Low-Code and No-Code Design Is the Future of Website Building

Low-code and no-code platforms are building sites that are just as impressive as ones built by skilled developers, and do it in less than half the time of their counterparts.

The low-code and no-code web design movements are going through a renaissance. Every day, low-code and no-code website building platforms are releasing new features, innovations and solutions to continuously bridge the gap between what someone with nearly zero coding skills can accomplish and a full-fledged developer.

After all, why would any web professional waste time and resources on new code when a low-code or no-code platform can do the same thing in half the time? Web professionals and agencies everywhere are starting to reap the benefits granted by using these website-building platforms, which range from faster scaling to automated structuring for high-ranking SEO.

It’s important to identify the key factors behind the upward trend of low-code and no-code and fully grasp the benefits it passes on to businesses.

What exactly is low code and no code?

Low code and no code are widely defined as visual approaches to web development. With low code and no code, website building platforms can automate nearly every step of the development process and streamline builds, drastically increasing development speed for web professionals.

There are two main areas of low-code and no-code development. One type is design-first platforms, which allow web professionals to build visually engaging web applications. These usually have a strong focus on the design of a website, automating scaling and positioning to look flawless across all devices. These platforms are great when developers want to quickly produce external-facing web applications for their customers. These design-first platforms, such as Webflow, Duda and Bubble, are seeing the largest growth in popularity, due to their visual aspects and their wide range of clientele. The gap between what professional developers and people without any coding experience can do is becoming narrower with the rise of innovations in low-code website building platforms. 

The other type is functionality-first platforms. These were built around providing functionality and are best used as internal tools to automate IT processes swiftly. Examples of these platforms include Airtable, Google App Maker and Creatio. Large-scale organizations make heavy use of functionality-first platforms because they have a strong need for internal systems that help align data, processes and teams. This enables these businesses to better connect with digital native customers and rapidly adapt when new tools are integrated into their data systems.

Complete article at Entrepreneur India

Research: Informal Leadership Comes at a Cost

Summary.   

Encouraging up-and-coming talent to take on informal leadership of a team or project is a great way to support both employees and their entire teams, but new research suggests that these duties can also take a toll on informal leaders’ job satisfaction and energy levels. The authors conducted a series of studies with students and professionals in the U.S. and Taiwan, and identified a significant inverse correlation between informal leadership and both energy levels and satisfaction rates. They also found that support from formal leaders can mitigate these effects: When people’s formal leaders were unsupportive, informal leaders reported energy levels 20% lower than non-leaders, but with enough support, the difference actually completely disappeared. Based on these findings, the authors offer strategies to help both formal managers and informal leaders reap the benefits of informal leadership while minimizing its negative side effects.

As an informal leader on my team, I’m often responsible not just for meeting my own goals, but also for managing and making decisions on team tasks. Even though these tasks are not mine to complete, I have to put in extra work to help my peers deal with them — and that can be really exhausting.

One of the best ways managers can both support employees’ professional development and improve their entire team’s performance is by encouraging promising talent to take on informal leadership responsibilities. Stepping in and leading a team or project can give up-and-coming leaders valuable experience and prepare them for formal supervisory or management roles in the future, while also adding value to the entire organization.

Complete Article at HBR

Why A Growth Mindset Is Essential For Career Success

Mindset is everything. Whether you’re talking about career success, starting your own business, getting through a tough workout or being a parent, having the right mindset can make the difference between success and failure. The concept of mindset can’t be discussed without mentioning Carol Dweck and her insightful book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck discovered the power of mindset. In her book, she outlines the differences between a fixed and growth mindset—showing how success in almost every area of life can be influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. Once we harness the power of a growth mentality, studies show that it can be essential for career success.

Fixed vs. growth mindset

A fixed mindset assumes that our intelligence, character and creative ability are static. Basically, you are dealt a hand in life and are required to accept it. Believing that your qualities are set in stone creates a desire to prove yourself over and over again. A fixed mindset can result in career stagnation.

On the other hand, a growth mindset is based on the idea that your essential qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. It assumes that everyone can change and grow through experience and practice. A growth mentality sees failure not as a detriment, but as a springboard to success. Failing is actually a form of learning. In one study conducted by Dweck with children, she offered four-year-olds a choice. They could either redo an easy jigsaw puzzle or try a harder one. Those with a fixed mindset chose the easier puzzles that would affirm their existing ability. They wanted to make sure they succeeded to seem smart. The children with a growth mindset tried to stretch themselves because their definition of success was about becoming smarter. In her book, Dweck writes, “After thirty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.”

1. Embrace failure

Fostering a growth mentality involves viewing failure as a positive rather than a negative. Everyone has setbacks. The key is to learn from each one and improve your decision making. Wildly successful people typically fail their way to success. Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school three times before getting his big break. Even Oprah Winfrey was fired from her news coanchor position at a Baltimore TV station before going on to build a successful daytime talk show. A producer reportedly told her that she was “unfit for television news.” Oprah later said, "I had no idea what I was in for or that this was going to be the greatest growing period of my adult life.”

Complete Article at Forbes

 

A culture of learning: How to build it and why it's so important now – Perspectives 2021

As companies return to the office, it is important for businesses to make the most of the opportunity. They need to break away from the past and transform their workplace learning culture.

Over the last 18 months, most businesses had the opportunity to optimize their business operations. Throughout this time, companies have optimized their talent strategies, reassessed their digital strategy, products, and services, scaled up operations, and identified new market opportunities. At the heart of these shifts is a workplace culture that supports continuous learning that is agile, adaptive, and resilient.

At the opening keynote of the India edition of Skillsoft’s Perspectives Conference 2021, Ester Martinez, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, People Matters spoke about “Why its important to build a culture of learning, and how to build it.” Here are some key takeaways from her session:

Work, skills, and the workplace

As businesses resume ‘back to office’ operations, it’s not going to be business as usual in a pre-pandemic sense.  “Work is going to be about what I do, not a place I go to,” Ester noted. The real opportunity for businesses to consider is to rethink the workplace – as a place to foster team engagement, co-create strategy and to collaborate on innovation.

The critical questions that HR leaders need to think about is:

How to architect work?

What are the skills that employees need to navigate work? 

How do you enable employees to organize their work, and personal life? 

The pandemic has helped companies learn a lot about work-life. There’s a need to reflect on how much work can be done synchronously and asynchronously? And what are the capabilities and skills that are needed to help people work in both dimensions? Finding the right blend of synchronous, and asynchronous dimensions in work and learning will be necessary in the new work context.

Complete Article at People matter