Central Illinois' IT Experts

Work Strategies

A lot has been made about remote work. Business owners didn’t think it would work for them, then in a blink of an eye, they were forced to make it work for them, but the general consensus among business owners is that they would like to return to “normal” as soon as they can. “Normal” may not be possible, however. One study found that over 70 percent of workers who worked remotely during the pandemic are expecting more flexibility, even if nearly half of those same workers are looking forward to getting back into their respective offices.

How does this make sense?

Like many things that have happened during the global health crisis: it’s not supposed to. Basically, workers, like business owners, have mixed feelings about working remotely. At first, there was excitement, but as time went on, sitting for hours in video conferences, kids running around, and trying to ignore the giant pile of laundry just off the field of view of your webcam, took its toll. That’s not to say that they would trade it completely, but you may be surprised to find out that many employees who are working remotely aren’t doing as well as you’d think.

One major issue is that a majority of polled business leaders say they are thriving right now while their subordinates are largely struggling. Many workers pride themselves on their ability to be productive regardless of the situation, but some of them are overburdened with the increased digital intensity of their jobs. If someone who works in an office is having troubles in their life, especially the type of troubles that have an effect on mental health, most of the time someone will notice. Working from home, however, management tends to assume that everything is fine unless they hear otherwise. 

So, while decision makers are also largely working from home, they are making more money, developing better relationships, and being able to take a lot of their vacation time, while production workers are feeling largely overworked, underappreciated, and left to fend for themselves working for organizations that tell them that developing a team (or family) atmosphere is a priority.

Remote-Fueled Stagnation

Remote work doesn’t just negatively affect workers, it can negatively impact the course your business takes. When people are in one location there is a tendency for them to communicate better, more ideas to get thrown around, and decisions to be made with direct input from everyone. After a year or more of video conferencing, people just resign to completing the tasks on their schedule and have a tendency to dislike video conferencing more and more. 

This lack of interaction breeds complacency and a stalling of forward movement in a business. Some more company-centric administrators may disagree, but anytime an organization is resigned to groupthink, that business is in trouble. 

The Hybrid Office Experience

The fact is that businesses, especially smaller businesses that find themselves completely leveraged as restrictions phase out, are going to be looking for their people to be the most productive they can be, but they are also going to ask many of them to come back to the office. Some people are looking forward to it, but others are not. Regardless, expect for many businesses to remove the need for people to report to the office everyday. 

This is great, right? Not so fast.

How many days are you going to expect to have to go into the office? Well, it depends who you ask. According to one study 68 percent of polled executives would like to see their staff at work at the very least three days a week. Workers, on the other hand, said that it should be a maximum of three, but less depending on an employee’s responsibilities.

What’s strange is that 22 of U.S. executives consider bringing back their employees to be a major point of emphasis, while similar companies in Canada, Germany, Japan, and China don’t find this to be a major issue at all. In fact, less than five percent of polled executives consider this a strategy.

One thing is certain about the hybrid work model: nothing is certain. Will it help or hurt company culture, productivity, retention rates, and other metrics that aren’t just numbers to a business, but dollars and cents? Would it be better to just choose one over the other? Nobody knows, because every business is different. 

If you would like to talk these issues through to ensure that you have the technology and the IT support you need to make a hybrid work strategy the “new normal”, contact our expert consultants at Decatur Computers Inc. today at 217-475-0226. 

What is Blue Light?

Let’s start off with some basic science: what we see as “light” is just what our minds perceive it to be. There are actually many different kinds of light rays that all interact to provide us with what we see each day. We could go into a lot more detail, but we’ll leave that to the real professionals.

One kind of light ray—blue light rays—has the highest energy levels of the bunch, paired with the shortest wavelength. Blue light rays occur naturally in sunlight, and also come from a lot of indoor sources: LED and fluorescent lighting, electronics, televisions, computers, and the mobile devices we’re all so fond of.

Now, the human eye is naturally suited to help filter out certain types of light, ultraviolet light included. Blue light isn’t included.

So, while blue light can help to improve some cognitive functions like alertness and memory while promoting wakefulness and healthy amounts of sleep, it can also be a detriment in some ways (particularly in terms of its contributing to eye strain and macular degeneration).

Where Our Devices Come into This

Historically speaking, the sun and other natural forms of light were the only way that humanity got any exposure to blue light at all for most of human history. It really wasn’t until incandescent light was created that there was another option available.

However, as we’ve surrounded ourselves with more and more artificial light sources, we’ve exposed ourselves to more blue light than ever. In doing so, we’ve shifted the balance… and it certainly doesn’t help that our modern lights contribute more blue light than any incandescent bulb ever could.

In terms of blue light’s impact, this could prove to be serious. Let’s consider what a Harvard study observed about blue light exposure compared to other kinds when exposed for the same amount of time. After six and one-half hours of blue light exposure, enough melatonin (the hormone that dictates the body’s circadian sleep patterns) was suppressed enough to shift these circadian rhythms by three hours. In comparison, the same exposure to green light only caused an hour and a half shift—literally half of what blue light did.

These effects can be compounded, not only decreasing sleep time, but also increasing the risk of depression, diabetes, and cardiovascular issues.

Fixing the Blue Light Problem

Clearly, blue light can be a real problem if it isn’t managed. Fortunately, there are simple ways to minimize its effects, like:

• Avoiding brighter screens within three hours of bedtime
• Making sure you’re getting plenty of exposure to other kinds of light to help regulate your circadian rhythms
• Using red lights over blue lights for nighttime light, helping to avoid melatonin suppression
• Investing in blue-light filtering glasses or time-controlled filtering apps

Furthermore, modern devices increasingly come with settings to help you accomplish some of these things.

In Windows, accessing your Settings and going to System > Display > Night Light Settings allows you to Schedule your device’s Night Light configuration, either based on Custom times or from Sunset to Sunrise.

Macs offer Night Shift, which is customizable from System Preferences > Displays > Night Shift.

Decatur Computers Inc. is here to help you manage all of your IT challenges. For more assistance with your business’ technology, give us a call at 217-475-0226 and find out what we have to offer.

Why Would a Bakery Use AI in the First Place?

In Japan, where the technology was developed, they have a lot of cafeteria-style restaurants. An AI-aided software was developed to automate the role of cashier. Instead of having a human cashier on staff to count out the shopper’s selections at checkout, an attendant simply instructs customers to place the baked goods they want to buy out on the counter. Once they are ready to check out, the whole process takes seconds. The AI effectively identifies the pastries, calculates the price owed and calculates a total for the customer. This allows each customer to be rang up much more quickly.

By streamlining the process with automation, these Japanese bakeries, which usually carry large selections of items, were able to check out more people and it increased their revenue. It also cut down on the packaging required as the AI would identify each individual pastry. The development of this AI-integrated application was spearheaded by BRAIN Co. Called BakeryScan, it is now in over 400 retail establishments in Japan and costs around $20,000 to deploy. 

By the way: if you’re worried about the prospect of unwrapped baked goods being sold in the past year or so, the technology has since improved to recognize pastries through protective wrapping just as accurately.

This technology has obvious benefits for retail organizations, but what you won’t expect is that nearly the same software could find another use: Diagnosing cancer.

A doctor at Kyoto’s Louis Pasteur Center for Medical Research saw a segment on TV and the connection was made. Turns out that some baked goods look similar to some cancer cells observed through a microscope. Making an association with the utility of the BakeryScan AI, it was repurposed as AI-Scan, a medical tool. 

AI-Scan can spot differences in cancerous urinary cells with its Cyto-AiSCAN offshoot (with accuracy measuring over 99 percent), and has been adopted for many other purposes. Today, organizations are using it to distinguish pill types, one company uses it to identify bolts and other fasteners that may have some problem. Toyota has also started using the technology to help design more effective airbags. 

This gives you a good idea about how AI is being adopted to further the technology used to improve the outlook for humanity, but it can also be used to help your business. Today, there are a number of software solutions that have integrated an AI or machine learning system that can help you streamline processes or, like AI-Scan, change the way you view your business.

If you would like to learn more about how AI can work for your business, give the IT experts at Decatur Computers Inc. a call at 217-475-0226.