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The ChatGPT Tab Isn’t the Product Anymore

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A regional insurer's claims lead opens her laptop and unpins the ChatGPT tab she's kept open for two years. The tool still works fine. The problem is that her team kept hitting the same wall: the model couldn't see the policy language, adjuster notes, and state-by-state endorsements that make her job her job. Every answer had to be hand-fed context, then double-checked.

The subscription was being paid. The work wasn't getting done.

That claims lead is a composite of a pattern showing up across industries right now. The generic AI subscription — one seat, one chat window, one model trained on the open internet — is losing ground to something a lot more specific: a private model that reads the company's own documents, follows the company's own workflows, and lives inside the company's own security perimeter. This week DEV.co launched cstm.ai, a custom AI development practice built around private, public, and enterprise-grade LLM deployments wired into a client's own data and workflows.

The Tab Hits a Wall the Vendor Can't See

The first six months with a general-purpose assistant look great. People draft faster, summarize meetings, clean up emails. Then the questions get harder.

What did we agree to in the master services agreement with that vendor in 2023? Which of our 14 underwriting rules apply to this submission? What's the exact wording our compliance team approved for this disclosure?

The model has no way to know. Nothing in its training set includes the company's proprietary contracts, internal rulebooks, or the three Slack channels where the real decisions get made.

So the human on the other end copies and pastes, redacts, re-prompts, and eventually gives up and does the task the old way. The subscription becomes a writing aid instead of a decision tool. For most of the money, that's a bad trade.

The Replacement Is a Model That Reads Your Documents

The architecture most teams land on isn't a fine-tuned foundation model built from scratch — that's expensive and rarely necessary. It's retrieval-augmented generation: a pipeline that indexes the company's own documents, pulls the relevant passages at query time, and feeds them to the model as grounded context. IBM's explainer frames RAG as a way to connect a model to authoritative sources it wasn't trained on, including proprietary enterprise data, so answers reflect what the business actually knows rather than what the public web happened to contain.

That shift changes what the claims lead sees on screen. The question is the same. The answer now cites the specific policy section, the specific endorsement, the specific adjuster note. If a passage doesn't exist, the system says so rather than inventing one.

Hallucination doesn't vanish, but it gets a much shorter leash. This is the capability a custom build delivers that a generic subscription cannot.

Custom Software Engineering Is Where This Lives or Dies

A RAG pipeline is easy to demo and hard to run. The messy work is everything around the model: ingesting PDFs that were scanned sideways in 2011, chunking contracts so clauses don't get split in half, keeping permissions intact so a junior analyst can't retrieve the CEO's compensation memo, logging every query for audit, and wiring the whole thing into the systems people already use. That's custom software work, not a plugin.

That missing integration layer is what the market is responding to. The firms that already do custom software engineering are the ones best positioned to make AI fit a specific business, because most of the hard problems are integration problems rather than model problems.

The Economics Change When the Model Starts Doing Real Work

Per-seat subscriptions make sense when the tool is a writing aid used occasionally by individuals. They stop making sense when the model is handling a step in an actual business process — triaging claims, drafting first-pass responses, pulling the right contract clause into a renewal. At that point the question isn't how many seats to buy. It's what the system is worth per decision it supports, and whether the company owns the thing doing the work.

Ownership is the quiet reason the generic subscription is losing ground. A custom build gives the business the model configuration, the retrieval pipeline, the prompts, the evaluation harness, and the code around all of it. The subscription gives the business a login.

Back to the claims lead: she doesn't need a better chat window. She needs a system that knows what her company already knows, keeps it inside the walls, and gives her a straight answer with a citation. The ChatGPT tab was unlikely to ever be that. Something built for her finally can be.

Who a Mini Facelift Suits, and Who It Leaves Undercorrected

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Who a Mini Facelift Suits, and Who It Leaves Undercorrected

The mini facelift sells itself on modest terms: smaller incisions, a shorter operation and a faster return to normal life. Those terms hold for the right face. For a face with more advanced sagging, the same smaller operation can leave the main problem in place.

Leo Lapuerta, MD, FACS, a Houston-area triple board-certified plastic surgeon with more than 30 years of experience, performs both the mini lift and more extensive facelift techniques. His practice’s overview of the mini facelift spells out where the operation stops. Its answers to common patient questions, in particular, sketch a clear candidate profile.

The case for the smaller operation

A mini facelift focuses on the jawline, the chin and the lower half of the face, along with the neck. Dr. Lapuerta places small incisions around the hairline and behind the ears, removes excess skin and repositions what remains for a smoother, lifted look.

The practice lists the operation at two to three hours, done as an outpatient procedure under local anesthesia with sedation or under general anesthesia, depending on the patient’s needs. Most patients go home the same day. The practice says most return to light activities within one week and resume more strenuous activity after about two weeks, with mild swelling and bruising in the first few days.

Results, according to the practice, can last five to 10 years with proper care, depending on skin quality and the natural course of aging. Sun protection and a healthy lifestyle can extend them.

Signs the mini lift fits

The practice describes the ideal patient as someone with mild to moderate aging in the lower face and neck. The profile looks like this:

  • Sagging or loose skin along the jawline or chin, or a loss of definition there
  • Early jowls or a softening of facial definition
  • A wish for subtle improvement that still shows
  • Good overall health and realistic expectations about the result
  • A preference for a shorter recovery over a more extensive operation

The practice adds a sharper line: the mini facelift is geared toward patients who have minimal skin laxity.

Signs it will fall short

The practice also states that most patients considering a facelift have moderate to severe skin and tissue laxity and are better served by other facelift techniques, which Dr. Lapuerta also performs. It names several situations where the smaller lift comes up short.

  • Aging above the jawline. A full facelift addresses more extensive signs of aging, including the mid-face and upper face. The mini lift concentrates on the lower face and neck.
  • Heavy excess skin. Patients with significant facial aging or loose skin may benefit more from a full facelift, according to the practice.
  • Volume loss as the main issue. The practice points patients with minimal laxity and volume loss toward injectables and fat injections.

The cost of undercorrection

Choosing the smaller operation for a face with moderate to severe laxity risks undercorrection: a lift that tightens the jawline while leaving looser tissue elsewhere in the face. A smaller scar and a quicker week back at work count for less if the sagging that prompted the visit remains.

The opposite mistake exists too. For a patient with minimal laxity or modest volume loss, the practice says a combination of BOTOX, facial fillers and fat injections may achieve a degree of lift and restore volume, and Dr. Lapuerta can help decide whether that route or a mini facelift fits better.

Settling the question in the exam room

The deciding factor is anatomy, assessed in person. During consultation Dr. Lapuerta reviews medical history and aesthetic goals, then examines the degree of laxity in the skin and tissue. Patients who want to address the eyes or brow at the same time can add eyelid surgery or a forehead lift to a mini facelift, which the practice says lets them treat several areas with one surgery and one recovery.

Any facial surgery carries risks, and those should be part of the same conversation. A patient who brings recent photos from several angles, and an honest account of which change bothers them most, gives the exam a sharper starting point.

This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. Results vary from patient to patient. Consult a board-certified plastic surgeon or your physician about your own situation. Written in partnership with Joseph Lambert, a publicist working with Leo Lapuerta, MD Plastic Surgery.

A Community for Women Who Want to Rise While Staying Grounded Is Now Open on Skool

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A Community for Women Who Want to Rise While Staying Grounded Is Now Open on Skool

Olivia Ramirez Smith, founder of The Mother Earth Effect Community.

The line at the top of The Mother Earth Effect Community on Skool says who it is for: women who want to rise while staying grounded. Olivia Ramirez Smith opened the community this fall, and she means both halves of that sentence.

Most wellness spaces ask a woman to slow down. Most career spaces ask her to speed up. A woman who wants a promotion, a business of her own, or a healthier savings account usually has to leave one room to enter the other, and she learns to keep her ambition and her exhaustion in separate conversations.

Olivia Ramirez Smith built one room for both.

The community is free, private, and open to women only. Members meet on monthly Zoom circles built around Earth-based rituals and the turning of the seasons. They practice grounding together for balance and clarity. A guest speaker joins each month, and podcast episodes carry the conversation between calls. The education covers holistic health, personal finance, and self-care, along with what she calls the art of feminine connection.

The Mother Earth Effect Community on Skool.
The Mother Earth Effect Community on Skool.

Personal finance sits on that list on purpose, and she knows the rising half from the inside. She opened New Image and J. Michaels in Victorville, California, in 1999, grew it to a team of fifty, and ran it for two decades. She founded The Mother Earth Effect LLC at sixty-two.

Her argument concerns what ambition runs on. You can push through a quarter on adrenaline and coffee. You cannot push through a decade that way, and many of the women Olivia Ramirez Smith met in her treatment rooms had tried.

Grounding is her answer to that problem. Known around the world as The Earthing Ambassador, she advocates for direct contact between the body and the surface of the earth: bare feet on grass, sand, or soil. Researchers studying the practice have reported effects on sleep, on markers associated with inflammation, and on the settling of the nervous system. She presents that research as a reason to try the practice and says in print and from wellness conference stages around the country that grounding is not a treatment and does not replace a physician.

The circles give the practice a schedule. A woman who reads about grounding on a Sunday and plans to start on Monday tends to start in April. A woman who knows her circle will ask about it next month starts that week.

The monthly speakers take the room past wellness. A session on money can follow a session on sleep, and the same women attend both. A member who joined to feel calmer can leave the year with a clearer plan for her next ten.

Her training shapes how the conversations run. Olivia Ramirez Smith is a Master Neurolinguistic Practitioner (NLP) and a certified Mental and Emotional Release (MER) specialist, and both disciplines listen for the quiet rules a woman lives by. I have to earn rest. I cannot ask for more. A circle that hears those sentences spoken aloud gives the woman saying them a chance to hear them too.

Her books reach the same women at a larger scale. The Mother Earth Effect, a number one best-seller with a foreword by Mariel Hemingway, carries twenty-one contributing women alongside her. Sacred Spaces: Subtle Shifts for Mind, Body, and Home Transformation, the Colleen Avis-led collaboration that won the Books for Peace International Award, was her first number one. The film she co-produced, The Earthing Movie, featuring Clint Ober, Strategic Partner, has reached over 8 million global views.

For the deepest version of the work, Sole Rooted runs six days at Gaia Villa in Joshua Tree, twelve women at a time, with entry by a one-on-one Zoom with her. The community is the version a woman can reach from her kitchen table on a weeknight.

Women can request a place, at no cost, at skool.com/the-mother-earth-effect-8045.

Olivia Ramirez Smith spent twenty years watching capable women run on empty while they built careers, families, and businesses. The community gives them somewhere to refill on a monthly rhythm while they keep building.

More on Olivia Ramirez Smith’s books, the Sole Rooted retreat and her work as The Earthing Ambassador at her official site.

National vs. Local Giving: Which Does More

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Neither national nor local giving is better in general. They fail and succeed at different things, and the honest answer depends on which weakness you are least willing to accept. National organizations buy scale, infrastructure, and the ability to work on causes rather than symptoms. Local organizations buy context, speed, and accountability you can actually observe. Choosing well means deciding which of those you need, not deciding which type of organization is superior.

What national organizations are genuinely better at

Absorbing fixed costs

Evaluation, legal compliance, data systems, and financial controls cost roughly the same whether an organization serves five thousand people or five hundred. Spread across a large budget, that overhead becomes a small percentage. Spread across a small one, it either becomes a large percentage or it does not happen.

This is the most underrated advantage in the comparison, and it runs directly against the instinct to judge organizations by their overhead ratio. The national organization often looks efficient on that metric because it is large, not because it is well run.

Working upstream

Some problems are produced by rules rather than by local conditions. Wage floors, benefit eligibility, and tax treatment are set well above the level any single community operates at. An organization working on those does not deliver visible services and cannot show you a photograph of the result.

Moving resources between places

Need and giving capacity are not distributed the same way. National organizations can route funds from places with more capacity to places with more need. A purely local structure has no mechanism for that by design.

What local organizations are genuinely better at

Knowing the actual situation

A national program designs for the average case. Local conditions are rarely average. Which employers dominate hiring, where transit does not reach, which landlords hold most of the stock, and which agencies are functional are all specifics that determine whether a program works, and they do not travel between counties.

Speed

Smaller organizations decide faster. When a plant closes or a building is condemned, a local group can redirect resources in days. Larger ones move through more process, which exists for defensible reasons and still slows the response.

Observable accountability

You can visit a local organization. You can talk to people it serves, look at the facility, and form your own view. With a national organization, you are reading a report about work happening somewhere you are not. Both can be honest. Only one can be checked in an afternoon.

The arguments that do not hold up

Two claims recur in this debate and neither survives inspection.

The first is that local giving means more of a contribution reaches the recipient. Small organizations frequently run higher overhead ratios than large ones, because they are spreading unavoidable fixed costs across less revenue. The intuition points the wrong way.

The second is that national organizations are bureaucratic and therefore wasteful. Some of what reads as bureaucracy is financial control, program evaluation, and audit capability, and organizations that skip those are not thereby more effective. They are less measurable.

A decision framework

Four questions settle most of this.

Is the problem local or is it structural?

Emergency food, shelter, and disaster response are delivered locally by definition. Wage policy, health coverage rules, and consumer credit regulation are not. Match the organization’s scale to the level where the problem is actually produced.

Can you verify the work?

If you can visit, visit. Direct observation outperforms any metric available to you. If you cannot, you need an organization with real reporting, which in practice means one large enough to have an evaluation function.

What is the funding environment around it?

A well known national organization has many funders. A local organization working on an unfashionable problem may have very few, which means the same contribution occupies a different share of its budget and carries different weight.

How long is your horizon?

Direct service produces results this month. Structural work may produce nothing observable for years and then change conditions for a very large number of people at once. Both are legitimate. They are not interchangeable.

Grounding the choice in data

Whichever direction you lean, the underlying conditions are measurable and public. The U.S. Census Bureau publishes poverty and income estimates down to the county level, which is the right resolution for judging whether a local organization is working in an area of concentrated need or a comparatively well resourced one.

Scale checks are equally available. Median household income was about $80,000 in 2023 according to the Census Bureau, while the federal minimum wage has stood at $7.25 an hour since 2009 according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The distance between those two facts is the sort of gap that structural work targets and direct service does not close.

For the organizations themselves, the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search confirms registration status and hosts filed annual returns, which is the starting point for any comparison of two specific groups. Published reviews are a reasonable second input, and one such review of groups working on poverty in the United States lays out the criteria it applied, which is the part worth reading more closely than the ranking itself.

The answer most people arrive at

Split it, and split it deliberately rather than evenly. Give locally to the problem you can see and verify, and give nationally to the mechanism that produces that problem, in whatever proportion matches how much you value observable results against distant ones.

The failure mode to avoid is not picking the wrong side. It is giving to whichever organization asked most recently, which is how most giving actually gets allocated and which optimizes for fundraising capacity rather than for anything a donor would choose on reflection.

How the Inner Work Changes Everything

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How the Inner Work Changes Everything

Successful people aren’t more intelligent or talented than less successful people.  Decades of research confirm this and show that the strongest predictors of success are skills people build within themselves rather than factors like IQ or circumstances.  Successful people thrive and reach their goals because of how they think and embody the lessons they learn along the way.  Six primary competencies are the result of putting in the inner work, further proving that changing everything starts with changing yourself. 

Doing the inner work is like building muscle: exercise it by completing tasks to build skill.  If you avoid it, the consequences can be costly.  Everyone has unlimited potential to build inner competencies, build self-awareness and stay present in everyday life. 

Spirituality 

“Natural spirituality is the direct sense of listening to the heartbeat of the universe, of being one with the seen and unseen world, open and at ease in that connection,” said Dr. Lisa Miller, Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University.  According to a global McKinsey Health survey of 41,000 people, positive spiritual health is associated with improved physical, mental and social health.  Develop spirituality in your life by practicing compassion, meditating and connecting with others of faith. 

Self-Efficacy 

Self-efficacy is another inner competency of successful people.  In a meta-analysis of 49,464 people, higher self-efficacy employees were more inclined to provide excellent customer service and help their colleagues when in need.  Develop self-efficacy by being gentle with yourself and closely assessing your personal narratives. 

Grit 

Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania Angela Duckworth describes grit as “the common denominator of high achievers, no matter what they’re achieving.”  Cultivate your passions and practice tolerating the discomfort that will arise as you work to reach your goals.  Grit accounts for higher success outcomes in educational attainment and overall retention. 

Adaptability 

Think of yourself as ‘flexible’?  You may already have developed adaptability.  This skill is your capacity to modify behaviors and approaches to change.  Having strong adaptability predicts success in employability and promotability.

Growth Orientation 

To build a growth orientation mindset, start by addressing your primary goal and creating several other short- and long-term goals that correspond.  Involve others in your goal planning and build steps every day, even if they are baby steps. 

Emotional Regulation 

Emotional regulation is the ability to monitor and manage emotions and behaviors to best serve goals.  Practice this skill with mindfulness-based interventions and mindfulness-based stress reduction.  

The cost of avoiding the inner work in life can be substantially damaging.  For starters, just 19% of organizations think their leaders are effective at developing others and 58% of managers have never received formal leadership training.  Poor leadership costs United States companies nearly $550 billion a year in lost productivity.  Conversely, self-awareness practices are found to improve emotional regulation and overall life satisfaction in the workplace and at home. The first step in leading from the soul is doing the inner work.  Once this is achieved, the pathway to a successful and fulfilling life is clear. 

Inner MBA
Source: Sounds True

10 Questions Your P&L Should Answer in Under a Minute

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10 Questions Your P&L Should Answer in Under a Minute

A profit and loss statement that takes an afternoon to interpret is not doing its job. Ten questions below should each be answerable by looking, not by exporting anything into a spreadsheet first. If your P&L cannot answer them, the problem is usually the account structure rather than the business, and that is fixable in an afternoon of setup rather than a month of analysis.

1. What did I sell?

Gross sales before anything was deducted. Not the bank deposit, not the marketplace payout, not net revenue after fees.

This is the single most common defect in seller books. A $48,000 sales month that arrives as $31,000 in deposits gets recorded as $31,000 of revenue, and the $17,000 of fees vanishes into a number nobody looks at. Gross sales belongs on its own line, with every deduction visible underneath it.

2. What did the marketplace keep, broken out by type?

Referral fees, fulfillment fees, storage, and advertising should be four separate lines, not one “Amazon fees” bucket.

They behave differently and they are controlled differently. A referral fee is a fixed percentage you cannot change. A fulfillment fee responds to packaging and dimensional weight. Storage responds to how long stock sits. Advertising is discretionary. Collapsing them into one line makes all four look like a cost of doing business, which only one of them is.

3. What did the goods cost?

Cost of goods sold, computed from real unit costs including freight and duty, matched to the units that shipped in the period.

The test is whether the number moves when your landed cost moves. A seller who bought at $5.40 in February and $6.85 in August, and whose COGS line implies a single blended figure all year, is reading a margin that never existed in either month.

4. What is my gross margin by channel?

Amazon, Shopify, Walmart, TikTok Shop and eBay have different fee structures, different fulfillment economics and different return rates. A blended gross margin hides which of them is subsidizing the others.

This is usually the most actionable line on the whole statement, and it requires only that revenue and COGS carry a channel dimension. Most sellers discover their newest channel is their worst one, and that they have been pouring inventory into it on the strength of top-line growth.

5. Which SKUs lost money?

Not which sold least. Which sold at a negative contribution after fees, ads and returns.

Every catalog has some. The heavy, cheap, frequently returned item that looks fine on a revenue report is usually the culprit, because fulfillment and return costs scale with weight and unit count rather than with price. A P&L that stops at the category level cannot surface this, which is why SKU-level detail is worth the setup cost.

6. What did returns cost?

Three things happen when a unit comes back: the sale reverses, the cost of goods reverses if the unit is resellable, and a processing fee lands. Most books capture the first and miss at least one of the others.

Returns also should not sit inside a general expense line. As a percentage of gross sales, tracked monthly by channel, the return rate is an early warning about listing accuracy and product quality that no other metric provides.

7. What is advertising costing me as a share of revenue?

Ad spend against the revenue it plausibly drove, monthly, as a percentage. The absolute number tells you nothing without the denominator.

Watch the direction of travel rather than the level. A slowly climbing percentage at flat revenue means you are buying the same sales at a rising price, which is a much earlier signal than a decline in profit.

8. What is in inventory right now, and at what value?

This one is technically a balance sheet question, and it belongs here anyway, because the inventory balance is what makes the COGS figure above believable.

You should be able to state the number and the method that produced it in one sentence. FIFO, periodic average, batch costing. If nobody can say which method is in use, the gross margin on the P&L is an estimate. The IRS is direct about the standard: Publication 538 requires that “Your inventory practices must be consistent from year to year.”

9. Where is profit diverging from cash?

A profitable month can consume cash, and for a growing inventory business it usually does. Goods are paid for before they sell, marketplaces settle on a lag, and the gap widens exactly when the business is working.

The P&L will not answer this alone, which is the point of asking. If the profit figure looks healthy and the bank balance is falling, the answer is almost always inventory purchases, and the correct response is a cash flow view rather than a suspicion that the books are wrong.

10. How much of that cash is not mine?

Sales tax collected sits in the bank account and belongs to a state. So does any portion of a marketplace deposit that will be clawed back as a reserve or refund.

This matters more than it used to. Every state with a sales tax now has a marketplace facilitator law, a point the Tax Foundation made in November 2023 in noting that “every state that imposes a sales tax has adopted a means of taxing marketplace facilitators.” Where the marketplace collects and remits, the money never reaches you and should never appear as revenue. Where you sell direct, it does reach you and it is not income. Sellers who treat collected tax as working capital find out at filing time.

Why most P&Ls fail this test

Almost never because the numbers are wrong. Usually because the chart of accounts was set up for a service business and then asked to describe a product business.

The three structural fixes that resolve most of the ten questions above: book revenue gross with fee categories itemized underneath, give revenue and COGS a channel dimension, and load real unit costs so COGS is computed rather than estimated. Do those and the statement starts answering questions instead of raising them.

The tooling that does this work automatically for marketplace data is a small category, ConnectBooks, A2X and Bookkeep among the names sellers encounter most, and they differ mainly in whether they post summarized entries or itemized per-SKU detail into the ledger. Which one fits depends entirely on how many of these ten questions you need answered at the SKU level.

The one-minute standard

Open the statement and try the ten. Time yourself.

Any question that requires an export, a pivot table or a phone call to your bookkeeper is a question your reporting is not currently answering, and the gap between “the data exists somewhere” and “I can see it” is where most sellers lose the ability to act on their own numbers.

Hiring a Lawyer in the AI Era: The Questions Small Business Owners Should Ask Before Signing an Engagement Letter

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Most small business owners assume that hiring a lawyer in 2026 looks the same as hiring one in 2016: a rate sheet, a retainer, and a promise that a human will read every page. The reality has flipped. Behind the engagement letter you're about to sign, a mix of software, private language models, and outside vendors is probably touching your matter, and the letter itself rarely says so.

None of that means the firm is a bad choice. It does mean you should ask sharper questions before you sign. The old engagement letter and the new one are doing very different jobs, and knowing where they diverge is what separates a client who gets the upside of AI-driven legal work from one who inherits its risks.

Document Review and Discovery Are Where the Money Moves

Discovery used to be the single largest line item in most litigation budgets, and it was mostly bodies. Junior lawyers coded documents by the thousand while the meter ran. AI-assisted review has compressed that work meaningfully. A task that took a team a month can now take a small group a week, with the machine surfacing the responsive material and humans confirming the calls.

The savings are real. Whether they land on your invoice is a separate question. Some firms pass the efficiency through as a lower bill. Others hold rates steady and bank the margin.

Two questions belong in writing before you sign:

  • Which discovery and review tasks the firm now handles with AI, and how that changes the hours billed compared with a fully manual workflow.
  • Whether the efficiency shows up as a lower fee, a flat rate, or a cap on the discovery budget, and, if not, why the client rate is unchanged.

Drafting With a Machine Changes Who Is Actually Writing

Drafting is the other place AI has moved fastest. First drafts of NDAs, employment agreements, demand letters, and routine motions are increasingly produced by a model trained on the firm's own precedent, then edited by a lawyer. Done well, you get a tighter draft faster, and the lawyer's time goes to the parts that need judgment.

Done poorly, you get a document that reads fluently and is wrong in a way nobody caught. Courts have already sanctioned lawyers for filing AI-generated work without checking it. The safeguard is a verification standard the firm will commit to on paper: which categories of documents get a full human read, who signs off, and what happens when the model cites authority that turns out not to exist.

Confidentiality Is the Question the Old Letter Never Had to Answer

Nothing about AI matters if the confidentiality story doesn't hold. When your matter runs through a language model, someone is deciding whether your data trains that model, where it's stored, and who else can see it. California's ethics guidance is direct: lawyers should consult IT experts on AI security and should never feed confidential client information into tools that use inputs for training, per a Bar Association of San Francisco summary of the state's COPRAC advice.

Privilege is the harder edge. In a recent federal decision analyzed by Ogletree Deakins, a court found that sharing material with a third-party AI platform waived work-product protection, and the firm recommends that engagement letters and litigation-hold notices name AI platforms explicitly. That is exactly the kind of clause a small business client should ask for.

Ask the firm to name every AI tool that will touch your matter, describe where your data lives, and confirm in writing that your inputs are not used for model training. If the answer is vague, the risk is yours.

The Economics Only Work If You Negotiate for Them

There's a reason firms are investing heavily in this shift. A recent overview from Law.co on the shift toward legal AI on the shift toward legal AI lays out how much of the routine work, including review, summarization, extraction, and first-pass drafting, can now be handled by software with a lawyer in an approval role. That's a genuine productivity gain. It is also a pricing conversation the client has to start.

Small business clients who never raise the topic tend to keep paying the old rate for the new workflow. Clients who ask specific questions, such as flat fees for defined tasks, capped budgets for discovery, a written verification protocol, and a named list of AI tools in use, tend to get better terms and a cleaner record if something goes wrong later.

The engagement letter is the one moment when the client holds the pen. Use it before you sign, not after the first invoice arrives.

How Hospital Technology Is Improving Patient Care and Efficiency

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How Hospital Technology Is Improving Patient Care and Efficiency

The future for patient care and hospitals is tech. High level upgrades that serve purpose and promote efficiency in the workplace are no longer just a luxury; they are a necessity. As healthcare systems around the globe face increasing demands, the integration of technology into everyday operations is essential for improving patient outcomes and streamlining processes. There are many pressures and setbacks that hospital staff face every single day, and in the near future the world will face a nurse deficit, some places already have. In Romania, there are only 100 nurses per 100,000 inhabitants. In Greece, there are only 219 nurses per 100,000 inhabitants, while the UAE only has 620 per 100,000. In France, the situation is slightly better, with only 970 nurses per 100,000 inhabitants. However, it is recommended to have one nurse to five patients, according to National Nurses United. Nurses are becoming more rare, and the top contributors to this trend include an aging population; soon, one in six people worldwide will be sixty years of age or older. Another significant contributor is the mental and physical strain of the job, which is often paired with low wages that do not reflect the demanding nature of the work.

Nursing staff also has to deal with blood, medications, and document delivery amongst everything else, which can be overwhelming. However, the Pneumatic tube system could help with that, delivering documentation 700% faster than a human carrier ever could. This innovative system not only enhances speed but also improves accuracy in the delivery of critical items. Cancer medication, cell growth inhibitors, and IV bags could be delivered in only two minutes compared to the normal ten-plus minutes. The tubes would be controlled with a touchscreen and are equipped with RFID tracking technology, making it simple for workers to track the couriers and pick the fastest route. This level of efficiency is crucial in a healthcare setting where every second counts, especially in emergency situations.

This delivery method also limits hand contact, which is particularly important in a hospital environment where pathogenic bacteria spreads by touch. More than 80% of illnesses can be transferred through physical contact, and reducing this risk is paramount for the health of both patients and staff. Hospitals and staff alike need high-quality, efficient boosting technology to aid in their everyday tasks. By implementing such systems, healthcare facilities can not only enhance their operational efficiency but also significantly improve patient safety and satisfaction.

Moreover, the adoption of advanced technologies like telemedicine, electronic health records (EHR), and artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the healthcare landscape. Telemedicine allows patients to consult with healthcare providers remotely, reducing the need for in-person visits and making healthcare more accessible. EHR systems streamline patient information management, ensuring that healthcare professionals have immediate access to vital patient data. AI-driven tools can assist in diagnosing conditions, predicting patient outcomes, and personalizing treatment plans, ultimately leading to better healthcare delivery.

As we look to the future, it is clear that technology will play a pivotal role in addressing the challenges faced by healthcare systems worldwide. By embracing these innovations, hospitals can not only alleviate the burden on nursing staff but also provide a higher standard of care for patients. The integration of technology into healthcare is not just about efficiency; it is about creating a sustainable model that can adapt to the evolving needs of society. The journey towards a tech-driven healthcare system is well underway, and it is essential for all stakeholders to collaborate and invest in these advancements to ensure a healthier future for everyone.

The Future of Patient Care Is Tech
Source: Swisslog

How Ransomware Is Targeting Canada’s Construction Industry

Ronald
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How Ransomware Is Targeting Canada’s Construction Industry

Construction companies across Canada are discovering an uncomfortable truth: the same digital transformation that streamlined project management, payroll, and client communication has also opened the door to cybercriminals. Ransomware attacks, once associated primarily with hospitals and financial institutions, have found a lucrative new target in the construction sector, and the reasons behind this shift are worth understanding.

Why Construction Companies Are Attractive Targets

Construction firms handle enormous volumes of sensitive information. Project bids, blueprints, client contracts, employee records, and financial data all move through digital systems daily. This wealth of valuable data makes construction businesses appealing to attackers looking for information they can hold hostage or sell.

Beyond the data itself, construction companies often operate with tight deadlines and interconnected schedules involving subcontractors, suppliers, and clients. A single delay caused by a system shutdown can ripple across an entire project, costing thousands of dollars per day. Cybercriminals understand this pressure and count on companies paying quickly to avoid costly downtime.

Many firms in this industry also rely on a patchwork of legacy software, mobile devices used on job sites, and third-party vendor connections. Each of these access points can become a potential entry for attackers if not properly secured. Unlike larger enterprises with dedicated IT security teams, many construction businesses operate with lean administrative staff, making cybersecurity an afterthought rather than a priority.

Common Ways Ransomware Enters the Business

Ransomware rarely breaks in through dramatic hacking scenes like those in movies. Instead, it typically slips in through everyday actions that seem harmless. Phishing emails disguised as invoices, permit notifications, or messages from a trusted supplier remain one of the most common entry points. An unsuspecting employee clicks a link or opens an attachment, and the malicious software begins spreading through the network.

Remote access tools used by project managers and site supervisors present another vulnerability, especially when passwords are weak or multi-factor authentication isn’t enabled. Since construction professionals frequently work from job sites using personal devices or public Wi-Fi, these connections can become unguarded pathways into company systems.

Outdated software is another significant risk. When operating systems and applications aren’t regularly updated, known security gaps remain open for attackers to exploit. For an industry where technology upgrades often take a back seat to project deadlines, this creates persistent vulnerabilities.

The Real Cost of an Attack

The financial impact of ransomware extends far beyond any ransom payment. Halted operations mean idle crews, stalled equipment, and missed deadlines that can trigger contract penalties. Rebuilding compromised systems, restoring lost data, and bringing in specialists to investigate the breach all add to the expense.

Reputational damage can be just as harmful. Clients and partners want assurance that their information is safe, and news of a breach can shake that trust. In a competitive bidding environment, a company known for lax cybersecurity practices may find itself losing opportunities to better-protected competitors.

There’s also the matter of legal and regulatory obligations. Depending on the nature of the compromised data, companies may face reporting requirements and potential liability if client or employee information was exposed.

Building a Stronger Defense

Protecting a construction business from ransomware doesn’t require becoming a cybersecurity expert overnight. It starts with foundational practices: regular data backups stored separately from the main network, consistent software updates, and strong password policies paired with multi-factor authentication.

Employee training plays an equally important role. Since phishing remains a leading cause of infection, teaching staff to recognize suspicious emails and verify unexpected requests can prevent many attacks before they start. This is particularly important for site supervisors and project managers who often communicate with multiple external parties.

Partnering with an experienced IT company can make a significant difference for firms lacking in-house technical resources. A knowledgeable IT company can assess existing vulnerabilities, implement monitoring systems that detect unusual activity, and develop an incident response plan tailored to the specific workflows of a construction business. This proactive relationship often proves far less costly than recovering from an actual attack.

Staying Ahead of the Threat

The construction industry’s increasing reliance on digital tools isn’t going away, and neither is the interest cybercriminals have shown in exploiting it. Companies that treat cybersecurity as a core part of doing business, rather than an optional add-on, position themselves to keep projects moving and client relationships intact.

Taking the time now to evaluate current security practices, train staff, and establish reliable backup systems can save considerable time, money, and stress down the road. For construction businesses across Canada, resilience against ransomware is becoming as essential as any blueprint or building permit.

How Much Storage Space Do I Need? A Simple Storage Unit Size Guide

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How Much Storage Space Do I Need? A Simple Storage Unit Size Guide

Standing in front of a wall of storage unit doors, all labeled with numbers like 5×5, 10×10, or 10×20, can feel like trying to solve a puzzle without the picture on the box. Renting storage should simplify your life, not add another layer of stress. The good news is that figuring out the right size doesn’t require a degree in spatial math. With a few guidelines, you can confidently choose a storage unit that fits your belongings without paying for space you’ll never use.

Start With What You’re Actually Storing

Before you even glance at unit dimensions, take stock of what’s going into rented storage. Are you storing a few boxes and seasonal decorations, or are you moving the contents of an entire house? Make a rough list or walk through your home room by room, noting furniture, appliances, and miscellaneous items. This inventory becomes your foundation for choosing a size, and it also helps you avoid the common mistake of underestimating just how much stuff accumulates over the years.

It also helps to separate your items into categories: furniture, boxes, appliances, and specialty items like bikes or sports equipment. Bulky furniture eats up more floor space than its weight suggests, while boxes can often be stacked to maximize vertical room. Thinking through these categories now will make the next steps much easier.

Small Units: 5×5 and 5×10

A 5×5 unit is roughly the size of a small closet. It’s ideal for storing seasonal items, small furniture pieces, boxes of books, or the overflow from a single decluttered room. If you’re a student storing belongings over the summer or someone who just needs a temporary spot for a few boxes, this size often does the trick.

Step up to a 5×10 unit, and you gain enough room for the contents of a small bedroom or a studio apartment. Think a mattress, dresser, a few boxes, and maybe a small desk. This size works well for people downsizing or storing items during a short-term move.

Mid-Size Units: 10×10 and 10×15

The 10×10 unit is one of the most popular choices, and for good reason. It comfortably holds the contents of a one- or two-bedroom apartment, including furniture like a couch, bed frame, dining table, and several boxes. If you’re merging households, renovating, or storing items from a mid-sized move, this size strikes a good balance between space and cost.

A 10×15 unit expands on that capacity, offering room for a larger apartment or small house’s worth of belongings. This size accommodates bigger furniture pieces, multiple appliances, and a higher volume of boxes, making it a solid choice for families in transition.

Large Units: 10×20 and Beyond

When you’re storing the contents of a three- or four-bedroom home, a 10×20 unit is often the answer. Picture a two-car garage: that’s roughly the footprint you’re working with. This size handles large furniture sets, mattresses, appliances, and even vehicles like cars or small boats, depending on the facility’s policies.

For anything beyond that, many facilities offer even larger units or the option to rent multiple spaces. If you’re consolidating a business inventory or storing the entire contents of a large estate, don’t hesitate to ask facility staff for guidance. They’ve seen it all and can help you avoid renting more space than necessary.

Tips for Maximizing Your Space

Regardless of the size you choose, how you pack matters just as much as the square footage. Disassemble furniture when possible to save room, and use uniform box sizes to stack efficiently. Store items vertically rather than spreading them out, and leave a narrow aisle so you can access items without unpacking the entire unit. Heavier boxes belong on the bottom, with lighter, more fragile items on top.

When in Doubt, Ask for Help

Storage facility staff size up units every day and can offer valuable insight based on your inventory list. Many facilities also provide online size calculators or visual guides that show how furniture and boxes fit into each unit type. Don’t be afraid to ask if you can view an empty unit in person before committing.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right storage size doesn’t have to be a guessing game. By taking honest stock of your belongings, understanding the general capacity of each unit size, and packing thoughtfully, you’ll find a space that fits your needs without wasted room or wasted money. Rented storage is meant to make life easier, and with the right size, that’s exactly what it will do.

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