Artificial Intelligence in general (particularly LLMs) are disrupting companies and career. The first part of the talk explains what AI is (in general and LLMs specifically), how it works, and the directions it's taking us. The second part addresses how to include AI in your corporate strategy, and how employees individually need to evolve to have a successful career in a AI world.

(I can focus the second half on either, or both topics, depending on the audience and need.)

Do you want to advance in your career? What are the twenty-first century skills that will give you the best return on investment to get you there fastest? Based on corporate research and developed over two decades of teaching at MIT’s career success accelerator, this talk covers what the core skills are and how best to develop them to quickly advance in your own career.

You will learn:

1. Overview of twenty-first century skills.
2. A no-cost plan for developing them.

You wouldn't undertake a 20 week project without first making a plan; what about a 20 year project? Your career is a major source of money, success, and fulfillment; it’s worth spending time planning it out. 

Learn how to think strategically about your career and create a plan to achieve your career goals. We’ll explore key career questions, professional development, and how to adjust your plan. At the end of this talk you’ll have a framework to create and execute a career plan to maximize your professional growth.

You will learn:

1. How to create an actionable career plan.
2. How to refine and adjust your plan as it unfolds.

This talk is suitable for employees or HR/management.

This is the most cited, but least taught professional skill. Having a strong network can get you jobs, but it can also do so much more. Understand how to build, maintain, and use a diverse network to help you with challenges both professional and otherwise.

You will learn:

1. How to effectively use your network to generate value.
2. Why network diversity matters and how to create it.
3. Where and how to talk to strangers.
4. How to develop lasting relationships.

You've mastered the functional skills for your job. That's necessary, but not sufficient to get to where you want to go in your career. No matter your role, there are universal job skills that will help you succeed and advance in your career. But for all the talk about them, not a single one of your university classes or professional development training courses covered them. Managing your manager, understanding corporate culture, finding ways to add more value, and dealing with office politics . . . each of which can help you be seen as a key contributor, or can undermine your career if not handled correctly.

You will learn:

1. How to understand your value to the company—and how to generate more.
2. How to manage your manager.
3. How to create and thrive in your corporate culture—not the values on the website but the real culture your team lives every day.
4. How to use corporate politics and ethics ways to help you and others succeed—and how to deal with those who use it unethically.

Note: This talk touches upon corporate culture. It can help your employees proactively create and nurture a good culture. If you have a broken one, let me know since I have a variant of the talk for those circumstances.

What if every deal you made was 1% better? 1% more income; 1% more sales; 1% more value delivered. What would that add up for you and your company? What if it was more than 1%?

Learn the foundation to be a more effective negotiator, not just how to get a bigger piece of the pie, but how to expand the pie and grab a bigger slice. We look at both the principles and also specific techniques to make your future negotiations a huge success.

You will learn:

1. How to reframe your approach to negotiating.
2. Negotiating principles.
3. Five stages of negotiation.
4. Common negotiation pitfalls.