industries, companies can find innovative new ways to improve their processes and products. After all, how can someone think outside the box, if they are only looking in the box? If you are interested in learning more, I suggest checking out this article by my colleagues Todd Tuthill and Nand Kochhar where they take a closer look at how cross-industry learning are key to developing advanced air mobility solutions. https://lnkd.in/dK3U6pJf

"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking," said Nietzsche. But is this just a romantic idea, or does it actually work? Does a short walk objectively upgrade your brainpower? Well, we might have an answer. 🔬 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 Research from the University of Illinois looked inside the brains of 20 preadolescent children to see what actually happens when they move. They compared two scenarios using a within-subjects design: 1. Resting 2. Walking for 20 minutes on a treadmill at a moderate pace. They then used electroencephalograms (EEGs) to measure neuroelectric activity and administered standardized academic tests to see if the movement changed their ability to learn. 📖 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 - Walking wakes up the brain. After just 20 minutes of walking, the children's brains were allocating more attentional resources and processing information better. - Better grades. Kids scored significantly higher on reading comprehension tests after walking compared to sitting. - It only takes 20 minutes. A single, short bout of moderate walking was enough to trigger these benefits. 💡 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 If we design places where people are forced to drive everywhere, we are suppressing our cognitive potential. But if we create walkable environments, we are building a free mental boost into our daily routine. -- Paper: The Effect of Acute Treadmill Walking on Cognitive Control and Academic Achievement in Preadolescent Children (2009). Link in the comments.

Fascinating paper just published in Science. The authors analyze the career trajectories of top performers across multiple domains, Nobel laureates, elite chess players, Olympic gold medalists, and more. Their central finding challenges a common belief. Intensive, single-discipline training at a young age does confer an early advantage, but this advantage fades over time. By contrast, individuals exposed to multidisciplinary practice early in life tend to start more slowly. Yet, over the long run, they are more likely to reach world-class performance, eventually overtaking early specialists, who often plateau just below the very top. An important reminder that breadth early on can be a powerful investment in long-term excellence. Link to the paper in the first comment.

I'm a big believer in the concept of "building in public". There's so much goodness that comes from building in public, but for me the most valuable is that doing so helps me refine and iterate better. That's why I write so much about what's in my head regarding Agent.ai. But building in public isn't just limited to building products in public. It can also be applied to building your *mental models* and ideas in public. If you're noodling on an idea or a concept, you should try "thinking out loud" (in public). Let others poke and prod at your idea or approach. Not all of the feedback will be valid -- or even relevant, and you can ignore *all* of it, if you want. But, even if you do, it's still worth it. Yes, there is the risk that if you share your idea, others will take it and run with it. But chances are, there are a bunch of other people thinking similar things anyways. And often, you're better off knowing that sooner rather than later. I'd argue that this surfacing of people that are noodling on something similar is a feature, not a bug. Those can be valuable connections. Recent example: I wrote a post about the idea of an MCP Network (visit mcp .net, which takes you to the article). Got lots of comments including one from the Activepieces founder, who was already working on that idea. I ended up angel investing in that startup. If I had kept the idea to myself, I would not have known about many of the projects already out there, nor made the connection to Active Pieces. Building in public is thinking in public. Thinking in public allows you to forge your idea in the heat of others' feedback.

"Career Literacy" - one of my new favorite terms. Why? People who have high career literacy are: -Less likely to be unemployed and especially less likely to experience long-term unemployment -When they conduct job searches, they explore considerably more jobs -In their jobs, they enjoy increased work quality, care and security - in addition to higher earnings  A fabulous new study from The DeBruce Foundation (link in comments below) gives us some great clarity and purpose around helping more young adults build career literacy. As I look at the way it is defined and measured, it is directly aligned with what we are doing at Edconic. Here's how the study defined Career Literacy: (1) future vision—deliberate envisioning of career choices and periodically updating employment planning; (2) work exploration—continuously surveying the range of current and evolving job options in the economy and acquiring related knowledge of different occupational and employment requirements and opportunities; (3) advancement orientation—cognizance of one’s interests and strengths, steady commitment to learning and growth, and effective skills in communicating personal and professional value to employers and others.  The most common things we hear from students coming out of our programs are things like: "I had no idea there were so many different kinds of jobs in [art, fashion, sports, healthcare, etc.]" "I got to meet so many different experts and understand what they do in their jobs." "I got to start building my own professional network." "I now have a much better idea of what I want to do." The more the merrier on this one, folks.

💎 How To Track Your Impact (+ free Notion templates). How to document your small and big wins, visualize your work and the incredible impact you've made ↓ We often assume that good work speaks for itself. If we just work hard enough, our work will get noticed and we will be elevated across our career ladder. Yet more often than not, your achievements will get lost somewhere between reorg efforts, new priorities, abandoned initiatives and urgent deadlines. Managers change all the time. You might have a strong relationship with your manager already, but never get a chance to move up the ladder because they have already moved to another team. A new manager, despite all your efforts, often won’t be able to promote you as an internal policy might block any new promotions in their first 6 or 12 months. So you’ll have to start over again. A good way to push back is to have a “brag document” — a running document that lists your small and big achievements, feedback from your managers and colleagues, screenshots of your appraisals and recommendations, along with lessons you’ve learned. It also builds confidence in your abilities and helps you better see your career trajectory. Useful things to include: 🧠 New skills you’ve learned 🏅 New certificates you’ve acquired ⏱️ Impactful projects you’ve leaunched 🧪 Experiments or A/B tests you’ve initiated 🧭 Product metrics you’ve moved 👋 Onboarding sessions you helped with 🚀 Changes you’ve initiated 🗣️ Workshops you’ve conducted 🧑🏫 Mentoring sessions you’ve coached 🌟 Endorsements you’ve received 🤝 Collaboration wins across departments 🧹 How you’ve dealt with design debt 📦 Successful scoping and getting buy-in 🛠️ Tools or systems you’ve introduced 🔧 Bugs or issues you proactively resolved 📣 Coordinating communication in teams 🔮 Lessons you’ve learned 🧯 Conflicts you’ve resolved There are plenty of things that can go in such a document. Typically it’s a simple Notion page or a Google Doc that you set up once and keep updating regularly. One useful habit that can help there is to always update the document after a retrospective session with your team and around a month later. The reason for that is that you’ll need to accumulate and add concrete evidence and results of the impact of your work. Typically business metrics are lagging metrics, so it will take a while until you get some results. One word of caution: it doesn’t work well if you update in huge and bulky batches as memories become a bit blurry and details get lost. Also, don’t think just about the design work — work also happens outside of the design work as we saw in the list above. Also, as Stephen Kernan noted once, whenever possible, try linking your accomplishments to the career ladder one level above your current role. If you can prove that you’ve been performing at the next level for past 3-6 months, you will make the case for your promotion strong and more obvious. (Useful templates in the comments below ↓)

Over the last week I've been writing feedback to applicants who didn't get onto our graduate sustainability consultancy scheme. A recurring theme is that many brilliant candidates feel they need a master's degree to break into the field. I wanted to share some advice I've been giving these candidates, as I completely understand that postgraduate study isn't accessible to everyone, and I don't want only those who can afford further study to be eligible. 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲 ➡️ 90% of applications are industry-agnostic ➡️ Differentiate yourself through deep knowledge of built environment sustainability challenges & opportunities ➡️ Follow key LinkedIn voices, read industry reports, ask questions directly 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 ✅ UN sustainability courses (UN SDG:Learn) ✅ Ellen MacArthur Foundation circular economy modules ✅ Generation UK Sustainability Project Officer programme ✅ Student membership of ISEP / RSA for resources and networking 𝗘𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝗴𝗮𝗽 ✳️ There's a shortage of sustainability professionals confident in facilitation and behaviour change ✳️ Free courses exist - this could be your differentiator 𝗘𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 (for built environment sustainability professionals) 📖 Doughnut Economics (Kate Raworth) 📖 Any of Rob Hopkins’s books 📖 The Good Ancestor (Roman Krznaric) 📖 Citizens (Jon Alexander & Ariane Conrad) 📖 Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer) 📖 Material World (Ed Conway) 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴. 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 🗓️ FutureBuild 🗓️ Footprint+ 🗓️ local Eventbrite sustainability events. Many industry events have free or heavily discounted tickets for students. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 The Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) offers brilliant full- and part-time courses, as well as distance learning options. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘺?