BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK How China Is Rethinking Its Economy The People’s Bank of China is encouraging Chinese banks to lend more to businesses and consumers by cutting the proportion of deposits that they have to hold as reserves by 0.5 percentage points to an average of 8.4% from December 15. It follows a similar cut in July, and is an interesting counterpoint to western central banks such as […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY Will Cars Become A Subscription Service? A number of stories have been circulating for some time now about the “terrible future” awaiting car owners after it was revealed that Toyota plans to offer subscription services for its vehicles that would include charging $8/month for certain connectivity-based services. What’s more, a few months ago, Volkswagen hinted at a similar model for its autonomous capabilities: paying for your […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY Amazon Go Will Revolutionise Retail Since it launched in beta format in 2016, and then opened to the public a year later, Amazon Go, the online retail giant’s stores without checkout lines, provides a textbook illustration of the use and development of technology. Amazon’s plans to expand its network of stores, formulated before the pandemic, were ambitious: more than 3,000 by 2021 in locations […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY The Retail Revolution In China China’s dominance in manufacturing has made it the factory of the world. The subsequent economic growth enriched an ever-expanding middle class, and the country’s retail industry has quickly adapted to supply a growing appetite for consumption. Some of these developments in the way people spend their money, powered by the latest technology, will soon be appearing on […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK FINANCE TECHNOLOGY Why Open-Source Banking Is The Future I really enjoyed this article, “Open source is finally coming to financial services”, and the corresponding 25-minute lecture by Angela Strange of Andreessen Horowitz on the future of banking services, in which she predicts a scenario that is very much in line with what I have been envisioning for quite a few years: banks where software developers will have […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY Facebook Metaverse: What Could Go Wrong? Facebook’s plans to create a so-called metaverse, which according to the company would include everything from major investments and hiring thousands of people in Europe, to eventually changing the company’s name to reflect its focus in that area. What are some of the problems we might see emerge in a Facebook metaverse. One of the first books to explore the idea of a […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY A Future Without Passwords? Microsoft is to offer subscribers password-free access to their accounts — it had been doing so for corporate customers since last March — and by popularizing its use, is moving closer to a future in which passwords will give way to much more efficient and secure authentication systems. The feature requires downloading Microsoft Authenticator, which will require permissions […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK What’s A Ghost Kitchen? While the phrase “ghost kitchen” may conjure up images of haunted houses, the reality is a bit more mundane. Ghost kitchens are food prep operations with no waiters, no dining room and no parking lot – really, no public presence whatsoever. But on food delivery apps, they’re alive and well. In short, ghost kitchens are physical […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY Amazon And Quantum Computing One of the most commonly used examples used in schools and colleges to explain the need for quantum computing is the so-called traveling salesman problem, which requires complex combinatorial optimization skills to solve the following question: “Given a list of cities and the distances between each pair of cities, what is the shortest possible route that […] 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
What Vietnam Can Teach Us About The Vulnerabilities Of Banks Key Takeaway: Vietnam’s businesswoman Truong My Lan was sentenced to death for taking out $44 billion in fraudulent loans from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) by bypassing a law that prevents anyone from owning more than 5% of a bank’s shares. The loans made up 93% of the bank’s entire lending portfolio. The case highlights the […] Written by George Kladakis May 6, 2024May 6, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What Is Meaningful Work? Key Takeaway: Work is a crucial aspect of modern life, with 82% of employees stating that creating meaningful work is a top priority. Meaningful work requires an objective feature that connects the worker with a larger framework that extends beyond themselves. This feature is social contribution, which is the positive difference made by the work […] Written by Caleb Althorpe May 2, 2024May 2, 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
The Greater Secrets Of Stonehenge Key Takeaway: A project involving archaeologists, astronomers, and photographers from English Heritage, Oxford, Leicester, and Bournemouth universities, as well as the Royal Astronomical Society, aims to study the lunar alignment at Stonehenge. The project aims to identify the layout of certain stones and the major lunar standstill, which occurs when the northernmost and southernmost moonrises […] Written by Fabio Silva April 22, 2024April 22, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Time May Not Exist Key Takeaway: Modern physics suggests that time may be an illusion, as Einstein’s theory of relativity suggests the universe is a static, four-dimensional block. J.M.E. McTaggart, an English philosopher, published a paper in 1908 arguing that time is unreal using logic alone. He proposed two ways to describe time: the “B-series” and the “A-series”. The […] Written by Matyás Moravec April 19, 2024April 19, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Humility Is The Secret To Leadership? Key Takeaway: A study has found that humble leaders can become more promotable by growing others through a “humility route”. Human capital theory suggests that employees’ value can be enhanced by investing in their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Humble leaders focus on the learning and growth of their followers, creating human capital value for themselves. […] Written by Elsa Chan April 18, 2024April 18, 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
