BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY How Cup Noodles Became One of The Biggest Business Success Stories Of All Time See a container of Cup Noodles at a convenience store and you might think of dorm rooms and cheap calories. But there was a time when eating from the product’s iconic packaging exuded cosmopolitanism, when the on-the-go meal symbolized possibility – a Japanese industrial food with an American flair. Cup Noodles – first marketed in […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
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
How To Tell If Conspiracy Theory Is False Key Takeaway: Conspiracy theories are prevalent and can involve various factors. People believe false conspiracy theories for various reasons, such as the existence of real conspiracies. However, unfounded conspiracy theories often lack evidence and substitute elements that should be red flags for skeptics. To vet a claim, one should seek out evidence, test the allegation, […] Written by H. Colleen Sinclair May 10, 2024May 10, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Surprising Discoveries About The Origin Of Life Key Takeaway: Recent research has focused on replicating the chemical reactions that constitute life as we know it in conditions plausible for early Earth around 4 billion years ago. However, the rise of experimental work has led to many contradictory theories. Some scientists believe that life emerged in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, where the conditions provided […] Written by Louise Gillet de Chalonge May 9, 2024May 9, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
NASA’s Search For Life On Mars Key Takeaway: NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rover missions are investigating the planet’s evidence for life, known as its “biosignatures,” in unprecedented detail. The rovers are acting as extraterrestrial detectives, hunting for clues that life may have existed eons ago, including evidence of long-gone liquid surface water, life-sustaining minerals, and organic molecules. The Mars of today […] Written by Amy Williams April 30, 2024April 30, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Smartphones & The Source Of Our Anxiety Key Takeaway: Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation, calls for action to limit teenagers’ smartphone access and address the mental health crisis caused by the widespread use of smartphones. Haidt cites the “great rewiring” period from 2010 to 2015 as a time when adolescents’ neural systems were primed for anxiety and depression by daily smartphone […] Written by Hugh Breakey April 29, 2024April 29, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Should TikTok Be Banned? Key Takeaway: President Biden signed a US$95 billion foreign aid bill in April 2024, allowing TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app. If the law stands, TikTok will be blocked from any US app store or web-hosting service, affecting over 170 million US users, including 62% of Americans aged 18 to 29. Critics argue […] Written by Sarah Florini April 26, 2024April 26, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Being Thoughtful In The Age Of A.I. Key Takeaway: Concerns about AI’s potential roguehood and potential harm to privacy and dignity are a significant concern. AI’s algorithms, programmed by humans, are also biased and discriminatory. However, a psychologist’s research suggests that AI is a threat to making people less disciplined and skilled in making thoughtful decisions. Making thoughtful decisions involves understanding the […] Written by Joe Arvai April 24, 2024April 24, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Are Single People Happier? The Science Of Being Single Key Takeaway: A study published in the Journal of Personality suggests that long-term single people can be secure and thriving, possibly due to their attachment style. The research found that 78% of singles were insecure, with 22% being secure. Secure singles are comfortable with intimacy and closeness in relationships, while anxious singles worry about rejection […] Written by Yuthika Girme April 23, 2024April 23, 2024 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