The sound of descending chimes. Funky MIDI elevator music. Ughhhhhh–why is my phone ringing? Can’t they just text!?

Like many people, the phone is a tool of last resort. I’d rather text or Slack or email or carrier pigeon. But I’ve noticed that many of the most successful, productive people I’ve met are what you might call “phone-prone.” If you send them a text, they call you instead of texting back. Email them? Get a call back.

Maybe this wasn’t a coincidence. I decided it was time to test my beliefs. But first, I decided to email two “phone-prone” people–Krista Smith, the West Coast editor of Vanity Fair, and Eric Kuhn, a former L.A. talent agent and the cofounder of Layer3 TV–for some advice. Within minutes I got an email back, “Call me.”

Related:A Short Guide To Phone Calls For People Who Grew Up Texting

“I think it’s about intonation, and that so much is confused in an email about what someone’s implying,” Smith pointed out, a factor that both agreed helps generate empathy. Kuhn told me, “It’s a much more real and civilized conversation on the phone, because you’re able to express emotion and hear the person’s voice and understand what’s happening.” Fair enough, but both Smith and Kuhn assured me that these more human interactions would also make things faster.

So at their encouraging, I devised a really simple plan: First, whenever someone emailed or texted me, I would suggest we jump on a call. Second, I kept a running “call list” of all the people I’d need to get in touch with over the course of my workweek. Whenever I had a free minute, I’d call the next person on it. Here’s how things went.

The Upsides

In that week, I had fulfilling conversations that wouldn’t have been possible through typing alone. I helped one of my customers solve a thorny issue and ended up reassuring him about some of his career worries. I’d never have heard the stress in his voice by emailing. In another case, I caught up with a CEO friend, and after answering her main question, we went back and forth on other things, including a thoughtful conversation about her business model.

What I found was that particularly for more nuanced discussions, the phone saved me time because neither of us had to be overly verbose to give context. Simply hearing somebody’s tone, as Smith had pointed out, made it easier to understand where someone stood and react accordingly. Quicker access to empathy really did lead to more efficiency.

Related: Why It’s So Hard To Detect Emotions In Emails And Texts

The Downsides

There were obvious drawbacks, too, though. In addition to having to use actual emotions instead of emojis, I would often miss people when I tried to reach them. Phone-tag time can add up–but then again, you have to wait for the other person to respond in any form asynchronous communication. In fact, I found that I would often get calls back sooner than responses to emails. I think this is partly just because we’re all deluged in emails, but non-spam phone calls are increasingly rare. So the less people use the phone for ordinary work-related conversations, the more useful it may even become.

So while I placed more calls over the course of the week than actually led to live phone conversations, the dozen or so that I did have not saved me time but also gave me a better sense of purpose and humanity. That doesn’t sound like a productivity booster, but in retrospect it was: I was able to help people–more often and more quickly–in a way I couldn’t through sterile emails. And in the cases of talking to customers, calling helped me build better relationships for my business.

What I’m Sticking With

My call list isn’t going anywhere. I’ve been able to turn walks to work and Ubers to meetings into productive time. This had a secondary benefit that my future self will be grateful for: I was no longer looking down at my phone, straining my neck.

In fact, I’ve now absorbed my call list into my to-do list. Alongside reminders to send out proposals and organize internal meetings, I have notes on whom to call, what the call is about, and how we got connected in the first place: “Call Jim about career advice, introduced via LinkedIn.” This helps me break out of just defaulting to email, and remember all the other modes of communication I might be forgetting.

The phone may not be the newest collaboration tool out there, but I was surprised at how effective I found it after a week of forcing myself to become more “phone-prone.” Sure, I couldn’t express myself using virtual smiley faces that way, but I was able to be more authentic–which doesn’t just lead to better relationships, but can help you tap into them more productively, too.

Allen Gannett is the CEO of TrackMaven, a content and social marketing analytics company. He is based in Washington, DC, and can be followed on Twitter at @Allen or on LinkedIn.

Los Angeles is “uniquely blessed” as an Olympics host city with the kind of existing and already-planned sports venues, housing, and transit infrastructure needed to make the 2028 Games a big success, say veterans of previous Olympics.

That includes Richard Perelman, the editor-in-chief of the Official Report of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the editor of L.A.’s 2012 Olympics bid proposal, and a co-editor of the city’s 2016 bid proposal. While he is not involved in any way in the 2028 Olympics, which the International Olympics Committee awarded to Los Angeles today, Perelman has a lot of opinions as to why the effort should go off smoothly, avoiding the kinds of controversies–mass cost overruns, and abandoned brand-new venues–that have plagued the cities that have hosted games in recent years.

“I would tell you that based on the reports that I have seen,” Perelman says, “this is a great day for Los Angeles, and I think it’s going to prove to be a wonderful thing for the city, the region, and the country.”

Having been through one Olympics, and been materially involved in two other bids, Perelman’s perspective was shaped by Peter Ueberroth, the president of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics committee and former commissioner of Major League Baseball, who insisted that cities always run surpluses when hosting the Games, until losses from massive construction are taken into consideration.

“That has continued to be true,” Perelman said. “That has not changed. So I have every confidence that if [the 2028 Games] are managed properly, and that’s a big if…they’re in a position to have a surplus.”

Such a potential boost to the budget has been cited by L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti as a major reason to support the city’s bid. He recalls “the afterglow from the 1984 Games, including a profit that was steered into local school sports programs, and looks ahead to forecasts of years of economic impetus leading up to and during the Games,” wrote the Los Angeles Times back in 2015, when the bid proposal was first discussed. “‘It’s pretty rare that you get this sort of stimulus from non-governmental money that’s basically guaranteed to come to you and be spent,’ he [said.] He’s already ‘focusing on what we can do with the profits from this,’ imagining an endowment to make participation in youth sports leagues free, for instance.”

It’s not that hosting the Games is cheap. According to the New York Times, the cost of the L.A. Games could go as high as $5.3 billion though the Los Angeles Olympic committee insists the public won’t be responsible for any of that money. Further, as the LAT recently reported, the Olympics is considered likely to generate a profit of $150 million.

With the Games 11 years away, of course, it’s impossible to know if that proves to be true, and Perelman said that the city of Los Angeles and the state of California have pledged $250 million each against cost overruns.

Here’s why Garcetti’s theory could prove to be true: Los Angeles and nearby areas have a surfeit of sporting arenas, with more on the way. The region already has two major stadiums—the L.A. Coliseum and the Rose Bowl—as well as numerous pro and university arenas. There’s also a new football stadium being built as the shared home of two NFL teams, and the L.A. Clippers may be getting their own arena after sharing Staples Center with the L.A. Lakers.

On top of that, Perleman argues, both UCLA and USC have student housing that would satisfy the International Olympic Committee’s requirements for an Olympic Village.

Add that all up, he continues, and you have the makings for a future Olympics that won’t require much in the way of major construction–and therefore, mitigates the risk of massive construction cost overruns.

“When you don’t build things,” Perelman says, “you don’t have enormous expenses in the run-up years.”

At the same time, Perelman believes L.A. is in good shape to handle the kinds of massive traffic and public transit demands that an Olympics will generate, even though the city is notorious for its horrible congestion and poor transit choices.

But that reputation could start to change in the wake of recent voter-approved initiatives that will put billions of dollars into improved transportation and transit initiatives.

Los Angeles had originally sought to host the 2024 Games, but the U.S. Olympic Committee eventually chose Boston. However, Boston eventually backed out, forcing the USOC to back L.A. In the end, a deal struck between the IOC and the USOC resulted in Paris being awarded the 2024 Games, and Los Angeles winning 2028 hosting duties.

Perelman says it’s good that L.A. got the 2028 Olympics, because he doesn’t believe all the transit and traffic improvements will be in place by 2024. By four years later, he thinks everything will be finished and adopted by the community, meaning that kinks will have been ironed out and people will have learned how to efficiently use the systems.

Neither anyone from the L.A. Mayor’s office nor anyone from LA2024 (the city’s still-not-renamed Olympics committee) responded to a request for comment. But in a press conference on Monday afternoon, Garcetti said that by 2028, the city will have spent close to $30 billion on public transportation, including finishing subway lines, and completing work on Los Angeles International Airport.

Not everyone is on board with L.A. being host to the world, of course. An organization called NOlympics LA opposes bringing the Games to Los Angeles because “it will be nothing short of a wide-reaching, incalculably destructive media party for millionaires and billionaires. The Olympics puts the interests of the mega-rich and corporate brands above the interests of athletes, fans, and working people in the cities it commandeers.”

Further, NOlympics LA argues, “Should LA host the Olympics, we will see wide-ranging human rights’ violations and the forfeiture of our city to the interests of contractors, developers, media corporations, and the special interests who designed the bid. Preparing for and hosting the Olympics will place unnecessary financial stress on the citizens of LA while also disrupting the lives of the several million people who live and work here.”

But Perelman thinks that the controversies that have swirled around the Olympics in recent years–especially in Rio in 2016, where new venues constructed at exorbitant cost now sit empty–have taught the IOC some valuable lessons. As a result, he says, there will be an increased emphasis on ensuring that future Games are paid for with private funding and not with public money. Absent that, he says, the IOC’s “not going to get any bidders. No one’s going to want the Games.”

And though he’s a huge supporter of the city hosting the Games, Perelman recommends plenty of scrutiny of the people and organizations behind the L.A. Games. “If I was an anti-Olympics activist, I’d be looking closely at who is the management,” Perelman says, “what is their attitude towards money, how big is their staff, and how much money are they spending?”

There’s one main reason why it was relatively easy for the Trump administration to launch a multi-pronged assault on LGBT rights in the space of a single day last week, and officials even went so far as to spell it out.

In an unsolicited brief they filed in a New York federal court on Wednesday, Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys characterized a discrimination case as a question of “whether, as a matter of law, Title VII [of the 1964 Civil Rights Act] reaches sexual orientation discrimination.” In their view, “It does not.” And as far as the actual letter of the law goes, they’re absolutely right.

It doesn’t matter that this view contradicts that of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency that enforces employees’ civil rights protections–and which DOJ lawyers claimed this week was “not speaking for the United States.” The fact is, the Civil Rights Act’s Title VII language covers only “sex discrimination,” a prohibition that the EEOC has interpreted to encompass gender identity and sexual orientation only recently and, at times, tentatively.

So the past week’s events–in which Trump also tweeted plans to bar trans service members from the military and nominated Kansas’s anti-LGBT governor Sam Brownback to an ambassadorship, in addition to the DOJ brief–were a harsh reminder that interpretations of statutes make for shakier civil-rights foundations than do statutes themselves.

But they were an equally harsh reminder that the Obama administration, in “evolving” on these issues over eight years of otherwise landmark progress for LGBT rights, left an opening that Trump and his allies are exploiting right now.

Related:LGBT Employees Claiming Discrimination Were Making Headway Before The DOJ Stepped In

ENDA’s Many Unhappy Endings

A potential legislative fix has been in the works for more than 20 years: The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which among other provisions would amend Title VII so that it specifically bans workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

With one exception, ENDA has been introduced in every session of Congress since 1994, but its last real shot at passage would have been in the window between President Obama clinching the White House and Democrats seizing both houses of Congress, and the 2010 midterms when Republicans took back the House. That period saw the enactment of a huge economic stimulus package and sweeping health care reform, but not of ENDA.

It’s understandable why. Obama and his party knew full well that they’d have limited time to enact progressive legislation. Likely wanting to deliver the most change for the most people, Democrats largely focused on issues that bridged, rather than individually targeted, the constituencies of the so-called “Obama coalition” of LGBT, African-American, Hispanic, millennial, and women voters.

Willfully or not, that translated to a certain reluctance to do what many newly elected presidents, including Trump, typically do: hand quick, politically charged wins to the base. This was the main function of Trump’s travel ban targeting six Muslim-majority countries in March, just as it was of his anti-trans decision last Wednesday, as one administration official told an Axios reporter explicitly. But Obama, who had early hopes of transcending political divides, at first treaded cautiously around polarizing identity-based issues, and arguably waited too long to champion a legislative fix to Title VII’s shortcomings.

A hearing on ENDA was held in the House in November 2009, after then Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced a version of the bill in June, which gained some Republican support. Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley (D-OR) spearheaded a similarly worded version in the Senate that summer, when he told the Advocate, “It’s certainly possible that this could be passed by year’s end, though the [congressional] schedule is very crowded.”

The bill ultimately got crowded out. It wasn’t until November 2013–more than a year after he officially backed same-sex marriage–that Obama wrote an op-ed in the Huffington Post advocating for the legislation, which the Senate passed with bipartisan support the following month. But after another year of wrangling, the Republican-controlled House failed to reciprocate. ENDA died its latest death on December 3, 2014, in the form of a Hail Mary effort to peg it to the next year’s defense authorization bill.

The Government Disagrees With Itself

By then, the Obama administration’s two best means for extending anti-discrimination protections to LGBT Americans were through executive orders and the EEOC, not Congress. In July 2014, Obama signed an order barring employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity for government workers and federal contractors. The directive was estimated to cover 28 million workers (roughly a fifth of the U.S. workforce) and notably didn’t include carve-outs on religious grounds.

Shortly after taking office, Trump was rumored to be near rescinding that rule before deciding to leave it in place. But in March, he revoked a parallel Obama-era order requiring federal contractors to share compliance data with authorities, which could undermine how the first rule is enforced.

The EEOC issued two important rulings during Obama’s second term, one in 2012 and the other in 2015, which together laid out a legal argument for deeming Title VII’s “sex discrimination” language to cover anti-LGBT bias as well. “Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is premised on sex-based preferences, assumptions, expectations, stereotypes, or norms,” the latter ruling read. “‘Sexual orientation’ as a concept cannot be defined or understood without reference to sex.”

This week the Justice Department, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, effectively argued that it very much can be, writing that this question “has been settled for decades.” Now it’s time for the courts to decide if they agree–since legislators, for decades, couldn’t.

WHAT: A new back-to-school ad for Converse starring Stranger Things‘ Millie Bobby Brown.

WHO: Converse, Big Spaceship

WHY WE CARE: While her character Eleven didn’t get much screen time in the Comic-Con trailer for Stranger Things‘ season two, here Brown gets giphy with the cornucopia of teen emotions tied to the start of a new school year. It’s the 13-year-old actor’s second stint shilling for Converse–back in February she took us on a tour of Chuck Taylor’s major film cameos.

The GIFs from this new spot will be running on BuzzFeed, Teen Vogue, and on Converse’s web and social channels. Anyone else surprised there isn’t one where she’s upside down?

Europeans tend to be a little more privacy conscious than their American counterparts, but the growing prominence of biometric technologies like face recognition means E.U. countries will increasingly see tradeoffs for the sake of perceived safety and security. And not everyone seems to mind. According to the Associated Press, German authorities are testing a new automatic face-recognition system for Berlin’s Südkreuz station. The system will involve three cameras at one of the entrances and an escalator, which will presumably capture images of people’s faces and weigh them against a database. More than 200 people have volunteered to have their images and names stored, the AP writes. It’s just a test for now, but it increasingly looks like part of the new normal on both sides of the Atlantic. In January, border protection officials in the U.S. rolled out new “facial comparison” technology at New York’s JFK airport.

We’ve all had those days: You’re under pressure to get things done, but you can’t seem to accomplish anything.

There is still hope. Here are a dozen strategies you can put to work immediately to help you salvage your day and get more done.

Take A Break

It may seem counterintuitive, but taking a break when you feel stuck could be the best thing for you, says running and goal-setting expert Diana Fitts, author of Your Focus Formula: How to Successfully Stay on Task, Finish Projects and Achieve Your Goals. If you’ve been working at something for a while, you may need a diversion to resume your focus and creativity, found a 2011 study published in the journal Cognition. Taking a 10- or 15-minute break can help you return to the task better able to concentrate and get things done.

“Walk around. Get a cup of coffee or water. We all need to dial down the anxiety,” she says. “Just sitting at your work station, you’re not going to be able to see the right decision in the moment.”

Eliminate Distractions

Once you’ve given your brain a rest, set yourself up to get back to getting things done, says productivity expert Chris Bailey, author of The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy.

Whenever Bailey sits down to write, he eliminates all distractions. He uses a website blocking program called Cold Turkey, which allows him to disable “every distracting website,” he says. ” So if I try to check the news, if I try to go on social media, if I try to do anything unproductive on my computer, it’ll stop me, and I have to actually restart my computer if I want to enable those distractions again.” Freedom is another option to eliminate distractions online.

You can also turn off device and email notifications, as well as your phone. If you’re in the office, find a quiet space or put up a “do not disturb” sign at your work space. Using earbuds can also indicate that you’re in concentration mode.

Use Music

For some people, music sets the tone for their work environment. Create a playlist or choose a streaming channel that gets you in the mood to work, whether you need to get pumped up or calm down. A study from Cornell University found that upbeat music can make people more productive.

Make A 15-Minute List

Sometimes, you just need to feel like you’re getting things done. If getting a few tasks completed will make you feel like you’re building momentum, productivity expert Carson Tate, author of Work Simply: Embracing the Power of Your Personal Productivity Style, recommends creating a “15-minute list”—a list of activities that can be completed in 15 minutes or less. So, if you need to schedule a few meetings, return some quick calls, knock out a few email messages, and the like, make a list of several of them. Then, spend an hour or so getting them done, one after the other.

Keep your 15-minute list on hand for times when you feel yourself procrastinating, she says. “They’re just quick actionable things that can get the juices flowing,” she says—even when you don’t feel like tackling the bigger stuff.

Prioritize

When the time you have left in the day is dwindling, suddenly you have a decision to make: What is the most important thing that you can get done today?” Is it clearing out a group of “tolerations?” Is it taking a few steps on a bigger goal? Too many of us confuse a feeling of urgency with a feeling of importance, Bailey says. Just because something seems like it needs your attention doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s important to you. Take a moment to get clear on your priorities for the day, and start to focus your energy there.

Get Clarity

Tate says that we sometimes find ourselves unable to move forward because we’re not exactly sure what the next steps should be. If you find yourself mired in ineffectiveness, think about whether you truly understand what you’re supposed to be doing or what the next steps are, she says. Start asking questions or asking for help to get you back on the right track. You might be surprised how motivated you are once you actually feel more capable of accomplishing a clear goal.

Break Tasks Into Smaller Chunks

Similarly, if you find yourself daunted by the next steps you need to take to make progress on a project, Tate suggests looking for smaller steps to take. Facing down a project step that’s complicated or time-consuming can make it tough to start, but if you can break it down into more manageable chunks, you may find it easier to do so. For example, if you’re working on a research project and don’t know where to start, pick three sources and begin there. Then, add three more, and so on. By placing parameters around the research steps, you’re not looking at a task so big that you don’t know where to start, which can lead to procrastination and avoidance.

Tap Your Energy Cycle

It also helps to know yourself and when you’re most energetic or do your best, most focused work, Fitts says. If you know you’re sharp at 10 a.m., but have a 3 p.m. lag where it’s tough to get motivated, plan your most important tasks for when you’re at your best, she says. Then, as much as you can, focus on easier or lower-value tasks during your low-energy times. (This might be when you pull out your 15-minute list.) Of course, this isn’t always possible, but when you can control the timing of tasks, it can make an enormous difference in your productivity.

Use A Timer

Fitts is also a big fan of the Pomodoro Technique as a way to get things done immediately. Set a timer for 20 or 30 minutes. Then, either focus on completing one task or as many smaller tasks as you can before the timer sounds. The urgency of the immediate deadline can be a great way to shift your mind-set, she says.

Change Your Metrics

Of course, being busy isn’t the same as being productive, Bailey says. Be sure you’re not craving activity instead of meaningful accomplishment. He says the most productive people with whom he works are often the least busy. “We look at how busy we are as a proxy for productivity. But, we could be busy checking out social media and email all day long, and never accomplish a single thing,” he says.

Look at the value of your work as well as the volume of it. Are you focused on the tasks that maximize the investment of your time? Be sure you’re using the right measurements when it comes to how you are spending your time.

It’s the perfect storm of media conspiracy theories in the Trump era—the detective who was instrumental in spreading the conspiracy theory about murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich is now suing Fox News, among others, for creating “fake news to advance President Trump’s agenda.” And former Metropolitan D.C. homicide detective Rod Wheeler also claims that President Trump helped spread the discredited conspiracy theory—the lawsuit includes a text message allegedly sent by a Fox News writer that says Trump had read the article prior to publication and “wants [it] out immediately.”

Who is Rod Wheeler?

• The former detective originally alleged that Rich, a DNC staffer, had emailed WikiLeaks shortly before he was murdered. Later, he recanted those claims, saying he had no personal knowledge of such alleged emails.

• The D.C. police called Wheeler’s original allegations “unfounded,” adding that Wheeler worked as a detective from 1990 to 1995 but was dismissed from the agency.

• Wheeler has attracted controversy for comments he’s made about racial profiling, once pulling his eyelids back during a TV appearance to show what a Chinese man looks like. During a segment on Bill O’Reilly’s show in 2007, he claimed that a “national underground network” of armed lesbians was raping girls.

• Wheeler is also the founder and CEO of the Global Food Defense Institute, which focuses on “the risk of criminal or terrorist actions on the food supply,” according to his LinkedIn profile.

Whatever you think–about anything–you’re not the only one. That’s what happens when you’re one of seven billion. There’s a lot of other people just like you.

Except for the fact that there’s no one like you. You’re unique. Your DNA, your experiences, your environment have all combined to produce a singular being, unlike any other the world has ever seen.

This essential contradiction is at the heart of modern business. How to reach mass audiences, one individual at a time, with communications that create emotional experiences–the prerequisite of consumer engagement. The most important brands of today do all of this well.

They also understand that the internet has given the consumer’s voice enormous power. We now decide in real-time what happens in culture, providing instant feedback to the worlds of art, fashion and entertainment. In this maelstrom of possibilities, the very best brands have learned one more thing. It’s not enough anymore to be ‘relevant’. The most successful businesses have figured out what it takes to be important.

I’ve spent most of my career working intimately with brands that are leading the Internet age. In my experience, they exhibit three superpowers that make them important in the eyes and hearts of consumers.

Point of view

They see the world through a carefully focused lens, using it as the filter for every single decision from managerial, to marketing, to UX and customer experience. The result is brand behavior that is authentic and consistent.

Who stands out: Airbnb

Not only do they have a point of view, they’ve assigned their values to it. It begins with what the founders say, “The minute people start talking about job titles…over changing the world through connecting people via local and authentic travel experiences, we know that they are probably barking up the wrong tree,” and extends through the product experience. At every step they are managing, designing and behaving in ways that are consistent with their point of view and values.

They stay true to the way the see the world in marketing into how they’re different and are unafraid to present a clear point of view that strongly attracts people who are a fit for their brand and repels those who aren’t.

This combination creates memorable moments for us with them and, ultimately, a true connection, which leads to loyalty.

Empathy by Design

Thanks to GE’s marketing chief Linda Boff for helping me coin this one. Brands that matter to us are sensitive to our entire experience, and combine data and creativity to ensure that each consumer connection point is easy and satisfying.

Who stands out: Glossier, Ikea, REI

I see four tenets that are consistent across important brands. First, be beautiful and easy to use. No matter what your business model, this is now table stakes. We no longer disassociate brands from our experience with them. If Lyft, Instagram, and Amazon make it easy for us to instantly solve a problem or satisfy a need, we expect the same from every other brand. As consumers, we’re less forgiving than ever before of brands that are clunky and difficult to use.

Second, anticipate me. Data provides the ability to identify patterns of behavior that can become predictive of future wants and needs. It’s the early warning system that tells a brand when it’s strayed from the things that matter to its audience. Even better, it’s developed at every moment of the customer life cycle. A great, modern example is Glossier. The brand was quite literally built in real-time. Data from its blog Into the Gloss, informed the idea for four beauty products that launched on Instagram, not a website. Comments and communications informed product refinement and future development. But what’s more is how the brand approaches the customer. Their entire approach to connecting with consumers is connected. In fact, they’ve fashioned a new form of lifestyle that’s part of your whole day, from use of the product, to email communications, to event invites, to brand swag, to social interactions.  With so much of the consumer experience now digitized, data from each step informs the next in powerful, insightful ways.

Thirdly, be agile with your ability to create content and connection moments: If data helps you identify important moments, an agile creative and content machine amplifies those moments so your brand is participating in cultural dialogue and staying important, in real-time. Within a week of Balenciaga launching its oversized, bright blue tote, IKEA posted playful creative to help consumers spot the original. Ikea’s agency Acne put it well, ” It’s [the Balenciaga bag] unexpected and brilliant. I like the flirt, and I thought, ‘Why not flirt back?’ And we did.”

And fourth, have guts. It’s easy to use data to turn up the short-term effects on sales. But research shows that while response campaigns focused on the latest deal drive short-term, addictive results, they ultimately degrade performance. A combination of both brand and response drives the best long term profit growth. But it takes guts, do you have it? The people at REI do. They chose a powerful e-commerce moment in time to make a brand play by refusing to open on America’s biggest shopping day, Black Friday, and encouraged people to spend time outdoors via their award-winning #OptOutside campaign. Sales were not only up over the previous year in store, but they saw a big increase in digital sales, over 1 million people engaged in the campaign and another million joined their co-op program.

Human First, Everything Else Second

Connect to cultural ideologies that are current, loaded and strong. Think in terms of being ‘Tribal’: a powerful connection that bonds consumers around an idea through its root in shared passions and beliefs.

Who stands out: Outdoor Voices, Off-White

@violette_fr knows a good foundation when she sees one. Ours is the Two-Tone Legging.

A post shared by Outdoor Voices (@outdoorvoices) on Aug 1, 2017 at 7:06am PDT

There are two aspects of this that I see. First, is building tribes. Nike’s idea of human potential evokes something powerful that rallies people, tribes, around their brand. Equally interesting is its new, upstart competitor, Outdoor Voices. Their founder thinks about taking an intimidating product category dominated by celebrity endorsements and making it human, building physical community around the digital brand through involvement in real-life events and approaching the brand with ease and delight. One of the central pivots that modern brands make is their choice to build authentic community around their brands instead of investing in paid celebrity endorsements.

Second, be an active part of culture. Kanye established this focus when he said, “Listen to the kids bro.” But, today there is a new guard of designers that are 10X’ing this approach. His longtime creative consultant, luxury streetwear designer Virgil Abloh, put a finer point on it when he said, “The consumer is already dictating what they prefer.” He approaches his label Off-White through a massive reversal where the street dictates and affects the market. Last year his sales were up 100% year over year.

Point of view, empathy, humanity. Ironically, being important in the Internet age actually requires being more human than ever.  Amidst an endless number of tools and technology, being a student of how people connect is a North star that never gets old. The most important brands to us today, and always, make this their religion.

Christina Cubeta is a brand advisor for companies who live at the intersection of creativity and data. She’s a former global vice president of marketing for Quantcast, global director of marketing communications for Tribal DDB Worldwide, and North American public relations for Emanuel Ungaro.

Trump. Russia. Trump. Russia. No matter how much the U.S. president would like those two words to never again be connected, they’ve become inexorably linked. So it may come as no surprise that the solution to one of Trump’s earliest demands–saving money on the next generation of airplanes originally intended for the Air Force One fleet–comes, in a way, from the Motherland.

According to a report today from Defense One, ink is drying on a deal the U.S. Air Force made to buy two Boeing 747-8s for the Air Force One fleet originally intended for a now bankrupt Russian company–at a bargain price. While the Air Force isn’t expected to disclose the specific value of the contract with Boeing, officials said that the military is getting a good deal. The planes (which, according to flight tracking data, are sitting in an airplane graveyard in the Mojave Desert) are typically sold by Boeing for $386.8 million each. They were originally ordered in 2013 by the Russian airline Transaero, which subsequently went under.

Notwithstanding the many links between Trump and Russia, the president has promised he will sign the sanctions bill Congress has sent to his desk last week.

Studies have shown that recruiters only spend six seconds reading your resume, so it’s important to highlight the words that will get their attention.

A recent Indeed survey found that when sorting through resumes, tech companies are much more likely to respond to candidates that mention certain skills and job titles.

“Having these highly specialized, sought-after skills will likely lead employers to make competitive offers,” says Doug Gray, SVP of engineering at Indeed.

 These are the job titles and phrases that are more likely to get you a call from a potential employer.

1. Python developer (17.9% more likely to be contacted by a potential employer).

2. Java developer (16.3% more likely to be contacted)

3.  Linux engineer (16% more likely to be contacted)

4. Development operations engineer (15.6% more likely to be contacted)

5. Agile coach (14.5% more likely to be contacted)

6. Ruby on Rails developer ( 12% more likely to be contacted)

7. .NET developer ( 10.6% more likely to be contacted)

8. iOS developer (10.2% more likely to be contacted)

9. Full Stack developer (9.9% more likely to be contacted)

10. Cloud engineer (9.8% more likely to be contacted)

Apple shares are up in after-hours trading after the company announced a lukewarm June-ending quarter. Seasonally speaking, it’s a down quarter for Apple, as consumers hold off on upgrading their devices until they see new iPhones, which are always announced in the fall.

After the closing bell today, Apple reported $45.4 billion in revenue on the strength of 40.7 million iPhones sold in the quarter. Analysts surveyed by Factset expected exactly 40.7 million iPhones sold, and revenues of $44.9 billion. The company is projecting revenue of between $49 billion and $52 billion for the September-ending quarter, and gross margins of between 37.5% and 38%. Apple also said that its services business hit an all-time quarterly high.

We’ll have a fuller analysis after the conclusion of Apple’s call with analysts today.

A two-year debate over the future of bitcoin erupted earlier today into a “hard fork” of the cryptocurrency, with traditionalists standing their ground and reformers introducing a rival version called “bitcoin cash.” While the value of the upstart cryptocurrency rose as high as $400 in volatile early trading, the tectonic break caused bitcoin’s value to drop around 3%. Bitcoin is currently trading at U.S. $2,766.

Bitmain, a Beijing-based operator of the world’s largest bitcoin mining pool, has been among the organizers driving the revolt. Its leader, Jihan Wu, wants to make bitcoin’s transaction speed near-instantaneous in order to encourage its broader adoption. (Bitcoin can process just seven transactions per second, due to constraints imposed by creator Satoshi Nakamoto.) Wu, a bitcoin millionaire, also stands to see his fortune grow if the cryptocurrency gains traction.

BREAKING: The Bitcoin Cash blockchain has mined its first block

— CoinDesk (@coindesk) August 1, 2017

Traditionalists, on the other hand, favor a cautious approach to growth. They are wary of government intervention, which could have a stifling effect on the overall ecosystem, if bitcoin grows too big too fast—a possibility that Wu and his allies shrug off. Traditionalists also caution that bitcoin cash’s approach to increasing transaction speed could allow large organizations to control the network, at the expense of individuals.

Related: Inside The ICO Bubble: Why Initial Coin Offerings Have Raised More Than $1 Billion Since January

To some, the split is the byproduct of differences in language and context as much as it is the result of philosophical disagreements about governance and scale. Proponents of bitcoin cash are predominantly based in China, where, by some estimates, more than 60% of mining power is generated; Nakamoto purists reside in the U.S. and Europe. The two blocs have struggled to discuss their differences via (sometimes garbled) translations of chat and code.

“I think [Western exchanges] will support it eventually,” Haipo Yang, CEO of Shenzhen-based mining pool operator ViaBTC, told Coindesk. “That’s a fight for the users. They have no other choice, or they will lose the market share.”

Related: These MIT Grads Want To Let Anyone Invest In, Or Even Start, A Bitcoin Fund

ViaBTC introduced futures trading for bitcoin cash last week, in a show of support for the fledgling currency. U.S. exchange Coinbase, in contrast, said last Thursday that it would not support bitcoin cash.

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ripple, and litecoin—plus hundreds more—are digital alternatives to our existing, state-run system. Instead of printing dollars, bitcoin users “mine” the currency using the processing power in their computers. Once a coin has been “mined,” it lives in a distributed ledger called the blockchain, which serves as a shared record of accounts and transactions. Proponents of the system argue that it offers greater efficiency and transparency by obviating the financial system’s dependence on middlemen, like banks.

Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies more broadly, remain a niche corner of the financial world. Bitcoins issued to date are worth a collective $47 billion. Daily transactions are averaging roughly 300,000, according to the Economist.

Turning the Amazon Echo speaker into a surveillance tool apparently isn’t too difficult for those with access to the hardware. On Echo units sold before 2017, removing the rubber base exposes a set of metal connection pads. Security researcher Mark Barnes was able to solder a laptop cable and SD card hookup to these pads, allowing him to load eavesdropping malware onto the speaker. He claims that with a bit more work, someone could create a custom connection device to hide inside the Echo base, no soldering required.

Granted, you probably have bigger problems at hand if someone breaks into your house undetected. But as Wired notes, the hack has frightening implications for Echo devices installed in communal settings, such as hotel rooms. (In response, Amazon told Wired,“We recommend customers purchase Amazon devices from Amazon or a trusted retailer and that they keep their software up to date.”) And while Echo speakers produced in 2017 are apparently safe, earlier versions may not be fixable since the vulnerability exists at the hardware level. Maybe think twice about spilling gossip around the office Echo next time.

Like many eternal verities, the notion that Apple never slashes prices to boost unit sales has lots of wiggle room. The company’s better-than-expected results for the quarter that ended in June included a 15% increase in iPad unit sales compared to the year-ago quarter—an impressive jump in any context, but particularly so, given that overall iPad sales have been sagging for years.

Apple doesn’t break out sales for individual iPad models. But that 15% increase in units sold resulted in only a 2% increase in revenue—which suggests that the $329 9.7-inch iPad that debuted in the spring has been a hit. As my colleague Mark Sullivan noted back then, the budget price looked like a bid to appeal to consumers who had resisted upgrading from earlier models as well as school systems that had increasingly been turning to cheap Chromebooks. (During Apple’s conference call about its results, Tim Cook said that iPad sales to schools were up 32% for the quarter compared to last year.)

Meanwhile, the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro, which emphasizes power over price, only shipped near the end of the quarter, which means that it’s too early to hazard any guesses about its long-term impact on overall iPad sales.

Without much pomp and circumstance Apple CEO Tim Cook was on the mic in Apple’s quarterly earnings call with analysts, and he had a lot today. Here are some of the more surprising factoids he quickly spat out regarding Apple’s quarter (and upcoming quarter).

• Apple is expecting a big September-ending quarter, with $49-$52 billion revenue, suggesting that it expects strong sales of the iPhone 7s and 7 Plus, and possibly of the new (tenth anniversary) iPhone 8.
• iPad sales have been suffering for a long time, but we saw some light today. Unit sales of all iPads were up 15%. However, revenue up only 2%, which suggests they sold a lot of the new budget-priced $329 iPads. Those iPads sold very well into the U.S. education system, however, with sales up 32% from the year ago quarter. Apple has been increasingly challenged by Google’s Chromebook in the education space.
• Apple has now sold 1.2B iPhones in total since the launch of the device a decade ago, Cook said.
• This is very important for Apple, because the devices are vending machines for the company’s burgeoning services business, which now accounts for about 10% of Apple’s revenue now. The services business grew by 10% from a year ago. Apple reported more than 185 million paid subscribers to Apple services, up 20 million from three months ago.
• Mac sales were up 7% year-over-year, despite a contracting global PC market.
• Apple Watch sales were up 50%.

Read more about Apple’s ambitions to use iPads to crack the $3 trillion health care sector.

Apple announced somewhat better than expected financial results Tuesday, but most people are already looking forward to the next two quarters when the company will release much-anticipated new phones.

Results were generally in line with expectations. After the closing bell today, Apple reported $45.4 billion in revenue on the strength of 40.7 million iPhones sold in the quarter as well as a growing assortment of non-iPhone business. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected exactly 40.7 million iPhones sold, and revenues of $44.9 billion. iPhone sales represent roughly 60% of Apple’s revenues.

Apple had projected between $43.5 billion and $45.5 billion in revenues for the June-ending quarter, down from the $52.9 billion it brought in during Q2 2017.

Seasonally speaking, the June-ending quarter is a down quarter for Apple, as consumers hold off on upgrading their devices until they see new iPhones, which are always announced in the fall.

Investors apparently saw what they wanted in Apple’s numbers. Apple shares are up about 5% in after-hours trading, hitting record heights.

Looking Forward To New Phones

But the real action Tuesday was in Apple’s forecasts for next quarter, which provide some clue to the timing of the company’s much-awaited new phones, expected this fall.

The company is projecting revenue of between $49 billion and $52 billion for the September-ending quarter, and gross margins of between 37.5% and 38%. This suggests that Apple expects to sell lots of the new phones in September, the last month of the quarter. “We have a very exciting fall ahead!” Cook said.

Apple will very likely announce three new phones in its September event, including the iPhone 7s and 7s Plus, and a new high-end phone that may be called the iPhone 8.

That last phone is supposed to contain lots of new technologies, like a facial recognition sensor and an OLED screen that covers almost all of the front on the phone. But rumors say that phone, which is expected to sell for more than $1,000, may go on sale well after the iPhone 7s/7s Plus, and possibly not until the holiday quarter.

Surprise: iPad Sales Up 15%

One of the biggest surprises in today’s earnings was the news that iPad sales were up after suffering for many consecutive quarters. Unit sales of all iPads were up 15%. However, revenue is up only 2%, which suggests the company sold a lot of the new budget-priced $329 iPads, rather than the pricey and much-heralded iPad Pro. But it may be that those low-priced iPads may have been just what the education market wanted. Sales to schools increased 32% over last year’s June quarter, Apple said. Apple has been increasingly challenged by Google’s Chromebook in the education space.

Related: Apple’s iPad sales climb at last thanks to a budget-priced model 

Services Growth Hit New High

Apple also said that its services business hit an all-time quarterly high. Specifically, it grew about 10% year-over-year. Notably, Apple reported that it has now sold 1.2 billion iPhones since the launch of the product a decade ago. iPhones and other iOS device can be seen as vending machines of Apple services like iCloud and Apple Music. Still, Apple’s services business represents only about 10% of the company’s total revenues. That’s going to continue to increase.

Mac Sales Up As PC Sales Contract

Mac sales were up 7% in the quarter. This is especially notable because IDC reports say that the global PC market is contracting. Macs seem to be bucking the trend.

The Watch Moves Mainstream

Apple still doesn’t provide unit sales numbers for the Apple Watch, but it did report that sales of the device were up an astounding 50%. Finding the exact reasons for this isn’t easy, but the product seems to be moving up the curve toward mainstream adoption.

With the release of the second version of the Apple Watch last year, Apple repositioned it to look more like a health and fitness device. At the same time, it dropped prices on the first version of the Watch. In the larger view, the Watch has emerged as the last device standing in a smartwatch market that seems to have collapsed around it. One theory is that once the Watch emerged as the category’s best, consumers started buying it in higher numbers.

China Slows, While Cash—Most Overseas—Hits New Record

Apple has suffered a considerable slowdown in its China business. The iPhone 6 emerged as the top selling phone in China at one point, but iPhones have slipped in the ratings, surpassed by phones from local companies like Xiaomi and Huawei. Still, Cook seemed upbeat about the overall China business during the earnings call.

“We improved from the previous quarters a little more than I thought we would. iPad grew dramatically more than the market,” he said. “The Mac grew more than the market. iPhone was relatively flat, year-on-year. And so we see all of those as very encouraging signs.”

Finally, Apple now sits on a record $261.5 billion cash pile (the vast majority held overseas) and a market capitalization of $830 billion. For many those numbers are the bottom line, suggesting Apple under Tim Cook is moving its products in all the right directions.

Line—the messaging app that is dominant in its home market of Japan and also a hit in Indonesia, Taiwan, and Thailand—is making a home for itself in New York. It launched a Times Square flagship store for merchandise featuring its Line Friends characters today, citing the area’s diverse, high pedestrian traffic as core to its strategy for global expansion. “We plan to become an iconic company in Times Square,” said Line Friends CEO James Kim, addressing a group of journalists from inside the store’s “Choco House.” “It makes it easier for us to expand globally.”

Line Friends characters such as Brown the bear and Cony the rabbit began as a sticker set within the Line app and have grown to play a role in 84 character-themed cafes and stores in 10 countries. They’re also part of theme parks, animated TV series, video games, and soon, an AI-powered speaker system in the mold of Amazon’s Echo.

“We are doing more than the messaging app,” Kim said. “As a character business, we want to give people an experience so they can see the character, and feel happy and entertained. They might not know the name at first, but they will fall in love with it.”

“The technology is important, but it’s more about how the consumer uses our products. [This store] is a test to see if our product can be used by a lot of different types of consumers,” said Kim.

Plans Matter is a new vacation rental service site that only lists modern houses designed by world-renowned architects so you can enjoy time in their exquisite spaces without breaking the bank.

With private saunas, cooling pools, farm to table dining, and a beautiful view, “Löyly” may be the newest hot travel destination.

Zero Zero makes the Hover Camera, an autonomous selfie drone that can follow the user wherever they go. The Hover Camera is sold exclusively at Apple stores for around $500. If the acquisition goes, through, Snap is expected to pay between $150 million and $200 million for Zero Zero, reports TechCrunch.