During this latest earnings call season, many banks, exchanges, and financial services providers have touted their large language model (LLM) capabilities and their focus on generative AI. But having an AI strategy—and that includes a generative AI strategy—cannot work without a data strategy. 

While there is huge potential for institutions to leverage generative AI and LLMs, setting the data foundations to enable firms to execute their AI strategies is more important, Frank Slootman, chairman

Tip #49 - Embracing Technology for Effective Maritime Training

The maritime industry, like so many others, has experienced a wave of technical advances in accurate years. These changes have opened new doors for enhancing the quality of training and skill development for maritime professionals. In this edition of Training Tips for Ships, we'll consider how incredibly far we have come and explore how embracing technology can lead to more effective and efficient maritime training.

Digital technologies have been making their way into maritime training, especially over the last two decades. And in that time, they have truly transformed our training approaches and effectiveness. Consider the tools we have now, many of which did not exist 20 years ago; E-learning, simulators, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) are just a few examples of the tools that have gained popularity in accurate years. 

These innovations have provided new opportunities for both trainers and trainees to access resources, collaborate, and learn more efficiently.
The adoption of these technologies in maritime training offers increased flexibility and accessibility for both trainers and trainees. E-learning platforms allow trainees to access educational materials anytime and from anywhere (onboard or on shore), making it easier for them to fit learning into their busy schedules. Additionally, trainers can update and distribute content more easily, ensuring that trainees always have access to the most up-to-date information, even when in poorly connected maritime environments.

Digital tools such as simulators, VR, and AR can create immersive learning experiences that are more engaging than traditional classroom methods. These technologies enable trainees to practice skills in realistic scenarios, and to experience situations that are rare and/or dangerous in reality. By providing a more realistic and interactive learning environment, these tools can help to Improve learner motivation and interest, which in turn improves learning outcomes.

In addition, digital platforms offer a wealth of data and analytics capabilities that can be used to track trainee performance and provide feedback. Trainers can use this information to identify competency areas where trainees may be struggling and tailor their teaching methods and learning plans accordingly. This data-driven approach can lead to more personalized and effective training programs.

And despite the fact that implementing these technologies in maritime training may require an initial investment, they can lead to significant cost savings in the long run. E-learning platforms and digital resources can reduce the need for physical materials, travel, and facility rental expenses. Additionally, digital tools can help to streamline administrative tasks and reduce the time required for trainers to prepare and deliver training materials.

Having said all this, it is important to recognize that implementing these technologies can present challenges. Some common obstacles include resistance to change, lack of technical expertise, and concerns about the effectiveness of digital training methods vs. traditional means. To overcome these challenges, it is useful to adopt a strategic approach to digital learning transformation. There are many suggestions to consider.

First, before implementing digital technologies, it is useful to establish a clear vision for how they will be used to enhance training and outcomes. This plan should outline the specific tools and resources that will be utilized, as well as the goals and objectives that the organization hopes to achieve through digital transformation.

As with any new initiative, it is important to monitor the progress of digital transformation efforts and make adjustments as needed. This can involve gathering feedback from trainers and trainees, tracking performance metrics, and staying informed about emerging technologies and best practices in maritime training.

Technology holds immense potential for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of maritime training. By embracing these innovations, organizations can provide more flexible, engaging, and data-driven learning experiences for their trainees. However, it is essential to approach the implementation of digital technologies strategically, addressing challenges and ensuring that trainers and trainees have the support they need to succeed. By doing so, the maritime industry can continue to advance and equip its workforce with the skills necessary to thrive in an increasingly complex and dynamic environment.

Thanks so much for practicing and until the next edition of Training Tips for Ships, sail safely.

Shares of the cloud data warehouse firm Snowflake Inc. moved higher in extended trading today after the company beat expectations for its second-quarter earnings and kept its full-year revenue forecast steady.

On the other hand, Snowflake’s guidance for the current quarter came up just short of Wall Street’s targets. Perhaps as a result, its stock gained a relatively modest 4% in after-hours trading, adding to a gain of 2% during the regular trading session.

The company reported earnings before certain costs such as stock compensation of 22 cents per share, well ahead of Wall Street’s forecast of just 10 cents per share. Revenue rose 36% to $674 million, beating the consensus estimate of $662 million. Product revenue also surpassed expectations, coming to $640.2 million, ahead of the $626 million target.

Snowflake sells cloud data warehouse services that are popular with enterprises. Its platform is used by customers to store, process and consolidate data that can be used to derive business insights and train artificial intelligence models.

According to Snowflake Chief Executive Frank Slootman (pictured), the company is poised to benefit from the technology industry’s accurate AI boom. The incredible popularity of generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT has driven huge interest in the technology, and these days many companies are scrambling to see how they can use it to Improve various business processes.

Slootman said Snowflake is a useful partner for AI initiatives because it enables models to be trained on highly curated and optimized data. “Snowflake as the global epicenter of trusted enterprise data is well positioned to enable the growing interest in AI/ML,” Slootman said. “Enterprises and institutions alike are increasingly aware they cannot have an AI strategy without a data strategy.”

During the quarter just gone, Snowflake held its annual Snowflake Summit user conference. At the show Slootman stopped by SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio theCUBE, where he laid out the company’s strategy for AI using the vast amounts of data it manages and hosts for its customers. Those plans include a close collaboration with Nvidia Corp., whose graphics processing units are the most widely used chip technology for training AI models.

“They felt that it was a very convincing strategy, very compelling strategy,” Slootman said, talking about Snowflake’s investor’s reaction to the company’s AI plans. “The conference content helps them understand the vastness of the strategy and how far we’ve come.”

In a conference call with analysts, Snowflake Chief Financial Officer Mike Scarpelli was asked when software companies might expect to see revenue increase as a result of this focus on AI. They noted that Nvidia has already seen enormous growth.

However, Scarpelli said investors will have to be a bit more patient. Most likely, the real impact will be felt next year, he said. One problem is that many enterprises face a long wait to get their hands on Nvidia’s GPUs, since they’re in such high demand.

Although Snowflake predicted a slight drop in revenue growth for the third quarter, it maintained its full-year sales forecast. Three months prior, it dropped its fiscal revenue forecast, spooking investors and sending its stock down more than 16%.

Snowflake said it sees product revenue of between $670 million and $675 million for the third quarter, the midpoint of which is below analysts’ consensus target of $675 million. For the full year, though, it maintained a forecast of $2.6 billion in product revenue. That’s still below Wall Street’s fiscal 2024 target of $2.76 billion, but investors were clearly relieved it hasn’t gotten any worse.

Scarpelli said the company is maintaining its full-year forecast because it isn’t seeing customers reduce consumption any further. “We are seeing encouraging signs of stabilization, but not a recovery,” he said.

Here’s Slootman’s full interview on theCUBE, where he also discusses Snowflake’s expansion into new markets and its efforts to grow its developer ecosystem through its native apps framework:

Photo: SiliconANGLE

© 2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Carrie Windham has been writing since 2008, featured in “The Brief Out” and “Key Issues.” Windham, a leader in County Government, holds certificates in peace officer, corrections officer and instructor from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. Windham is pursuing a Master of Arts in organizational management from Ashford University. She is a national speaker successful in the use of education and hands-on experience for training program development, presentation and implementation.

With the rapid advancements of generative AI and evolving threat landscape, the job of cybersecurity has never been harder, and the pressure to protect organizations has never been greater. With the likelihood of a breach being a matter of when, not if, preparedness is top of mind for Boards. But there is a more pressing question: how do we really know our teams are prepared for the next attack? Organizations have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into traditional training techniques – is it working?

In short: no.

At a time when preparedness is so vital, organizations have, ironically, never been less prepared. According to the Cyber Workforce Resilience Trend Report, despite years of security awareness training, almost half of organizations say their employees would fall victim to a phishing email. And certifications are proving to be ineffective: Although almost all (96%) organizations encourage IT and cybersecurity teams to gain industry certifications, only 32% of respondents agree that industry certifications are effective.

The truth, as painful as it might be, is that traditional cyber training and industry certifications are failing organizations and their leaders.

Faced with this reality, a growing number of organizations are turning their attention to building and proving long-term cyber resilience - the capabilities and confidence to respond effectively to threats - which tops the list of strategic and spending priorities for organizations in 2023. Nearly all (86%) of organizations note they are already operationalizing a cyber resilience program, pointing to cyber resilience becoming the pillar of the modern cybersecurity strategy.

However, while the findings indicate that building cyber resilience is a priority, they also show that many programs are falling short, ultimately failing to prove cyber teams’ real-word cyber capabilities. More than half (52%) of respondents say their organization lacks a comprehensive approach to assessing cyber resilience.

To address this, here are five steps organizations should take:

1. Adopt a formal cyber resilience strategy – To truly build cyber resilience, technology alone is not the answer. Deploying an effective strategy requires organizations to leverage benchmarking techniques to gather data around their people’s cyber capabilities. Armed with this information, CISOs and other cyber leaders can build and implement a more effective cyber resilience strategy, one that prioritizes assessing, building, and proving cyber capabilities.

2. CISOs Should Lead Strategic Discussions with the Board – Cyber risk and preparedness are top priorities for Board members; however, these individuals lack security expertise which means they don’t ask the right questions. As the role of the CISO continues to evolve, it’s imperative that they have a seat at the table with senior leaders - and that the Board has a baseline understanding of cybersecurity to ensure there is a meaningful dialogue about cybersecurity priorities and strategies. In fact The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) may now require some level of cyber expertise on the Board.

3. Measure Your Workforce’s Cyber Capabilities – In order for CISOs to have meaningful, strategic conversations with boards, they need to present the right metrics: ones that demonstrate proof of cyber resilience like breach readiness and incident response results. Reporting metrics like number of attacks, alerts, and events don’t actually measure a team’s true cyber capabilities or tell us anything about how prepared they are for the next attack.

4. Invest in Continuous Exercising – Organizations that regularly exercise teams are best able to withstand attacks. The timeline between the disclosure of vulnerabilities and attack activation is measured in hours and days, not weeks or months. Offering traditional training monthly or quarterly, isn’t going to be effective. Cyber exercises need to be run with measured frequency to match the pace of attackers and build muscle memory.

5. Recruit Talent with Potential, Not Certifications – An area where we see an over-reliance on industry certification is recruiting. Certifications do not translate to expertise — full stop. Given the talent shortage and budget-tightening efforts, a cultural shift must happen as part of the recruiting process in which prospects are considered for their aptitude or future potential and not based on how many certifications they have. By overemphasizing certifications, organizations are actually rejecting qualified applicants or creating a costly barrier to entry for early career and diverse security talent.

Attackers move quickly, relying on organizations’ historically slow response times to make would-be breaches successful. With new AI tools offering sophisticated ways to script phishing emails, for example, this threat is only accelerating. It’s time to stop our industry's overreliance on outdated methods of certification and training. At a time when leaders and boards want assurance that their people are prepared, certifications and traditional training programs don’t deliver on their promises. Organizations need proof of real cyber capabilities, not a false sense of security.

Many adult rescue dogs come with imperfect housetraining skills – or none at all. Even dogs who were potty trained in their previous homes sometimes need a refresher course if they didn’t get regular walks at the shelter.

The good news is it’s fairly easy to teach an old dog this new trick. In fact, adult dogs are usually easier and faster to housetrain than puppies, especially if you use a crate.

The key to rock-solid potty training is to start the day your dog comes home. If you stick closely to a routine, you should be able to housetrain an adult dog within a week or less. However, some pups need a bit more patience, and that’s OK, too.

Take time off to housetrain your dog properly

When you first bring home your adult dog, they’ll need to go out for midday bathroom breaks.

If you have work or other obligations that prevent you from taking your dog on a midday potty break, hire a dog walker. The first week or so is crucial in setting a new routine for your dog, and you want to avoid as many preventable indoor accidents as possible.

If hiring a dog walker is not in your budget, ask a friend or neighbor to let out your dog in exchange for another service or favor.

Start using a crate the day you bring them home

Crate training is the easiest way to teach a dog bladder and bowel control. That’s because dogs don’t like to soil their sleeping and eating areas.

The crate should be big enough for your dog to stand up, turn around, and lie down in comfortably, but no bigger. If it’s too spacious, your dog may feel like they can eliminate in one corner and still keep their living space clean. Keep the crate in a high-traffic part of the house, so your dog won’t feel isolated.

Also, make sure to supply your dog lots of time outside the crate for exercise, training, and just hanging out and bonding with you. If you keep them in their crate too long, they’ll feel trapped and frustrated.

If you’re thinking about putting your dog in a crate, rest assured you won’t have to use it very long. Adult dogs can be fully housetrained in as little as three days. Most dogs actually enjoy having a safe, closed-off space for themselves to rest and recharge. Don’t worry too much about them feeling confined.

They may even prefer to lie down there during the day, even when they no longer have to.

How to streamline housetraining adult dogs

When using a crate to housetrain your dog, follow these guidelines. They ensure your dog won’t suffer from anxiety or eliminate in their crate. These steps will also help your dog understand what you want – for them to eliminate outside. Once they realize that, they’ll stick to it.

• Never confine your dog longer than they can hold it. You don’t want your dog to feel forced to go in their crate because you didn’t let them out in time.

• Use the same “elimination station” each time. Dogs develop a preference for going potty in the same spots. Make it easier and choose, from the start, the place where you want them to go.

• Don’t distract your dog with games and talk. Just stand still and let them circle and sniff. As soon as your pup begins to go, supply a command, such as, “Go pee” or “Do your business.” Before long, your dog will eliminate on cue. This comes in handy when you’re traveling or don’t want to spend walks carrying bags of poop.

• Shower them with praise when they do it right. Make sure treats and praise come right after they finish eliminating. Make praise enthusiastic and treats top-notch. You want to make it crystal clear that eliminating outside is a great thing. Don’t wait to get back to the house to supply a treat. If you do, your dog won’t connect the reward with what prompted it.

• Don’t punish your dog for accidents if you haven’t caught them in the act. Clean up thoroughly so they’re not drawn to the same place by the smell of residual poop or urine. If you catch your dog having an accident, startle them midstream with a shout or clap. Then, hustle them outside to finish. Praise them when they’re done so they learn that eliminating outside isn’t just allowed, it’s rewarded.

Give your dog at least six bathroom breaks daily

You won’t always have to supply your dog as many opportunities to use the bathroom. But until you have finished housetraining, you need to supply your dog as many opportunities as possible to eliminate outside.

Aim to take out your dog:

• First thing in the morning

• Before you leave for the day

• Twice during the day

• Once after dinner

• One more time before going to bed.

Once you know they’ve got it, you can move them to four bathroom breaks a day — the standard for adult dogs.

Also, take your dog for a walk or supply them some playtime as a bonus reward. If they always come straight back inside after eliminating, they’ll learn to hold it to prolong their time outdoors.

What cleaning products to use in case your dog has an accident

There will inevitably be an accident here or there while housetraining, no matter how closely you stick to a training routine. In the instance your dog has an accident inside, stick to these rules when picking out a cleaning product.

• Use a cleaning product that contains live bacteria or enzymes that break down the mess, rather than masking it with another fragrance.

• Stay away from ammonia-based cleaners. They’ll smell like urine to your dog, and they’ll want to pee again in the same spot.

• Leave some soiled towels in your dog’s “elimination station.” The scent reinforces for your dog that this is the potty area.

Stick with your training routine, and your adult dog should be doing their business where they’re supposed to in no time. Good luck!

The post Housetraining Adult Dogs: Training Tips and Techniques appeared first on DogTime.