In this decade, technology forward, smart cities evolved to come close to the futures we were presented in Science Fiction. With advancements in technology and the availability of data and tools to city leadership and management teams, we are living in an era of technology leveraged to better constituents’ lives by empowering public services to better predict and respond. 

Cities with governments that leverage this technology are often referred to as “Smart Cities”, but there isn’t a formal definition in order to qualify. Cities that do get categorized as a “Smart City” are typically an urban area that utilizes data collection and analysis, Information of Things (IoT), and information and communications technologies to better the lives of, and deliver services to, their population.

In our highly digitized industry, we often hunger for offline interactions with other people. Here in Los Angeles, there is no shortage of events and entertainment, but the work behind the scenes to grow and scale a community is no small feat. At Facet Interactive, we’ve employed the use of various technologies and tools to automate the process of hosting and managing meetups.

Every two weeks, we host the South Bay Tech Happy Hour. To keep our audience up to date and engaged, we...

In a previous blog post, we detailed how we automate the pre-interview portion of our hiring process. Before continuing here, make sure you read through the pre-interview automation first as the post-interview automation builds on that. 

After the applicant answers our pre-interview questions with our chatbot, the next phase is a phone interview. Nothing to automate further here, we simply look to validate the information we’ve collected already in our previous automation and get a feel for the candidate’s personality and experience. The stories candidates tell us will later be validated with the reference check process, which brings us here today. 

“Have you considered better time management?” 

A hateful curse, often proffered when we’re “too busy”, “too behind”, too, too, too—

It’s not a poor observation. Time is our life’s currency. The one thing that we have to spend in almost any way we want, day in and day out. 

But time management doesn’t make you more productive. There is no recipe to chop up 24 hours 40 different ways to inch towards the 400 things you want to achieve in your lifetime. 

Whereas the minimalism and empty space of a journal creates a canvas for expression, the structure and satisfaction of a checkbox completed creates a sense of accomplishment. 

We use different mediums for different outcomes in our daily lives and our work. Between the blank sheet of a notebook or journal, and a well-structured daily checklist — we somehow find balance between the organic, spontaneous, and oh-shit-that’s-due-today nature of our lives.