What does a worker’s messy desk signify to the greater office? Unfortunately, far more than just an inability to organize bobbleheads or throw away empty La Croix cans.
A new study finds that an untidy work space leads colleagues to perceive that the person is more neurotic, less agreeable, and pretty uncaring.
Researchers and psychologists from the University of Michigan Flint and Ann Arbor conducted three experiments in which 160 participants were randomly assigned to sit in three offices: one that was clean and uncluttered, one that was “somewhat” messy, and one that was “very” messy.
The tidy office boasted all the markings of a put-together employee. It had neatly stacked papers, upright books and journals on bookshelves, organized drawers with handwritten tables, and, of course, garbage in the wastebasket.
The “somewhat” messy office included tilted books, papers on the floor, and a wall clock that was an hour off. The next iteration–the “very” messy office–was an even dirtier and more cluttered version of that, with pretty much everything in disarray. The study’s participants were then asked to share their opinions of the offices’ owners based on their time in each space.
In each experiment, they ranked the owner of the messy office as less conscientious than the organized office, the study found.
Participants also thought them to be less agreeable, neurotic, as well as “careless, cranky and uncaring.” These perceptions impacted whether they wanted to interact or deal with them–both personally and professionally–in the future.
“When there are cues related to less cleanliness, order, organization, and more clutter in an owner’s primary territory, perceivers ascribe lower conscientiousness to the owner, whether that owner is a worker in the real world (office), a job seeker (apartment), a student (bedroom), or a researcher at a university (lab office),” said lead author Terrence Horgan, professor of psychology at University of Michigan-Flint.
This isn’t the first study to evaluate the merits of cleanliness at work. A recent study by Harvard University found yet another reason to get one’s work desk together: better productivity. Those who work in a clutter-free workspace are able to work steadily for 7.5 minutes longer than those in a cluttered workspace. The study concluded that an untidy workspace can “undermine people’s persistence in completing tasks.”
Last Christmas, we had a platform dilemma at my mom’s house. The only thing she loves more than her iPhone 8 is the Amazon Echo in her living room. She likes to call out old jazz tunes from the couch at night. Even so, she let her Amazon music service subscription expire. She refuses to pay for two music services, and she doesn’t like having two digital assistants in her life.
Things will be simpler this Christmas. Apple made the surprising move last week of bringing Apple Music to Amazon’s Alexa-powered devices. Now my mom can standardize on Apple Music—which has some pretty great curated jazz collections—and feel a lot better about the ten bucks a month she pays for it. Like her, millions of other people will benefit from Apple’s user-friendly move, including lots of iPhone owners who will become new Echo owners this holiday season.
In one sense, Apple’s decision to put its music service on the Echo replicates its earlier decision to put Apple Music on Android devices. But it’s emarkable because it seems to come at the expense of Apple’s own ecosystem.
Until now, the only smart speaker Apple Music worked on was the company’s own HomePod speaker. Theoretically, the removal of that exclusivity means one less reason to invest in a HomePod. On top of that, the HomePod no longer boasts the key differentiating feature of sounding better than every other smart speaker, now that Google and Amazon (and Sonos) have release more audio-focused models. Listening to music is still by far the number one use of smart speakers, research shows.
So why would Apple do this?
While the company competes with Amazon and Google in the smart speaker market, it is also in a fierce battle with Spotify for the subscription music service market. Apple Music has about 56 million paying users to Spotify’s 87 million. It could be that it’s now more important for Apple to get access to all those Alexa/Echo users than it is keep Apple Music exclusive to its own smart speaker.
It’s hard not to look at that choice and see it as another sign that consumers have largely rejected the HomePod. Gene Munster at Loup Ventures estimates that Amazon will sell 28.5 million Echos this year (the majority of them in the $29 to $99 range), and Google will sell 16.2 million of its Home speakers. Apple, he forecasts, will sell only 3.5 million HomePods. There are reasons for this disparity. The HomePod is relatively expensive, at $349. While it does sound great, it’s deeply locked into Apple’s ecosystem; you can’t do a lot with it other than play music from Apple Music, the Apple cloud, or other iDevices.
Had HomePods been flying off the shelves, it’s far less likely Apple would have put Apple Music on Alexa/Echo. Even if it’s not an admission that the HomePod is a flop, it could be a sign that Apple recognizes the limits of its own voice ecosystem.
Or not. Again, it’s hard to do battle with Spotify without being on a whole lot of devices, not just one $349 speaker. “Apple’s decision to make Apple Music available on Echo has little to nothing to do with how HomePod sales are trending,” writes Above Avalon’s Neil Cybart in a research note Monday. “Instead, it has everything to do with Apple Music.” Cybart says that if strict platform lock-in was ever very important to Apple’s music strategy it never would have made its music service work on Android and Windows.
Quid pro quo
Apple’s decision could be based on still other factors. Stratechery’s Ben Thompson, writing in a research note over the weekend, proposed that Apple Music-on-Echo was the result of a trade-off between Apple and Amazon. Recall that a few weeks ago Apple announced that it would, for the first time, be directly selling iPhones on the Amazon marketplace (resellers can still sell the devices, but they’ll all have to be authorized by Apple). Thompson proposes that that’s something Apple wanted, while Amazon wanted for Apple Music to be available on its Echo devices (Above Avalon’s Cybart agrees with this analysis).
Thompson likened the arrangement to another deal between the two tech giants. Up until last year, Apple had wanted to sell its Apple TV box on Amazon. Meanwhile Amazon wanted to get its Prime Video streaming app onto Apple TV. Both things eventually happened, the apparent result of another calculated quid pro quo arrangement.
Whether it was Apple or Amazon that wanted Apple Music on the Echo, it does seem like a good move for Apple once you peel back the layers. The simple fact is that Amazon is selling the sh*t out of low-cost Echo speakers, and will likely sell a whole lot more during this holiday season. Confronted with that fact (and, likely, disappointing HomePod sales) Cybart points out that Apple had three choices–do nothing and cede the music subscriptions for Echo owners to Amazon or Spotify, or release a much less expensive HomePod, or make Apple Music work on Echo. Since Apple would have to sacrifice a lot of style points and sound quality to sell a cheap HomePod, that seems unlikely. Better to let others have the budget smart speaker market, and sell one of your key services through those devices.
Startling though the news is at first blush, Apple Music becoming Alexa-friendly is yet another sign that Apple cares about its larger services business. “Apple is starting to prioritize services over hardware which I believe is a smart move for the company,” says Moor Insights & Strategy principle Patrick Moorhead. “Apple needs growth and at this juncture, monetizing the base with services is a better bet than a new hardware category.”
Actually, in my mom’s case, Amazon will benefit just as much as Apple. Now that she can listen to her beloved Oscar Peterson and Dave Brubeck in the living room, I’m probably going to need to upgrade her to the improved audio of the $150 Echo Plus.
While a tight labor market has business leaders seeking to improve retention and engagement, they may be overlooking one critical factor: how their managers respond to stress.
A new study by researchers of leadership training company VitalSmarts found that one in three managers can’t handle high-stakes situations. And their inability to communicate and manage through these situations is affecting team performance in a variety of ways. Managers who get angry or withdraw in when the pressure is on hurt team morale, and teams are more likely to miss deadlines, exceed their budgets, and fail to meet quality standards. And the individual impact is extreme, as well. The report found that teams led by “hot-headed managers” are:
62% more likely to consider leaving their job than teams that are managed by someone who can stay in dialogue when stressed
56% more likely to shut down and stop participating
49% less likely to go above and beyond
47% more likely to be frustrated and angry
It’s not surprising that a manager’s team is affected by poor management skills, says organizational psychologist Katy Caselli, founder of leadership training firm Building Giants. And good managers don’t just assume they perform well under stress—they check out the facts. Personality assessments, feedback from peers and mentors, and simple observation can all give you insight about whether you need to work on your stress management skills for the good of your team, Caselli says.
While most interactions with your team may not be especially meaningful, the conversations that happen when the pressure is on often have greater importance and impact, says David Maxfield, vice president of research at VitalSmarts and coauthor of Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. When managers can stay open, curious, calm, and honest during trying situations, they have a positive impact on their teams. Improvements included meeting quality standards and acting in ways that are beneficial to the customer 56% more than those whose managers were less skilled. Plus they showed increased morale and met deadlines 47% more of the time, improved workplace safety 34% more, and worked within budget 25% more.
So, how can you get better at dealing with stress and create this type of positive impact? There are a few key actions.
Say something. If you see a problem or stressful time coming, speak up about it. By alerting those around you to red flags, you may be able to find solutions. At the very least, you’ll let the people around you know about an issue and that you’re working together to solve it.
Notice your patterns. Think about how you’ve reacted to previous stressful situations, Caselli says. Did you blow up or withdraw? Did you overreact or not move soon enough? When you can spot reactions that haven’t worked in the past, you can work on swapping them out for more effective responses, she says.
Keep a fact-based perspective. In high-stress situations, it’s not uncommon to overemphasize the negative. “You’re telling yourself these implicit stories that are probably not true. So, once you’ve challenged your story and you’ve decided, Okay, I’m going to try to deal with this in a professional, caring way, then start with that. Explain the facts as you know them. Ask for others to share their perspective. Include time for listening, and for understanding their perspective. Then look for joint solutions,” Maxfield says.
Create a safe environment. If you’re launching into a tirade or withdrawing into a sullen mood, your employees may retreat or get defensive, Maxfield says. That’s not the best dynamic for remaining productive or finding solutions.
In 2018 research Google did about its teams, the company found that psychological safety—the ability to take risks without feeling insecure or embarrassed—was a key factor in high-performing teams.
When you’re trying to solve a problem, share your positive intent first, Maxfield says. If your team feels safe and that you’re all working together to find answers, they’ll be more open to working with you to do so.
Focus on your own emotional intelligence. Being able to manage your emotions and interact with others during high-stakes, high-pressure situations may take practice and discipline, Caselli says. Learning about your own triggers and gaps in emotional intelligence and working on overcoming them can ultimately help your team perform better.
Walking down a sidewalk in many cities, you’re bound to see–and possibly get mowed down by–motorized electric scooters. Bird, Lime, Skip, and Spin have all descended en masse this year, all with the same business model: cheap-to-use e-scooters that can be picked up and abandoned anywhere in town. You only pay a small amount to rent the scooter (typically $1) and then an even smaller amount per mile (typically 15¢).
While the business model of each company is similar, who will win the “scooter wars” in each city is up for debate. One thing that isn’t the same from company to company: the scooters themselves. In a city with multiple companies competing for riders, you’ll see everything from small toy-like scooters to sturdier models.
If you ask Superpedestrian CEO Assaf Biderman, the winner will be whoever deploys his scooters. His company just unveiled a new industrial-grade e-scooter, which he says tackles a number of the pain points for current operators. Rather than drop the scooters on the street itself, Superpedestrian plans to sell its scooters to operators that can add them to their current fleet starting next year.
“If you look at the business model of the operator, there are major issues there,” says Biderman. “Basically, the vehicles that they’re using are ill-equipped for sharing. The economics don’t work out. It’s a major problem that prevents the industry from scaling.”
Biderman claims that his $500 scooters are priced on par with the models already deployed by operators, most of which are made overseas. He also says his are more durable than the competition and have a longer battery life.
They also come with AI technology out of the box that will help operators diagnose problems quickly, allowing a scooter “to sustain itself out in the wild as long as possible,” Biderman says.
Those are tough claims to verify, in part because Superpedestrian’s scooters won’t be officially available until next year, and also because existing scooter operators have been tight-lipped about everything from how much their scooters actually cost to how they handle maintenance and service requests. (According to an Axiosreport, Lime’s pitch deck to investors puts the cost of each scooter at $493, about the price that Biderman references as typical.)
[Photo: courtesy of Superpedestrian]
Stable is good
During a brief test drive in downtown San Francisco, I did find that a Superpedestrian scooter felt more robust than the experience I’ve found on smaller scooters. That toughness could make taking the scooters off the sidewalk into the bike lane a more reasonable proposition, simply because you feel a bit more stable than you might on a flimsier model.
Biderman says that his scooters should last from 9 to 18 months on the street. He claims that existing models being used by operators require replacement “every 30 to 90 days.”
During the demo, Biderman–much braver than I–was able to pop the curb and run over potholes thanks to the scooter’s large wheels. Neither are tricks I would personally try, but he accomplished them with ease.
When you do crash on one of Superpedestrian’s scooters, the fleet operator is notified of the collision. The scooters also self-diagnose issues, and when they run into problems like an overheated battery or sensor issue that will impact their operation, the scooter can notify the fleet operator not only that it’s broken, but which part is busted. Biderman claims that currently operators have to rely on users reporting issues and must even dismantle scooters to diagnose their woes.
“We identified over a hundred issues that are common as failures to hardware in fleets of micro vehicles, and we built a system that can automatically detect them in real time and apply software protection, so that the rider isn’t harmed and so that the vehicle isn’t harmed,” Biderman says. In theory, Superpedestrian’s self-diagnosis will streamline that process and get the scooter back on the road faster.
Another thing that should help to keep these scooters on the road: a large-capacity battery. Right now, many scooter operators work with individuals to keep their scooters charged, something Biderman says sucks up 50% of a company’s revenue. Similar to how Uber pairs private drivers with those looking for a ride, individuals are given access to an app they can use to find scooters on the street in need of some juice and then get paid to charge them.
For Lime, those people are called “juicers.” Each Lime-approved juicer can earn between $9-$12 per scooter they charge, depending on how much of a charge the device needs, making it a popular job for teenagers and others looking for a side gig, Voxreported in September.
With Superpedestrian’s offering, charging might be handled a bit differently. Biderman says that its scooter’s battery capacity coupled with an “efficient motor design” will allow its scooters to be on the streets for three to seven days on a single charge, compared to the daily charging he says is common with today’s fleets.
Superpedestrian’s scooters are also capable of adjusting on-the-fly to city regulatory changes. According to Biderman, when a city passes a new rule, such as a lower speed limit, scooter operators currently have to take their scooters out of commission in order to adjust their settings. With Superpedestrian’s offering, fleet operators can do things like adjust the speed limit remotely on the entire fleet. They can also automatically make changes on a scooter when crossing city or state lines to ensure it meets local requirements, not just the requirements of the city it came from.
As for when we’ll see the new scooters on the road, Biderman says that the company has already partnered with several scooter operators, but declined to name any of them or say where they’re located.
In a recent video by Schweppes, the sparkling beverage brand, three women visit a nightclub wearing sparkly dresses. But unlike your average ad for a drink frequently consumed at bars and clubs, this video highlights how frequently women get groped in these places.
The video, which Schweppes created with its advertising agency Ogilvy, highlights the problem in the context of Brazil, where 86% of women have reported being harassed in nightclubs. The brand worked with engineers and designers to create a dress that tracked how frequently a woman was touched against her will. The video zooms in on the experience of three Brazilian women. After nearly four hours at the club, they were touched a total of 157 times. That’s more than 40 times an hour. Men who were at the club that night were invited to the lab to see what women experienced.
It’s important to acknowledge the video for what it is: An ad designed to get more people to buy Schweppes. The idea is that viewers will see the video when it pops up on their Twitter or Facebook feed, and associate Schweppes with progressive, feminist values, which may make some people feel more loyal to the brand. Schweppes has realized that there’s money to be made by capitalizing on the #MeToo movement.
That may not be a bad thing. In a talk last week, Christopher Wylie–the whistleblower who revealed that Cambridge Analytica used 87 million Facebook users’ data without their consent to help the Trump campaign–pointed out that brands are powerful because they have large platforms and are associated with people’s identity. Wylie was referring specifically to fashion brands, but the principles relate to all brands with a lot of brand recognition.
In the talk, Wylie said that Cambridge Analytica had manipulated people with an affinity for all-American brands like L.L. Bean and Wrangler to support Trump. But Wylie pointed out that it is possible to reverse-engineer this process, and use a brand’s platform for good. Brands can also align themselves with positive things, like diversity, inclusion, and not groping women in clubs.
Google has teamed up with the clever folks at Adaptive Design Association—an organization that builds custom adaptations for children with disabilities—for a 48-hour hackathon to design prototype games that turned learning Morse code into fun. These very modern children weren’t learning Morse code for LARPing or historical reenactment, but because Morse code is an easy way for kids with varying degrees of physical ability to communicate, play, and create—once they learn Morse code, of course.
For the hackathon, five kids took on the role of creative directors, using their imagination and interests to guide the creation of games that made learning the Morse code alphabet fun. All of them were designed to to be plated with the Gboard Morse keyboard.
One child’s passion for music led to a game called HSynth, where you play notes by typing them in Morse. Another child’s love of soccer and spy thrillers inspired a game called Morse Striker where you shoot soccer balls at targets by typing their corresponding Morse letters. There was a maze that could be completed only by writing different letters, and a train-themed game that unlocked YouTube videos as a reward for typing the correct letters in Morse code, and something evocatively titled Alphabet’s Got Talent that Simon Cowell would probably wish he’d dreamed up.
Google didn’t want to keep the fun for themselves, though, and posted the code for each of the games on the Experiments with Google website, complete with open-source examples for anyone who wants to make their own Morse-based apps.
A test for anemia–a condition that makes you feel tired and weak because your blood isn’t carrying enough oxygen–usually involves going to a doctor’s office to have a needle stuck in your arm and an analysis of your blood via machine. But now doctors have invented a new way to screen for the condition using just a smartphone photo.
It’s something that could be particularly useful in parts of the world where someone might not live near a medical office with the right equipment. “In certain parts of Africa or Asia, for example, their medical infrastructure is really poor, but the cell phone infrastructure is actually really good,” says Wilbur Lam, an associate professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine, and the lead author of a new article in Nature Communications about testing the software. “A lot of my colleagues who do global health work tell me their phone works better in certain parts of Kenya than in San Francisco. That’s because the mobile phone companies have leapfrogged right over the standard telephone line.”
[Image: Mannino et al./Nature Communications 2018]Doctors used an algorithm to analyze data from a photo of a fingernail. “It really works because of a couple of things–we couldn’t have done this a few years ago because the camera on cell phones wasn’t that great,” he says. “And there’s a lot more data now on cell phones.” The algorithm takes an image, along with metadata including color and lighting conditions, and then analyzes it based on what it has learned from similar photos to estimate levels of the healthy red blood cells that anemic patients lack. Over time, as the it gathers more data, the algorithm will keep improving.
It’s not as precise as a blood test, and can’t serve as a diagnosis. But in a global health setting, it can help a clinic understand if someone is either mildly or dangerously anemic. “They’re trying to figure out how to allocate rare resources–which of these people need to be ambulanced to a hospital right now, and whether they need a blood transfusion,” he says.
In the U.S., it could help pregnant women, who are at risk of anemia, test themselves easily from home. Parents can use it on young children, who are also at risk of anemia. Nursing homes could use it on the elderly. People who have chronic anemia because they have sickle cell disease, or kidney failure, or cancer patients will also be able to use it on their own. It’s something that could be very widely useful; anemia is so prevalent that it affects a quarter of the global population.
Now that it’s been proven to work, researchers are now working on making the app more user-friendly and then plan to release it next year. “What’s really exciting about this is because it’s just an app, we can get it out as fast as another app company,” Lam says. “So often when you’re talking about medical equipment and devices you’re talking about, okay, we’ve got the data, now we have to make a prototype, and then from that prototype, we have to manufacture. We don’t need any of that. This project is as nimble as the way Uber would change its interface.”
We’ve all heard the support (and statistics) for why diversity is good for business and improves the bottom line. Yet very few businesses are making significant progress. The tech industry, for example, has barely moved the needle in diversity numbers, despite a lot of public efforts.
To an extent, successes from diversity and inclusion efforts involve some trial and error. But as an employer, you might also be harboring certain misconceptions that are ruining those initiatives. Here are three of the most common ones I see.
1. Hiring for skills is not the same as hiring for diversity
When we use the phrase “hiring for skills,” we should be talking about hiring people based on their ability to do their jobs–not what school they went to or whether they’ve worked at a brand-name company before. Yet this is the marker that a lot of companies use in their application process.
When you expand your horizons beyond screening for credentials, you open up your company to a much broader range of candidates. Companies like Google, Hilton, Apple, and IBM have received the memo and have already begun putting this into practice, by not focusing on degrees and credentials, but rather what work can be performed as demonstrated by experience and talent.
2. Hiring for diversity means “lowering the standard”
Which brings me to my next point–we are still seeing language that implies women and professionals of color are somehow inferior. If companies are not hiring them, it’s because they weren’t qualified in the first place. There is a long-standing belief that great employees get hired, but that belief doesn’t ever take into account personal and socioeconomic circumstances.
It’s the cornerstone of the meritocracy argument–if you’re good at what you do, you’ll always find work. What follows this line of flawed reasoning is the idea that only the unskilled, lazy, and unintelligent among us can’t get a job. The thing is, if we honestly looked at how people rise through their careers and companies, there’s usually more to their journey than merit and hard work alone. Of course, hard work and merit are important, but we also need to think about external factors. Did they know someone in the industry before they started? Did someone influential make a phone call on their behalf?
We need to recognize the limitations of our own experience and acknowledge that the model employee exists outside an Ivy League school. You can find skilled, intelligent, and talented individuals in many additional places–you just need to ask people where to look.
3. Technical skills are the most important aspect of a job
A three-year study by Leadership IQ revealed that only 10% of new hires failed at their job due to technical skill or functional ability. So why are we spending so much time discussing diversity and skill level? It’s a red herring and an easy way out.
If only 10% of new hires fail because of a lack of skill, what else is holding them back? The answer, according to the research, is an inability to accept feedback, lack of motivation, and not having the suitable temperament for the job.
Some of this is on the candidate, but it’s also on employers to focus on organizational culture. If you don’t promote a culture where employees accept and expect feedback, how do you expect them to thrive? If it seems like only the “few” receive opportunities for promotion, how are the “many” supposed to be motivated enough to work? And if you have so few women, minorities, LGBTQ+ or differently abled employees that they stick out like a sore thumb and don’t see leaders that look like them in the organization–how can you expect them to feel a sense of belonging?
When it comes to building a diverse and inclusive workforce, progress won’t happen overnight. And yes, there are times when you will get it wrong, and you might need to take two steps back to take one step forward. But you’ll see the benefits in the long term. When you focus on recruiting great employees from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, you can create an organizational culture that includes everyone, which can ultimately have a positive impact on your bottom line.
Stacey Gordon is the CEO and founder of Rework Work, a training and consulting organization centered around advancing women and professionals of color while creating unconscious inclusion in organizations.
[Photo: KadAfrica]“Really, the motivation is to let the world know that there are other ways of thinking about climate change,” says Lior Ipp, CEO of the Roddenberry Foundation (the foundation endowed by Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry), which awarded four organizations $250,000 each today as winners of its biannual Roddenberry Prize. “We need to expand the range in which we think about it. This isn’t just going to be solar panels or solar farms or electric cars. These other issues are really important. And by the way, they’re important in their own right. This is what attracted us to this idea as well. We should be investing in girls’ education and women’s rights regardless of whether it has an impact on the environment.”
[Photo: VoteRunLead]
Four organizations won:
KadAfrica trains and empowers young women in farming communities in Uganda.
VoteRunLead has trained more than 33,000 women in the U.S. to run for office.
The Green Monday Foundation, based in Hong Kong, won for shifting 1.6 million Hong Kong residents to eat a plant-based diet.
In part, the foundation wanted to highlight how much climate action is possible now–without waiting for breakthroughs in technology or relying on governments to adopt better policy. And some of the most pivotal actions can be done on an individual scale, like reducing food waste and eating less meat.
[Photo: The Green Monday Foundation]
“I think one of the challenges in the climate space is that people feel that there’s nothing they can do individually–sure, I can do some recycling and don’t have to buy a Hummer, but what difference will my contributions make?” says Ipp. “And there’s a sense of despair. Part of that is driven by the discourse in the climate space–people have been talking about the climate issue in terms of the apocalyptic end of the world.”
[Photo: WRAP]
That apocalyptic stance, he says, isn’t conducive to action, especially if people who might otherwise care are convinced that the world is ending no matter what they do. The prize aims to highlight what’s working, and what needs to scale up. “I think what we need is a more positive narrative that there are in fact things that all of us can do, and guess what, they’re really impactful,” says Ipp.
Ties and cashmere sweaters sure are nice, but you know what most people really need this time of a year? A break. Nearly 40% of Americans are more anxious than they were just last year. For those who seem more frazzled than usual of late, we recommend getting them something that will encourage them to first turn off the news, and then take some time to chill.
[Photo: Vitruvi]Vitruvi Stone Diffuser
Vitruvi’s luxe reimagining of the age-old aromatherapy ritual features sleek ceramic diffusers and vials stamped with chic, minimalist lettering. Made for the modern consumer, this device looks like it can sit alongside a glass vase as well as a flat-screen TV. “We provide a 30-second spa moment throughout the day,” Vitruvi cofounder Sara Panton says of the experience. $119, amazon.com
[Photo: TheraFlow]TheraFlow Foot Massager
Foot massages are more than just a feel-good ritual: they increase circulation, reduce muscle soreness, and some say, improve one’s sex life. Relieve tired footsies with this wooden tool designed to knead trigger points in the foot, heel, and arch. It’s simple, compact, and the best acupressure therapy you can get without hitting up a professional.
$8.95, amazon.com
[Photo: Sheltered Co.]Sheltered Co. Weighted Blanket
Like a thunder jacket for humans, a weighted blanket makes for a cozy yet restricting form of comfort. At 25 pounds, this soft handmade cotton creation simulates deep pressure touch, a type of therapy that uses pressure to reduce anxiety. Smothering never sounded so good. $285, sheltered.com
[Photo: Dosist]Dosist Holiday Calm Kit
Vaping gets a chic makeover from Dosist, whose sleek pens ensure a controlled dose. For the holiday season, the brand offers two of its most popular THC formulas (Bliss and Calm) along with a terpene-infused candle. What better way to unwind from all the holiday chaos? $100, dosist.com
[Photo: Osmia]Osmia Organics Tea Bath
Nothing better symbolizes self-care than a relaxing hot bath. Osmia adds a touch of sophistication to the ritual with delicate muslin tea bags that contain a blend of organic rose petals, chamomile, oats, and detoxifying epsom salts. Basically, imagine you’re climbing into a cup of hot tea. $29, thedetoxmarket.com
[Photo: Hobe]The Wooly Hobe
Meet your new favorite slipper-shoes: These suede winter cozies are filled with soft Australian lambswool that’s both fluffy and fashionable. The lightweight footwear makes for a goose-down feather feel with every step. $179, hobes.com
[Photo: Recess]Recess: The Sampler
Hailed as the “La Croix of CBD,” Recess is a sparkling, adaptogen-infused beverage that won’t get you high–just relaxed. It comes in fun fruity flavors like peach or pomegranate citrus and contains 10 milligrams of the cannabis extract believed to induce a Zen-like feeling. 6 pack, $29.99, drinkrecess.com
[Photo: TheraGun]TheraGun G2PRO Professional Massager
Shakira, Justin Timberlake, Kevin Hart, and Ashley Graham are just a few of the celebrities obsessed with Theragun, a massage tool that looks like a splashy egg-beater. The rapidly vibrating handheld gadget uses a crazy amount of horsepower to relax muscles, work out knots, and increase blood flow. $599, amazon.com
Sometimes a business inadvertently drops the pretense and just tells the world its real intentions. We saw this yesterday, when Amazon bragged about how it “allowed” an employee to lose 100 pounds by endlessly delivering boxes. Amazon saw this as a heartwarming tale about how great it is to work for the e-commerce juggernaut. It completely missed the subtext: Who needs a gym when someone can physically labor for their corporate overlord and lose weight?
Now we have another, possibly darker example. Mastercard announced a new partnership with Microsoft that is tackling “digital identities.” Here’s how it described the project in a tweet:
Voting, driving, applying for a job, renting a home, getting married and boarding a plane: what do these all have in common? You need to prove your identity. In partnership with @Microsoft, we are working to create universally-recognized digital identity. https://t.co/He5syqa5g7
Essentially, the tweet described every action an adult human takes that is both highly intimate and requires sharing personal and confidential details. The companies are building a solution that would create a “universally-recognized digital identity.” To the corporations, this is a brilliant solution! To everyone else, it may feel more than a bit dystopian.
What this announcement seems to be describing is a streamlined identification system: a not-too-far-off world where people are identified under a universal protocol that checks in on them at various points during their lives–when they vote, when they get married, etc. It’s the kind of a citizen-check system a totalitarian regime could only dream of.
Already, countries have begun implementing identification systems that seem ripped from an Orwell novel. India, for example, has a program that scans citizens’ fingerprints and eyes, which connects all of their personal data (from cellphone information to government benefits) into one state-controlled apparatus. China, too, is planning to use a country-wide citizen identification system that would give people “social credit” scores about the way they behave. These systems have been met with significant outcry about privacy and digital rights.
Judging from some of the responses to Mastercard and Microsoft’s announcement, we can likely expect similar criticism here.
And yet the two companies didn’t seem to realize the minefield they were stepping into. According to the press release, the problem they believe they are solving is people being forced to “successfully remember hundreds of passwords for various identities and are increasingly being subjected to more complexity in proving their identity and managing their data.” But the solution they offer–a one-stop, universal identification for any and all applications–would mean that every citizen would be entering into a system built by private companies that centralizes all of their personal data. Every digital company wants to be a data hoover, and this program seems to underscore the extent of this pursuit.
Reached for comment, a Mastercard spokesperson provided me with a very lengthy response, which emphasized that the program is still in development but will be customer-centric. “Our intention is give people more control over their own digital identities, allowing them to easily manage and share their information their way with the devices they use every day,” the statement said. “With our service, which is still in development, people would be able to easily verify their digital identity through trusted sources to whom they have already provided their information such as banks and mobile network operators or government and postal services, sharing only the information needed to conduct their transactions.”
Microsoft declined to comment.
Beyond the surveillance and privacy red flags, a universal identification like this will likely raise security concerns. Even when companies think they are using the best practices to protect user data, it is only hubristic to believe something is un-hackable
Mastercard said the following to me about security:
The service will allow the data to sit with its rightful owner–the individual–and wouldn’t involve amassing personal data in honeypots vulnerable to attack. In no situation would Mastercard collect users’ identity data, share it or monitor their interactions. Instead the data would reside with the trusted party, and our service would merely validate the information already provided, once an individual has decided to do so. This is about giving the individual control over who sees their information and how it’s used.
Overall, this announcement speaks to a common tone-deafness among large companies when it comes to privacy. While proving digital identity can certainly be onerous, some solutions may only imperil us even more.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has gone to the dogs. This year alone the government has announced recalls of nearly two dozen kinds of human food (McDonald’s salads, Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, Duncan Hines cake mix, Ritz Crackers), and now it is turning its attention to dog food. The FDA is recalling eight brands of dry dog food due to concerns that they could contain toxic levels of vitamin D.
Products affected by the recall include:
Ahold Delhaize:
Nature’s Promise Chicken & Brown Rice Dog Food
UPC 068826718472 – 14 lb. bag – All lot codes
UPC 068826718471 – 28 lb. bag- All lot codes
UPC 068826718473 – 4 lb. bag – All lot codes
Nature’s Place Real Country Chicken and Brown Rice Dog Food
Orlando Grain-Free Chicken & Chickpea Superfood Recipe Dog Food
Lidl product number 215662
(TI1 3 Mar 2019, TB2 21 Mar 2019, TB3 21 Mar 2019, TA2 19 Apr 2019, TB1 15 May 2019, TB2 15 May 2019)
ANF, Inc:
ANF Lamb and Rice Dry Dog Food
UPC 9097231622 – 3 kg bag – Best by Nov 23 2019
UPC 9097203300 – 7.5 kg bag – Best by Nov 20 2019
Sunshine Mills, Inc:
Evolve Chicken & Rice Puppy Dry Dog Food
UPC 0-73657-00862-0 – 14 lb. bag
UPC 0-73657-00863-7 – 28 lb. bag
Sportsman’s Pride Large Breed Puppy Dry Dog Food
UPC 0-70155-10566-0 – 40 lb. bag
UPC 0-70155-10564-0 – 40 lb. bag
Triumph Chicken & Rice Recipe Dry Dog Food
UPC 0-73657-00873-6 – 3.5 lb. bag
UPC 0-73657-00874-3 – 16 lb. bag
UPC 0-73657-00875-0 – 30 lb. bag
Natural Life Pet Products:
Chicken & Potato Dry Dog Food
UPC 0-12344-08175-1 – 17.5 lb. bag
(Best by dates range: December 4, 2019 through August 10, 2020)
Nutrisca:
Chicken and Chickpea Dry Dog Food
UPC 8-84244-12495-7 – 4 lb. bag
UPC 8-84244-12795-8 – 15 lb. bag
UPC 8-84244-12895-5 – 28 lb. bag
(Best by date range: February 25, 2020 through September 13, 2020)
Pet owners should not feed the recalled food to their dogs and retailers shouldn’t sell the foods, the FDA advises. Illnesses related to the recalled food can be reported through the FDA’s Safety Reporting Portal or by calling your state’s FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinators.
While Vitamin D is naturally occurring and good for mammals of all make and model in reasonable doses, high levels of the nutrient can cause serious health problems for pets, including vomiting, weight loss, kidney failure, and death, according to the FDA. The dog food was recalled after FDA scientists found some of the foods contained as much as 70 times the intended amount of vitamin D.
Ferrante Fever continues at HBO. The company announced that the second novel in Elena Ferrante’s best-selling Neapolitan series, The Story of a New Name, will be adapted for TV, coming on the heels of HBO and RAI’s production of the saga’s first book, My Brilliant Friend, which will wrap up on Dec. 9.
The Story of a New Name continues the journey and friendship of Lila and Lenù, two friends who form an intense childhood bond in the working class neighborhood of postwar Naples. The four books in Ferrante’s series track their lives over the course of multiple decades against a backdrop of mafioso activity, intellectualism, and growing socialism and feminism.
The books have sold over 10 million copies and have a cult-like following stoked by the mysterious nature of Ferrante, a pseudonymous author whose true identity has been the subject of a global parlor game.
Considering the rapturous reviews that My Brilliant Friend received, its renewal isn’t surprising. The show has been credited with staying true to the source material while creating what Variety calls “moving and effective TV.” EW swooned that it’s an “addictive saga.” And The New York Times deemed the show “as intimate as Game of Thrones is sweeping.” It’s also been called “a Prada ad for working class gloom,” by The New Yorker.
HBO, meanwhile, is under pressure to double down on programming under its new owners, AT&T, which acquired HBO owner Time Warner in an $85-billion deal last summer. While WarnerMedia, as the newly combined company is called, gets ready to launch its new streaming service in 2019, it’s counting on HBO to provide content. Given the Ferrante series’ international appeal–My Brilliant Friend is HBO’s first original foreign language series–it makes sense that HBO is leaning into it further. Then there’s the Game of Thrones factor: Next year marks the final season of the cable networks’s most successful series, which provides even more incentive to green light proven shows to fill up the programing coffers.
HBO has not announced whether My Brilliant Friend‘s director, Saverio Costanzo, would be returning for season 2, but in an interview with Fast Company last month, he said he would be “happy” to continue directing the series “if I don’t get fired.”
“I have always considered My Brilliant Friend as one of my films rather than a series,” he went on. “And a director would never leave his film unfinished.”
What: A surreal short film about what happens after celebrities die.
Who: Dominic Burgess and Alfred Molina.
Why we care: Every time a celebrity’s name trends on Twitter, it usually means they’re cancelled–either because they did something ill-advised or were literally cancelled from life. Dead. Those few seconds between seeing the name dominate the trends list and finding out why can be a torturous roller-coaster ride, but the aftermath by now should feel familiar. A beloved celebrity in trouble because of their own misdeeds is sure to ignite a powder keg of vitriol, but one who meets an untimely demise produces the opposite: an outpouring of intensely personal grief. The latter gets dissected in the new short film, Sam Did It.
In the eight-minute short, Sam (writer/director Burgess) is a morgue worker getting ready to slice up the latest cadaver when he discovers that the body belongs to none other than Alfred Molina, his personal fave. It’s the way the news of the Wild Fang 2 star’s passing hits Sam that brings home the themes of this piece. Sam reacts as though he’s just lost a member of his own family, which sort of makes sense in this context: Seeing your idol laid bare before you escalates the emotional factor of celeb mourning exponentially. That Sam’s grieving sounds not dissimilar to hundreds of thousands of strangers digitally mourning the loss of, say, Frasier’s John Mahoney should resonate with anyone who spends a lot of time online.
As the curated video hub Short of the Week notes, Burgess and Molina met on the set of Ryan Murphy’s Feud, where Burgess pitched Molina his idea. Molina agreeing to be in the short at all only further shores up the universal lovability that makes him the perfect avatar of a perhaps over-grieved dead celebrity. (Seriously, any ancient gods paying attention: Please protect Alfred Molina at all costs.)
When Microsoft launched Windows 10 in 2015, it came with a new web browser called Edge, which replaced the aging Internet Explorer as the default and offered interesting new features such as Cortana suggestions and page annotation. Now, sources tell Windows Central that Microsoft plans to throw out that browser and build a new one based on Chromium, an open-source engine that was originally used in Google Chrome. The new browser is reportedly codenamed “Anaheim,” and Microsoft could introduce it next year.
While Edge has some interesting ideas, and it generally feels slicker and more responsive than Chrome, Microsoft has never been able to shake the browser’s longstanding performance and instability issues. That may explain why Edge makes up just 11% of Windows 10 browser usage, versus 68.6% for Chrome, according to NetMarketShare,
I reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update if I hear back.
A better browser would help Microsoft monetize Windows 10, as it would presumably use Bing as the default search engine. But it could also help Microsoft take on Chromebooks, which have steadily taken over the education market. A separate report this week by Brad Sams claimed that Microsoft is working on a “Lite” version of Windows that would serve as an instant-on, browser-centric alternative to Chromebooks. That effort would certainly be more credible if the core web browsing experience didn’t have to rely on Edge.
Tony Robbins is hoping to motivate people beyond self-help. On Tuesday, it was announced that the motivational speaker joined several high-profile investors in a Series A funding round for digital fitness company Freeletics.
The company closed a $45 million round led by FitLab, Causeway Media Partners, and JAZZ Venture Partners, with participation from Courtside Ventures, Elysian Park Ventures, ward.ventures, and Tony Robbins. The investors are affiliated with several professional sports franchises, including the San Francisco 49ers, Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Los Angeles Dodgers.
[Photo: courtesy of Freeletics]Launched in 2013, Freeletics is a customizable fitness training app that requires no equipment. It has over 900 programs that span four categories: Bodyweight, Gym, Nutrition, and Running. The app’s AI algorithm adapts to user feedback, crafting new workouts that better fit one’s goals and strengths.
“I’m a fan of Freeletics and the company’s unique AI algorithm that provides accessible and convenient training to its users,” said Robbins in a statement. “I am excited to be involved in this next chapter for the company as they continue to expand globally.”
Freeletics currently boasts more than 31 million users in in over 160 countries, and its flagship app is Europe’s No. 1 fitness and personal coaching app. The company reports it has experienced 120% record growth in core markets, including the U.S., over the last six months.
“This new round will enable us to once again intensify our strategy for global growth,” said Freeletics CEO Daniel Sobhani in a press statement. “This round of funding will also support our ongoing commitment to continue delivering a best-in-class digital fitness proposition that’s both effective and easy to use in any place and at any time.”
The global fitness app market, which includes everything from FitBit to ClassPass, is expected to grow even bigger as more and more consumers look for time-saving, at-home alternatives to the gym. A recent Technavio industry report predicted the market will grow more than 29% over the next three years.
While most TV watchers see the pause button as a way to silence the television or maybe get up for a bathroom break, Hulu and AT&T see it as a way to sell more advertisements. According to Variety, both companies plan to introduce “pause ads” (Hulu’s term) or “pause-vertising” (Variety‘s term) next year.
“We know you’re going to capture 100% viewability when they pause and unpause,” Matt Van Houten, vice president of product at Xandr Media, AT&T’s ad division, told Variety. “There’s a lot of value in that experience.”
TV networks have been trying to figure out how to keep ads in front of viewers since the inception of the DVR, but the issue may be taking on greater urgency with the rise of ad-free streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Recent ideas include shorter ads, more dramatic ads, and picture-in-picture ads during live sports.
It’s not hard to imagine pause ads backfiring, however, especially if there’s no trade-off in the amount of regular commercial breaks that viewers get. Tampering with decades-old expectations for how the pause button should work could just send more people running to Netflix.
Over the next few weeks, YouTube is rolling out a new feature for its mobile app that someone somewhere apparently thinks is a great idea: autoplay for videos that appear on the app’s Home tab. Yup, called “Autoplay on Home,” the feature means that as you scroll through your Home feed, videos will begin to play. The only saving grace for this feature is that the videos will be on mute with captions auto-enabled.
In a blog post, YouTube owner Google claims that the feature, which has been available to those fancy YouTube Premium members on Android for six months or so, helps people by letting them “make more informed decisions about whether you want to watch a video.” Sorry, Google, but some of us are quite happy to not autoplay every Logan Paul, PewDiePie, and DudePerfect video that pops up on the home page—especially if it means sucking up our cell data minutes.
Fortunately, YouTube is letting users opt out of Autoplay on Home, but it involves plugging your nose and diving into the settings. Here’s how you can turn it off completely in a few easy steps. Do it before you accidentally watch Logan Paul.
Hit the YouTube app on your phone
Tap the profile icon on the upper right of the screen
Tap Settings
Tap Autoplay
Tap the Autoplay on Home and turn that malarkey to off
Continue scrolling through YouTube in silent, still peace
The email accounts of four senior aides at the National Republican Congressional Committee were monitored by unknown hackers for months during the 2018 midterm election season, Politico reports.
So far, it’s unclear who’s behind the attack, though officials reportedly believe it’s a “foreign agent” based on the nature of the hack. Potentially thousands of email messages were obtained in the hack, which was first uncovered in April. The NRCC works to get Republicans elected to the House of Representatives. None of the stolen emails are believed to have been published, unlike emails stolen from Democratic officials in the 2016 election cycle.
The breach was discovered by a security service provider that monitors the NRCC’s networks. That company notified CrowdStrike, a security firm working for the NRCC that also worked with the Democratic National Committee to investigate the 2016 hacks, which are since linked to Russia. The NRCC reportedly also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to law firm Covington and Burling and to Mercury Public Affairs for help in responding to the attack.
It’s not the only attempt to target politicians on the right side of the aisle: In August, Microsoft warned of phishing attack domains impersonating the websites of prominent conservative think tanks. Lindsey Graham, the Republican Senator from South Carolina, also saw his campaign email account breached around the 2016 election.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also investigating the NRCC hack.
Don’t miss your chance to apply for the third annual World Changing Ideas awards, which honors products, concepts, companies, policies, and designs that are pursuing innovation for good.
Entries will be judged on impact, design, scalability, and ingenuity. You can see the full list of categories and get updates on the judges at the entry page.
In the past, we’ve honored electric trucks, a new kind of pregnancy test, jewelry made from melted-down guns, and an ambitious plan from the city of Los Angeles to increase its housing stock. You can read about last year’s winners here. We’re looking at everything from small concepts to Fortune 500 companies.
Still not convinced? Here’s five reasons why you should apply:
Publicity The winners and finalists will be featured in the May 2019 issue of Fast Company (a monthly readership of 700,000) and online on Fastcompany.com (more than 12 million monthly unique visitors and more than 40 million page views).
Exposure Every entry is reviewed by Fast Company editors. Finalists will be evaluated by our jury, an impressive list of designers, venture capitalists, thinkers, and social entrepreneurs.
Recognition We are accepting entries in 16 categories. Each category will be judged separately by an elite group of judges giving you multiple chances to win. If you submit to two or more categories, you will also be eligible for the Company of the Year award.
Simplicity Just answer a few questions, select your categories, and you’re done!
Subscription
You’ll receive a one year subscription to Fast Company included with your entry.
Our hope is that the awards illustrate the breadth of social innovation happening around the world–whether it’s at a major corporation or a small nonprofit–and that our finalists receive more exposure and a chance to scale even further. We’ll be accepting entries until December 7, 2018, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Enter today.
