Quantcast
Channel: Co.Labs
Viewing all 36575 articles
Browse latest View live

Namaste En Masse: Can Wellness Festivals Grow As Big As Coachella?

0
0

“The universe is calling and your right leg is going to answer,” an exuberant yoga instructor commands over the speakers at the Santa Monica pier. With military precision, 2,000 athleisure-clad women move their limbs in unison.

I am at Wanderlust, an eight-year-old wellness festival that bills itself as an “all-out celebration of mindful living” and throws several multi-day gatherings around the world each year. On this sunny April day in Santa Monica, groups of women (and a sprinkling of men) align themselves on rainbow-colored yoga mats that are in perfectly spaced rows on the pier’s half mile-long astroturf.

Depending on what package they’ve purchased—$40 for one day, $500 for four—attendees will enjoy group yoga, meditation, eating, shopping, a “mindful walk” on the beach, a hula-hoop workout, and various other activities. Around 11 a.m., some two hours into the event, the crowd on the pier erupts into cheers when a DJ takes the stage in between scheduled fitness activities.

“Let’s make some memories! Who wants a free T-shirt?” the DJ shouts to rapturous applause.

He then leads the audience into a chant of “No more bombs, no more wall, the whole world should be a festival!” It quickly catches on, with participants bobbing their heads and shaking their stainless steel water bottles in agreement. They put their hands in the air, rave style—only no one here seems to be drunk or tripping.

“Everybody link up,” the DJ says, at which point, the crowd links together, arm-in-arm, and starts swaying.

Over 10,000 people descend on Vancouver to sweat it out over a Lululemon SeaWheeze weekend of yoga, running, and, of course, brunch. [Photo: courtesy of Lululemon]

“If you want the whole world to be a festival, make some noise!” he shouts. The crowd goes wild, with one woman throwing her sweat-soaking bandana at the stage. “Hell, yeah!” she shouts.

The buzzing energy at Wanderlust might explain why there are currently almost 1,000 other festivals just like it in the U.S. and abroad. They range from pricier weekend resort getaways to more affordable one-day seminars. The audience for these body-mind-soul events is overwhelmingly female: An estimated 85% of the Wanderlust attendees are American women, in their late twenties through forties. They are health enthusiasts who come together to bond, set personal goals, meditate, and revel in the collective namaste vibes. They might go paddle boarding, partake in kombucha tastings, enjoy live music, or learn to mix essential oils.

Some festivals, like Lululemon’s SeaWheeze, might feature a half-marathon or other competitive activity, but the overall emphasis is less medal than mantra. “It’s much more about a holistic approach to health,” says Wanderlust cofounder Sean Hoess.

At Wanderlust festivals, DJ-powered yoga classes often turn into full-on dance parties. [Photo: Melissa Gayle for Wanderlust Festival]
Not to mention a healthy bottom line. Over the past three years, wellness festivals have become big business, generating hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the U.S. alone. They are a gold mine for apparel companies and other brands eager to reach wellness enthusiasts, many of them affluent women looking to purchase products they believe will impact their overall health—and perhaps rub shoulders with a celebrity or two. (Gwyneth Paltrow, Beyoncé, and Jessica Alba are among the many pied pipers of holistic living.) At Sun Valley Wellness Festival in Idaho, attendees pay $300 for a weekend where they can listen to celebrity speakers like Deepak Chopra, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Arianna Huffington. To become sponsors at many of these gatherings, brands pay upward of $10,000.

Growing at about 20% annually, wellness festivals are a significant piece of the $3.7 trillion global wellness market (which is worth three times the worldwide pharmaceutical market) and represent an increasingly important slice of the $563 billion global wellness tourism category. Almost every big city in the United States hosts an annual wellness festival of some kind (in addition to major international cities including London, Copenhagen, and Cape Town)Lululemon’s SeaWheeze festival is going on its sixth year (it sold out in 32 minutes this year). Paltrow’s Goop just announced its second conference, scheduled for winter 2018, and Wanderlust is on track to sell 100,000 tickets by the end of 2017. Virgin Sports, meanwhile, will launch festivals this fall, while Weight Watchers produced its first MeFest last year.

Beth McGroarty, research director of Global Wellness Institute, says the rapid expansion of these festivals makes it hard to pin down exactly how many there are around the world: “It’s hard to keep track … It’s huge.”

In The Company Of Women

It’s not surprising that wellness festivals are a female-driven phenomenon: Women represent 72% of yoga practitioners in the U.S., according to a recent report by The Yoga Alliance in partnership with the Ipsos Public Affairs research firm. They also led the athleisure fashion revolution, helped boutique gyms like SoulCycle and Pure Barre flourish, and turned Zumba into one of the most sought-after workouts around. “Women are certainly driving the broader fitness trends,” says Jason Kelly, author of Sweat Equity: Inside the New Economy of Mind and Body.

Attendees for the Wanderlust festivals are predominantly college-educated women, with 80% holding a four-year university degree or higher, according to the company’s research. They are between the ages of 25-44, with backgrounds ranging from yoga instructors to company CEOs. To the women showing up to brand-name yoga classes in Tory Burch leggings, wellness is a sign of social standing and luxury. These are grown-ups who want to unwind, not get wasted.

[Photo: Melissa Gayle for Wanderlust Festival]
“Perhaps they’ve aged out of Coachella but are still looking for a fun, festive experience that is much more balanced and aligns with where they are in their lives now,” Wanderlust’s Hoess says. (Considering that 32 million people attended a music festival in the U.S. last year, Wanderlust and its competitors could have a big pool of potential future “graduates” to draw from.)

For many women, the events are also an opportunity to meet and bond with like-minded individuals. Wellness festival directors report a high number of group bookings for girls’ getaways, mother-daughter trips, college reunions, and even bachelorette parties. These attendees want to socialize just as much as they want to relax during their time off. They crave a break from their screens and relief from the so-called “age of loneliness.”

In the report “Festivals Shift from Wasted to Wellness,” the Global Wellness Institute found that 18 to 34 year-olds are the most digitally interconnected generation, but also report higher levels of loneliness and stress than any other age group. During his book research, Jason Kelly repeatedly encountered Americans who described group exercise as an antidote to technology dependence.

Wanderlust 108 are one to two-day events that combine running, yoga, and meditation. [Melissa Gayle for Wanderlust Festival]
McGroarty knows the phenomenon well too. “This need for tribal gatherings, whether it’s at your yoga class or a boutique fitness class, there’s this desire to gather with large groups of people,” she says. “It’s a tangible experience.”

There’s Gold In Them Thar Yoga Mats

After the morning yoga rave, I take a break at the “kombucha garden,” a picturesque picnic area overlooking the Pacific Ocean that’s sponsored by Brew Dr. Kombucha. Here, attendees can sample different flavors of the probiotic beverage. Nearby, just behind the communal practice area on the pier, almost 20 vendors have set up shop to promote their goods, which range from green juice to organic beef jerky to tie-dye clothing with the tagline “make sustainability sexy.”

Natural skin care brand Ole Henriksen, Kashi, and cult-favorite coffee brand Bulletproof also have booths. A shiny Ford Fusion overlooks the pier as spokespeople hand out free tote bags. Another sponsor, Adidas, donates $1 to women’s causes for every person who digitally “submits a mantra” to their user-generated content site.

These festivals can feel like a parade of brands lifted straight out of Whole Foods. Some brands offer their products for free in goodie bags, while others pay a few thousand dollars to host a booth. The Telluride Wow festival, which its organizer says costs $35,000 to produce, charges companies $10,000 for a title sponsorship. Wanderlust, which did not share costs of event production, reports that on average, it secures 10 sponsors for a one-day event and 22 sponsors per festival. Sponsorship fees start at $5,000 and up.

Lululemon’s SeaWheeze includes a half marathon throughout scenic Vancouver. [Photo: courtesy of Lulelemon]
Sponsors generally include a mix of local and national brands. At the yearly Sun Valley Wellness Festival, they range from Spirituality and Health magazine to BMW to local institutions like law firms, farms, or shops. Organizer Heather LaMonica Deckard says the festival strives to align itself with brands that share its values, like environmentalism. Sponsor BMW, for instance, featured a hybrid vehicle on site.

At Fitness On The Rocks, attendees can partake in activities such as Zumba, body combat, yoga, pilates, even a water fight. [Photo: courtesy of Fitness On The Rocks]
More and more big brands are taking the plunge into the wellness well. Wanderlust says Adidas is typically one of their major sponsors. Last year, Fitness on the Rocks, a one-day festival held at Red Rocks, Colorado, welcomed more than 60 brands, including 24 Hour Fitness, Asics, Muscle Milk, and—stretching the definition of health to its limits—Michelob Ultra light beer. Prices ranged from $750-$2,000, depending on vendor booth location.

It’s not hard to understand why companies are clamoring to sponsor these events. Fitness on the Rock’s 10,000 attendees are 90% women, aged 22-38. Considering that women drive more than 80% of consumer purchases, according to Bloomberg News) and control about $20 trillion in global annual consumer spending (as reported by the Harvard Business Review), wellness gatherings are the definition of golden marketing opportunities.

In short, women rule the festival world.

As Big As Coachella?

Wellness festivals are hot right now, but can they continue to grow? Even large-scale fitness events like Tough Mudder experienced recent declines.

Jason Kelly, the author, points out that wellness festivals have the benefit of high repeatability, thanks to the social element. They can serve as yearly reunions for friends. As for the future of the events, he believes that the festivals will become more centralized as a select few dominate the market. “People have only so much time to spend on these things,” Kelly says. “There’s not enough room for many, many of them. Some key brands are going to emerge and so there will be little bit of winnowing.”

As for those master festivals–the SeaWheezes and the Wanderlusts–the Global Wellness Institute’s McGroarty predicts they will get even bigger.

At Wanderlust: Los Angeles, over 1,500 attendees participated in each day of the two-day festival at the Santa Monica Pier. [Photo: Melissa Gayle for Wanderlust Festival]
“[Wellness] interests are becoming so particular, the need for that kind of festival experience–I think it’s only going to sharpen,” she says. “It doesn’t feel faddy to me. There are too many social forces and there are so many offerings and so much power behind it from the promoters. It will only rise.”

Upon leaving Wanderlust, I stumble upon two participants in their mid-twenties chowing down on pizza at the Del Frisco’s across the pier. I ask whether they feel a wee bit guilty undoing all that hard yoga and hula-hooping with a decadently cheesy lunch.

“We’re on vacation,” one answers, laughing. “We’re just here to have fun!” The other, as she bites into her pepperoni slice, agrees: “Oh yeah, we do this all the time.”


One Of These 8 Projects Is Going To Win $100 Million For Its World-Changing Idea

0
0

In June 2016, the MacArthur Foundation launched 100&Change, a unique competition to award $100 million to whichever nonprofit or traditional company suggested how it could be best spent in solving “a critical problem of our time.”

The philanthropy didn’t define the exact problem, and that’s the point. The group’s mission statement “to build a more just, verdant, and peaceful world” is broad, and its $6.5 billion endowment is ultimately limited, so they were essentially creatively covering blind spots. Letting others point out what gaps you aren’t covering is a good way to figure out where to invest.

The submitted solutions cover everything from how to improve the education and early development of orphaned and abandoned children in impoverished countries to the introduction of fortified and easily cultivated crops in areas where people are going hungry. Eight semifinalists were chosen in March. That number will drop to five finalists in September with the winner, judged against what’s most “meaningful, verifiable, durable, and feasible” to be announced by the end of the year.

The list offers an intriguing look into just where all types of world-changing ambition might lead. That includes the Alliance for Zero Extinction’s plan to protect 100 of the Earth’s most important sites for endangered species. And the World Wildlife Fund’s proposal to cut food waste with the U.S in half by 2024.

For the semifinalists, only one will earn the $100 million prize, so there may be some disappointment ahead. But given that there were 17 charitable gifts of that size or more in 2016, and already 11 more this year, the hope is obviously that some deep-pocketed donors might feel interested in getting involved with these causes.

In the meantime, MacArthur has partnered with nonprofit evaluator Charity Navigator to create short videos for those nonprofits that applied and that ranked in the top 25% of all 800 or so contenders on the charity watchdog’s measurements of high trust and transparency ratings.

Charity Navigator’s work to highlight all the other worthy submissions offers a similar chance for average investors. Below you can watch the eight semifinalist videos, which have been polished into solid fundraising-style pitches. Click here to see all of the other submissions from top nonprofit finishers, many of which may be equally worth of donations.

Catholic Relief Charities: Changing how society cares for children in orphanages.

Harvest Health: Eliminating hidden hunger in Africa by fortifying staple crops.

Himalayan Cataract Project: Eliminating preventable and curable blindness in Nepal, Ethiopia, and Ghana.

Human Diagnosis Project: Providing virtual access to specialist medical care for underserved U.S. patients.

Internet Archive: Providing libraries and learners free digital access to 4 million books.

Rice University: Improving newborn survival in Africa.

Sesame Workshop and International Rescue Committee: Educating children displaced by conflict and persecution.

The Carter Center: Eliminating river blindness in Nigeria.

Drake And Will Ferrell’s NBA Shake, Twitter’s GOAT: The Top 5 Ads Of The Week

0
0

Athletes. There’s a lot of them in this week’s list. Starting with perhaps what’s become the most crucial skill in pro sports social media—the creative handshake. A simple high five is no longer sufficient. NBA broadcaster TNT knows this, so to promote the league’s inaugural awards show it recruited two of the most skilled handshakers in the business. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go practice The Prom. Onward!

TNT “Handshake Lessons”

What: A sketch starring NBA Awards host Drake and Will Ferrell.

Who: TNT

Why We Care: Okay, so maybe not an ad per se, since the sketch aired during the live broadcast of the NBA Awards on TNT. But! The network also smartly used it as a live ad—pushing clips across social to entice viewers to tune in immediately.  De-mazing.

Twitter “GOAT is Happening”

What: A new spot from Twitter, using sports to illustrate the diverse, fun, wide-ranging conversations that can be had online.

Who: Twitter

Why We Care: Somedays it seems that Twitter is merely a machine that kills optimism, manners, and common decency all at once. But despite all the divisive vitriol spewing across the platform, it can also be a ton of fun. And here the brand has some fun itself, using sports banter across fans and superstars to make a point.

Gatorade “The Secret to Victory”

What: Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, the Manning brothers, Matt Ryan, JJ Watt, Kyle Schwarber, and Karl Anthony Towns, all reveal the one special ingredient that makes a winner.

Who: Gatorade, TBWA Chiat Day/LA

Why We Care: This is just a classic sports ad, using a different kind of aspirational approach, celebrating sweat over celebrity. We see these pro athletes reflect on their lowest competitive moments. It brings them back to earth in the best way possible, and allows us mere mortals, even just for a brief second, to know we can in some way, to borrow a phrase, be like Mike.

Jordan Brand “Why Not 0?”

What: An animated ode to newly minted NBA MVP Russell Westbrook.

Who: Jordan Brand, Wieden+Kennedy

Why We Care: As I said earlier this week, I’m a fan of learning lessons in animated form. So this NBA math lesson, courtesy of Phonte of Little Brother and the Foreign Exchange, is a perfectly delightful way to break down the numbers to pay homage to No. O—oh, and just how incredible Westbrook’s season was.

Pedigree “General Howe’s Dog”

What: A new Pedigree ad that celebrates America with an obscurely sweet story from the Revolutionary War.

Who: Pedigree, BBDO New York

Why We Care: Okay, no athletes in this one, but there is a dog. A famous, historical dog. Here Pedigree continues its “Feed the Good” campaign, and celebrates July 4th with a dramatic retelling of that time General George Washington politely returned British General Howe’s dog after the 1777 Battle of Germantown. Seriously, there’s a whole book about it.

The Definitive Argument For Summer Fridays

0
0

On Friday afternoons during the summer, your body may be at work but your brain is thinking about the weekend. You’ve got places to go, things to do, and relaxation on the agenda. So how much work are you actually getting done?

Probably not much, and that’s why more companies are implementing “Summer Fridays,” a program that gives employees the flexibility to leave early or take the entire day off. In a study by the consulting firm CEB, now Gartner, 42% of the organizations are offering their employees Summer Fridays this year—double the amount just two years ago.

“When you think about it, Fridays in summer are not peak moments of productivity,” says Brian Kropp, CEB HR practice leader. “A lot of employees are mentally checked out or they try to sneak out early. Companies realize some of behavior is already occurring, and by saying it’s okay, they’re also saying, ‘we care about you.'”

The Benefits

With the unemployment rate hovering around 4%, companies are doing what they can to retain and engage their top talent. One reason employees quit is a perceived lack of work/life balance, says Kropp. CEOs and HR managers often spend time saying they care about your work/life balance, but they don’t necessarily do things that help.

“Summer Fridays is effective at reengaging employees, because from an employee perspective the company is putting their money where their mouth is, giving the gift of time,” he says. “An engaged employee will work harder those other four and a half days, and they’re less likely to quit during the summer.”

The staff at Venga, a Washington, D.C.-based hospitality tech company, looks forward to Fridays. “Since we’re in the restaurant business, we do Food Trip Fridays,” says Winston Lord, cofounder. “Each week a member of the team picks a restaurant for us to go to and Venga pays for the lunch.”

Employees get the rest of the day off—and the perk is paying off, says Lord. “Across the last two years, we’ve had only one employee voluntarily leave,” he says. “Summer Fridays allows employees to get a head start on the weekend, do that errand they’ve been putting off for weeks, or squeeze in an extra workout. Our employees tell us that perks like Food Trip Friday absolutely help with retention.”

Summer Fridays will also help you improve your reputation on the labor market as an organization that cares about its employees, says Kropp. “That helps you attract better quality talent in the labor market,” he says.

How It Works

Summer Fridays tends to work best for certain industries and types of jobs. “This is good for people in offices rather than someone in retail or manufacturing,” says Kropp. “It tends to be skewed toward companies in IT-based industries or professional services.”

The most popular programs give employees the afternoon off, before or after lunch. If you can’t swing that schedule, you can make still adjustments that capitalize on the importance of work/life balance, says Kropp. For example, allow your staff to work from home more frequently during the summer or shift their hours earlier or later. And actively encourage employees to take their paid time off without guilt.

Pick A Start And End Date

Before you roll out your Summer Fridays program, set up guidelines and expectations. Give a clear beginning and end date. Some companies give employees every Friday afternoon off between Memorial Day and Labor Day, while others give every other Friday or the Fridays before holiday weekends.

Enforce Work Deadlines

Employees need to know that deadlines must be met. “Our employees are using their time more effectively Monday through Thursday because they know they have Friday afternoon off, and they are noticeably more energized,” says Lord. “For us, number of hours worked does not equal productivity. We trust our colleagues to get the job done; the whole team knows if someone is falling short.”

Employees Must Be Available

You can’t have Summer Fridays and not be responsive, says Kropp. Any employee that is working on a customer or client issue needs to be finished before they leave, and they need to be available if a client contacts you, he says.

“That can be done with an out-of-office message that offers a cell phone number,” says Kropp. “You need to communicate that customers matter; you can’t wait until Monday to respond. This isn’t traditional time off where you can be completely disconnected.”

Let Clients Know

Consider letting your clients know about your Summer Fridays as a way to give them a heads up about the schedule and a peek into your culture.

“People want to do business with companies that respect their employees, especially after what’s been in the news with Uber,” says Kropp. ”

And Make Management Participate

Leadership must participate, says Kropp. “If a manager doesn’t leave, that puts pressure on employees,” he says. “They often feel they can’t leave if their manager isn’t taking advantage of it.”

If you need to work, leave the office and go to a coffee shop or go home. “The act of staying at the office sends the message, ‘The company says it’s okay, but I don’t think so,'” says Kropp.

How This Award-Winning Teacher Helped A Troubled Inuit Community Bounce Back

0
0

This past March, Maggie MacDonnell was awarded the $1 million Global Teacher Prize for her work with indigenous people in the Canadian Arctic. The Inuit village of Salluit, where she has taught for the past seven years, can only be reached by air, and temperatures often drop below -25C. With a population of 1,300, the community faced a rampant suicide crisis; six young men had taken their own lives in 2015.

During her time in Salluit, MacDonnell, 36, went from the heartbreak of attending funerals to being told by four people that she had saved their lives. Arriving as an outsider, the native Nova Scotian—who had previously spent five years working in sub-Saharan Africa on HIV/AIDS prevention programs—helped transform an entire community.

Maggie MacDonnell (center) at a United Nations panel on education this month.

In addition to teaching kids ages 9-18, MacDonnell launched a number of transformative initiatives, including running a community kitchen, attending suicide prevention training, and hiking through national parks to understand environmental stewardship. She established a fitness center that helped build local teenagers’ physical and mental resilience against drugs, drinking, and self-harm. She has also been a foster parent, including to some of her own students. And those students, in turn, have fundraised more than $37,000 for diabetes prevention and other causes. MacDonnell credits these achievements to the power of education to connect people. To her, the secret to being the best teacher in the world is not much of a secret at all. It’s all about building relationships.

As she prepared to speak at the United Nations in New York earlier this month, we talked with MacDonnell via Skype about the prize and her vision for bringing people together in an increasingly divided world.

Fast Company: What did it feel like to be awarded such a big prize—and to have it announced from the International Space Station?

Maggie MacDonnell: I certainly never expected to be able to contribute so significantly that I’d be recognized on this global level. It’s still overwhelming. That million dollar prize is a spotlight, and I applaud the Varkey Foundation [the nonprofit organization that runs the Global Teacher Prize] for trying to raise the profile of teaching in the way they have. If you look at the research out there, the status of teachers is declining in every country except China, so we’ve got to try new things, because if we actually consider teachers to be exemplary, if we preach that the future is in their classrooms every day, why not award them the way we do celebrities or other role models in other professions?

FC: How do you plan to spend the prize money?

MM: The $1 million is a personal prize, but I’m up for investing it in empowering indigenous young people, especially those with whom I work, so I’m in the process of registering as a nonprofit. I will then put my million dollars towards a project based around kayaking. The Inuit actually invented the kayak, but that tradition is not quite so alive in the villages of the north, so I want to help reawaken that. I learned in Salluit that physical activity is an amazing tool for building resilience, and connecting young people to their culture and to their heritage is crucial for their pride and the health of the community. Thirdly, it connects them to the environment. So many indigenous youths have been disenfranchised from what I think is their greatest cultural heritage, which is that connection to the land.

Maggie MacDonnell’s students in Salluit.

FC: Why is that connection so important?

MM: The Arctic is experiencing climate change at four times the rate of the rest of the world, and only two weeks ago, we lost a hunter in our region because the snow and ice are melting at rates and in ways which are unpredictable. So when we talk about the impact of this on indigenous people, it’s not just about land rights or environmental rights, it’s integral to human rights.

FC: You talk about disenfranchisement from the land and traditional culture. Is that a factor in the social problems communities like Salluit face?

MM: Absolutely. From residential schools to the tuberculosis outbreak, forced relocation, or the mass slaughter of sled dogs, there are huge legacy issues that continue to have an impact onto those indigenous populations. We use the term “intergenerational trauma” to describe this, and it’s something that young people carry with them every day into the classroom, even if they have not experienced it firsthand. But education is so powerful because it transcends all that. The Inuit have been so generous and forgiving, and they have tried again to trust an outsider like me. Despite those decades, if not centuries, of injustice and historical traumas, the beauty is that the human spirit can want to connect, and that we still can connect.

FC: Can education also help connect other groups that have been historically divided? How can teachers bridge the gap created by the current climate of political polarization we’re seeing across the globe?

Adventurer Bear Grylls, Maggie MacDonnell, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai, and philanthropist Sunny Varkey.

MM: I do agree with Sunny Varkey [the philanthropist who created the prize] when he said, “To every question that exists, education is ultimately the answer.” And teachers are our most underused, but also our most ideal, tools already out in the field to help us build those connections and relationships.

One of the biggest challenges and opportunities we have is promoting what I call “unlearning” and “re-learning,” especially in contexts where colonization has existed or there’s been a history of social injustice, because people have learned a lot of negative stereotypes, falsehoods, and partial truths. We can apply those lessons in all sorts of ways in terms of the continuing issues we have with gender, or some of the significant race issues we still face in 2017. So as teachers, we need to create a space where it’s safe for people to unlearn some things, and that might involve opening their eyes to their own privileges, which is uncomfortable for some people to go through. I try to always continue unlearning and re-learning myself—it’s one of the advantages of being a minority in that context, in spite of my privilege.

FC: Does technology fit into your teaching?

MM: Often, technology is not developed for worlds such as the one I live in. We have very slow internet in our school, so a lot of the engaging apps out there simply do not apply in my environment. But something I’m really excited about is the Varkey Teacher Ambassador Network, which includes the top 50 finalists for each year’s prize. Since it’s been going for three years, here is this phenomenal resource where there are 150 amazing teachers all over the world connected by this shared experience. One of them, Stephen Ritz from Benjamin Franklin Public School 55 in New York, works in an amazing project called Green Bronx Machine, which grows vegetables in vertical greenhouse towers. He’s sending me a few of those towers for us to try out in the Arctic. We face tremendous food insecurity in the north, so that’s great that it provides food, but it’s also about project-based learning, where you’re applying science and maths. It’s all about finding technology that’s appropriate to your reality. 

FC: What’s next for you?

MM: I want to continue being a bridge between the public and indigenous people, helping them to connect through my kayaking project. Since winning the prize, I’ve already received all sorts of generous offers, and I’m hoping that people will match my million. I’ve setup a Facebook page to start building a community around that, so hopefully the project can grow in all sorts of exciting ways and become the start of something much bigger.

This Is The State Of Small Business Failure In The U.S.

0
0

Things are tough out there for new businesses. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Business Employment Dynamics, the number of businesses surviving past the first year has dropped from 569,419 in 1994 to 106,789 in 2016.

Of the small businesses that opened in March 2015, only 79.9% made it to March 2016. Only about half make it to the fifth year. Fifty-one percent of businesses started in 2011 made it to 2016.

The reasons are as varied as the startups themselves, but this analysis of public records and trends by InsuranceQuotes.com reveals several factors.

Location, location, location isn’t just about real estate. Recent analysis by CNBC found that there are metro areas where the odds are stacked against a founder. Four of the bottom five are in California, including Stockton, Modesto, San Bernardino, and Santa Rosa, along with Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Reasons range from an uneducated and impoverished workforce and stringent permitting regulations to an exodus of big companies taking their employees with them.

Certain industry sectors have a higher than average success rate. Although healthcare startups saw a decrease in the amount of overall investment, according to CB Insights, they and finance startups have the best chance at sticking around for five years.

As a free or low-cost tool, some believe that social media can contribute to a startup’s success and longevity. “Social media has the ability to build credibility, acquire new customers, and even convert followers into sales,” according to Socialnomics.

Funding is important, but human capital can make or break an early stage startup. For the second year in a row, a report on startups from First Round Review found that the top concern for business owners was whether they’d be able to find and hire skilled talent.

(For full source list, click here)

This Tech Exec’s Secret To Life And Career Success? Kitesurfing

0
0

Standing on a strapless board and clinging to an enormous kite, catching the wind as it propels you across the waves at high speed, you’re struck with feelings of awe. Adrenaline pumps through your veins as you contend with one of nature’s most powerful elements.

I first learned to paraglide growing up near the French Alps, but I got into kitesurfing—the airborne sport’s water-based equivalent—after moving to Paris. I’ve kept up my passion for it ever since; it’s the one hobby that’s tracked my career at every turn. I started building a tech company called Neolane in 2001, just as France’s tech boom faltered, but we made it through. As a cofounder, I took the business from a private, pre-revenue B2B marketing-tech startup to a profitable, scalable business, and eventually sold it to Adobe for $600 million in 2013. I’m still with Adobe now, having tripled the size of the business with a growth rate of over 40%.

Had I not been a kitesurfer, I’m not sure I’d have been able to navigate those highs and lows half as successfully as I did. The risk and focus it takes to master kitesurfing have followed me to shore, first as an entrepreneur and now as an exec at a large company. But ironically enough, the landless sport has also kept me grounded.


Related:Why Ultra-Marathons Are This CEO’s Secret To Work-Life Balance


Taking Risks Under Harsh Conditions

Kitesurfing is all about skillfully maneuvering the board and kite through waves and winds—which means continuously adjusting to variables you can’t control. It’s unavoidable that your kite will crash. When it does, you’re caught in 75-foot lines with 10-foot waves pounding your head. You can drown alarmingly quickly.

Like anyone else, I’ve also found that taking risks can be terrifying. Quitting a longtime career, investing capital with no promise of return, and trusting that others will see the value of your idea—these are no easy challenges to weather. But kitesurfing has taught me how to keep risk in perspective. If you don’t believe in yourself, why should anyone else? To build a successful business, you need a realistic and constantly updated perspective on your odds. Without that, you can’t convince anybody else that you know what you’re doing.

One period in particular where kitesurfing helped me in my work was in the early 2000s, when France was plagued with harsh economic conditions. The aftermath of the tech crash hit my company hard. We ran out of funding and were in a bad place with our investors due to a poor valuation. To survive, we were forced to cut the salaries of our 20-person team by 25%. Fortunately, 95% of our staff stuck with us. Nearly every kitesurfer has faced near-death experiences while struggling to survive a wipeout in a massive current. Sometimes you’re forced to swim half a mile with your equipment to make it ashore. If you panic, you’re finished.

It’s no different in the startup world. Every decision carries some level of risk—and some of them don’t pay off. Maybe your push into a new market or territory fails. Or maybe you’re trying to launch your kite higher into the air than ever before, but a mistake sends you crashing. Either way, it’s all about picking yourself up and learning what went wrong—a habit I learned early on the waves.

Staying Focused When That’s Hardest

When kitesurfing, I’m relentlessly focused. I can’t afford to let my mind wander or lose concentration for a split second. In a world beset by what often feels like unavoidable multitasking, don’t underestimate the power of deep concentration. That’s when your best ideas will come, and you’ll be amazed at the precision and fervor with which you’ll accomplish your work.

Entrepreneurs wear many hats and can be easily distracted, which can lead to lackluster strategies and stunted execution. Focus takes practice. But over time, I’ve gotten better at choosing the projects and tasks that need my total concentration, then pouring all my focus into those. Prioritize, delegate, and eliminate distractions.

Take, for example, my company’s expansion into the U.S. The country is huge geographically, the markets are massive, and the scale is vast compared with our limited startup resources. Being laser-focused meant picking a geography, vertical, market segment, and use-case, and nailing it. We started with a narrow focus, then widened our scope and scaled progressively as we built on one success after the other. I’ve learned how to stay focused this way through kitesurfing; survival mechanisms always apply—whether it’s literally keeping your head above water or preserving cash.


Related:How My Cycling Obsession Makes Me A Better Entrepreneur


Leaving Work At The Office

Having a job that you’re passionate about and consumes all of your energy is exhilarating. But disconnecting from work and pursuing your passion can make all the difference. I know I wouldn’t be happy if I weren’t able to balance my professional career with the sport I love. The two aren’t totally separate from one another, though—I think of them as connected. I strive to feel that rush of kitesurfing in all that I do.

Disconnecting from the physical world and indulging your inner self is something everybody needs to do in order to thrive, not just entrepreneurs and athletes. You don’t need to be a tech founder or a kitesurfer to realize that when you’re healthy in body and mind, your work and business can stay in balance, too. Kitesurfing has helped me keep this in mind without losing sight of how important it is to do things with passion.

Staying grounded—even when it means hitting the waves—can actually be exhilarating.


Stephan Dietrich is VP of Adobe Campaign.

From Bad LinkedIn Profiles To Breaking Up Amazon: June’s Top Leadership Stories

0
0

This month, recruiters share with us what the worst LinkedIn profiles have in common, the possible implications of Amazon’s announcement to acquire Whole Foods, and why you might want to stop sending those “friendly reminder” emails.

These are the stories you loved in Leadership for the month of June:

1. Recruiters Explain What The Worst LinkedIn Profiles Have In Common

When recruiters need to find someone to hire, LinkedIn is the first place they go. That means going through a lot of boring and unmemorable profiles. This week they shared what makes them pass by immediately. For instance: If your headline just restates your unexciting job title, you’re probably getting overlooked.

2. It’s Time To Break Up Amazon

This month, Amazon announced that it’s buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Media theorist and digital economics professor Douglas Rushkoff argues that the deal poses a threat that’s unique to the digital economy. As he sees it, when companies are platforms, they see every new market they enter as a means to an end—and eventually “extract all the value from a given region before closing up shop and moving to the next one.”

3. This Emotional Intelligence Test Was So Accurate It Was Creepy

When Fast Company associate editor Rich Bellis took an emotional intelligence test, the results took him by surprise. Not because it was completely unexpected–but because he found them to be incredibly accurate. So much so that when he asked the developer of the test, Steven J. Stein, what he can do to be more “flexible” (one of the traits Bellis didn’t score high on)–Stein made a guess that Bellis ate almost the same breakfast every day (which he does), and suggested that he shake it up.

4. Everyone Secretly Hates Your “Friendly Reminder” Email

You know those emails you send when you’re trying to follow up on something? The kind that starts in “Just a friendly reminder that.” If you’re about to send one right now, you might want to hold off. At least don’t start with those phrases in an attempt to seem more polite, because you won’t. Instead, consider being more direct and sending a calendar invite, or even picking up the phone to send a clear signal that you need something actioned ASAP. No one likes to be reminded, so there’s no point being passive-aggressive about it.

5. My Company Tried Slack For Two Years. This Is Why We Quit.

Slack has become almost synonymous with office communication. Whether it’s hashing out your Monday lunch plans with your colleagues or giving your boss quick updates on where you’re at with your project, many conversations in the office these days happen over the real-time messaging platform. But Slack’s impact on office productivity has been debated. One productivity app company, Doist, adopted the platform in a bid to make their remote workforce feel more like a team. But then in the words of their founder and CEO, they “quit Slack cold turkey” after two years. He listed out several reasons why Slack didn’t work for their team, including its unsuitability for big-picture discussions and impossibility to “sustain a full conversation from start to finish.”

6. 3 Secrets Of People Who Always Get Job Offers

Some people seem to have all the luck. They land their dream jobs without filling in the time-consuming job applications—come to think of it, are you sure they even sent in a resume? So what’s their secret? In a nutshell, being willing to break a few rules of the job search can go a long way.

7. How To Write A Work Email When You’re Really Pissed Off

There will be times in your working life when you’re really angry and need to write an email to check in on whatever it is that got you fired up. Your first instinct might be to pour your heart out, or else to spend so long agonizing over your response that all the words on the screen start to blur. Don’t do either. Writer and editor Jennifer Romolini shares how to keep it short, simple, and as emotionless as possible.

8. Do These Four Things To Make Your Boring Presentation Sound Interesting

It’s hard to make all presentations interesting. Yes, you can include a compelling anecdote, but when all you have to go on is facts and figures, it’s really difficult not to resort to slideshow reading mode and put your audience to sleep. Speaking coach Anett Grant offers some tips on how you can make those types of presentations less boring, like including an unfamiliar piece of information and turning your data into striking visuals.

9. A Former Navy SEAL On The Hidden Influencers In Every Team

Every organization has a formal structure, but hidden within it are informal relationships that influence every team member’s actions and decisions. This month Chris Fussell, a former Navy SEAL, recounted having to teach this to a new civilian he once hired. His method? Fussell put his new hire on a 90-day crash course in spotting their team’s hidden, unofficial influencers. Here’s how it worked.

10. This Flowchart Tells You Which Fictional Boss You Are

Everyone’s leadership style is different–and like everything else in life, there’s no consensus on which one is best. That might be why TV shows portray bosses in so many ways, from ice-cold and buttoned up to go-with-the-flow and slightly disorganized. If you want to know how your leadership style stacks up to your favorite onscreen characters, this flowchart is for you.


Wubalubadubdub: The Trailer For “Rick and Morty” Season 3 Is Finally Here

0
0

WHAT: The first trailer for the long-awaited third season of Rick and Morty.

WHO: Creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland.

WHY WE CARE: First thing’s first: July 30. That’s when the show is coming back–one month from today. Now, the reason why this news is great. Rick and Morty is a silly, cerebral animated comedy that uses the central relationship of Back to the Future as its launchpad, sending a genius scientist and a gawky teenager off on a new planet-hopping adventure each episode. After two glorious seasons, the show went on hiatus in fall 2015 and offered scant hints about when it would be back. About three months ago, though, on April Fool’s Day, Adult Swim unceremoniously surprise-released the first episode of the show’s up-until-then mythical third season. Fans were satisfied, but still in the dark about when they would receive the remaining episodes. Now, everything is illuminated. Beyond the release date, however, the creators have treated fans to a trailer highlighting some of the goofy inter-dimensional action to come this season, including Rick’s transformation into Pickle Rick. Wubalubadubdub, indeed.

Networking Sucks, But You Can Make It Bearable. Here’s How

0
0

If there’s one word in the working world that makes introverts cringe most, it’s probably “networking.” Though some find the task of talking to new people for career purposes to be enjoyable and enlightening, for others, it’s a major source of stress and anxiety. On the one hand, they know it’s something they should be doing to help themselves get ahead, and on the other, they can’t think of anything they’d like to do less than talk to complete strangers. The benefits of networking are well-documented: mentorship relationships, finding out about new job leads, and developing new client prospects. At the same time, even the most profound benefits are not always enough to get introverts onboard.

Here’s the good news: Not everyone networks the same. So if your first reaction to the idea of going to a business “mixer” is a feeling of dread, try out these tricks for making it more bearable.

1. Change How You Think About Networking

“Networking is a word that can cause stress for both extroverts and introverts alike, as it usually conjures up an evening of walking around with a glass in your hand, awkwardly attempting to talk to strangers,” explains Lauren Stiller Rikleen, president of the Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership and author of Ladder Down: Success Strategies For Lawyers From Women Who Will Be Hiring, Reviewing and Promoting You.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. “It is far more helpful to think of networking as the art of building relationships over time,” she notes. Think about it. Any time you’ve derived some benefit from networking–a new job, client, or contract–it was most likely from a relationship that you cultivated for a while. Though sometimes people are able to translate brand-new connections into business results, it’s much more common to get them from longstanding relationships.


Related:8 Common Networking Disasters (And How To Avoid Them) 


“Success in the business world can be significantly impacted by one’s ability to form and maintain relationships,” continues Rikleen.”Decades of research demonstrate that we tend to mentor and promote people with whom we have formed positive relationships. Relationships also provide a source of advice and support in navigating a job search or any other life change. The more broadly we think about what it means to build relationships effectively, the more likely we are to find ways to meet new people in a way that best fits our personality.”

So instead of forcing yourself to go to a huge conference to make new connections, ask someone out for coffee or lunch if that’s an environment that makes you more comfortable. Plus, you’ll be better able to have a meaningful conversation in a more private setting.

2. Manage Your Expectations

The aim of networking is to meet people you connect with. Sure, there might be some people who hit it off with everyone they meet, but that’s not the case for most–even extroverts. “Be realistic,” says Leila Bulling Towne, founder of the Bulling Towne Group, an executive coaching and leadership facilitation practice. “You will meet many people with whom you will not generate genuine rapport. That is okay,” she adds. “A reasonable goal is to find a few new people to learn more about, not to gain multiple new friends or LinkedIn connections.” Just remind yourself that networking is about quality, not quantity, so if you meet one or two new people every quarter who you are able to develop relationships with, that’s a win.

3. Rehearse

You know what they say: Practice makes perfect. When it comes to networking, especially at a big event or conference if you decide to go that route, preparing ahead of time can help you (at least in part) deal with your nerves. “Always have a strategy and set goals ahead of time,” suggest Stephanie Abrams Cartin and Courtney Spritzer, the cofounders of Socialfly, a social media marketing and influencer agency. “More than anything, it is important to know the audience you are addressing, and your personal brand. Create an elevator pitch that reflects your strengths but shows your personality.” If it helps you feel prepared, research other event attendees beforehand so you know who you want to talk to and why. Think of how you’ll introduce yourself to them as well as some questions you’d want to ask them. Then, when you walk into a room filled with people, you’ll hopefully feel less overwhelmed because you have some specific goals in mind for the session.

4. If Rehearsing Feels Weird, Try Something Different

While having an elevator pitch is a great strategy for many people, it doesn’t work for everyone. If you try creating one and practicing and it just feels wrong, don’t force it. “I am a firm believer in giving yourself pep talks, not practice speeches,” says Jaclyn Johnson, founder of Create & Cultivate, an online platform and offline conference for women looking to create and cultivate the career of their dreams. “People vibe with and trust authenticity. Trust between you and a client or you and a potential partner is paramount,” she explains. In other words, if you don’t feel like you’re being yourself, you won’t get very far.

And for those who aren’t comfortable “being themselves” in a public setting, emphasize your job function.”If you’re going to learn one thing before a networking opportunity, learn your business. Know your business and your job inside out. Pitch that. Don’t pitch you.”


Related:How Not To Suck At Networking When You Have A Lame Job Title 


5. Use Social Media To Your Advantage

One of the best potential takeaways from networking is a mentoring relationship. For people who don’t love talking to strangers, though, taking that first step to getting close enough with someone to develop that kind of connection can be tough. While social media presents its own unique challenges in the business world, it also provides ample opportunity to research and connect with new people, all without actually going to a networking event. “Individuals, brands, and businesses are utilizing social media to share advice and show an inside look at their culture and values. Once you find a mentor or company you admire, do your research on their brand and get creative with how you reach out to them,” suggest the founders of Socialfly. Then, figure out how you can make a connection in person.

For example, “If you find an event where your potential mentor will be speaking, prepare thoughtful questions that will not only give you helpful insight but also challenge and excite them. This tactic will help you make a lasting impression and stand out from the competition.”

6. Don’t Do Things You Hate

You know yourself better than anyone else, which means you know which environments you’ll be comfortable in and which ones you won’t. “A fundamentally important aspect of networking is to be authentic. And you can only be authentic if you are able to be comfortable and engage with people as yourself,” says Rikleen. If you’re not comfortable, you can’t be yourself. “Whether an introvert or an extrovert, if you do not bring your authentic self to an opportunity to meet people, you will invariably resent the experience, which will impact your ability to form new relationships.”

Basically, don’t do something you know is going to keep you from feeling at ease. “If you are an introvert who does not enjoy noisy venues and loud music, it’s perfectly okay to take a pass on the event at a bar and, instead, sign up for the charity dinner or community service day,” she explains. “If you are doing an activity you enjoy, it will be much easier to talk to people you have never met, and you will find that strangers will more easily become colleagues.”


A version of this article originally appeared on Glassdoor and is reprinted with permission. 

JBL Teams Quincy Jones To Give Artists And Audiophiles Creative Advice

0
0

There’s no shortage of brand content featuring famous faces, but for its newest campaign JBL is aiming to make Quincy Jones as a resource for young artists and creative people to learn from.

For its “Legendary Vibes” series, to promote its line of signature Quincy Jones headphones, JBL enlisted young artists and influencers like fashion designer Melody Ehsani, singer-songwriter Yuna, GQ writer Mark Anthony Green, and fashion vet Josh Peskowitz to chat with Jones about lessons learned over the course of his legendary career. The newest video in the series features Green talking to Jones about collaboration, creative anxiety, and craft.

Coltrane Curtis, founder and managing partner of agency Team Epiphany, says the approach with this series was to break through the content clutter by using conversations with Jones to act as mentoring opportunities for the brand’s target of influential millennials.

“Brands need to recognize, first, that this target does not need another piece of branded content to navigate–they are already inundated,” says Curtis. “Therefore, the content must be a utility. It needs to be useful, must speak to their passion points, their aspirations, and give them the tools to help achieve their goals.”

Meet The Woman Tasked With Saving Uber From Itself

0
0

Over the last six months, Uber’s been rocked by a series of scandals that brought this soaring unicorn back down to earth. It all really started with Susan Fowler’s blog post on February 19, 2017, that detailed incredibly poor management practices and a human resources department that prized the success of the company over the needs of its employees even in the face of sexual harassment allegations. Since then, revelations of sexist and other inappropriate behavior at the top of the company have dominated headlines, including an outing to an escort bar in South Korea and an executive obtaining the medical records of a rider who was raped by her Uber driver in India.

Many of Uber’s issues stem from the brash attitude cultivated by former CEO Travis Kalanick; one that prioritizes high performance over everything else. It doesn’t just affect corporate culture, it also impacts Uber’s drivers, who often feel undervalued due to low-fare pricing and the company’s pursuit of autonomous vehicles.

The ride-hailing giant is desperately trying to reset its course and has since hired law firms (including former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder’s firm Covington & Burling) that conducted investigations both into Fowler’s claims and Uber’s general culture. The ensuing reports led to the firing of roughly 20 people as well as a purge of Uber’s leadership, including Kalanick, and a lengthy set of guidelines for fixing Uber’s ailing workplace. There’s also been turnover on the board with both Benchmark Capital partner Bill Gurley and TPG investor David Bonderman being replaced by Matt Cohler and David Trujillo, respectively.

But a company’s culture is hard to change, especially in a short time frame and at a workplace with thousands of employees. The difficulty of reforming ingrained bad behavior was highlighted at Uber’s town hall meeting to discuss the findings of the investigation, during which Bonderman managed to burp up a sexist remark about how women talk too much. To emphasize that the board was serious about change, Bonderman agreed to step down.

Since February, Uber has taken some actions to turn itself around. The question it’s facing now is whether it can pull off a makeover. We sat down with Liane Hornsey, who is both Uber’s chief human resources officer and the liaison between Uber and the board committee overseeing Uber’s implementation of Covington & Burling’s recommendations, to see how the company is moving ahead.

FC: Critics have said that much of the change that has taken place at Uber over the last several weeks has been in the name of optics. What do you say to that? 

LH: Let me address head-on any thought of what we could be doing as optics. You know, my honest sense here is that this is the most detailed and most thorough change program that I’ve ever seen in my working career. I’ve never seen such dedication from a leadership team to change and from a whole company to change. And frankly when you’ve had the spotlight shone on you the way we have, it’s absolutely essential that you take change seriously. So there are no optics here.

What we’re doing we’re doing for our employees and because we want to make Uber the very best place to work. And we have been working seriously hard for the last five months, to ensure that everything that our employees think is important to them, we have heard and we have responded to. And to give you a little bit of background, one of the things we did after the Susan Fowler blog is that we ran a lot of listening sessions across the company because I felt very strongly that whatever we did needed to be employee-led. As a result of the listening sessions, we had many things that came out of things that they felt could be improved.

What we have been doing every single week since then is tackling those things. That is what my life has been, that is what my team’s life has been. We have a very holistic plan. And in truth, when Holder came out with his recommendations, we found that much of the plan that was already in place was very simpatico with the Holder recommendations and I can give you many many examples of that. But there’s been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in leadership oversight really going into making sure this is for real.

FC: What’s the timeline for implementing these new practices?

LH: It’s very hard to give you a timeline, because there are so many recommendations and some of them are extraordinarily substantive and some of them are extremely easy. Some of those things that were in there were already implemented. Some of those things will take longer. I’ve never seen a cultural change that takes, in its fullness, less than twelve months.

The most important thing is that we take all of those recommendations and we have a project plan for each and every one of them and we measure our progress very regularly. The board has established an oversight committee, which comprises a few members of the board [David Trujillo (TPG), Matt Cohler (Benchmark) and Arianna Huffington] and I am the executive who has to report to that oversight committee every two weeks. And they will have my project plan and they will hold me and the team accountable for movement across each of those recommendations.

And, in addition and absolutely as importantly, I am wholly accountable to the employees. So whilst I’m presenting to the board, I am also sending an email every two weeks to the whole employee population outlining every single thing that we are doing. And I have been doing that for, gosh, I think maybe ten weeks, eight to ten weeks. So accountability is super high. And frankly, our success will be judged on whether we successfully do that and we know that.

FC: Can you paint a picture of some of the ways you imagine that playing out?

LH: In every company, there are some things that you can do very fast that have very significant far-reaching impacts. In particular, I’ll give you two examples. One is that the employees felt very strongly that our performance management must change. Our performance management system was very similar to the performance management system that many companies use and it’s really that of forced distribution. And actually Susan Fowler alluded to this in her blog. In my experience, forced distribution is just not positive, it’s not a good thing to do to employees. So one of the things that we’ve done already is we’ve said to our employees, because they waved to us that they didn’t like the performance management system, is I went out and we put out a survey to 100% of our employees around performance management. We basically said, ‘Tell us what you like, tell us what you don’t like and tell us how you want it be.’

Of 100% of our employees, about three and a half thousand responded to us telling us what they wanted the performance management system to be. We then ran focus groups with 600 people and our employees themselves have designed a new performance management system. And I can’t tell you how excited I am about that because I don’t know any company that’s ever done that. So I didn’t sit in a darkened room and design our new performance management system—our employees did it. There is no stack rank, there is no forced curve, and there is no numeric rating. And we’re just about to implement that process now and that process is all about how to give meaningful and supportive feedback and how also to set goals so that people no longer have any subjectivity in the system when it comes to assessing their personal accomplishments over the period.

So Holder asked us to do that and we were doing it anyway and we’re implementing it now. And we will also run a survey at the end of the process to say, ‘Hey, what went well and what do you want to change,” so that next round we can even build further on what we’ve done so far.

Another example of where Holder and our employees totally coalesced was in the area of management training. It’s no secret that last year we grew very fast. We doubled our employee base last year in 2016 and we hired a lot of people who had never been managers before and this did have an impact on the culture for sure. And so we started the year with 63% of our managers being first-time managers. We hired Frances Frei from Harvard to come in and train those people and turn them into the very best managers they could possibly be. So we are running really rigorous and extensive training for all our managers on core managerial skills, how to be supportive as a manager, how to coach as a manger, how to give feedback as a manager, how to set goals as a manager, and how to make sure that your employees are fully supported in the round. This is a huge initiative and something we’re taking super seriously.

And one of the things that I’m talking to Frances about right at this moment is perhaps we might even launch a certification so that people can be certificated in great management at Uber, which would be an amazing thing. Very few companies do that. Again, this is something that we’re doing right now, everyday. She’s just run twelve sessions over the last fortnight or the last two weeks and that’s something that we’re going to do for the rest of 2017 and beyond. So building that leadership and management capability is something that is so very important to us.

FC: Who on the board has a background in implementing this cultural change?

LH: Honestly, I don’t know, because I don’t know much about the constituents on the board. It’s a little bit above my pay grade if I’m absolutely honest with you. I do know that Arianna is on that committee and I know that she has forever been very, very involved in diversity and inclusion and ensuring the real consideration of diversity and inclusion across companies and society in general. But honestly, I don’t know those board members super well yet, because we’re on the start of our journey together. But I do know that we have expertise in our company. One of the Holder recommendations, and we’ve already started  doing this work actually, is that we should have a diversity and inclusion advisory board. And we’ve already—on our shortlist of who we think should be on that board is an extraordinary diverse, across intersectionalities [sic], list of people. So having that advisory report will be very important to us for sure.

FC: Will the diversity board be made up of Uber leadership?

LH: It will be both. So the [diversity] advisory board as we’re looking at it at the moment will be a mixture of people, who probably at this point in time run our employee resource groups. So, some of the most senior people who are helping today run Women of Uber, or UberHue, or Los Ubers. And also a mixture of academics and people who are super well-known in the field. So a mixture of internal people and external people. And our whole purpose here is to make sure that we’re super bleeding-edge and super meaningful. Just to add to that, there are several people inside of the company who are really personally committed to this agenda and we will use this advisory board extensively.

FC: There was some speculation that Bernard Coleman, Uber’s diversity officer, would be the liaison between Uber and the board helping to implement the cultural change. Since it’s you and not Coleman, do you have other plans to promote him?

LH: So, first of all, the reason it’s me is that obviously there were many recommendations and they are not all about diversity and inclusion, they span all sorts of areas. So to have somebody who is just the chief diversity officer report to the board would be a little narrow in terms of the totality of what we need to do. In terms of Bernhard himself, the types of conversations that we’ve had with him categorically are that we must have a chief diversity officer. This is a very important role for us and much more than symbolism. What we want to do is make sure that we advertise that role so that we get the very best person possible and Bernhard is on board with that and of course he will apply. So, it could be that he’s going to be our chief diversity officer and it could be that it’s an external hire. But either which way, Bernhard will be a very critical part of our diversity team.

FC: There’s been concern at Uber that people who are related to Susan Fowler’s situation are still at the company. 

LH: First of all, I have to tell you that this company took the Susan Fowler blog extraordinarily seriously. Susan blogged on Sunday, February 19, and I walked into my first all-hands when I stood on this stage on the following Tuesday. And truly the organization was in shock. I have never in my entire career seen so many people so hurt and so confused and so bewildered. So we decided immediately and—all credit to the company because this was not my decision, because I was too new to make this decision—but the company decided there and then to hire two law firms, one to look into Susan Fowler’s situation in its entirety and any other individual cases that people wanted to bring to us and that was Perkins Coie. And then a second law firm was hired the same day, again within 24 hours, to look at our culture in its entirety.

I have never seen a company act so responsibly and so swiftly and take so much accountability. Perkins Coie investigated the Susan Fowler case in its entirety and they objectively made recommendations on what we should do. They also made recommendations on 215 other cases of egregious behavior, not all sexual harassment I have to say. I think I should let you know that that was spread across a number of behaviors and we terminated 20 people and honestly that’s not something we do lightly because when you terminate 20 people you’re taking their livelihoods away. So I cannot understand how anybody can ever say that we have not acted with speed and real thoroughness and absolute accountability.

FC: What about your CTO specifically? Why did you choose to keep him on?

LH: Honestly, it’s because there was… Perkins Coie has come out and said there was nothing that he did that was egregious. And I know that an email that he sent to all employees, that has recently just been published, talks about that. Obviously he was the CTO at the time, but there was nothing in the investigation that showed that what he did was egregious.

FC: You expressed thanks towards Susan Fowler at one of Uber’s town hall meetings for revealing problems at the company. What’s going on between Uber and Susan—are there plans to compensate her?

LH: There is ongoing litigation, but I am actively not a part of it. It is something that is totally handled by the legal department. But there are ongoing conversations with Susan’s lawyer.

Honestly, I am thankful, because shining a spotlight on something that clearly needed to be illuminated has really given us a lightning rod for change. And I actually think Susan Fowler helped us make sure that this change was taken super seriously. I am thankful for sure.

FC: What about forced arbitration as specified in employment contracts? Are there plans to take that clause out of your contracts going forward?

LH: I don’t write our employment contracts, obviously they are put together with legal and an external law firm. What I can tell you, personally, is that I haven’t seen anything in our employment contracts that I haven’t seen in many other companies’ employment contracts. But honestly, our legal department would have to answer that because it’s outside my expertise and area of responsibility.

FC: The reason I ask is, arbitration often dissuades people from suing because it forces the matter to be handled privately by an arbiter rather than a jury. It also inhibits class-action lawsuits. But it also prevents issues (like the ones that Uber has grappled with) from seeing daylight. Typically, in court and not via blog posts is where people like Susan get public hearings and, when appropriate, compensation for mistreatment. 

LH: So one of the things that we’ve taken really seriously is … we are going to have and—we’ve really literally had over the last few months—a zero tolerance for anything that is egregious. We are in a situation where we have to stamp out anything that is a remnant of the past. So we have introduced a hotline that is wholly confidential and can be totally anonymous, by the way, so that we can investigate any complaints that come to us. We’ve also… there’s a department that now [reports] directly to me that never used to [report] directly to me called employee relations. And we have [more than] doubled the size of that team. And we have made sure there’s been an employee-relations person in all our major hubs across the world. Employee relations are simply there, their only raison d’être is to support individuals who might have issues. So in terms of egregious issues that might happen in the future, and I hope that they do not because we will have zero tolerance, we have fully extended all of the ways I know of making sure anybody can raise any issue that they want to have heard.

Companies have complaints, companies will always have complaints of some sort. In the right culture, it’s at a minimum. So my first priority is to make sure we have the most incredible culture and we turn this into the best place that anybody would ever want to work. And I will work my socks off to make that happen. The second thing is if there is ever a case where there is egregious behavior we would be very swift and very decisive with our action. It’s just not even tenable that it couldn’t be that way.  

FC: There are reports that you’ve madechanges to employee compensation. Is that true and what are you changing?

LH: Yeah we’re in the process, so one of the things that employees have raised is compensation. Obviously because our employees raised this during our listening sessions we’ve had to take a really close look at our compensation. One of the things we’re definitely looking at and we are literally in the process and I’m going to announce what we’re going to do mid-July. We’re very excited about the fact that we have already said that we’ll absolutely ensure that we’ll have total pay parity across gender and ethnicity and race. We will. We’re really deep down in the data with a third external law firm to make sure that what we do is objective and correct. But we’ll be announcing changes to compensation in mid-July.

FC: You’ve explained your role as a liaison, what’s your role in helping to rebuild the executive team?

LH: So clearly we really need to build our leadership team and absolutely recruiting reports to me and I am the person liaising with the board on all of the key hires. So that CEO through COO hiring is part of my role. It’s a role that I’m taking super super seriously.

FC: How long will it take you to find a new CEO?

LH: How long is a piece of string, because obviously we need to find the right person. Obviously this is all about the board, I’m really in the service of the board here. I know our aim is to have somebody soon, faster rather than longer. But it’s a whole speed-quality equation. The next CEO, whoever that person is, it’s so very important and I think the board is in a place where we’d rather get the very, very best person who can move Uber to its next phase rather than be fast. But what I can tell you is that we’re meeting super regularly. We met this morning, we already have a short list and we will be moving forward with gusto.    

FC: Are you concerned that employees who are upset about Travis’s resignation as CEO will leave?

LH: No I’m not. Because Travis has been very much a part of this company. But Travis himself said he needed to leave the company for the good of the company. And that’s the message that he left with employees. 

FC: What’s your biggest challenge?

LH: Well you know there’s a ton here that’s super positive. Because our employee base was so shocked and so hurt back in February, there is so much energy for change. Our employees are writing to me every day saying, in the hundreds not in the tens, ‘How can we be a part of the change? How can we move us into the new reality?’ Our employees are so positive in a way that I’ve never seen at any company and our leadership is so committed. My resources have been doubled. I spend more time at these leadership meetings talking about culture than we do about anything else. I’ve got to say I’m really optimistic.

5 Internet Companies That Could Be Acquired In The Next 12 Months

0
0

In the first half of 2017, we’ve already seen some compelling acqusitions: Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods, of course, but also Walmart buying Bonobos and Airbnb scooping up Tilt. But we still have six months to go before 2018, and there’s little sign that M&A mania will cool off. So who’s next?

In a new report by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, Etsy and Twitter top the list of companies that are likely to see M&A activity soon. That’s not much of a surprise. But Goldman’s list also included some companies you probably haven’t thought about in years (remember Zynga?) in addition to some whose products you might use all the time. Below are five notable companies included in the report—along with some of our thoughts on why they made the list.

Etsy

In the last two months, Etsy has seen major management upheaval: Chad Dickerson, the company’s CEO of nearly six years, was ousted in favor of new board member Josh Silverman. Dickerson was also replaced as chairman by fellow board member and prominent VC Fred Wilson.

“It has been an honor to lead Etsy as CEO for the past six years and the three years before that as CTO,” Dickerson said in a statement at the time. “The Board decided that it was time for new leadership to take Etsy forward and I support that decision.”

In other words, the board is desperate for Etsy to try something new. Since its IPO in April 2015, its stock has been halved; the news of Dickerson’s ouster was accompanied by the announcement that 80 employees—8% of Etsy’s workforce—would be let go. One of Etsy’s shareholders, hedge fund Black and White Capital LP, wrote a letter recommending that the company cut back on costs and consider a sale; also included was the suggestion that Etsy remove Dickerson as chairman. “The company’s historical pattern of ill-advised spending has completely obfuscated the extremely attractive underlying marketplace business model,” Black and White wrote in a letter obtained by Bloomberg.

Etsy prides itself on its ethics—it is one of the only publicly traded B corporations, after all—but perhaps investing heavily in that was to the detriment of its finances and growth as a company. As Bloomberg wrote last month:

“Etsy had been hiring like crazy, having increased its staff 55 percent since the end of 2014, and doling out all manner of perks: an elegant Brooklyn headquarters with Manhattan views, art installations, and a “breathing room,” along with salaries and benefits common at much, much more profitable tech companies.”

So it’s little surprise that Etsy tops Goldman’s forecast. Etsy has found itself in a catch-22: What will make it more money is bringing more buyers to the site, which means sellers need to be able to scale up and produce more. (This is why Etsy has introduced updates that grant sellers more room to expand their teams and products.) But what made Etsy Etsy, once upon a time, was its handmade, one-of-a-kind wares and tight-knit community of sellers.

Twitter

According to Goldman, Twitter is right up there with Etsy. Twitter has been struggling for years now, grappling with stagnant user growth, harassment and abuse on its platform, and repeated layoffs. Jack Dorsey’s return to the CEO post hasn’t quite had the impact some may have anticipated, perhaps in part because Dorsey is also running Square. (Last week I wrote about Dorsey’s performance as CEO and why I was surprised he hasn’t gotten the boot.) The company’s stock has fallen by over 50% since its IPO in late 2013.

But Twitter has been here before. Last fall, the company was very publicly considering a sale. Disney, Salesforce, Alphabet, and Microsoft all reportedly considered making a bid on Twitter, ultimately opting not to because the price was just not right. Google makes the most sense to us, though Alphabet eventually withdrew its interest.

So is Twitter an easier sell now? That depends. In the past year or so, Twitter has made incremental progress acquiring new users. It also made a lot of noise when it debuted Moments, but the feature—yet another appeal to prospective users—hasn’t found the success Dorsey and company had hoped for. On the plus side, Twitter’s live-streaming efforts have proven a better investment.

Whether all that will endear the company to potential buyers, well, that still remains to be seen.

Yelp

You might recall Yelp considered a sale in May 2015. But a few months later, CEO Jeremy Stoppelman decided against it, reportedly because the offers weren’t high enough. In fact Yelp mulled over a sale back in 2009, too, when it famously turned down an acquisition offer by Google. I imagine Yelp might regret that decision: Perhaps you’ve seen Stoppelman’s tirades on Twitter about Google suppressing Yelp listings in search results.

Google has proven a formidable competitor, so much so that Yelp joined the chorus of companies accusing Google of manipulating search results in the EU’s antitrust case. (Earlier this week, the European Commission ruled against Google and slapped the company with a $2.7 billion fine.)

A few years back, Yelp seemed to have successfully made the jump from desktop to mobile and was even optimistic about local advertising. (Chances are you use Yelp’s mobile app more than you do its desktop platform.) But things are different now, in part due to Google and Facebook’s dominance in digital advertising. In Yelp’s most recent earnings report, revenue was down and the company’s stock fell significantly. Its outlook for the rest of the year doesn’t exactly inspire confidence either. Goldman understandably doesn’t rank Yelp as high as Twitter or Etsy. According to the firm, Yelp has only a medium probability of M&A activity.

eBay

We can’t help but wonder: Could eBay make a play for Etsy? Silverman, Etsy’s newly appointed CEO, is in fact an eBay alum. But eBay itself seems to be on the M&A docket. PayPal being spun out into a separate company in 2015 was a blow to eBay’s revenue growth: PayPal was reportedly bringing in nearly 50% of eBay’s total revenue. (The PayPal spinoff also took with it Venmo, which PayPal scooped up when it acquired Braintree in 2013.)

Despite that loss, eBay’s sales numbers have inched up over the past year, in no small part thanks to StubHub. The company has been bulking up its ad sales efforts. Its buyer growth has been anemic over the past couple of years, but eBay’s most recent earnings report saw buyers increase by two million. Perhaps things are looking up for eBay.

Still, one question remains: What exactly is eBay’s mission? It was once positioned as a marketplace for used goods, but now the number of used goods sold on the platform has decreased dramatically. Auctions, too, no longer make up much of eBay’s overall sales. So what differentiates eBay from the likes of Amazon?

If the recent sale of eBay’s India arm to Flipkart–Amazon’s leading competitor in India–is any indication, eBay might be open to more sweeping acquisition offers.

WebMD

That’s right: The website you consult when you have a weird mole has reportedly piqued the interest of a few potential buyers. WebMD first said it was exploring “strategic alternatives”—usually code for a sale—back in February. The company’s earnings outlook for the year isn’t great, which lends credence to the theory. With a potential offer from media and internet company IAC/InterActiveCorp reportedly on the table, WebMD’s stock is the highest it’s been in almost a year.

This could, of course, just be a rumor: One analyst said buying WebMD didn’t really align with IAC’s acquisition strategy. Reports from early last year also claimed WebMD was considering a sale, but the company denied it; WebMD was said to be in talks with Walgreens and UnitedHealth.

But a few months back, Bloomberg Gadfly noted that while it didn’t seem like investors were convinced a sale would happen, analysts said WebMD could appeal to a variety of companies, “not just buyout firms but also health care companies, owners of digital content such as Time Inc., or even drugstore chain Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.” And Goldman’s outlook puts the likelihood of a WebMD sale on par with the potential acquisitions of Twitter and Etsy—so stay tuned.

How Nonprofits Can Show Funders What Success Really Looks Like

0
0

Several years ago, shortly after backing a nutritional assistance program for children in Malawi, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, a grant-making group that works to improve the lives of poor and vulnerable children the developing world, realized that it had made a serious mistake. The group was supposed to be working with the World Food Programme and in-country aid groups to distribute a micronutrient powder to parents, but most parents weren’t stopping by supply stations.

It turned out there were too few aid areas located too far apart. Many already busy mothers simply couldn’t spend the majority of their day walking to get there. In response, CIFF quickly increased its investment, tripling the number of pick-up spots and sending out more volunteers to make people aware of the expansion. As the company has publicly reported, attendance jumped nearly 20%, allowing the group reach about four-fifths of those in need.

Sharing impact information helped everyone immediately troubleshoot problems.[Image: courtesy Fluxx]
That doesn’t often happen in the slow-moving nonprofit world, where disconnected funders and grantees rely on annual reports as check-ins to troubleshoot what went awry long after those issues have occurred. But CIFF was able to respond differently because it was carefully tracked what the business world dubs KPIs–or key performance indicators–of success in near real time through a program management service company called Fluxx, which has helped more than 200 foundations, corporate and government grant makers, and large nonprofits that also fund cause work track and evaluate $7 billion in annual grants.

In the case of CIFF and its partners, sharing impact information helped everyone immediately troubleshoot problems. That worked out pretty well, but only because every already agreed that what was being tracked and measured was important. For more complicated operations success metrics aren’t always so clear cut. This issue has caused Fluxx CEO Jason Ricci to realize that, since launching in 2011, his own company had developed its own service problem.

Nonprofits can now use information that foundations are reporting to view all available funding opportunities in their areas of interest.[Image: courtesy Fluxx]
The concern was both a cultural and tech issue. Initially, Fluxx was designed for top-down management, meaning big funding organizations, who use the service to track the deal-flow of their grants, too, were often the ones who decide ahead of time what KPIs are worth measuring, and how often groups should be reporting.

That left the 300,000 or so grant makers who interact with foundations sometimes stuck collecting irrelevant, time-wasting info for their funders when they could have a better idea of how to track progress. Plus, a recent “state of grant seeking” report funded by various grant hubs and sector networking groups shows that nonprofits don’t have the time or tools to confront that imbalance.

In June, Fluxx launched a new program called Grantseeker, which reverses the flow of information. Nonprofits can now use information that foundations are reporting to view all available funding opportunities in their areas of interest and apply for multiple grants using a single template, which is a big timesaver. On the back end, there’s an interface for groups to track and share their own data, either privately or with funders, to show what trend they’re seeing as they happen, and especially what unaccounted for indicators might affect impact or improve action.

“I think there’s a culture where the grant makers are the ones who say, ‘Jump,’ and the grantees are the ones who say, ‘How high,'” says Ricci. “They don’t feel empowered enough to say, ‘Hey, this is stupid. We should do this another way.'”

“You kind of want the data to speak for itself,” Ricci says. [Image: courtesy Fluxx]
Ultimately, the hope is to lessen the work that organizations put into applying for grants while improving funder’s return on investment. Sharing data in more digestible ways may foster what Ricci calls a spirit of “passive collaboration.” “You kind of want the data to speak for itself,” he says. “Our big bet is that the platform will make people more efficient but also more data-driven and collaborative in a way that they kind of don’t think about… They are just doing it because the data is there.”

While there’s no official timetable for it, the next step is to allow groups to share information in curated feeds among themselves and to create feeds by topic or geographic location. That would give everyone on the service a better understanding of the playing field: what’s working and what other partnership opportunities might be available.

Not surprisingly, a couple of for-profit investors like that market-place building goal. Fluxx has received a total of $26 million in overall funding from both venture capital firms like Canvas and Felicis, and nonprofits like the Kresge Foundation. Other foundations like Ford, MacArthur, Kresge, Packard, and Knight are all already on the platform, which has handled roughly 1 million grants.

Kendrick Lamar Is In His “Element”, Kacy Hill Is So “Cruel”: This Week In Music

0
0

Your ears are welcome–because they’ll be thanking you after this session.

Track 1. Kendrick Lamar – ELEMENT.

Earlier this week Kendrick Lamar aka K Dot unleashed the “ELEMENT.” music video, for the single off his April release DAMN. The third video from that album, it was directed by Jonas Lindstroem and Kendrick Lamar, with photographer Gordon Parks imagery as references. There is a moment in the video where Lindstroem and Lamar recreate the album cover, flashing a huge “DAMN.” hovering over a craned neck Kendrick. The three-minute-and-30-second visual journey leaves you saying, “Damn Dot.”

Track 2. Gallant & Andra Day – In The Room: Cruisin’

The young vocal soul god Gallant has been releasing a series of videos and songs dubbed “In The Room.” The tracks vary from covers to takes on his own music, and the videos work as live recordings of each session… yes, in one take. Episode 1 of “The The Room” debuted in January 2016, but today he’s graced us with Episode 5 featuring another amazing soul singer, Andra Day. The duo covers the Smokey Robinson track “Cruisin'” and it is so lovely. To quote the song itself “Music is played for love.”

Track 3. Tyler, the Creator – Who Dat Boy

Aside from this being a comeback from 2015 song for Tyler, The Creator, the music video is high-production value that needs its kudos breakdown. “Who Dat Boy” starts vertically a la iPhone portrait aspect, closing in on Tyler working at table with a young Leonardo DiCaprio poster hanging overhead. After an explosion, the colors used and the suburban neighborhood automatically bring Tim Burton to mind. There’s a shot for shot duplicate of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey Hal that is really just a door viewer. Behind the door, Tyler adapts the Hype Williams-style fisheye to introduce A$AP Rocky. Tyler even goes John Woo on us to throw a Face/Off reference in the mix. In the last moments, we see a police chase ensue but the footage cuts and goes to a bright flowery field of multiple Tylers, and the song shifts into a Frank Ocean-led melody of Tyler’s second new song of the day “911/Lonely.” Like I said… Aside from being a great song, this is a great video, let us give thanks to The Creator.

Track 4. Calvin Harris, Frank Ocean, Migos – Slide

Calvin Harris, the DJ Khaled of Calvin Harris’s World, today released his production/collaboration album. The album is Funk Wav Bounces Vol.1, which right away makes you curious as to when we’ll see a Volume 2! The standout song is the certified platinum track “Slide,” featuring Frank Ocean and Migos.

Track 5. Denzel Curry, Lil Ugly Mane – Zeltron 6 Billion

Denzel Curry’s new EP 13 has dropped today. You might have heard of him from the 2016 XXL freshman class cyphers, where Curry has one of the best verses, IMO. Another moment of fame associated with Curry is the his song “Ultimate,” a meme punchline song, especially on the late app Vine. “Zeltron 6 Billion” off 13 is a must-hear track. And for all you Trekkies out there, Zeltron is a near-Human species, with colored skin in the Star Wars universe.

Track 6. Kacy Hill – Cruel

Kacy Hill’s new album Like A Woman is released off Kanye West’s label G.O.O.D (Getting Out Our Dreams) Music. The entire record is very nice, with soothing vocals, and production sounds that rattle the speakers. The track “Cruel” sounds out for a couple of reasons. First being that it’s one of the best tracks on the record. Secondly, it stands out because of the name of the song. GOOD Music has been promising an album entitled Cruel Winter since the 2012 release of Cruel Summer I’m sure there was a couple of Google alerts that went out because Cruel + GOOD music were fresh results. Oh soooo cruel.

Track 7. St. Vincent – New York

My G!, St.Vincent has graced us with a new jam, the first song since her self-titled 2015 record. The album art could have featured at least one pair of Timbs, fam. Nah but, real talk, the lyrics are mad nice.

Where you’re the only motherfucker in the city
Who can handle me

Send those lines out to your boo thing.

Track 8. Clams Casino, Ghostemane – Kali Yuga

Clams Casino, you know, the producer from your favorite Lil B song, “I’m God” released part 4 of his entirely instrumental mixtape. One of the best tracks that stood out for me was “Kali Yuga”, which was used on an actual song featuring Ghostemane. The version with vocals gives the song a vibe of early 90s west coast rap. The instrumental sounds like modern day trap tracks. Both versions of the song are worth a listen.

Bonus Track. Jay Z – 4:44

Today, June/30/2017, Jay Z responded to Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” (April/23/2016) with his album, 4:44. We’re left questioning, “Why immortalize all of these feelings, situations, and apologies in the form of music?” But as my coworker Diana Budds points out, “this is for the kids.”

That idea that Jay Z is planting conversations for the future is explicit on the last track “Legacy,” that opens with Blue Ivy asking “Daddy, what’s a will?” This album doubles as something to leave behind for future generations. These records offers insight for their children to get to know their parents in a human way, outside of Mom and Dad. For whatever reason these two albums exist, you cannot deny the quality of this album. The track “4:44” gave me chills upon first listen. I highly recommend the entire album and the title track. Please note, The 4:44 is only available on Tidal, and cannot be a part of the Spotify playlist.

Take the playlist with you!

Take That, Take That– Diddy


Your Creative Calendar: 57 Things To See, Hear, And Read This July

0
0

It’s hard to believe that the year’s half over. Actually, it feels as though it’s been six years, not six months. There’s just so much… news. Let’s leave it at that. Entertainment-wise, half of the year’s best projects may have already been released. Although the Oscar year is certainly bottom-heavy, we’ve had many memorable movies already. It’s been a killer year for music so far as well. With all the promising movies, shows, albums books, and more on the way just in July, however, this year looks anything but front-loaded. Have a look through Fast Company’s guide for July’s Scrooge McDuck-style gold vault of pop culture treasures to get a sense of how much of the year’s best is yet to come.

Movies In Theaters

Movies To Watch At Home

Albums You Should Hear

Things To Watch On Your TV Or Computer

Books To Read

  • Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures by Ben Mezrich, out on July 4.
  • Everything All at Once: How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem by Bill Nye, out on July 11.
  • Final Girls by Riley Sager, out on July 11.
  • Tornado Weather by Deborah E. Kennedy, out on July 11.
  • The Other Shore by Thich Nhat Hanh, out on July 18.
  • Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty, out on July 25.

[Photo Mash Up: Adriana C. Sánchez for Fast Company; Source Photos: Dunkirk: Melinda Sue Gordon, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures; Spider-Man: Homecoming: Chuck Zlotnick, courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment; War for the Planet of the Apes: courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox; The Emoji Movie: courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment; Tour de Pharmacy: John P. Johnson, courtesy of HBO; Snowfall: Matthias Clamer, courtesy of FX; Game of Thrones: Macall B. Polay, courtesy of HBO, The Defiant Ones: Joe Pugliese /AUGUST/courtesy of HBO; Friends From College: David Lee, Barbara Nitke, courtesy of Netflix; A Ghost Story: courtesy of A24 Films; Last Tycoon: Adam Rose, courtesy of Amazon Prime Video]

Could Biofortified Crops Be The Key To Solving Global Hunger?

0
0

For around 2 billion people in the world, a meal is not necessarily a source of nutrition. Among the poorest populations, starchy staple crops like potatoes and cassava make up the bulk of people’s diets. The people surviving off these crops “may not feel hungry,” says Bev Postma, CEO of HarvestPlus, “but they’re not getting a diverse, nutritious meal, and this ‘hidden hunger’ can lead to blindness, disease, and stunting.” For children under the age of 11, who grow up without consistent access to adequate nutrition, the developmental effects are irreversible; mothers who lack essential vitamins and minerals are unable to pass them onto their children.

HarvestPlus is working to eradicate the hidden hunger epidemic—not by diversifying the crops that people rely on most, but by ensuring that those starchy staple crops also deliver essential nutrients like zinc, vitamin A, and iron, which are too often missing from people’s diets.

In Zambia, children actually prefer the taste of biofortified vegetables. [Photo: courtesy HarvestPlus]
HarvestPlus uses a process of biofortification. In the early 1990s, the company’s founder Howarth Bouis, who at the time was working as an economist at the International Food Policy Research Institute, got interested in the idea that crops themselves could provide some of the crucial micronutrients that were reaching developed countries in the form of supplements, through a delivery and development system that required billions of dollars to sustain. “His idea was: ‘Why can’t we solve nutrition with the very foods people are already eating?'” Postma tells Fast Company.

That line of inquiry led Bouis to the Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory at Cornell University, where he encountered several researchers looking into the potential of cross-breeding plants to result in higher nutrient levels, without compromising yield. He teamed up with scientists who were piloting an orange-tinted sweet potato high in vitamin A in Mozambique, and others breeding cassava and maize tinged with extra vitamin A. However, the concept was still relatively new–the term “biofortification” wasn’t coined until 2001–and Bouis struggled to find funders to support the research and pilot programs that would prove his concept. “He basically went around with a tin cup for 10 years, looking for funds,” Postma says. That is, until he met Bill Gates.

A single cassava could contain 100% of a child’s daily dose of vitamin A. [Photo: courtesy HarvestPlus]
“Bill Gates is a huge fan of cassava–he thinks it’s an amazing crop that has the potential to transform Africa’s future,” Postma says. In 2003, The Gates Foundation gave Bouis a $25 million grant to prove that high-nutrient crops could be produced using basic plant breeding, without leaning on genetic modification. To do so, he visited seed banks around the world, consulting with breeders to determine that crossing higher-nutrient strains of crops could eventually result in those that contained adequate nutritional levels. Bouis was aiming for a single cassava, for instance, that could contain 100% of a child’s daily dose of vitamin A.

He published several papers on his research, proving the concept, and then, working with the Consultative Group on International Agriculture (CGIAR), a coalition of 16 organizations specializing in global crop development, Bouis launched HarvestPlus in 2003. For the first five years, the organization identified target populations–sub-Saharan Africa, rural India–where hidden hunger was most prevalent, and solidified research to prove that biofortification could scale.

HarvestPlus has reached 20 million people suffering from “hidden hunger.” [Image: courtesy HarvestPlus]
In 2009, HarvestPlus began rolling out the first wave of biofortified crops. The organization focused on 12 staple crops–wheat, maize, sorghum, cassava, beans, and millet, to name a few–and three micronutrients: vitamin A, zinc, and iron. “In the world generally, deficiencies in these three nutrients track poverty,” Postma says. “What we’re finding is we have to tackle all three at the same time.” The organization’s biofortified crops, she adds, can supply children and mothers with up to 100% of their daily nutritional requirements.

The key to HarvestPlus’ success–why it’s already reached 20 million people across Asia, Africa, and Latin America–is that it does not require a behavior change on the part of the people it’s working with. “It’s very hard to get people to change their eating habits,” Postma says. “We’re instead seeing what’s already on their plates, and doing a like-for-like swap for an ingredient with more nutrients.” If people are already eating beans, HarvestPlus will swap in beans supplemented with iron; if people are baking bread or chapatti, HarvestPlus will get them wheat fortified with zinc; if people cook cassava or maize, they can do the same with vitamin A-tinged vegetables.

“We’re seeing what’s already on [people’s] plates, and doing a like-for-like swap for an ingredient with more nutrients,” Postma says. [Photo: courtesy HarvestPlus]
Rolling out the fortified seeds into communities, Postma says, is a multi-stage process. The “introduction” stage is heavily driven by donors. The Gates Foundation, as well as USAID and the U.K. government, equip HarvestPlus with the funding to develop the seeds and distribute them to the agricultural research centers in each country. Those agencies commercialize the seeds and sell them to farmers, and HarvestPlus does on-the-ground community outreach to educate the farmers about the benefits of the seeds. That could look like anything from working with the lead farmer in the community to pilot the seeds and inviting other farmers to sample the crops, to working with doctors in some of the more developed markets in Asia to prescribe zinc rice to children to support development. In the “scale” phase, HarvestPlus works to get the seeds into the hands of more farmers, and in the “anchor” phase, they look to create a market presence for the crops, so they become independently economically self-sustaining.

While the deployment strategies differ widely by country, the transition, once HarvestPlus is established, is generally smooth: Once the farmers are convinced that the new crops are climate and pest resistant, and won’t lower their yield, they can switch seamlessly to the new seeds after a harvest. Once farmers grow the seed, the nutrients remain in the crops for future harvests. And while HarvestPlus has yet to publish their findings on taste, as they’re only just beginning to research them, a blind taste-test in Zambia found that children actually prefer the orange, vitamin-A tinged corn to white corn. It tastes sweeter to them, Postma says, though their scientists are not yet sure why.

HarvestPlus has been selected as one of the eight semi-finalists in the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change competition, which will give a $100 million grant to a single proposal that promises a real and measurable solution to a pressing problem of our time; winners will be chosen later in the summer. Whether or not HarvestPlus is awarded the grant, Postma says the organization is committed to reaching 1 billion people by 2030.

While HarvestPlus’ work is among the most straightforward and scalable approaches to solving hunger out there, Postma is clear-eyed about the situation they’re tackling. “This problem long term can only be resolved by lifting these people out of poverty,” she says. “Let’s be very clear here: Whatever HarvestPlus is doing is just bridging that gap that shouldn’t be there in the first place.”

This Is How Emotionally Intelligent People Vacation

0
0

Packing your beach bags? Firing up a grill? Now’s the time for leaving work concerns at work and skipping off someplace where you can relax, regenerate, let loose, and just have fun. The idea of doing anything that even remotely reminds you of your job probably doesn’t seem too appealing—and that’s fine. But even so, your vacation doesn’t have to be dead time when it comes to self-improvement.

Before you roll your eyes and click or swipe out, there’s good news: You can boost your skills while relaxing and de-stressing. In other words, your vacation can be a great time to improve your emotional intelligence—and still thoroughly remain in vacation mode. Since that’s one of the most important job skills on the market right now, it’s worth taking a page or two from the most emotionally intelligent vacationers’ play books.

1. They Use The Time To Self-Reflect

On vacation, we tend to unwind and let our minds wander away from the pressures of daily life—or at least that’s what we hope for while booking trips to foreign climes. The key is actually make that happen. Since self-awareness is the basis of emotional intelligence, it’s worth planning a vacation that gives you a chance to notice things about yourself that you might not in an ordinary workweek.

People with high emotional intelligence understand how important this can be. As the pace of things slackens, ask yourself:

  • What kind of people irritate me?
  • What kind of people am I drawn to?
  • Who do these people remind me of?

Being in a laid back, relaxed state is an excellent time to do some self-reflection. So sure, have a cocktail or dive into a book, but carve out some time just to be alone with your thoughts.

2. They Look For Ways To Empathize (For Its Own Sake)

Holidays are a great time to people-watch. When you’re in a laid-back mood, you’re more receptive to other people. So why not make a game out of noticing things about people? Involve your friends or family, too, and trade observations about each other as well as the strangers who surround you.

Most people do this in their own heads anyway when they’re traveling overseas or someplace unfamiliar. Notice people and their facial expressions, their posture, dress, and manner of walking—these are all great ways to gather clues about what’s going on with them. In fact, you can assume this mind-set even when you’re going to a movie, out to eat, or to a live performance.

Emotionally intelligent people take advantage of opportunities to empathize, and vacationing presents more of those chances than a typical day in the office does.

3. They Practice Polite Assertiveness

Many people struggle with asking for what they want. That’s why so many work culture are tense with passive aggression and rife with politics. Emotionally intelligent people realize that the worst that can happen is getting a no, in which case they’re no worse off than before asking for something they want.

You might think of the boardroom as the real place to be more assertive, but vacation is actually just as good a time to stretch your “asking muscles.” When you check into your accommodation, try asking for an upgrade. If there’s a problem with your meal, tell the server. Just be polite. Because you often won’t see the people you’re dealing with again, it may be easier to ask for what you want.

It’s great practice for moving out of your comfort zone and might make it easier to do it next time. People are more willing to accommodate simple requests than you might think—or at least entertain them. And when it goes your way, you’ll get a nice boost of satisfaction and self-esteem.

4. They Reconsider Their Goals

Vacations are a great time to revisit past goals or even set new ones. When you’re away from your everyday routine, you’re better positioned to take a look at where you are in life and contemplate where you’d like to be. Those who get high scores for emotional intelligence are usually pretty good at getting away from their daily habits now and then in order to refocus and take an inventory of their lives.

You should do the same. The stimulation and new experiences that come with vacations can give you a chance to turn some new thoughts over in your mind. You might not come back home with a new strategy already hammered out, but you’ll have started the wheels turning on some fresh ideas and aspirations.

Personally, I tend to be more creative and insightful when vacationing in the mountains or by the ocean. If you know there are certain environments that make you more reflective, that let steer your plans. If you’ll have to go back to a job or career that isn’t satisfying once your vacation is over, this could give you the chance to take some first mental steps toward changing course

5. They Improve Their Resilience Habits

While you might like to tell yourself that next month you’ll finally start meditating daily or picking up a journaling routine, life often gets in the way. Emotionally intelligent people aren’t immune to this, but they’re good at using vacation time to retool those resilience strategies.

Vacations give us a chance to return to what we know we should be doing for ourselves but don’t often make time for. They can also be the time to try new things and stretch yourself. You might come across rewarding or relaxing activities you hadn’t considered and find ways to work them into your daily life after coming back home.

What you do on vacation might not change your life or career, but it’s possible to arrive back home just a little more emotionally intelligent than when you left—without feeling like that took any work at all.

This Grantmaking Pyramid Strategy Ensures That Nonprofits Won’t Topple

0
0

In 2005, one of the seemingly most successful nonprofits in the country requested the sector equivalent of a bailout. Communities in Schools, an organization that today serves 1.5 million disadvantaged kids, 91% of whom graduate high school or obtain a GED, approached a fleet of major foundations to show its books and ask for several million in emergency capacity building funds.

Turns out, the group had spent years accepting the most common kind of payment from foundations, supposedly results-driven grants, which poured money into expanding programs without covering basic institutional needs like staff training, facilities costs, tech upgrades, and the ability to create a cash reserve for unexpected costs. Eventually, operating costs were stretched so thin that the organization was struggling to keep up its standards and measure success. It was operating in the red, borrowing from accounts that should have gone to one function to cover another.

Poorly structured grants are forcing many groups to funnel the majority of their cash into programming and expansion. [Image: RadomanDurkovic/iStock]
A few major funders including the Gates Foundation stepped in to assist, offering several million so that CIS could shore up its financials and shift toward only accepting more logically structured grants. But as Michael Etzel, a partner at Bridgespan, a nonprofit consultancy, and Hilary Pennington, a vice president at the Ford Foundation, have discovered, that’s far from a one-off tale of woe. It’s often the norm.

The research duo, who highlight CIS’s struggles in a recent Stanford Social Innovation Review report, have found that poorly structured grants are forcing many groups to funnel the majority of their cash into programming and expansion. At the same time, the only way to thrive in the long run seems to be the opposite: Much like companies offering standard services or products, nonprofits need to build stability, investing in talent, training, R&D, and non-dilapidated offices, while putting aside some cash so they don’t live and die by the next grant cycle.

After surveying more than 300 groups that received grants from 15 major U.S. foundations, Bridgespan has found that over half of those grantees have “frequent of chronic deficits,” meaning they’ve overspent in some areas and may have used money budgeted elsewhere make up the difference for at least two years within a five year period. Also, 40% have less than 3 months worth of cash reserves on hand as an emergency fund, and 10% have no parachute at all.

At the same time, most foundations only allocate about 15% of their grants toward indirect costs like overhead. Roughly 75% of all foundation grants are also restricted, meaning they can’t be banked to create a surplus—everything must be spent not saved.

Many grant makers and recipients may recognize these problems but have trouble starting and structuring conversations about solutions. So Etzel and Pennington have drawn a picture.

The image above is called The Grantmaking Pyramid. “From the perspective of a nonprofit leader, the pyramid offers a guide to articulating an organization’s needs,” says Etzel in an email. What it doesn’t do is represent relative amounts of funding. The goal, Etzel says, is to take a step back from the sector’s “relentless pursuit of increasing impact” to ensure investments help a groups smartly evolve.

So the pyramid is a shorthand for priorities. “The original inspiration was a sort of “Maslow’s hierarchy”–organizing and making sense of the multiple layers of funding an organization needs to be strong,” adds Etzel.

As a visual aid, Etzel and Pennington hopes this can be exhibit A in any conversation among givers and recipients about true donation needs. The bottom or “foundational capabilities” level represents increasing discussion and emphasis around classic overhead needs, with the next important layer being “organizational resilience”–a euphemism for “unspent cash.”

“The original inspiration was a sort of “Maslow’s hierarchy”–organizing and making sense of the multiple layers of funding an organization needs to be strong,” Etzel says. [Image: RadomanDurkovic/iStock]
If donors can satisfy both, then the idea of “increasing impact” becomes more realistic because the group won’t go bankrupt while trying to do so. Per the SSIR report: “It’s time to end Potemkin philanthropy that builds the façade of successful organizations that, in fact, teeter on the brink of collapse.”

To that end, Ford Foundation has already applying thinking to its own portfolio. In 2016, the group launched the BUILD program, which will invest a total of $1 billion in back-end support for a few hundred grantees.

As part of that initiative, Ford is aiming to make more general support grants, too, and regardless will allocate at last 20% of any investment toward overhead. Together, that may tackle another issue: In general, the group found, it was making short-term grants of often a year or two, which–especially for organizations without money in the bank–didn’t provide the security to take risks or grow.

So far, Ford has issued 86 of these grants. To really complete its social justice mission, the organization is looking beyond just shoring up the financials of each recipient’s pyramid stack; the money will be spent in ways that encourage core values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and more learning and evaluation.

How Western PR Firms Quietly Push Putin’s Agenda

0
0

The Russian attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, using what intelligence agencies call “active measures,” has dominated U.S. headlines.

There is, however, a second front in Russia’s effort to shape the hearts and minds of U.S. citizens, and it’s received almost no attention in mainstream U.S. media outlets since the election.

As someone who studies the growth of global public relations, I’ve researched the roles PR firms play in shaping public perceptions of international affairs. For years, Russia has been involved in public relations campaigns that have been developed and deployed by prominent, U.S.-based, global PR firms–campaigns intended to influence U.S. public opinion and policy in ways that advance Russia’s strategic interests.

Legal Propaganda?

Public relations is an industry that seeks to cultivate favorable impressions of corporations, products, individuals, or causes. A company or public figure might hire a firm to increase visibility, advance marketing agendas, promote strategic initiatives, or manage a crisis.

But things can get tricky when foreign governments get involved. When they hire PR firms to influence public opinion in other countries, they could undermine the domestic values and goals of the targeted nations.

In the 1930s, the PR firm of Ivy Lee–who, along with Edward Bernays, is regarded as a “founding father” of the public relations industry–was accused of circulating Nazi propaganda in the U.S. In response, Congress enacted the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in 1938, which required foreign propagandists operating in the U.S. to register with the government. In 1966, FARA was amended to cover people promoting the economic and political interests of their foreign clients.

In what has become an infamous example of political PR, Kuwait hired numerous U.S. and U.K. firms to drum up support for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. As part of that effort, PR giant Hill & Knowlton audaciously created a front group to hold hearings, led by two U.S. Congressmen, on Iraq’s human rights violations. Called the “Human Rights Caucus,” the group wasn’t actually an official congressional caucus.

More routinely, foreign nations hire PR firms to attract foreign investments and promote tourism and trade. Such efforts are completely legal, and business as usual for corporate PR firms and lobbyists. All they have to do is register under FARA.

While foreign government-funded advocacy campaigns are legal, they can be far from transparent. PR strategies are generally designed to hide the persuasive effort because, as the industry saying goes, “the best PR is invisible PR.”

Burnishing Russia’s Image

Russia’s domestic PR business has grown rapidly since the end of the Cold War, but Russian authorities prefer to use Western firms when targeting Western audiences. Since the U.S. is both a dominant force in PR–15 of the 20 largest global firms are American–and a prime target of Russian influence efforts, it’s not surprising that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s forces would turn to U.S. firms for PR services.

Industry publication PRWeek reports that Russia has spent $115 million on Western PR firms since 2000, with most going to the U.S. firm Ketchum, a division of Omnicom. (To put that in context: According to the Center for Public Integrity, the 50 countries with the worst human rights violation records have spent $168 million on American lobbyists and PR specialists since 2010.)

From 2006 to 2014, Ketchum had ongoing contracts with the Russian government and its state-owned energy company Gazprom.

Charged with improving Putin’s and Russia’s image abroad, Ketchum facilitated op-eds by Russian officials in publications around the world, including Putin’s 2013 New York Times article warning the U.S. on Syria.

According to ProPublica, Ketchum also placed what appeared to be independent opinion pieces praising Russia in the Huffington Post, on CNBC’s website (where links to those stories are no longer active), and in other publications without acknowledging their sources. The firm lobbied Time magazine to name Putin “Person of the Year,” which it did in 2007.

That same year, according to Reuters, Ketchum tried to convince the U.S. State Department to soften its assessment of Russia’s human rights abuses. The firm also contacted reporters who cover Russian human rights abuses and urged them to tone down their criticism.

Faced with intense criticism after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Ketchum formally ended its contract with Russia in March 2015, tersely announcing that it “no longer represents the Russian Federation in the U.S. or Europe with the exception of our office in Moscow.” However, one of its partners, GPlus, continued the relationship under similar terms.

Exploiting The Loopholes

Late last year, Russia’s Minister of Communications Nikolay Nikiforov announced that the Kremlin would be seeking new contracts with Western PR firms this summer to improve its global image, with the intent of spending between $30 and $50 million a year, and possibly more. He indicated that Russia is seeking smaller, less expensive, and perhaps less visible firms than Ketchum.

PRWeek quoted a leading Russian political analyst, Stanislav Belkovsky, who told the publication, “There are a number of schemes that can be used to avoid U.S. accounting rules on lobbying and PR.” In other words, he was pointing out that there are ways to avoid registering with FARA, and thereby concealing the sources of the pro-Russian messaging.

Indeed, the Project on Government Oversight, an independent nonpartisan watchdog group, cites loopholes in FARA that make it difficult to police violations. Even when violations are discovered, prosecution is rare. Instead, lapses are usually remediated by late filing. This is what happened in the recent cases of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who represented pro-Putin forces in Ukraine, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who represented Turkey. Though they had both been working as foreign lobbyists for an extended period of time, they only recently filed with FARA as foreign agents.

And because the U.S. regulates lobbying, and not PR, another common legal loophole involves contracting with firms that have both public relations and lobbying arms. Clients will then channel as much of their business as possible through the PR arm.

The Blurry Line Between PR And News

PR as a subject is rarely covered by the mainstream media in the U.S., but nonprofits like ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, the Sunlight Foundation, and NPR fill some of the void.

It’s in contrast to the U.K., where publications like the Guardian extensively cover the nexus of public relations, politics, and policy. During Prime Minister Tony Blair’s tenure, PR grew rapidly in Britain as politicians and businesses adopted U.S.-style electioneering and promotional techniques. Perhaps for this reason, British media outlets are more attuned to the ramifications of public relations.

The Trump administration’s attack on mainstream media as purveyors of “fake news” and its promotion of “alternative facts” has rallied journalism to a vigorous defense of the First Amendment, and has led to calls for critical media literacy.

Yet research indicates that as much as 75% of U.S. news begins as public relations. For transparency advocates, this is a problem. By definition, PR is a biased, monetized form of communication that seeks to advance the vested interests of clients. Even some public relations industry figures have recently acknowledged their field’s role in the dissemination of “fake news.”

During the past two decades, the newspaper industry has contracted, with advertisers and readers migrating to the internet. Conversely, the PR industry has experienced growth in both employment opportunities and salaries. In the U.S., there are now nearly five PR people for every reporter. Americans are now being exposed to more public relations than ever before.

While some PR serves worthy causes–promoting health, education, charity, and disaster relief–I believe all PR deserves closer scrutiny because it bypasses the norms of democratic processes: transparency, accountability, and the right of all interested parties to have a voice in civic debates.

To Bernays, the terms “public relations” and “propaganda” were interchangeable. We should think of PR the same way, scrutinizing it with as much critical rigor as we view propaganda.


 is ‌‌‌professor of media and communication at Muhlenberg College. This essay originally appeared at the Conversation.

Viewing all 36575 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images