Administrative Assistant's Update - sample

October 2018

Focuses on the training and development needs of admin professionals and features topics such as hard skills (software competencies, writing, communication, filing) and soft skills (teamwork, time management, leadership).

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OCTOBER 2018 2 Are you a customized you at work? Will artificial intelligence eventu- ally take your place at work? It at least partly depends on what you do and who you are. Hotels.com, says its entertaining spokesperson Captain Obvious, "lets you be you" when you're booking hotel accommo- dations. Question is: Who are you exactly? Are you a different person at work than you are away from work? Should you be? No, you should be the same au- thentic person wherever you are, says Praveen Suthrum, the president and co-founder of Next Services, a tech- nology company serving the health care sector. Why? Because the more closely you model yourself and your behav- iour toward what you perceive as a model "company" person, the closer you come to robotic behaviour, says Suthrum in The Economic Times. And the less you will present yourself in human ways that set you apart from your colleagues. "It's going to get increasingly tougher to stand out by being robotic when there are real robots buzzing around," says Suthrum. "Surely, ma- chines will be better at any work that requires repeatability, learning and spotting patterns." Suthrum is an employer who says he constantly worries about "displace- ment of skills by machines." What are the capabilities of people that machines "potentially can't do?" he asks. "Are they creative in some way? Can they empathize? Do they grasp the unsaid? Can they be honest with their mistakes? Can they connect dots across two divergent views? Are they human enough to feel sadness, guilt, shame and anger?" Your human qualities will help you survive, he contends. Compete with machines by being authentic. "A machine can't weep or laugh or scream like you. At least, not yet. Not until you teach it to." E D I TO R ' S N OT E George Pearson Administrative Assistant's Update is published once a month by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Director, Media Solutions, Canada: Karen Lorimer Publisher: Todd Humber Editor: George Pearson george@adminupdate.ca Associate Editor: Jennifer Lewington jennifer@adminupdate.ca EDITORIAL OFFICE (519) 271-6000 Administrative Assistant's Update Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. 1 Corporate Plaza, 2075 Kennedy Road Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 CUSTOMER SERVICE (416) 609-3800 (800) 387-5164 FAX (416) 298-5082 (877) 750-9041 customersupport.legaltaxcanada @tr.com Contents copyright. All rights reserved. © 2018 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Contents may not be reproduced without written permission. Brief extracts may be made with due acknowledgement. Annual subscription: $195. Publications Mail Registration No. 40065782 GST# 897176350 UPDATE Administrative Assistant's New face for Canadian admin association By Staff The introduction of a new logo for the Association of Administrative Professionals (AAP) crystallizes the tranformation of the former Asso- ciation of Administrative Assistants (AAA) into a professional organiza- tion embracing practitioners of a range of administrative pursuits far exceeding the small group of administrative assistants and secretaries that first met in 1951. "Our new identity enables our organization to grow with the require- ments of what it means to be an administrative professional in today's world," AAP president Katherine Vaillancourt told Administrative Assis- tant's Update in a recent email. "We want our brand to be recognized as best-in-class and that we are a support network for all administrative professionals." That expanded category now includes job descriptions such as executive assistant, administrative assistant, executive administrator, administrative coordinator, office manager, office coordinator, reception - ist, administrator, project manager, project coordinator, medical adminis- trator, legal assistant, medical assistant, executive advisor and more. The AAP, which has 400-plus members, has branches in Ontario (Toronto, Hamilton and Barrie/Simcoe County), Alberta (Calgary and Edmonton) and New Brunswick (Moncton), as well as an at-large com- ponent.

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