6 outdated career tipsâ€and why they’ve changed

6 outdated career tips- and why they’ve changed You don’t use the phone, watch TV, or dress the same way your parents did when they were your age- so why would you use career advice that has been around just as long (or even longer)? Some pieces of advice in the career world will truly never change: hard work pays off, and you should never get drunk at a company holiday party. Otherwise, things are negotiable. Let’s look at some infamous career advice that might not be so valid anymore. Keep a low profile on your personal life.Advice: Keep your work life and your personal life totally separate, even on social media.What’s changed: Social media like Facebook has evolved over time to include more than your â€Å"friends† per se. Relatives, acquaintances, former dates†¦all show up in your news feed, so why not add coworkers into the mix? Why not even add your boss, if you get along and find her opera singing/supermarathon running/jewelry crafting hobbies interesting? Social media has blurred social li nes a bit and has helped make relationships a bit more informal. When used well, it’s a way to break the ice and build relationships with people you might otherwise only see at work.However, this one does come with a caveat: if you do friend colleagues and managers on social media, set filters or try to keep things clean. Anything you post that can be seen by coworkers becomes fair game. And definitely don’t complain about work if people from work can see it. If you wouldn’t want to see a screenshot of something you wrote land in your work email inbox, don’t write it.And it’s not just social media- socializing with coworkers and sharing (appropriate) details about your personal lives can help you bond and feel more connected to your workplace. Small talk about your weekend or cute pictures of your boss’s kid are not likely to derail your professional relationship or keep either of you from doing the work that needs to be done. And we all nee d allies at work- someone to talk with when things get stressful or with whom you can grab a non-work-related lunch. Chitchat about work-only things will only go so far. You’re much more likely to have good relationships with your coworkers if you can bond over other things you have in common.Keep a strict work-life division.Advice: Don’t even think about work after you leave. Don’t check email after hours. And when you’re at work, don’t do anything personal or non-work related.What’s changed: It’s true, email has helped create â€Å"work creep† that can lead to stress outside of work hours or leave you feeling cheated on your personal time. But like all balances, it’s important to keep negotiating your work-life balance to make sure it still works for you. If it makes your workday better to spend half an hour at night checking a few emails or lining up your to-do list for the next day, do it. If you need a quick break d uring the afternoon to talk to your partner, take it. Keeping a single mindset for eight straight hours is not only difficult, but it can increase your stress. The most important thing is that you’re not letting personal time at work upset your productive time, and that you’re not letting work squeeze out your personal decompression time and priorities.Never show weakness.Advice: If you’re struggling or you don’t fully understand what’s going on, don’t let anyone know. Fake it, or stall until you can straighten it out on your own. Asking for help is a sign of weakness and incompetence.What’s changed: You know what takes a lot of unnecessary time and energy? Faking it. If you don’t understand what needs to be done, ask your manager or someone involved with the task. You shouldn’t lead with, â€Å"Oh man, I have no clue what to do here†- but it’s perfectly all right to say, â€Å"Just so I’m clear her e, this is what I think the next steps are. Can you confirm?† Or â€Å"Can we walk through this again so I understand?† Your manager would rather have a good outcome on a project than a result where you clearly winged it and got things wrong.If you need help, ask for it. Otherwise you risk not being able to bluff your way through as well as you think you can, and wasting both your time and others’. Invest a little time and honesty up front and make it easier on everyone- not least of all yourself. Think of it as a learning opportunity, not a failure.Don’t challenge the boss.Advice: Never challenge your boss on anything. If you don’t agree, just let it go and wait your turn to be the one in charge. After all, she’s the boss for a reason. Do what you’re told, and publicly agree with the official point of view.What’s changed: The manager/employee dynamic hasn’t necessarily changed, but it’s more culturally acceptable now to disagree- albeit diplomatically and productively. This is not to say that you should openly scoff at a particularly ridiculous idea or laugh in your boss’s face when he asks you if you agree about something. Rather, frame it as a respectful difference in point of view. For example: â€Å"I see what you’re saying, but what if we look at it from this other perspective?† Set it as a dialogue instead of just publicly rejecting something your boss has said. Like you, your boss has an interest in making sure things get done in the best way possible, so if you have a difference of opinion that could improve an outcome, don’t be afraid to speak up in a respectful and constructive way.Standard politeness rules apply here as well. Loudly contradicting your boss in a meeting with other people is not likely to go over very well. Nobody likes to be shouted down. But presenting an alternative choice, and acknowledging the validity of what was already said, is a much more productive way to disagree without being rude or unprofessional.Never say â€Å"no.†Advice: Especially when you’re just starting out, always say â€Å"yes† when you’re asked to take on new things or responsibilities. If you say â€Å"no,† you’re not a team player.What’s changed: Saying â€Å"yes† to everything is a shortcut to burnout, and employers have become more conscious of cultivating employee morale. There’s only so much you can handle in the work hours you have available. The better way to handle this is through negotiating and prioritizing. Instead of saying â€Å"I just can’t do this right now,† figure out why you can’t, and ask for help prioritizing tasks if this potential new one is important for you to take on.The key to this one is making sure that your rationale for saying no is a legitimate one. If you just don’t feel like doing it, that’s not going to go over well. But if you genuinely don’t have time, or object for specific reasons, you can be honest about those. Lay out the reasons why, and open a dialogue about how this new ask can or should fit in with your existing workload. It’s always better to have a â€Å"here’s why† list of talking points ready to go, so that your boss doesn’t think you’re lazy, or can’t do the work.Don’t be a job hopper.Advice: Don’t jump from job to job. Settle in and build experience at one job for several years. Job hopping makes you look like an unreliable employee.What’s changed: The world, basically. The job scenario where you start right out of school and stay there for 40 years has become, essentially, a unicorn. The average person now will have eight jobs before they turn 30. And according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employees who are 25 to 34 years old typically stay with a job for three years.Job hopping can be a way t o build your skills and maximize your opportunities instead of staying in a role that may not fit your long-term goals. Job hopping can also mean moving to different jobs within the same company if you find other roles that fit better. While switching jobs every year for the next 15 years is not an ideal strategy (that might truly start to send up red flags for potential employers), you shouldn’t let â€Å"well, I just started this other job† discourage you from seriously considering a job opportunity that pays better, or is better aligned with your career goals.Not all advice is true forever. When it comes to your own career, it’s important to think about whether that advice will truly help you, or if it just doesn’t fit with the way the world works anymore.

The UK copyright act of 1988 Essays

The UK copyright act of 1988 Essays The UK copyright act of 1988 Essay The UK copyright act of 1988 Essay Essay Topic: Law It is difficult for intellectual property laws to keep pace with technology. When technological advances cause ambiguity in the law, courts rely on the laws purposes to resolve that ambiguity. However, when technology gets too far ahead of the law, and it becomes difficult and awkward to apply the old principles, it is time for re-evaluation and change. (Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights (Information Infrastructure Task Force), Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure (Preliminary Draft, July 1, 1994)) The copyright, Designs and Patent Act (CDPA) of 1988 was introduced to give legal protection to the creators of these works in order to prevent exploitation and to ensure their moral rights. The purpose of the CDPA was to protect the following types of work: * Literary Works * Dramatic Works * Artistic Works * Musical Works * Films * Broadcasts * Published Edition * Performers Rights Whilst the CDPA theoretically protects certain technological plagiarism through Section 107 of the Act which states that where an individual sells, hires, exhibits, or distributes an infringing copy of a copyright work in the course of a business, or distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright an offence will be committed. Nevertheless the extent of this protection has been greatly eroded due to fast moving changes in technology. One of the most significant legal questions surrounding the emerging Internet technologies is, admittedly, how copyright (and intellectual property in general) applies when unimaginably vast amounts of information can be digitally stored, copied and transmitted, cheaply and speedily. For many, we have entered a new era where copyright protection is still necessary, but its enforcement is no longer effective, or, even, possible. Perhaps even more importantly, whereas most technologies (e.g. camcorders, video recorders, etc.) would simply make copyright protection more difficult, digital computers managed to alter the fundamental concepts behind copyright (1). Especially when combined with telecommunications networks; with Richard J. Soloman stating in his book Computers and the Concept of Intellectual Property that they pose `issues completely at odds with copyright traditions based on the printing press of 400 years ago. Why is the Copyright Act of 1988 no longer adequate? * Users Attitudes towards materials found on the internet Originally the internet was associated with free information access and sharing that was limited to a relative small number of people, many of whom originated from the academic community. However the growth of the internet and its users has meant an increased use of the internet for information retrieval and distribution, communication, and interaction by a global audience. This set of new users do not feel bound by academic standards, or the set of rules known as `Netiquette that previously governed users conduct in cyberspace and thus they feel that anything found on the internet is public material and thus any copyright notice attached with it is considered of little or no consequence. The problem of improper use of copyright protected materials is further amplified by the incredible ease with which the WWW can be created, and which allows virtually anyone to become a web publisher. * Underlying Characteristics of the Internet Caching The Internet, operates on a ubiquitous `copying and transmitting fashion, i.e. information is accessed by duplicating data stored in binary files before sending it across the globe a process known as Caching. Although `cached copies are purely transitory and will be discarded as soon as the computer used is shut down, it has not been so far clarified decisively. In the context of U.K. copyright law, temporary storage of a copyrighted work in a computers RAM memory is at first sight an infringing reproduction, therefore browsing could also be, despite the fact that without a transient copy there is no access to on-line information. Inlining Inlining is a technique, which enables creators of web pages to embed content (e.g. text, or images) by including a reference to the URL location of the material. No cache copy of the inlined material is made on the host server, since it is retrieved every time from the original source, yet many information providers feel threatened by this practice, because the inlined content appears as integral part of the page, to which it is inlined. So far, there has been only one dispute arising from inlining. It involved the comic strip `Dilbert and has settled out of court with removal of the materials involved (2). Framing Introduced in 1996 by Netscape Communications Corporation as a feature of their web browser, the FRAME tag allows the viewer screen to split into multiple scrollable sections (`frames) that operate as independent windows containing text, graphics, multimedia, or other frames. It is therefore argued that end users may be easily misled to believe that all material on screen originates from the same server. Only site owners themselves can ensure that there is no confusion as to the ownership of the materials presented within the frame. Furthermore, it is arguable whether framing can be covered by the scope of the implied licence for linking, since it does not take the end user to the web site, but rather brings the site to the user through another (framing) site, thereby altering his or her perception of the material. The controversial nature and threat to copyright of this feature was seen in the Washington Post Co. v. Total News case. * Ease of Plagiarism and illegal copying Although the UK Copyright Act of 1988 protects Musical/Artistical works and the rights of performers, technology has once again outdated this feature of the act as well. The introduction of uploading software, CD copiers and file formats such as MP3 and AIV have meant that these works are no longer protected. This point was perhaps best highlighted in the recent court case between Napster.com and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) which branded Napster a copyright infringement machine (3). However whilst Napster has now been shutdown, nevertheless it acted as a catalyst to many other sharing communities like itself such as aimster.com, imesh.com and mp3.com. Similarly this approach to illegal copying is not merely limited to music files and is extended to movies and software. This is as a result costing the entertainment industry and software companies amongst other, billions of dollars out of pocket. * Jurisdiction Issues Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the UK copyright Act of 1988 is that it only implies to the United Kingdom and thus what maybe considered against the law and breaking copyright agreements in the UK may be perfectly legal in the United States. Similarly this problem has been further exasperated as cyberspace has no geographical boundaries. Information and data are transmitted across state borders at incredible speeds. Bonds to geographical jurisdiction are fragmented, if non-existent, and questions as to where copyright infringements occur arise. The Internet and copyright: An alternative viewpoint One alternative yet radical viewpoint is that by placing their materials on the Internet, copyright owners are granting `implied licences to the rest of the users to link to this information. The rationale for that is based on the nature of the Internet itself as a meta-network, i.e. the network of networks, which requires guidance by pointers for users to locate the vast amounts of information stored on it. Linking is custom and practice, and the reason for the WWWs success. So, there is, more or less, an implied licence for linking, unless the site owner has expressly stated an objection. However I believe that this theory should be linked with Netiquette with an e-mail request sent to the owner of the site for permission to link. Proposed Solutions When determining possible solutions to the current inadequacies of the UK copyright Act of 1988 it is vital to comprehend that the current laws were designed mainly for the protection of published material. Digital works are an entirely different category, both conceptually and technically and thus it may be said that they require a whole separate set of laws. Whether we approach this matter from a progressive or conservative point of view, the fact remains that there is an urgent need for copyright law to be able to deal with the new challenges posed by Internet technology. * Encryption Encryption is one possible solution that has been presented by which a purely technological solution would allow the protection of digital data. Such a method has already been used for email with the invention of Phil Zimmermans Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) (7). However such a system would put the publisher in a very strong position compared to the other party, and would be open to abuse. Similarly the system would again raise grey areas of what data should be encrypted and what should be available to the general public. * Electronic Copyright Management Systems (ECMS) One proposed method is employing electronic copyright management system (4). Such a system is seen as being more preferable to encryption and allows viewing and reading for free, but a fee for permanent storage and downloading. However such a system may have legal implication and large grey areas in terms of what information should be charged for and what should be public knowledge. * Transcopyright Xanadu Project A notion developed by Ted Nelson in conjunction with his project Xanadu(5).Xanadu publishing is a long-standing proposal for a new literary medium (very much like the WWW) that would preserve integrity, copyright and royalty for digital works, and yet allow everyone to reuse already existing materials. * Cyberlaw The disjunction between the territoriality of legal disputes and the ubiquity of cyberspace has led to several proposals concerning the creation of a separate jurisdiction for cyberspace. Jurisdictional problems can be tackled on an international level by either creating a special international court for on-line disputes arising from intellectual property infringements, or by introducing an international advisory and arbitration organisation that will assist national courts in dealing with them. A potential model upon which this international court or organisation can be mapped is the Virtual Magistrate Pilot Project (6) of the Cyberspace Law Institute (CLI), a new on-line tribunal not bound by territorial borders. The project is carried out by eight magistrates (usually with an in-depth knowledge of technical as well as legal matters) who conduct arbitration via e-mail and publish their decisions on the institutes web site. The decisions cannot award damages, only injunction type r emedies; nevertheless, they are issued much faster than any decision of a national court. So far, the magistrates have only dealt with e-mail disputes, but it may not be too long before they will have to arbitrate intellectual property cases. In contrast such a dual method will mean every country will have two sovereigns governing different areas of law. This would create vast grey areas between them that could render the proposal ineffective. Conclusion To conclude, the UK Copyright Act of 1988 was adequate at the time of design. However in the thirteen years since its design, Technology has come forward leaps and bounds. As a result this act that was initially designed mainly for the purpose of non electronic sources has now become out of date or is being largely ignored due to the growth of technology. However when incorporating any solutions to the current inadequacies, it is vital to realise that whilst the rights of copyright owners are an important component of the copyright equation, so are the rights of public for information dissemination, freedom of expression and informational privacy. As a result looking into the future, the government needs to re-evaluate the interests of all those involved and legislate towards a new more flexible copyright framework, suitable for the digital age. Similarly, due to the global nature of digital technology with no geographical boundaries, perhaps a more suitable solution would be to inco rporate such a framework into a cyberlaw.