EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY STRATEGY Is Moving Away From Social Media A Form Of Corporate Social Responsibility? UK cosmetics company Lush has announced its decision to leave Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, saying its decision reflects concerns about the alleged effects of these social networks on the mental health of their users. The brand will maintain its presence on Twitter and YouTube. Lush has more than 900 stores worldwide, and some 10.6 million followers between Facebook […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK STRATEGY TECHNOLOGY Siri: Apple’s Missed Opportunity A highly critical article in The Verge, “Hey Siri, what happened?”, discusses an issue many of us have been observing for some time: that Apple’s home assistant is noticeably less intelligent and more limited than its competitors such as Alexa or Google Assistant. The usage test confirms it: ten years after Siri’s introduction, if you […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY The Science Of Product Placements: How To Get It Right In “The Variant,” an episode from the Disney+ hit streaming show “Loki,” it’s tough to miss the barrage of product placements, with fast-paced action and dialogue taking place in front of Charmin toilet paper, Dove soap and Arm & Hammer deodorant. At one point, Loki barrels down an aisle with vacuum cleaners and fights off […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY Imitation Does Not Always Work LinkedIn has warned its advertisers that it is eliminating its video stories, thus becoming the second social network, after Twitter pulled the plug in July on Fleets, to realize that strategies based on literal copies of other social networks’ features don’t always pan out. When Instagram decided to copy Snapchat’s ephemeral stories format, it took a product from […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY How Images Get Customers To Time Travel Aconsumer shopping for a midcentury sofa may be more likely to buy it if the background in its advertisement is a little disorganized. Likewise, people looking to purchase a new smartphone could more quickly pull the trigger if the ad were simple and sleek. That’s because ads for vintage products are more appealing when they […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY How To Accelerate Digital Transformation Digital Transformation is about creating new opportunities for your business to drive innovation and efficiency, to improve how your teams work, and to leapfrog ahead of competitors, all with the goal of delivering new and improved customer experiences. Every industry is undergoing a transformation. Customers are expecting more and retaining them is increasingly difficult as […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP FINANCE STRATEGY How To Succeed At Crowdfunding Small donations can add up to big bucks. That’s the promise of crowdfunding, a process by which entrepreneurs and nonprofits raise money online from individuals instead of banks and investors. Last year, 6.4 million crowdfunding campaigns worldwide brought in $34 billion, according to the crowdfunding data company Fundly. But most of those campaigns didn’t live up […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY Creating A Vision For Your Company Investors love it when companies have a clear and compelling vision. It makes it easy to get excited by where the company is going and picture it as a big business. It works because it’s meaningful and aspirational. Customers are drawn to the business and know what to expect when they get there. Employees are […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY Branding Secrets From LEGO Toymaker LEGO provides a great example of the brand-alignment and brand-building strategies explored in this module. Anyone who has wandered through the LEGO section of a toy store or a department store knows that the company understands its target audiences very well: young children (ages 1.5 to 11) who like to build things and parents […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY Why Businesses Need A Social Impact Strategy Most business people are used to thinking of strategy as a way to generate money, but not so much as a way to create societal impact. Without good strategy, your social mission will likely fall flat on its face. It might still make you lookgood, but you’ll be wasting resources – and more importantly – you’ll be throwing […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Can Science Solve Poverty? Key Takeaways: The fight against poverty and inequality is resuming with tools and programs that are more effective than ever before, thanks to a quiet revolt against business as usual. The evidence-based policy movement is increasingly being embraced by researchers, activists and government officials. The use of randomized controlled trials to assess social programs is […] Written by M. Mitchell Waldrop November 25, 2022November 29, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How To Test If We’re Really Living In A Simulation Key Takeaways: Physicists have long struggled to explain why the universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. But another is that our universe is a computer simulation, with someone (perhaps an advanced alien species) fine-tuning the conditions. This leads to the extraordinary possibility that our entire universe might in fact be computer […] Written by Melvin Vopson November 24, 2022November 24, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Ants Could Inspire Solutions For Human Problems Key Takeaways: There may be new wisdom to gain from what scientists have learned about ants’ biology. Ant farmers face many of the same challenges as human farmers do, including the threat of pests. Ant pesticides are produced by bacteria they allow to grow in their nests, and in some cases even on their bodies. […] Written by Scott Solomon November 17, 2022November 17, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Flooding Impacts The Economy Key Takeaways: The impacts of natural disasters, in particular those related to climate change, have been attracting growing attention. The results show that floods hamper GDP, with the extent depending on how financial intermediary activities respond to the floods. The study is related to a growing literature that quantifies the impact on natural disasters such […] Written by Ryuichiro Hashimato November 16, 2022November 16, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Philosophy Of Ghosts Key Takeaways: French philosopher Jacques Derrida invented the term ‘hauntology’ for his 1993 lecture Spectres of Marx. It is that eerie zone where time collapses and our past memories and associations haunt our minds, like a ghost. Hauntology also describes a post-traumatic-like disquiet of those born in the 1960s and ‘70s. English theorist Mark Fisher […] Written by Alistair MacIntyre November 15, 2022November 15, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What Is Mastodon & Why It Won’t Be The Next Twitter Key Takeaways: In the wake of Elon Musk’s noisy takeover of Twitter, people have turned to Mastodon. Mastodon allows users to post, follow people and like and repost others’ posts. While Mastodon supports many of the same social networking features as Twitter, it is not a single platform. Each Mastodon server is governed by rules […] Written by Brian Keegan November 14, 2022November 15, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Testing Einstein’s Theory Of The Universe Key Takeaways: Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been remarkably successful in describing the gravity of stars and planets. However, gaps in our understanding start to appear when we try to apply it to extremely small distances, where the laws of quantum mechanics operate. A new study, published in Nature Astronomy, has now tested […] Written by Kazuya Koyama November 11, 2022November 15, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education Key Takeaways: The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. In his writing, Flynn illustrates study after study, spanning nations and decades, in which modern educational gift of abstraction — a transcendent sign of intelligence, as we saw in Raven’s Matrices — has been […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022October 19, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How China Is Transforming Its Economy Through Learning I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Institute’s new report, “Reskilling China: Transforming The World’s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learners”, which focuses on the country’s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […] Written by Enrique Dans February 1, 2021February 1, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why You’re Not Seeing Success With Influencer Marketing With the new year around the corner, now is a good time to re-evaluate your past marketing strategies and gear up for the year ahead. For some businesses, influencer marketing has simply not seemed to live up to its lofty promises of genuine engagement, credibility, and transparency. Some have claimed that it has been failing […] Written by Michael Tan January 14, 2021January 15, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
A New Philosophy of Business I’m about to ask you to take a mental leap. For the next 8 minutes, suspend your notions of what a business is, and I’ll propose a new lens for you to look through. There are a lot of questions asked around what “community” means for business. “Where should community fit in my organization?” and […] Written by Empirics Asia September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
