#CIO Strategy

[goodoldbandit]

Focused, Not Fuzzy: What Digital Transformation Success Looks Like.

Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo. skm.stayingalive.in Tired of digital buzzwords? Here’s a grounded take on what digital transformation means for IT leaders, CIOs, and enterprise tech teams. Digital transformation has become a default phrase in every boardroom, strategy deck, and tech offsite. Yet, for most IT leaders, it still feels like chasing smoke—buzzwords on slides,…

[jcmarchi]

AI’s Real Value Is Built on Data and People – Not Just Technology

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/ais-real-value-is-built-on-data-and-people-not-just-technology/

AI’s Real Value Is Built on Data and People – Not Just Technology

The promise of AI expands daily – from driving individual productivity gains to enabling organizations to uncover powerful new business insights through data. While the potential of AI appears limitless and its impact easy to imagine, the journey to a truly AI-powered ecosystem is both complex and challenging. This journey doesn’t begin and end with implementing, adopting or even consistently using AI – it ends there. Realizing the full value of an AI solution ultimately depends on the quality of the data and the people who implement, manage and apply it to drive meaningful results.

Data: The Cornerstone of AI Success

Data, the organizational constant. Whether it’s a Mom-and-Pop convenience store or an enterprise organization, every business runs on data (financial records, inventory, security footage  etc.) The   management, accessibility and governance of this data is the cornerstone to realizing AI’s full  potential  within an organization. Gartner recently noted that 63% of organizations either lack confidence or are unsure about if their existing data practice or management structure is sufficient for successful adoption of AI. Enabling an organization to unlock  the full potential of AI requires a well thought out Data Practice. From collection, storage, synthesis, analysis, security, privacy, governance, and access control – a framework and methodology must be in place to leverage AI properly.  Additionally, it is essential to mitigate the risks and unintended consequences. Bottom line, data is the cornerstone of analytics and the fuel for your AI.

The access your AI solution has to your data determines its potential to deliver – so much so, we’re seeing the emergence of new functions tailored specifically to it, the Chief Data Officer (CDO). Simply put, if an AI solution is introduced to an environment with “free-floating” data accessible to anyone – it will be error-prone, biased, non-compliant, and very likely to expose sensitive and private information. Conversely, when  the data environment is rich, structured, accurate, within a framework and methodology for how the organization uses its data – AI can return immediate benefits and save numerous hours on modeling, forecasting, and propensity development. Built around the data cornerstone are access rights and governance policies for data, which present its own concern – the human element.

People: The Underrated Factor in AI Adoption

IDC recently shared that 45% of CEOs and over 66% of CIOs surveyed conveyed a hesitancy around technology vendors not completely understanding the downside risk potential of AI. These leaders are justified in their caution. Arguably, the consequences of age-old IT risks remain similar with governed AI (i.e., downtime, operational seizures, costly cyber-insurance premiums, compliance fines, customer experience, data-breaches, ransomware, and more.) and are amplified by the integration of AI into IT. The concern comes from the lack of understanding around the root-causes for those consequences or for those that are not aware, the angst that comes with associate AI enablement serving as the catalyst for those consequences.

The pressing question is, “Should I invest in this costly IT tool that can vastly improve my business’s performance at every functional level at the risk of IT implosion due to lack of employee readiness and enablement?” Dramatic? Absolutely – business risk always is, and we already know the answer to that question. With more complex technologies and elevated operational potential, so too must the effort to enable teams to use these tools legally, properly, efficiently, and effectively.

The Vendor Challenge

The lack of confidence in technology vendors’ understanding goes beyond subject matter expertise and reflects a deeper issue: the inability to clearly articulate the specific risks that an organization can and will face with improper implementations and unrealistic expectations.

The relationship between an organization and technology vendors is much like that of a patient and a healthcare practitioner. The patient consults a healthcare practitioner with symptoms seeking a diagnosis and hoping for a simple and cost-effective remedy. In preventative situations, the healthcare practitioner will work with the patient on dietary recommendations, lifestyle choices, and specialized treatment to achieve specified health goals. Similarly, there’s an expectation that organizations will receive prescriptive solutions from technology vendors to solve or plan for technology implementations. However, when organizations are unable to provide prescriptive risks specific to given IT environments, it exacerbates the uncertainty of AI implementation.

Even when IT vendors effectively communicate the risks and potential impacts of AI, many organizations are deterred by the true total cost of ownership (TCO) involved in laying the necessary foundation. There’s a growing awareness that successful AI implementation must begin within the existing environment – and only when that environment is modernized can organizations truly unlock the value of AI integration. It’s similar to assuming that anyone can jump into the cockpit of an F1 supercar and instantly win races. Any reasonable person knows that success in racing is the result of both a skilled driver and a high-performance machine. Likewise, the benefits of AI can only be realized when an organization is properly prepared, trained, and equipped to adopt and implement it.

Case in Point: Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a great example of an existing AI solution whose potential impact and value have often been misunderstood or diluted due to customers’ misaligned expectations – in how AI should be implemented and what they believe it should do, rather than understanding what it can do. Today, more than 70% of Fortune 500 companies are already leveraging Microsoft 365 Copilot. However, the widespread fear that AI will replace jobs is largely a misconception when it comes to most real-world AI applications. While job displacement has occurred in some areas – such as fully automated “dark warehouses” – it’s important to distinguish between AI as a whole and its use in robotics. The latter has had a more direct impact on job replacement.

In the context of Modern Work, AI’s primary value lies in enhancing performance and amplifying expertise – not replacing it. By saving time and increasing functional output, AI enables more agile go-to-market strategies and faster value delivery. However, these benefits rely on critical enablers:

A mature Data Practice

Strong Access Management and Governance

Robust Security measures to mitigate risks

People enablement around responsible AI use and best practices

Here are a few examples of AI-driven functional improvements across business areas:

Sales Leaders can generate propensity models using customer lifecycle data to drive cross-sell and upsell strategies, improving customer retention and value.

Corporate Strategy & FP&A Teams gain deeper insights thanks to time saved analyzing business units, enabling better alignment with corporate goals.

Accounts Receivable Teams can manage payment cycles more efficiently with faster access to actionable data, improving outreach and customer engagement.

Marketing Leaders can build more effective, sales-aligned go-to-market strategies by leveraging AI insights on sales performance and opportunities.

Operations Teams can reduce time spent reconciling Finance and Sales data, minimizing chaos during end-of-quarter or end-of-year processes.

Customer Success & Support Teams can cut down response and resolution times by automating workflows and simplifying key steps.

These examples only scratch the surface of AI’s potential to drive functional transformation and productivity gains. Yet, realizing these benefits requires the right foundation – systems that allow AI to integrate, synthesize, analyze, and ultimately deliver on its promise.

Final Thought: No Plug-and-Play for AI

Implementing AI to unlock its full potential isn’t as simple as installing a program or application. It’s the integration of an interconnected web of autonomous functions that permeate your entire IT stack – delivering insights and operational efficiencies that would otherwise require significant manual effort, time and resources.

Realizing the value of an AI solution is grounded in building a data practice, maintaining a robust access and governance framework, and securing the ecosystem – a topic that requires its own deep dive.

The ability for technology vendors to a valued partner will be dependent on both marketing and enablement, focused on debunking myths and calibrating expectations on what harnessing the potential of AI truly means.

[crypto28ro]

Ari Paul: Co-CIO la BlockTower Capital și Expert în Strategii Inovatoare de Investiții Crypto

Ari Paul: Co-CIO la BlockTower Capital – Expert în Strategii Inovatoare de Investiții Crypto Ari Paul este o personalitate de referință în lumea investițiilor crypto, recunoscut pentru abordările sale inovatoare și pentru expertiza în gestionarea portofoliilor digitale. În calitate de Co-CIO la BlockTower Capital, el contribuie la modelarea strategiilor de investiții într-o piață extrem de…

[innovationpastor]

How to Reach 3 Billion People and Capture Hearts on a Global Scale: Lessons from The ChoseN + COME AND SEE.

By Larry Lundstrom What if I told you there’s a series about Jesus and his disciples, a historical drama once a small show with a modest following, now set to reach 3 billion people globally by 2037? “The Chosen” has cracked the code on scaling impact. They’re not just reaching; they’re creating community. They’re not merely translating; they’re transforming. And here’s the kicker—we are doing…

[thecioconnect]

Apple Intelligence Arrives on October 28 for iPhones, iPads, and Macs

iOS 18.1 will introduce Apple Intelligence features, including enhanced Siri and photo editing tools, for compatible devices. Eligible models include iPhone 15, 16, and M-series Macs.

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Is Your Leadership Aligned or an Illusion? and How to Bridge the Strategy Gap?

Why Most CEOs Fail to Implement Real Strategic Principles and What You Can Do About It? As a long term researcher of technical leadership and excellent, one of my hobbies is to explore fresh voices and unique perspectives from thought leaders from different cultures. While browsing my reading feed today, I came across and article with a beautifully narrated voice.  The title of article…

[dromologue]

Over the years, my Forrester colleagues and I have observed that the maturity of enterprise architecture (EA) varies greatly among and within companies, industries, and geographies. Some EA practices are more IT oriented, while others are more business driven, but EA must always be outcome driven and demonstrate its value. Therefore, we emphasize that architects and […]

[md000001]

Navigating a Potential Recession: The Key Focus Areas for #CIOs

During a potential recession, the role of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) becomes even more critical in helping the organization navigate through economic challenges and uncertainties. These break into two types of action, those that help build the future, but improve efficiency, and those that reduce costs. Innovating for the future: Data-Driven Decision Making: Leveraging data analytics can…

[goodoldbandit]

Beyond Tech Support: Turning IT into a Digital Value Powerhouse.

Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo. skm.stayingalive.in CIOs are no longer tech fixers—they’re value creators. This post examines the shift from IT management to digital growth. Digital transformation isn’t about new tools. It’s about new value. CIOs and IT leaders who treat IT as a service function are missing the point. The future belongs to those who move fast, build lean, think…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dinkscrump Linkdump

I'm about to leave for a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me on Feb 14 in BOSTON for FREE at BOSKONE , and on Feb 15 for a virtual event with YANIS VAROUFAKIS. More tour dates here.

Well, Saturday's come around and I have a gigantic list of links that didn't fit into this week's newsletter, so it's time for another linkdump, 26th in the series:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

My posting is about to get a lot more erratic, as I'm days away from leaving on a 20+ city book-tour, which starts in Boston on Feb 14, with a sold-out event at the Brookline Booksmith:

https://brooklinebooksmith.com/event/2025-02-14/sold-out-cory-doctorow-ken-liu-picks-and-shovels

But Bostonians get another bite at the apple: I'm appearing at Boskone, the city's venerable sf convention, a few hours before my Brookline gig, and admission is free:

https://schedule.boskone.org/62/

The rest of the tour (including a virtual event with Yanis Varoufakis on the 15th) is here, and more dates (New Zealand, possibly Pittsburgh and Atlanta) are being added all the time:

https://craphound.com/novels/redteamblues/2025/02/06/announcing-the-picks-and-shovels-book-tour/

Of course, even as I scramble to get ready to hit the road for months, I'm regrettably forced to give some rent-free space in my head to Elon Fucking Musk. This week, I wrote about DOGE as a government-scale private-equity style plundering of the nation:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/07/broccoli-hair-brownshirts/#shameless

But that was before I read Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman's Lawfare article about how Musk's seizure of payment chokepoints will allow him (and Trump) to surveil the entire economy and wield unilateral, unaccountable power:

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/elon-musk-weaponizes-the-government

In 2023, Farrell and Newman published an important book called Underground Empire, explaining how, during the War on Terror, GWB (and then Obama) weaponized global payment processing systems (most notably SWIFT) and other boring, technical systems, and then used them to wield enormous power around the world:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#the-other-swifties

Farrell and Newman's point isn't merely that this power was used unwisely or cruelly, but also that the co-opted systems had an actual, useful, important job to do – a job that was only possible if these systems were widely viewed as credibly neutral and apolitical. The book ends with a sobering message about the chaos on the horizon if (when) other countries walk away from these system, leaving infrastructure vacuums in their wake. In their new Lawfare piece, Farrell and Newman imply not just that Musk and Trump are fashioning a powerful weapon out of the nation's digital infrastructure, but also that this could permanently undermine the vital national systems they're seizing control over, with no obvious candidates to replace them.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are still trying to find their asses with both hands, even as voters across the nation bombard them with demands to actually do something. I'm gonna call my senators and rep right after I finish this and remind them that when South Korea's autocratic president attempted a coup, lawmakers stormed the capital, leaping the fences while livestreaming to voters:

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/06/democrats-congress-trump-musk-doge-calls

But not everyone is taking Musk's bullshit lying down. The AFL-CIO has led a coalition of unions in suing DOGE:

https://gizmodo.com/americas-unions-sue-doge-launch-the-department-of-people-who-work-for-a-living-2000559998

And they've launched a counterinitiative with the delightful name of "The Department of People Who Work for a Living":

https://deptofpeoplewhowork.org/

It's nice to see some inside/outside strategy underway. After all, Musk is cruel and disgusting, but he – and the lawyers and creeps who back him – are also very, very stupid, and they're fucking up all over the place.

Take shutting down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency charged with defending America from financial predators (e.g. would-be usurers hoping to turn their social media sites into payment processing platforms). Under Biden's CFPB chief Rohit Chopra, the Bureau was an absolute powerhouse, adopting rules, investigating scammers, and punishing wrongdoers, all in service to the American people:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/26/taanstafl/#stay-hungry

So naturally Musk and Trump have shut down the Bureau. But, as Adam Levitin writes for Credit Slips, this was a profoundly stupid move. You see, under Dodd-Frank – the post-2008 financial crisis law that created the CFPB – state attorneys general are empowered to enforce its rules. Those rules can't be amended or rescinded for so long as the CFPB is in a coma. What's more, any "violation of an enumerated consumer law is a violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act," which can be gone after by state AGs. Another thing: the Truth in Lending Act has a threshold for small loans, below which the Act doesn't apply. The CFPB is supposed to adjust that threshold for inflation, but without a CFPB, that threshold will be frozen in amber like the federal minimum wage, bringing every-larger constellations of financial activity within scope for AG enforcement in any or every state in the Union. Also: none of this can be changed without a 60-vote Senate majority. Nice one, Elon:

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2025/02/shutting-down-cfpb-is-not-like-shutting-down-usaid.html

That isn't the only way that Trump shot himself in the dick last week. As Luke Savage writes, threatening to put tariffs on Canadian goods (and to annex Canada and make it the 51st state) had a profound effect on Canadian politics:

https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/all-bets-are-off

Before last week, Justin Trudeau's political legacy seemed assured. His many leadership failures, along with a billionaire-funded dark-money hate-machine that targeted him with culture-war nonsense and climate denial all added up to record low approval ratings. It was so bad that Trudeau actually sent Parliament home (recklessly leaving Canada without a legislature on the eve of Trump's presidency) and resigned as Liberal Party leader.

A week ago, pretty much everyone in Canada figured that the Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was about to romp to victory with a Ba'ath-style Parliamentary majority. Poilievre was and is an extraordinarily weak candidate, a guy who has literally never had a job except for "politician," who nevertheless ran as a political outsider, leading a coalition of racists, climate exterminationists, xenophobes, forced-birth militants, and other cryptofascists and low-tax brain-worm victims. The threat of a Poilievre government with a commanding majority was frankly terrifying. Think of him as someone with Trump's agenda and Mitch McConnell's ruthless administrative competence. Trump is bad enough – but smart Trump? Nightmare.

Then came the Trump tariffs and the annexation threats, and overnight, the Tories' 20-point lead narrowed to a two-point lead, which continues to shrink. Poilievre's brand boils down to "Make Canada America Again" – dismantle medicare, smash unions, punish immigrants, ban abortion. With Canadians booing the American anthem at NFL and NBA games and Quebecois demonstrators waving maple-leaf flags, this is not a good time to be running as the America guy.

Don't get me wrong. Trudeau is terrible. Bill Clinton terrible, say. But Poilievre? A fucking monster. Canada's political future may just have been rescued by Trump's big, stupid mouth. Thanks, eh?

Meanwhile, south of the border, our American cousins keep getting fed into the corporate woodchipper. It's been just over a year since Mainers went to the polls and voted in a Right to Repair law with an 83% majority. But a year later, the law is foundering, amid a corporate legal blitz led by the automakers, who have also put Massachusetts' massive popular 2020 Right to Repair law on ice with endless lawfare. :

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/07/automakers-sue-to-kill-maines-hugely-popular-right-to-repair-law/

This is the status quo in America. As a highly influential, widely cited 2014 peer-reviewed study found:

economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

In other words, the only time the American people get what they demand is when giant corporations and oligarchs want it too. But when the plutes want something that the people despise, they almost always get their way.

Speaking of which, how's things going with Uber?

This week, Hubert Horan, the aviation industry analyst whose writings on Uber are the most important analysis of the company's business, investor scams, wage theft, and lobbying, published his long-awaited 34th research note on the company:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/hubert-horan-can-uber-ever-deliver-part-thirty-four-tony-wests-calamitous-legacy-at-uber-and-with-the-kamala-harris-campaign.html

This edition is devoted to Tony West, Uber's Chief Legal Officer, and also brother-in-law to Kamala Harris, as well as manager of her disastrous failure of a 2024 election campaign. West may have run a Democratic presidential campaign, but he epitomizes the corporate corruption that gave rise to Trump. As Horan writes, West's first major accomplishment at Uber was to get the company exonerated for intimidating customers who were raped by Uber drivers. But his obituary will lead with the fact that he got Prop 22 passed in Calfornia, legalizing Uber's worker misclassification gambit, which allows the company to pay well below minimum wage and evade all workplace protection laws.

It was West who tapped Silicon Valley's tech oligarchs for large-dollar donations to the Harris campaign, which presumably played a substantial role in Harri's unwillingness to take a tough line on Big Tech while on the trail, creating the (correct) impression among voters that Harris would stand up for big business over their own interests.

It's an important read, and it's a reminder that the Democrats lost the last election every bit as much as Trump won it, and that their paralysis in the face of a national crisis is absolutely in character for the Democratic Party.

But on the other hand, the antitrust surge in the US, UK, EU, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, and China (!) over the past five years are all the more remarkable and heartening in light of the dismal and corrupt state of world governments. After all, there is no billionaire-backed dark money lobby whipping up support for smashing corporate power. The antitrust victories of the 2020s marked a turning point – the first time in my memory when extremely popular policies that the wealthy hated triumphed.

Decapitating the agencies that made those policies won't change the enormous political rage that led to the antitrust surge. If anything, it will only feed it. Enforcers like Rohit Chopra, Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter did brilliant, important work – but they were only able to do it because of us. They're out of office, but we're still here. Don't ever forget that.

I certainly won't. This week, I turned in the edited manuscript for my next book, a nonfiction title called Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It, which Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish next October:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

The day I turned it in Ars Technica ran a huge package called "As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders," reeling off the most disgusting high-tech ripoffs trying to worm their way into your home and wallet:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/as-internet-enshittification-marches-on-here-are-some-of-the-worst-offenders/

This sparked an epic Reddit thread on r/NoStupidQuestions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/1ij42yh/what_are_some_other_examples_of_enshittification/

I love to see how giving a name and a description to this phenomenon has captured and directed some of that rage. And for the record, it doesn't bother me at all that some of these people are using "enshittification" to mean "corporations fucking shit up" without regard to my formal definition of the process. As I wrote last October:

Many people apply the term "enshittification" very loosely indeed, to mean "something that is bad," without bothering to learn – or apply – the theoretical framework. This is good. This is what it means for a term to enter the lexicon: it takes on a life of its own. If 10,000,000 people use "enshittification" loosely and inspire 10% of their number to look up the longer, more theoretical work I've done on it, that is one million normies who have been sucked into a discourse that used to live exclusively in the world of the most wonkish and obscure practitioners. The only way to maintain a precise, theoretically grounded use of a term is to confine its usage to a small group of largely irrelevant insiders. Policing the use of "enshittification" is worse than a self-limiting move – it would be a self-inflicted wound.

And also: there's a lot of stuff that's just shitty right now, which is one of the reasons my word's putting up such great numbers. People are getting fed up with it, in ways large…and small. Take the post-pandemic trend of using your phone in speaker-mode in public places. I'm a prison abolitionist, but I'll make an exception for people who do this. Display 'em in stocks. Chain 'em up by their wrists. Or, you know, do what they do in France: fine them €150 for using a speakerphone on the train:

https://www.thelocal.fr/20250206/french-train-passenger-fined-e150-for-using-phone-on-speaker

Speaking of gruesome tortures, the essential Long Forgotten blog has posted its extensive, thoughtful review of the changes to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. Very few people can write about built environment entertainment like Long Forgotten (the only other person who comes to mind is the excellent Foxx Nolte). Long Forgotten's verdict is "mostly good, but man, that new gift shop *suuuuucks:

https://longforgottenhauntedmansion.blogspot.com/2025/02/beyond-bride-other-changes-in-2025.html

OK, it's time for me to go and make my packing list for the tour. I'm going to leave you with a song. Last night, my pal Cynthia Hathaway turned me on to the Shotgun Jazz band, led by trumpeter/frontwoman Maria Dixon. If you like Louis Prima-style shout-singing, you'll love 'em – I bought everything they had on Bandcamp this morning:

https://www.shotgunjazzband.com/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/08/commixture/#petardhoists

Image: i ♥ happy!! (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Messy_storage_room_with_boxes.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Get Informed

Join the Trump Accountability War Room, which offers fact sheets on the bad actors in Donald Trump’s Cabinet and primers on their policies, and the AFL-CIO’s Department of People Who Work for a Living, which tracks how funding cuts are affecting federal workers.

Follow MeidasTouch Network, a pro-democracy news organization with a massive social media presence and a suite of podcasts. MeidasTouch personalities such as Leigh McGowan (a.k.a. PoliticsGirl) and Aaron Parnas have reinvigorated the resistance on TikTok, Instagram, and Substack.

Monitor constitutional oversteps and the legal challenges to Trump’s executive orders with Lawfare or Just Security.

Get Strategic

Explore Choose Democracy’s interactive Choose Your Own Adventure activity, which asks you to “guide us towards a better, more humane democracy.” In “What can I do to fight this coup?,” the group offers drop-down menus of resistance techniques arranged by level of difficulty. It also provides training agendas on everything from de-escalation to mutual aid.

Study Indivisible’s Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink, which shares strategies for defending the democratic process against authoritarian creep and a list of tactics constituents can use to pressure their elected officials.

Review the tool kits, how-to manuals, and informational leaflets at Build the Resistance’s comprehensive, crowdsourced resource hub.

Get Outside

Check NoVoiceUnheard, which compiles peaceful protest opportunities, viewable by state or by organization, across the country. For an even more expansive inventory, look at The Big List of Protests.

Brush up on your rights at the ACLU’s protesters’ rights page, which shares information on the kinds of locations where you are protected, when you need a permit, and what to do during a police encounter. Call the Resistance Hotline at 1-844-NVDA-NOW or email gotyerback@resistancehotline.org with your questions, and you’ll get a response within 24 hours.

Enlist with the ACLU’s “grassroots army” of volunteers working to safeguard civil liberties. Visit the program’s website for a wealth of actions, including signing the organization’s petitions, that will take just a few minutes.

Get out Your Wallet

Donate to legal defense and bail funds. The National Bail Fund Network maintains a directory of pretrial bail funds and immigration bond funds.

Get on the Phone

Call Congress using 5 Calls, which provides policy guides, office numbers for your representatives, and call scripts.

Get in the Way

Flood the Office of Personnel Management’s anti-DEI tip line at DEIAtruth@opm.gov to protect federal employees targeted by the Trump administration’s crackdown. —Kate Mabus

Timothy Noah

Timothy Noah is a New Republic staff writer and author of The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It.

[racefortheironthrone]

OK, I'll bite - what's the deal with the United Farm Workers? What were their strengths and weaknesses compared to other labor unions?

It is not an easy thing to talk about the UFW, in part because it wasn't just a union. At the height of its influence in the 1960s and 1970s, it was also a civil rights movement that was directly inspired by the SCLC campaigns of Martin Luther King and owed its success as much to mass marches, hunger strikes, media attention, and the mass mobilization of the public in support of boycotts that stretched across the United States and as far as Europe as it did to traditional strikes and picket lines.

It was also a social movement that blended powerful strains of Catholic faith traditions with Chicano/Latino nationalism inspired by the black power movement, that reshaped the identity of millions away from asimilation into white society and towards a fierce identification with indigeneity, and challenged the racist social hierarchy of rural California.

It was also a political movement that transformed Latino voting behavior, established political coalitions with the Kennedys, Jerry Brown, and the state legislature, that pushed through legislation and ran statewide initiative campaigns, and that would eventually launch the careers of generations of Latino politicians who would rise to the very top of California politics.

However, it was also a movement that ultimately failed in its mission to remake the brutal lives of California farmworkers, which currently has only 7,000 members when it once had more than 80,000, and which today often merely trades on the memory of its celebrated founders Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez rather than doing any organizing work.

To explain the strengths and weaknesses of the UFW, we have to start with some organizational history, because the UFW was the result of the merger of several organizations each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

The Origins of the UFW:

To explain the strengths and weaknesses of the UFW, we have to start with some organizational history, because the UFW was the result of the merger of several organizations each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

In the 1950s, both Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez were community organizers working for a group called the Community Service Organization (an affiliate of Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation) that sought to aid farmworkers living in poverty. Huerta and Chavez were trained in a novel strategy of grassroots, door-to-door organizing aimed not at getting workers to sign union cards, but to agree to host a house meeting where co-workers could gather privately to discuss their problems at work free from the surveillance of their bosses. This would prove to be very useful in organizing the fields, because unlike the traditional union model where organizers relied on the NRLB's rulings to directly access the factory floors, Central California farms were remote places where white farm owners and their white overseers would fire shotguns at brown "trespassers" (union-friendly workers, organizers, picketers).

In 1962, Chavez and Huerta quit CSO to found the National Farm Workers Association, which was really more of a worker center offering support services (chiefly, health care) to independent groups of largely Mexican farmworkers. In 1965, they received a request to provide support to workers dealing with a strike against grape growers in Delano, California.

In Delano, Chavez and Huerta met Larry Itliong of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which was a more traditional labor union of migrant Filipino farmworkers who had begun the strike over sub-minimum wages. Itliong wanted Chavez and Huerta to organize Mexican farmworkers who had been brought in as potential strikebreakers and get them to honor the picket line.

The result of their collaboration was the formation of the United Farm Workers as a union of the AFL-CIO. The UFW would very much be marked by a combination of (and sometimes conflict between) AWOC's traditional union tactics - strikes, pickets, card drives, employer-based campaigns, and collective bargaining for union contracts - and NFWA's social movement strategy of marches, boycotts, hunger strikes, media campaigns, mobilization of liberal politicians, and legislative campaigns.

1965 to 1970: the Rise of the UFW:

While the strike starts with 2,000 Filipino workers and 1,200 Mexican families targeting Delano area growers, it quickly expanded to target more growers and bring more workers to the picket lines, eventually culminating in 10,000 workers striking against the whole of the table grape growers of California across the length and breadth of California.

Throughout 1966, the UFW faced extensive violence from the growers, from shotguns used as "warning shots" to hand-to-hand violence, to driving cars into pickets, to turning pesticide-spraying machines onto picketers. Local police responded to the violence by effectively siding with the growers, and would arrest UFW picketers for the crime of calling the police.

Chavez strongly emphasized a non-violent response to the growers' tactics - to the point of engaging in a Gandhian hunger strike against his own strikers in 1968 to quell discussions about retaliatory violence - but also began to employ a series of civil rights tactics that sought to break what had effectively become a stalemate on the picket line by side-stepping the picket lines altogether and attacking the growers on new fronts.

First, he sought the assistance of outside groups and individuals who would be sympathetic to the plight of the farmworker and could help bring media attention to the strike - UAW President Walter Reuther and Senator Robert Kennedy both visited Delano to express their solidarity, with Kennedy in particular holding hearings that shined a light on the issue of violence and police violations of the civil rights of UFW picketers.

Second, Chavez hit on the tactic of using boycotts as a way of exerting economic pressure on particular growers and leveraging the solidarity of other unions and consumers - the boycotts began when Chavez enlisted Dolores Huerta to follow a shipment of grapes from Schenley Industries (the first grower to be boycotted) to the Port of Oakland. There, Huerta reached out to the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and persuaded them to honor the boycott and refuse to handle non-union grapes. Schenley's grapes started to rot on the docks, cutting them off from the market, and between the effects of union solidarity and growing consumer participation in the UFW's boycotts, the growers started to come under real economic pressure as their revenue dropped despite a record harvest.

Throughout the rest of the Delano grape strike, Dolores Huerta would be the main organizer of the national and internal boycotts, travelling across the country (and eventually all the way to the UK) to mobilize unions and faith groups to form boycott committees and boycott houses in major cities that in turn could educate and mobilize ordinary consumers through a campaign of leafleting and picketing at grocery stores.

Third, the UFW organized the first of its marches, a 300-mile trek from Delano to the state capital of Sacramento aimed at drawing national attention to the grape strike and attempting to enlist the state government to pass labor legislation that would give farmworkers the right to organize. Carefully organized by Cesar Chavez to draw on Mexican faith traditions, the march would be labelled a "pilgrimage," and would be timed to begin during Lent and culminate during Easter. In addition to American flags and the UFW banner, the march would be led by "pilgrims" carrying a banner of Our Lady of Guadelupe.

While this strategy was ultimately effective in its goal of influencing the broader Latino community in California to see the UFW as not just a union but a vehicle for the broader aspirations of the whole Latino community for equality and social justice, what became known in Chicano circles as La Causa, the emphasis on Mexican symbolism and Chicano identity contributed to a growing tension with the Filipino half of the UFW, who felt that they were being sidelined in a strike they had started.

Nevertheless, by the time that the UFW's pilgrimage arrived at Sacramento, news broke that they had won their first breakthrough in the strike as Schenley Industries (which had been suffering through a four-month national boycott of its products) agreed to sign the first UFW union contract, delivering a much-needed victory.

As the strike dragged on, growers were not passively standing by - in addition to doubling down on the violence by hiring strikebreakers to assault pro-UFW farmworkers, growers turned to the Teamsters Union as a way of pre-empting the UFW, either by pre-emptively signing contracts with the Teamsters or effectively backing the Teamsters in union elections.

Part of the darker legacy of the Teamsters is that, going all the back to the 1930s, they have a nasty habit of raiding other unions, and especially during their mobbed-up days would work with the bosses to sign sweetheart deals that allowed the Teamsters to siphon dues money from workers (who had not consented to be represented by the Teamsters, remember) while providing nothing in the way of wage increases or improved working conditions, usually in exchange for bribes and/or protection money from the employers. Moreover, the Teamsters had no compunction about using violence to intimidate rank-and-file workers and rival unions in order to defend their "paper locals" or win a union election. This would become even more of an issue later on, but it started up as early as 1966.

Moreover, the growers attempted to adapt to the UFW's boycott tactics by sharing labels, such that a boycotted company would sell their products under the guise of being from a different, non-boycotted company. This forced the UFW to change its boycott tactics in turn, so that instead of targeting individual growers for boycott, they now asked unions and consumers alike to boycott all table grapes from the state of California.

By 1970, however, the growing strength of the national grape boycott forced no fewer than 26 Delano grape growers to the bargaining table to sign the UFW's contracts. Practically overnight, the UFW grew from a membership of 10,000 strikers (none of whom had contracts, remember) to nearly 70,000 union members covered by collective bargaining agreements.

1970 to 1978: The UFW Confronts Internal and External Crises

Up until now, I've been telling the kind of simple narrative of gradual but inevitable social progress that U.S history textbooks like, the Hollywood story of an oppressed minority that wins a David and Goliath struggle against a violent, racist oligarchy through the kind of non-violent methods that make white allies feel comfortable and uplifted. (It's not an accident that the bulk of the 2014 film Cesar Chavez starring Michael Peña covers the Delano Grape Strike.)

It's also the period in which the UFW's strengths as an organization that came out of the community organizing/civil rights movement were most on display. In the eight years that followed, however, the union would start to experience a series of crises that would demonstrate some of the weaknesses of that same institutional legacy. As Matt Garcia describes in From the Jaws of Victory, in the wake of his historic victory in 1970, Cesar Chavez began to inflict a series of self-inflicted injuries on the UFW that crippled the functioning of the union, divided leadership and rank-and-file alike, and ultimately distracted from the union's external crises at a time when the UFW could not afford to be distracted.

That's not to say that this period was one of unbroken decline - as we'll discuss, the UFW would win many victories in this period - but the union's forward momentum was halted and it would spend much of the 1970s trying to get back to where it was at the very start of the decade.

To begin with, we should discuss the internal contradictions of the UFW: one of the major features of the UFW's new contracts was that they replaced the shape-up with the hiring hall. This gave the union an enormous amount of power in terms of hiring, firing and management of employees, but the quid-pro-quo of this system is that it puts a significant administrative burden on the union. Not only do you have to have to set up policies that fairly decide who gets work and when, but you then have to even-handedly enforce those policies on a day-to-day basis in often fraught circumstances - and all of this is skilled white-collar labor.

This ran into a major bone of contention within the movement. When the locus of the grape strike had shifted from the fields to the urban boycotts, this had made a new constituency within the union - white college-educated hippies who could do statistical research, operate boycott houses, and handle media campaigns. These hippies had done yeoman's work for the union and wanted to keep on doing that work, but they also needed to earn enough money to pay the rent and look after their growing families, and in general shift from being temporary volunteers to being professional union staffers.

This ran head-long into a buzzsaw of racial and cultural tension. Similar to the conflicts over the role of white volunteers in CORE/SNCC during the Civil Rights Movement, there were a lot of UFW leaders and members who had come out of the grassroots efforts in the field who felt that the white college kids were making a play for control over the UFW. This was especially driven by Cesar Chavez' religiously-inflected ideas of Catholic sacrifice and self-denial, embodied politically as the idea that a salary of $5 a week (roughly $30 a week in today's money) was a sign of the purity of one's "missionary work." This worked itself out in a series of internicene purges whereby vital college-educated staff were fired for various crimes of ideological disunity.

This all would have been survivable if Chavez had shown any interest in actually making the union and its hiring halls work. However, almost from the moment of victory in 1970, Chavez showed almost no interest in running the union as a union - instead, he thought that the most important thing was relocating the UFW's headquarters to a commune in La Paz, or creating the Poor People's Union as a way to organize poor whites in the San Joaquin Valley, or leaving the union altogether to become a Catholic priest, or joining up with the Synanon cult to run criticism sessions in La Paz. In the mean-time, a lot of the UFW's victories were withering on the vine as workers in the fields got fed up with hiring halls that couldn't do their basic job of making sure they got sufficient work at the right wages.

Externally, all of this was happening during the second major round of labor conflicts out in the fields. As before, the UFW faced serious conflicts with the Teamsters, first in the so-called "Salad Bowl Strike" that lasted from 1970-1971 and was at the time the largest and most violent agricultural strike in U.S history - only then to be eclipsed in 1973 with the second grape strike. Just as with the Salinas strike, the grape growers in 1973 shifted to a strategy of signing sweetheart deals with the Teamsters - and using Teamster muscle to fight off the UFW's new grape strike and boycott. UFW pickets were shot at and killed in drive-byes by Teamster trucks, who then escalated into firebombing pickets and UFW buildings alike.

After a year of violence, reduced support from the rank-and-file, and declining resources, Chavez and the UFW felt that their backs were up against a wall - and had to adjust their tactics accordingly. With the election of Jerry Brown as governor in 1974, the UFW pivoted to a strategy of pressuring the state government to enact a California Agricultural Labor Relations Act that would give agricultural workers the right to organize, and with that all the labor protections normally enjoyed by industrial workers under the Federal National Labor Relations Act - at the cost of giving up the freedom to boycott and conduct secondary strikes which they had had as outsiders to the system.

This led to the semi-miraculous Modesto March, itself a repeat of the Delano-to-Sacramento march from the 1960s. Starting as just a couple hundred marchers in San Francisco, the March swelled to as many as 15,000-strong by the time that it reached its objective at Modesto. This caused a sudden sea-change in the grape strike, bringing the growers and the Teamsters back to the table, and getting Jerry Brown and the state legislature to back passage of California Agricultural Labor Relations Act.

This proved to be the high-water mark for the UFW, which swelled to a peak of 80,000 members. The problem was that the old problems within the UFW did not go away - victory in 1975 didn't stop Chavez and his Chicano constituency feuding with more distinctively Mexican groups within the movement over undocumented immigration, nor feuding with Filipino constituencies over a meeting with Ferdinand Marcos, and nor escalating these internal conflicts into a series of leadership purges.

Conclusion: Decline and Fall

At the same time, the new alliance with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board proved to be a difficult one for the UFW. While establishment of the agency proved to be a major boon for the UFW, which won most of the free elections under CALRA (all the while continuing to neglect the critical hiring hall issue), the state legislature badly underfunded ALRB, forcing the agency to temporarily shut down. The UFW responded by sponsoring Prop 14 in the 1976 elections to try to empower ALRB, and then got very badly beaten in that election cycle - and then, when Republican George Deukmejian was elected in 1983, the ALRB was largely defunded and unable to achieve its original elective goals.

In the wake of Deukmejian, the UFW went into terminal decline. Most of its best organizers had left or been purged in internal struggles, their contracts failed to succeed over the long run due to the hiring hall problem, and the union basically stopped organizing new members after 1986.

[thecioconnect]

Unlocking Innovation: 5 Insights for Board Thought Leadership

https://thecioconnect.com/unlocking-innovation-5-essential-insights-for-your-boards-thought-leadership/

Emphasize innovation's role in resilience, link thought leadership to ROI, establish long-term strategies, align innovation with governance, and meet customer expectations proactively.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

Dozens of environmental, labor and health care groups banded together on Monday to file a petition to push the Federal Emergency Management Agency to declare extreme heat and wildfire smoke as “major disasters,” like floods and tornadoes.

The petition is a major push to get the federal government to help states and local communities that are straining under the growing costs of climate change.

If accepted, the petition could unlock FEMA funds to help localities prepare for heat waves and wildfire smoke by building cooling centers or installing air filtration systems in schools. The agency could also help during emergencies by paying for water distribution, health screenings for vulnerable people and increased electricity use.

“Major disaster declarations really open up the broadest pockets of funding that FEMA has available,” said Jean Su, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, and the lead author of the petition. “State and local governments are severely ill equipped and underfunded to even deal with emergency measures.”

A Forecast for Heat

It’s been the hottest year on record, the Northeast is bracing for its first severe heat of the year and the Times is tracking extreme heat around the world.

The support of major labor groups like the A.F.L.-CIO and the Service Employees International Union is part of a broader strategy from unions to create protection for the tens of millions of people working outside or without air-conditioning during heat waves. Unions want the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to require employers to protect workers from extreme temperatures. The White House has pushed officials at the Labor Department, which oversees OSHA, to publish a draft heat regulation this summer. But major business and industry groups, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are opposed to any new requirements.

Labor groups and workers’ rights organizations hope that, if the petition to FEMA is accepted, there would be more pressure for employers to address heat in the workplace.

[cryptobreakingnews]

Bitcoin for Corporations Symposium gathers Bitcoin Treasury Leaders in Hong Kong

Full-Day Symposium at Bitcoin Asia to Spotlight Treasury Strategies, APAC Momentum, and New Corporate Adoption HONG KONG – July 24, 2025 – The Bitcoin for Corporations (BFC) Symposium will be held on Wednesday, August 28, bringing its influential full-day program to the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong. Running on The Bitcoin for Corporations Stage, the symposium will convene leading executives, institutional allocators, and public companies navigating the next phase of Bitcoin adoption in the corporate world and will be accessible to Pro and Whale Pass holders. Set against a backdrop of accelerating macroeconomic volatility and a shifting capital markets landscape, this edition of The BFC Symposium is expected to draw strong attendance from listed companies, family offices, and private firms across the APAC region, including confirmed participation from Metaplanet, Moon Inc. (1723.HK), and NaaS. “CFOs don’t put Bitcoin on the balance sheet because it’s trendy; they do it because math doesn’t lie. Fiat’s a melting ice cube, and in 2025, ignoring Bitcoin isn’t conservative—it’s reckless,” said George Mekhail, Managing Director of Bitcoin for Corporations. Speaker Highlights Include: David Bailey, CEO, Nakamoto Andrew Webely, CEO, The Smarter Web Co Simon Gerovich, CEO, Metaplanet Dylan LeClair, Director of Bitcoin Strategy, Metaplanet Matt Cole, CEO, Strive Mark Moss, Advisor, Matador Tyler Evans, co-founder and CIO of UTXO Management ... and more Attendees can expect a program packed with firsthand treasury case studies, expert discussions through firesides and panels, and high-conviction conversations about the evolving corporate Bitcoin landscape. From governance strategies to custody frameworks, the event equips decision-makers with the tools, data, and partners they need to execute a successful Bitcoin strategy. New announcements are anticipated during the symposium, including fresh corporate treasury allocations, strategic partnerships, and enterprise service rollouts. These announcements signal a maturing market — and the institutional appetite to match. Why Hong Kong? With renewed regulatory clarity, deep capital markets infrastructure, and a strategic position as a gateway into Asia, Hong Kong is primed to lead institutional Bitcoin adoption in the region. The local interest has been strong, and it's growing. Key Themes and Resources: Open-source corporate Bitcoin playbook, developed by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) Custody & compliance architecture Board-level governance strategies Risk-adjusted growth models Institutional vendor matchmaking Global treasury benchmarks & APAC-specific insights “The number one blocker is career risk. CFOs want to future-proof their balance sheet — but without risking their job. BFC helps them speak fluently to boards and act from strength, not speculation,” added Mekhail. The Bitcoin for Corporations Symposium at Bitcoin Asia marks a pivotal moment for companies reevaluating their capital strategies in a world defined by fiat monetary debasement, geopolitical instability, and asymmetric opportunities. About Bitcoin for Corporations (BFC) Bitcoin for Corporations is BTC Inc.’s flagship enterprise initiative, offering corporations the tools, frameworks, and relationships necessary to integrate Bitcoin into treasury and operations. BFC supports leading organisations with education, strategic guidance, and access to a growing network of aligned corporate executives, investors, and service providers. Learn more at: b.tc/corporations About BTC Inc. BTC Inc. is the parent company of Bitcoin Magazine, the original and most trusted source for Bitcoin news and education, and producer of The Bitcoin Conference, the largest and most influential Bitcoin event in the world. Headquartered in Nashville, BTC Inc. builds media, data, events, and advocacy products that accelerate Bitcoin adoption around the globe.