BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK The Dark Side Of Amazon Returns Key Takeaway E-commerce offers convenience but also has a dark side: returns can be costly for retailers, costing them around $816 billion in lost sales in 2022. The return process, including transportation and packaging, generates about 24 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Returns can travel hundreds of miles, requiring manual unpacking, inspection, and […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY Megacities In The Digital Age Key Takeaways: Digitization and crowdsourcing will actually undermine the very foundations of the megacity economy, which is typically built on some combination of manufacturing, commerce, retail and professional services. Shopping malls, for example, which once thrived in megacities, are now suffering from the advent of e-commerce. Today, megacities have become synonymous with economic growth. In both developing and […] 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 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
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK FINANCE Understanding SPACS: Bubbles Of Uncertainty SPAC named as Special Purpose Acquisition Companies was developed to avoid the old lengthy and costly way of moving with a traditional IPO process. But now it is getting misused to bring up incompetent companies to go public which do not have the necessary requirements to become public under any circumstances. The goal is to […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK ENTREPRENEURSHIP STRATEGY Amazon Is Ready To Take Over The Post-Pandemic World Amazon this week announced it is taking on 75,000 new workers in the United States and 10,000 in the United Kingdom, precisely at a time when much of the world is beginning to emerge from the pandemic and when many companies have announced cutbacks or even closures, making it one of the main drivers for economic recovery. The […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS ENTREPRENEURSHIP FINANCE Here’s Why The Gamestop Fallout Is A Good Thing Here’s why the Gamestop Fallout Is a Good Thing In the age of extreme polarized political talk, an entirely new phenomenon is sweeping the trading world off its feet. As they call it, Meme Stocks are stocks targeted by inexperienced retail investors with the intension to prove a point. GameStop became a symbol of the resistance and […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CALLUM CONNECTS PIYASAK UKRITNUKUN, MD Abandoning his hopes of studying for an MBA, Piyasak Ukritnukun has turned a relatively small lending company into a billion dollar financial inclusion company. What’s your story? I was born in the US and came back to Thailand to study at Thammasat Business School in 1999. After college, I spent two years with Boston Consulting Group […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CALLUM CONNECTS ENTREPRENEURSHIP INTERVIEWS ALEX NG, Founder and Director Never one to be constrained by convention, Alex Ng has created Singapore’s first unstaffed store, powered by AI. What’s your story? Since I was young, I have had the habit of choosing less popular or niche decisions. For example, instead of playing computer games during my secondary school days, I found more enjoyment in selling […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CALLUM CONNECTS ENTREPRENEURSHIP INTERVIEWS MINESH PORE, Co-Founder and CEO Minesh Pore has used his global trade expertise to create a ‘dating’ agency where buyers can meet suppliers and BuyHive does the crucial bits in the middle. What’s your story? BuyHive wanted to solve the problem of trust and transparency in sourcing to improve buyers’ outcomes, especially with the assumptions that the growing segment of […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Secret Functions Of Dopamine Key Takeaway: Recent neuroscience research suggests that popular strategies to control dopamine are based on an overly narrow view of its function. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that tracks reactions to rewards, such as food, sex, money, or answering a question correctly. There are many types of dopamine neurons located in the uppermost […] Written by Kimberlee D'Ardenne September 19, 2023September 19, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
NASA Finally Revealed Findings On UFOs Key Takeaway: NASA’s independent study team released a report on UFOs, describing them as UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) to move beyond the stigma associated with UFOs. The report found no evidence that reported UAP observations are extraterrestrial. The report also highlighted the need for transparency and reducing the stigma associated with UFOs. The study team […] Written by Chris Impey September 18, 2023September 18, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Some Silicon Valley Investors Are Trying To Create A Utopian City Key Takeaway: George Bernard Shaw referred to Ebenezer Howard’s “garden cities” concept in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which he believed would offer the advantages of town and country without the drawbacks. Recently, a Silicon Valley consortium called Flannery Associates purchased land for California Forever, a contentious project that echoes Howard’s ideas. Howard’s […] Written by Empirics Asia September 12, 2023September 12, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Video Games Are Reviving Classical Music Key Takeaways: Starfield, a highly anticipated video game, allows players to build their own character and spacecraft, travel to multiple planets, and follow multiple story arcs. The game’s interactive music uses a palette of musical language that cultivates a contemplative soundscape, launching the listener into the vastness of space while remaining curious, innocent, and restrained. […] Written by J. Aaron Hardwick September 11, 2023September 11, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Psychology Of Fyre Festival II Key Takeaway: The founder of the 2017 Fyre Festival, William “Billy” McFarland, has announced plans for a second attempt at the festival, with a target date of the end of 2024. McFarland, who was charged with several fraud offences and sentenced to six years in prison, has been promoting the event on Instagram. The promotion […] Written by Yaniv Hanoch September 8, 2023September 8, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What Exactly Is Nudge Theory? Key Takeaway: The concept of “nudge theory” has gained prominence 15 years after its 2008 book, “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness.” The book, which inspired politicians like Barack Obama and David Cameron, led to the creation of government teams to incorporate nudge theory into public policy. However, the success of these nudges […] Written by Stuart Mills September 7, 2023September 7, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Age Of Nanotechnology Key Takeaways: Nanotechnology is set to revolutionize clothing, transportation, and transportation. Clothing will be tailored to individual needs, with synthesizers in closets creating clothing that fits perfectly. Nanosuits, made of 5 microns thick fabric, will cover the wearer’s body, allowing separate holes for individual hairs and making them weightless. This technology will double the amount […] Written by Ella Alderson September 6, 2023September 6, 2023 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