Image: Tiny Health Tiny Health, the creator of the first at-home gut microbiome test specifically for babies, has raised $8.5 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Spero Ventures, contributing to a total of $13 million...

Gut Health Startup Tiny Health Raises $8.5M in Series A Funding to Expand Beyond Infant and Children’s Health

Tiny Health

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From the Brink of Suicide to Bliss: How Hormones Destroyed and Saved My Life

I love 1:1 meetings. It’s a chance to swap feedback and make sure our company is working. It’s also one of the reasons we built The reaction has been overwhelming: Managers from over 500 of the best companies in the world are now using it with their teams. SoapBox bot — a bot to help people have productive 1:1 and team meetings. (Adobe, Intercom, Wayfair, etc…) One of the features people love most is our Question Suggester — if they’re stuck for something to add to their agenda, we suggest questions they could use to start a productive conversation. I wanted to know which questions get used most often, so I dug into the data So, without further ado, here are as judged by real-life managers! (I can see the suggested questions they chose, not what gets typed!). the top 10 questions asked in real-life 1:1s #1. What are the biggest time wasters for you each week? It’s no surprise that … not only do 89% of people openly admit to wasting time, but seemingly productive “work” tasks can actually be large time wasters. , your employees waste: people waste a lot of time at work some For example - 2 hours per day simply recovering from trivial interruptions/distractions. - 1.55 hours per day in unproductive meetings - $1,250 of their salary managing spam, $1,800 on unnecessary email, and $4,100 on poorly written communications. #2. Is there anything we should START doing as a team? Thomas J. DeLong, professor at HBS and author of Flying Without a Net, says the best questions for effective feedback are: . what should I start doing, what should I stop doing, and what should I keep doing In my experience direct feedback like that can be a little tough for employees to share with their manager, so we tweaked this question to include “as a team” to make it a little more approachable. #3. Would you like more or less direction from me on your work? , but often employees aren’t comfortable telling their managers to lay off a little. This question gives employees the opportunity to give honest and constructive feedback to their managers without the fear of hurting feelings. No one wants to be a micro manager #4. Do you feel you’re getting enough feedback on your work? If not, where would you like more feedback? Something I learned the hard way is the timing of your feedback matters just as much as the feedback itself. Giving thorough feedback on launch day isn’t productive — unless it’s about typos. Having conversations like these during one-on-ones makes sure the feedback is being given at the right stage. At SoapBox I use the which our friend of (frmly. founder of ) wrote about. the 99/50/1 framework Robleh Jama Shopify TinyHearts #5. What could I do as a manager to make your work easier? I, like many founders, have been the victim of the . According to the theory, 96% of problems are unknown to top managers — and the ones they do know about might not be the right ones to focus on. This simple question gives employees the opportunity to make their managers 1% less ignorant. Think of it as the Kaizen approach to management! More on that, . Iceberg of Ignorance here #6. Is there an aspect of your job you would like more help or coaching? A great workplace relationship is all about managers helping employees be better, and employees helping managers be better. In a way, I see this question as asking the employee to help coach the manager — a help me help you situation. Don’t think this is a key question to ask? Consider this: They found the single most important competency that separated high performing managers from low, was coaching. Google did a multi-year, double blind study on it’s managers. #7. Do you feel you’re getting enough feedback? Very similar to #4. In general I wouldn’t recommend asking Yes/No questions like this — unless you’ve developed a great rapport with the employee. You’ll need to be quick on your toes on where to take this conversation. One follow-up that I’ve found productive is, “What type of feedback is most valuable/are you missing?” #8. How could we improve the ways our team works together? Most managers say the hardest part of the job is “people problems”. People are complex so it can be hard to pin point the root of these problems, but one thing’s for sure — you have a better chance of solving them if you include your employees in the conversation. Providing space for you and your employees to openly talk about ways to work better together can help you uncover issues but remember — the hardest issues to talk about might be about you, so be incredibly attentive! #9. On a scale of 1–10, how happy are you at work? I’m glad this made it to the top 10. I’m a big fan of this question, not because of the question itself, but because of the follow up question it enables. Say the employee responds with “uhm… I’d say a 7”. Your follow up would be, “How do we get you to an 8?”. It’s not about magically transforming them to a 10… it’s about the little things in their way that you can help them overcome. #10. What are you least clear about — in terms of our strategy and goals? Here’s : Researchers asked employees from 20 companies (that had clearly articulated public strategies) to choose the strategy from a list of 6 choices. sad news from 2013 Only 29% chose the right option from the list. I’m willing to bet your company doesn’t have a “clearly articulated public strategy.” In fact, I bet it’s neither clearly articulated public. So, I hate to break it to you, but a of 70% of your team has no idea what you or the company is trying to do. nor minimum This is an important question to get ahead of. I challenge you to talk about your goals and strategy in every one-on-one you have this quarter — everyone will be better off because of it. Phew, Done. And there you have it. Those were the top 10 selected questions, chosen by real-life managers, in real-life situations with their employees. It’s what and hopefully you, the manager, wanted to know. they, BUT, what didn’t they want to know? The #1 Most Avoided Question in a One-on-One: “What area of the company would you like to learn more about?” There are many ways to interpret this. Are managers avoiding asking this because it’s not an issue? Are managers being protective over this information? Are they worried they don’t know the answer themselves? Does it just not help both people hit their immediate goals? You made it to the end! I’m curious about you: What do you love/hate talking about in one-on-ones? What are your favourite, go-to questions? Let me know below. Thanks for Reading, Brennan p.s. You should be having these conversations with your directs at least monthly. If your conversations are stale, not consistent, or unorganized, you should try out SoapBox Teams now. Brennan is the CEO & Co-founder of SoapBox , the #1 place to work in Canada. Their apps, SoapBox for Enterprise & SoapBox for Teams , are about those conversations you should be having with your employees... but currently are not. If you like this article, please recommend it to help others find it! 👇 💚

Top 100 iOS articles written on medium until jan 2017 (Only 3 female writers in the top)

The second wave of coronavirus has crippled our lives as we strive to create a vaccine against this deadly pandemic. In such a troubled time, , which is already struggling with multiple challenges and issues. bad actors remain busy in targeting the healthcare sector On the one hand, hospitals have been inundated with an unprecedented spike of people being admitted en masse. On the other hand, their systems have now become the latest preying ground for cybercriminals across the globe who want to capitalize on this precarious situation. In recent years, the number and severity of cyber-attacks against health and social care systems and hospitals have significantly gone up, compromising the health information of millions of people not just in the UK but worldwide. In May 2017, the program encrypted data and files on 230,000 computers in 150 countries and devastated the NHS. WannaCry ransomware The WannaCry attack was not, however, targeted at the NHS, though it was allegedly state-sponsored. Other major organizations were also affected, including Telefonica, FedEx, Nissan, Russian Railways, and the Bank of China. Yet the most significant impact was undoubtedly felt by the NHS. While WannaCry was a wide-ranging attack that happened to impact health systems, including the NHS, in 2018, hackers specifically targeted the Singapore healthcare group SingHealth. They stole critical information of more than 1.5 million patients. The threat to patients would have been even more significant if data had been subtly manipulated, for example, changing a patient's blood type in the Electronic Health Record, without being detected. This opportunity to manipulate data at will highlights that any cyber-attack in healthcare is a threat to patient safety, and it became apparent how vulnerable healthcare is to any cyber-attack. The NHS cares for over 1 million patients every 24 hours in 236 trusts (comprising acute and specialist hospitals, community service providers and ambulance services) and 7,454 GP practices. The NHS in England employs just over 1 million full-time equivalent staff (not including those working in general practice). The NHS system is devolved, meaning that there are thousands of different networks running locally. The NCSC and CISA, so-called watchdog organizations of their respective countries, continue to see indications that Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups are exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic as part of their cyber operations. These security agencies have foiled several cyber campaigns targeting organizations involved in giving the response to coronavirus. Most healthcare organizations in the UK are contributing to curb the spread of COVID-19 amid increasing cases. There, such cyber campaigns highlight the apparent failure to address cybersecurity measures in the sector. Cybersecurity Situation in the UK Healthcare Sector In a joint advisory in the recent past in the UK, NCSC and CISA have indicated strong possibilities that 'Advanced Persistent Threat' (APT) groups can target healthcare bodies to collect personal information. The National Cyber Security Centre disclosed in its annual review that over a quarter of all cyber incidents detected in the UK involved criminals and hostile states exploiting the coronavirus pandemic. Precisely, out of 723 incidents detected in London in the year to September, 194 or 27% are related to coronavirus. The NHS, along with health systems across the world, is becoming ever more reliant on technology to deliver safe patient care. There are exciting innovations that have the promise to change the way care is provided and offer new treatments and discoveries. Some of these technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, are in use at relatively small scale and in some trusts. The challenge will be to adopt technologies safely and securely and appreciate the emerging cybersecurity challenges that become more apparent as these technologies are more commonplace. Suppose a method of assuring the cybersecurity of connected medical devices can be achieved by an organization. In that case, it will be possible to deliver a fully integrated and scaled ecosystem of connected medical devices across healthcare providers and patients. If no concerted efforts are carried on, and adoption of medical devices continues at pace and scale, there could be a mass introduction of poorly regulated or unsecured medical devices that are hyper-connected and vulnerable to a cyber threat. Ever since breach reporting has become mandatory in the UK, the number of breaches reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has kept on increasing steadily. Security agencies have identified many malicious activities targeting national and international healthcare bodies, research firms, and pharmaceutical companies. Mostly, these activities aim at collecting information related to the coronavirus outbreak and patients’ information. Hackers get an advantage of the vulnerable and poorly secured connected devices that fetch and transmit the patient’s data. Also, a complex clinical process, which remains highly vulnerable to such breaches can be a major cause of the attacks. Ransomware, password spraying, phishing emails, etc. are some of the most notorious techniques used for a data breach in the healthcare sector. How can the Healthcare Sector Address Heightened Cyber Threats? Any incident of a data breach or a cyber-attack can come at a very high cost for all stakeholders within the healthcare industry. It is, therefore, essential for health and social care organizations to ensure that the health and care system nationally, regionally, and locally is equipped to withstand and respond to cyberattacks in an effective manner which minimizes disruption to services and, most importantly, impact on the patients. Some key priorities which organizations and not just from the healthcare industry can imbibe on their journey to cyber resilience. All organizations need to develop and promote a deepened sense of security culture and ensure that the message being disseminated is that cybersecurity is not an 'IT/Helpdesk' problem, but a safety concern of the vulnerable. Awareness: There is an imminent need to improve individual, organizational and system-wide awareness of future threats, vulnerabilities, and the potential impact of cybersecurity incidents. At the heart of cybersecurity are people. Consequently, this recognizes the importance of training and development as a countermeasure against the cyber threat. An event may range from internal phishing attacks to test the awareness of staff to the danger of opening spam email, through to specific training associated with the management of cyber incidents. Leaders must take information governance and data security as a core part of training and support their staff in reaching the desired higher levels of competence. Education: The Information Governance Playbook should be updated to support and underpin the new standards. There is a need for supporting better decision-making, maintaining trust in the system and ensuring organizations meet their responsibilities to provide clarity around responsibility, accountability and authority. Governance: Best practices for the use or technology and infrastructure should be included in the training and governance of not only new employees but of all stakeholders, including third-party partners in the healthcare sector. Maintain good practices: Organisations must ensure they have robust perimeter security (firewalls), effective protective monitoring (intrusion detection), incident management, end-point protection and networks that are designed to support robust cybersecurity from the outset; all systems must be secure by design, not as an afterthought. Good cybersecurity 'hygiene' is also vital: effectively managing access and privileges, ensuring an appropriate level of encryption, utilizing multi-factor authentication and ensuring systems are regularly patched and updated. Secure infrastructure: All organizations must be able to safely and effectively function not only in a BAU condition but even whilst under cyber attack. Therefore, all data and systems must be securely backed-up and disaster recovery processes tested to ensure that the backup is isolated and cannot be erased or tampered with and is in HA (High Availability) mode all the time. Business Continuity: As other organizations across the world have learnt, no establishment, however secure as they seem can be completely immune from a cyber-attack. As we move to a 'new world order' the occurrence of cyber-attacks across the UK economy and across will only keep on increasing and also, a one-size-fits-all approach will not work across health and social care. As apocalyptic as it may sound - it is not a question of "if" but "when" the next cyber-attack strikes the health and social care system. Sattrix, a renowned and reputed is one such organisation which is spearheading the fight against cyber-attacks with the bevvy of products and services tailored appropriately and proportionately to suit the scale of the health and social care sectors across the globe. With its associations with the industry's leading OEMs, its partners and its expertise in AI&ML based solutioning, Sattrix is uniquely placed to deliver trust and confidence in the services they offer thereby ensuring and enabling their customer's to increase cyber resilience across the system. Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP)

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