Since debuting in San Francisco a little over three years ago, drag queen story hours—where performers read from children’s books to crowds of kids and adults—have proven popular at libraries and bookstores around the country, but they’ve also been the subject of legal battles and protests in some places.
On Thursday, a federal judge in Houston threw out a lawsuit brought by conservatives who said drag queen story sessions violated their freedom of religion, the HoustonChronicle reports. And in Lafayette, Louisiana, officials initially banned the event, citing security concerns, and even required library patrons reserving meeting rooms to certify they wouldn’t use them for drag queen readings. But after the American Civil Liberties Union brought suit under the First Amendment, the city agreed Thursday to allow patrons to book space for the story sessions, the Advocate reports.
Proponents generally say that in addition to being entertaining, drag queen story hours can teach kids about acceptance and personal expression. Religious critics express fears that the events will encourage kids to participate in a lifestyle they see as sinful, citing Biblical passages they say condemn cross-dressing and homosexuality.
A post shared by dragqueenstoryhour™️ (@dragqueenstoryhour) on Dec 30, 2018 at 5:25am PST
Librarians often describe the events as a natural way to cater to their diverse communities, and they’re just one of the types of new services that libraries have adopted in recent years, from offering neckties and handbags for patrons going to job interviews to lending equipment for making podcasts.
The sheer breadth of world literature is mind-boggling. Centuries of sprawling stories, both acclaimed and overlooked. You could read 10 books a day every day of your life and not even scratch the surface of “the classics.”
So, why does it sometimes seem like everyone has read precisely one book?
Such was the case on Friday afternoon when a tweet from Pottermore, J.K. Rowling’s digital publishing arm, declared that it was canon in the Harry Potter universe for wizards and witches to empty their bowels where/whenever they felt like and dispose of their leavings with magic.
Hogwarts didn't always have bathrooms. Before adopting Muggle plumbing methods in the eighteenth century, witches and wizards simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence. #NationalTriviaDay
Twitter users had many responses to this revelation–enough responses, in fact, to practically knock Trump’s typically unhinged Rose Garden rantings from the national conversation, like a sniggendorf knocking a flipperty-widget off of an imaginasaurus. (Yes, inventing fake Harry Potter terminology is just that easy.)
Among the types of response were:
Skepticism
Are you telling me that wizards were just never like “Man just doing this openly is gross. People should do this privately. Maybe a chamberpot that auto-vanishes.”
Potter scholars across the internet scanned their mental inventory for Hogwarts data points that would either refute or support this new wrinkle in wizarding mythology. Many ended up arguing over it, too, because what else is Twitter for?
Perhaps the most common response to the bizarre tweet, however, was to question its reason for existing at all.
WHEN PEOPLE SAID THEY WANTED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE HARRY POTTER WORLD TEN YEARS AGO LITERALLY NO ONE MEANT THEY WANTED THE 411 ON WIZARD POOP
— christine lynn herman ???? (@christineexists) January 4, 2019
Like jesus christ, the wizarding world isn't real, you don't need to tell us every goddam detail. what, next JK Rowling is going to let us know Harry had diarrhea the day he defeated voldemort
Obviously the Harry Potter books aren’t the only ones all these people have read, but if J.K. Rowling doesn’t stop tinkering with the series lore in pointless, nonsensical ways, they may be the last books of hers that they read.
On Wednesday, Apple announced it would miss its holiday quarter revenue projection by $5 billion. And it did it in grand style. The company hadn’t halted trading on its stock since 2002. The event had the feeling of some kind of reckoning, requiring a shift in the way we understand the company and its star product. It’s almost as if Apple was telling us, “Hey, Happy New Year, we’re entering the post-iPhone era.”
In his letter to investors, CEO Tim Cook stressed the Chinese market’s impact on iPhone sales woes. “Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline,” he wrote.
The placement of the qualifying word “primarily” in that sentence is significant. The large shortfall quickly surfaced a variety of anxieties relating to Apple’s iPhone business. Is Trump’s trade war with China already hurting Apple’s business? Is the company’s decision to raise prices on its products now coming back to bite it? Are people choosing lower-priced Android phones over iPhones?
I seriously doubt many iPhone users are defecting to the Android ecosystem. But I do think Apple’s iPhone problem boils down to a value equation that goes on in the brains of potential phone buyers and upgraders.
While we are on the downward slope of Apple’s iPhone bonanza, the company still relies on sales of the device for more than two-thirds of its revenue. In the future, Apple may focus on how many services it can sell through the iOS devices out in the wild, but today it must still worry about how much innovation per dollar is needed to get iPhone owners to upgrade every year or two.
It’s that innovation part I worry about. In 2014, Apple unleashed a lot of value with the iPhone 6 series. There was pent-up demand for larger iPhones, and Apple delivered. People suddenly got a lot more iPhone for the buck. “These are not only the best phones in the world, they really are a great value in the world,” Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said at the time, and he was probably right.
The iPhone 6 started at $649 and the iPhone 6 Plus started at $749. For those who qualified for a subsidized carrier plan, the 6 started at $199 and the 6 Plus went for $299. Consumers went bananas for the devices around the world and upgraded rapidly. The company’s holiday quarter revenue in 2014 grew almost 30% from the same quarter the previous year. But fun like that can’t be expected to last. New iPhones for the following few years were really just incremental improvements to the iPhone 6. Accordingly, the big iPhone sales growth tailed off.
The next big revision was 2017’s iPhone X, which brought a new design, facial recognition, an edge-to-edge display, “the notch,” and a $1,000 starting price. Despite the imposing price tag, the X sold well in its first couple of quarters on the market, benefiting from an initial wave of buyers excited to get in on Apple’s 10th anniversary rethink of the device. And it’s a mistake to say that Apple decided to simply raise prices starting with the X. The margins it’s making on its current phones is roughly the same as it made on earlier iPhone generations. Apple made the decision to stuff more expensive technology into its phones, including Face ID sensors and the edge-to-edge displays it buys from Samsung.
Even if higher prices aren’t about a pure profit grab, the end result is that people aren’t upgrading to new iPhones as quickly as they used to. They’re finding good reasons to stay with the iPhone they already have. People in China may have an added incentives to stay with their old iPhone: The economy in China is slowing, and the brewing trade war isn’t doing much to improve Apple’s image in the country. U.S. brands in general, and particularly Apple, are not the coveted status symbols they were in 2016.
If lengthening upgrade cycles are indeed contributing to Apple’s doldrums, it’s fair to ask why new iPhones are not pulling at consumers’ purse strings like they once did. That gets into the value question. To make me want to jump to This Year’s Model, there has to be at least one or two really cool or really useful new features that will demonstrably change the experience of using the device for the better. That bar gets even higher now that iPhones have moved beyond the $1,000 starting price. Guess what? Animoji isn’t going to get it done. Not for me, and not for a lot of people. I personally know a lot of people who use iPhone 7 and 8 series devices, are happy with them, don’t engage in impulse upgrades, and yet have no intention of leaving the iOS ecosystem. They’re different sort of consumers than those who rushed to buy the iPhone X in 2017, and there are a lot of them.
Apple’s product marketing people have the schedule of features and upgrades for each new iPhone planned out years in advance. The company may need to accelerate the rate at which it pulls new and cutting-edge features into its devices. For some features, the groundwork might already be laid. For instance, that fancy Face ID camera system should do a lot more for us than just unlocking the phone and letting us create Animoji. Also, other phone makers are already building cameras and other sensors into the screens of their phones, eliminating the need for a notch. When will Apple do that? Maybe the company’s traditional “fast follower” strategy needs to be revisited; Consumers might not want to wait for the Apple version of a new Samsung feature to arrive a year later—even if Apple’s take is far more polished.
With any luck, Apple already has some good ideas on the roadmap for its 2019 phones. The next sea-change upgrade for smartphones in general is the addition of 5G radios. But Apple won’t make that move until 2020. Without something impressive in the meantime, people who are generally happy with their old iPhones might wait even longer to upgrade.
As companies increasingly talk about their values and place in society, many managers have started to talk about leading with “purpose.” Ideo designer and doctoral student Nina Montgomery invited several senior executives to share their own experiences navigating the intersection of business and social responsibility; she compiled their essays in a book, Perspectives on Purpose:Leading Voices on Building Brands and Businesses for the Twenty-First Century, which will be released in February. In this excerpt, Rob Michalak, the global director of social impact for Ben & Jerry’s, explains the company’s commitment to “linked prosperity,” the notion that as the business prospers, its community of stakeholders such as suppliers and employees will benefit, too.
You’ve probably heard of Ben and Jerry, but you might not know about Bernie. Bernie Glassman, a space-age aeronautical engineer turned Buddhist Zen Master, had a bakery in Yonkers, New York by the name of Greyston Bakery. From its start, Greyston was a local, purpose-driven business making wonderful cakes for high-end restaurants in the New York City area. Greyston did things a bit differently from most. It hired people with barriers to employment–a practice it called open hiring–and its application process required no resume. They cared not about who you were yesterday, but rather about who you are today, and who you could be tomorrow.
In the late 1980’s, Ben & Jerry’s was looking for a thick brownie wafer that could be used for a decadent ice cream sandwich. Cofounder Ben Cohen serendipitously met Glassman at a gathering of socially responsible enterprises, and for both, the concept of a mission-driven ice cream maker working with a mission-driven bakery was a no-brainer. Greyston committed to baking up a couple of tons of brownie wafers for Ben & Jerry’s new ice cream sandwich.
The first shipments of brownies were baked in Yonkers, but hastily packed before cooling properly. By the time they arrived in Vermont, what had been brownie wafers had melded into two tons worth of fifty-pound brownie blocks. Those weren’t going to be easy to turn into ice cream sandwiches. So, it was time for a little resourceful innovation. Instead of sending the brownies back to Greyston (which really couldn’t afford the loss of a shipment that size at the time), the Ben & Jerry’s team started chipping the brownie blocks into brownie chunks that could be mixed into a pint of ice cream.
And with that, Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie was born.
The flavor sold well, which meant Ben & Jerry’s soon needed more brownies. More brownies meant more bakers, allowing Greyston to hire and train more people from the Yonkers community who couldn’t otherwise find jobs. Between 1990 and 2018, Greyston created over three thousand brownie-baking jobs, generating about $65 million in payroll and providing benefits to about 19,000 families through the Greyston Foundation.
Imagine saving the world through chocolate brownies and ice cream. Hyperbole? Well, maybe. But even if we’re not saving the world, the humble brownie is a great example of what is at the center of Ben & Jerry’s purpose-driven business model, which, when done well, can create a lot of good.
The Greyston Bakery story is a great example of the Ben & Jerry’s business model in action. As we see it, there are three core pillars of our business: We serve the first pillar, our product mission, by making a great flavor (in this case, Chocolate Fudge Brownie). The second pillar, our economic mission, is achieved through high sales numbers (special thanks to our many fans who have loved and bought this flavor over the years!). And the third pillar, our social mission, is accomplished in this case through Greyston’s hiring of more people with barriers to employment and contributing to families within the community.
These three pillars–product, economic, and social–hold up our business model vision: we are dedicated to a sustainable corporate concept of “linked prosperity.” The idea is as simple as it is radical. As a company prospers, all those touched by the company must also prosper, including employees, suppliers, customers, communities, and everyone else within our value chain.
We’ve been working on how to best practice linked prosperity throughout every aspect of our business ever since we first wrote our mission in 1988. Good examples include our livable wage policy, our ongoing support for family dairy farms and sustainable agricultural practices, our support for smallholder agricultural producers around the world through the purchase of Fairtrade-certified ingredients, and our values-led sourcing partnerships with social enterprises.
In addition to these corporate policies and practices, we see our franchised scoop shop model as allowing Ben & Jerry’s to deliver on linked prosperity at a more local level: locally-committed owner-operators are empowered to engage with their communities and foster mutually beneficial relationships. Each year, Ben & Jerry’s scoop shops help to raise money for local charities but also actively engage in providing direct benefits to the community through a variety of activities. On one special day in the spring of each year, Ben & Jerry’s scoop shops globally celebrate their local communities on Free Cone Day. The day creates important levels of awareness for local non-profits and raises tens of thousands of dollars for local charities, not to mention provides about two million free scoops of ice cream to our fans, whom we deeply appreciate all year ’round.
You might be thinking, “That’s a nice idea, but at the end of the day, business is business:does this linked prosperity business model actually work?” To that I’d say a resounding yes: doing good for the community is also good for business. We know that people have deeper, more loyal connections to businesses that have shared values. We see this in the successful companies that are growing the certified B Corp movement. They will stick with those companies longer, through good and bad times, helping to smooth out rough patches along the way. We’ve seen that through the dramatic moments in the global economy of the recent past. Our internal research supports this, telling us that Ben & Jerry’s fans who know and understand our values-led business model are more than twice as loyal than those who don’t know about it. The Millennial generation in particular favors authentic, purpose-driven businesses, and its members are twice as loyal to us as they are to other companies. The next generation up, Generation “Z” (or “Zennials,” as some cleverly call them) are demanding even more from purpose-driven businesses and expect authentic, transparent relationships with the businesses they will support.
Linked prosperity is a business model. It’s not public relations. And it’s not philanthropy. This means as we continue to grow our business, we will continue to grow our social impact. And that’s something pretty awesome.
As a startup in the HR tech space, we’re constantly keeping an eye out for changes to HR practices and the impact they have on the workplace. Currently, we’re seeing that the way companies measure performance has evolved again.
In a recent survey, Aberdeen found that 83% of companies suffer from low engagement. While that’s not new, the surprise is that leaders’ biggest hurdle is a lack of ability to define engagement in a meaningful way. As they struggle to do so, they are incurring losses in productivity, innovation potential, and tenure among their people.
This raises the question: Is engagement the right metric to focus on?
The survey also found that best-in-class companies achieve stronger business results by creating work environments that focus on increasing individuals’ potential to contribute, rather than on company-wide engagement. In other words, they are moving beyond engagement to people enablement.
This is further aligned with the fourth trend in Deloitte’s most recent human capital trends report: “Shifting toward a model that empowers individuals to acquire valuable experiences, explore new roles, and continually reinvent themselves.” Yet 59% of Deloitte’s human capital survey respondents rate their organizations as not effective or only somewhat effective at empowering people to manage their own careers. As a result, lack of a proper employee development plan becomes the leading cause of losing young talent.
All of this supports the acceleration of professional growth in a holistic way. It’s no longer about setting people on a linear track, but rather about helping them understand their strengths, and how they can use them to develop their own career path.
Here are our top six recommendations on how companies can retain talent in 2019 and beyond, by focusing on people enablement.
Adapt your managerial mind-set
Over the years, we have seen servant leadership gain traction as a model. Rather than just seeing people as employees at work, it’s important to start understanding the people behind their job titles. We should try to develop stronger skills in empathy and listening, which in turn will enable us to create fulfilling roles and careers. A great way to do that is by reading coaching materials or even taking a foundational coaching course. This will give us the ability to develop processes people want and will engage with, from onboarding to performance reviews and more.
Create purpose
With a growing millennial generation, work has to be more meaningful and purpose-driven. Companies can support this by having a strong and clear vision and mission that is well communicated and steers the direction of the business. Additionally, a strong set of values that are lived and breathed by everyone reinforces the positive behavior the company expects. The stronger and clearer these are, the more people will be engaged and have a sense of purpose in their day-to-day tasks.
Create more effective leaders
One of the biggest difficulties companies face is ineffective managers: People who have not been properly prepared for their roles as leaders and are therefore not driving results. Companies need to develop processes that support first-time managers as they step into a role of responsibility, helping them become better leaders and coaches. As they strengthen both business and soft skills, their teams should flourish, increasing their sense of ownership, delivering higher quality work, and driving business.
Increase alignment and clarity
In addition to leadership skills, companies should help managers drive clarity and alignment. One of the biggest reasons for disengagement is when people don’t know what they’re doing or why. Managers can change this through regular check-ins with their direct reports, clear communication, and goal setting, among other strategies.
Encourage recognition
There’s no doubt recognition plays an extremely important role, and yet it’s often not done right. According to Socialcast, 69% of employees would work harder if they were better recognized. It doesn’t have to be about large sums of money or lavish gifts; the most important things are to provide recognition in a timely manner and to make it personal.
Develop and maintain a feedback culture
The natural follow-up to recognition is developing a culture of feedback. People should know how they’re doing on a regular basis. According to Gallup, 98% of employees will fail to be engaged when managers give little to no feedback. People should also feel empowered to share feedback with each other on a regular basis. By getting people accustomed to sharing feedback with one another, you’re empowering them to take ownership of their development.
All of these tactics support the acceleration of sustainable professional growth. People enablement is about companies empowering their workers to take ownership of their day-to-day progress and long-term career aspirations. The more companies are able to do that, the more agile their processes will become, and the more prepared they will be for the future of work.
The time was tight, the date near. I had an upcoming meeting for a much-needed new business for my design firm, and I knew that I needed to prepare.
The thing is, we didn’t have enough business, and like many small businesses, we had serious issues when it came to cash flow. We didn’t have debt, but every dollar that came in went out the same day. However, I was so afraid of failing that I avoided thinking about the upcoming meeting because the very act of considering it opened the gates to the horrible fear of failure. I hid from the fear and the opportunity by doing nothing to prepare, and by not thinking about it.
I was so afraid of failure, and I let my flight-or-fight tendency take over. And rather than confronting my fear head-on, I chose to push it away and told myself that I could nail the meeting with a smile and a few smart comments. Deep down inside, I knew that this wasn’t the case–but it took me several rejections to admit that I was engaging in self-sabotaging behavior.
How I let fear sabotage my chance of success
A client of mine had recommended me to the new marketing director at a large chicken ranch. Her company wanted to expand beyond their commodity base with a line of high-end, branded chicken. They’d asked my team to come in to talk about package design.
Naturally, as was my method at the time, I’d done nothing to prepare other than gather samples of our current work. I could have done a news search on the state of chicken marketing; studied issues around packaging fresh meat; searched for coverage of senior management at the ranch. I did nothing because I was afraid to discover what I didn’t know, and the prospect of competing with major-league East Coast design firms terrified me.
I could have overcome those fears, but I didn’t. I just bought an airplane ticket. I flew to D.C. and caught a local plane to somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains. When I arrived in the small community, I realized that the chicken ranch was the biggest employer in town. You could hear, and smell, the chickens from the small main street. I stepped into a drugstore, bought a large newsprint tablet and settled into the diner next door to list my packaging bullet points. It was late. I was the last customer. The wait staff must have been bored because they got interested in my little production and gathered around to help, first with spelling and later with tips on the chicken ranch. “Wow,” I thought, “these guys know their stuff. This is cool; maybe I can pull this off.” I spent a couple of hours working and reworking my thoughts, with the wait staff coaching and egging me on.
The next morning I presented myself at the ranch early, eager to show off my new wisdom. Right away, I could tell that the meeting was a disaster. The CEO pointed out a spelling error—I’d spelled his name wrong on the first page of the flip chart.
When I pulled out our wine and candy packaging, a couple of executives got up and left. My contact, the head of marketing, refused to look me in the eye. With my worst fears dancing in plain sight and tears forming, I packed my samples as quickly as I could and left.
How I worked to get past my fear
That wasn’t the only instance where my lack of preparation resulted in a less than desirable outcome, but for some reason, this particular experience was the one that forced me to change my approach. It was my memory of the wait staff that gave me the first push into preparation. Clearly, by that time, it was too late. But it reminded me that it could be fun. I enjoyed hashing out possibilities with them, and since they’d all worked at the ranch at one time or another, they had all kinds of valuable insights. Had I made an effort to do something like this several weeks earlier, my meeting might have ended differently.
It was then that I realized the simple solution to changing my thought patterns. You see, I hid from my fear because it left me weak and anxious, and made me feel depleted. And while my reactions had been to push it away, I realized that I could move past it by not thinking about myself. I can choose to direct my focus to my clients–their needs, issues, and concerns. I can start to identify where my expertise could be of value, giving me just that boost of confidence that I needed. The more I thought about how I can help, the more confident I get. I can then start to plan and find myself enjoying the challenge of solving the puzzle. Before I know it, I’m in a state of creative flow.
Fear can lead us to act in self-defeating ways. But that doesn’t mean you have to succumb to those actions. You can choose to tell yourself a different story, one that gets you to take positive steps, rather than remain paralyzed with fear.
It took many failures to realize it, but I learned to overcome my fear by reframing how I thought about preparation. It wasn’t a “tryout” where I can fail, but a pleasurable process to search for insights that others might not have. In other words, I needed to see it as a fun challenge, rather than an inevitable win/lose situation. And I’ve won more times than not since then.
Fresh off of her swearing-in ceremony as the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) will appear on CBS’s 60 Minutes tonight for a wide-ranging interview about politics, Medicare for all, the ambitious “Green New Deal,” and how the winds of change are reshaping Capitol Hill.
The 29-year-old Democrat, with a talent for triggering conservatives across the land, is already floating the idea of taxing the super rich by as much as 70%. In the interview with Anderson Cooper–clips of which have already been posted online–she proudly embraces the term “radical” and says she and her colleagues have a plan to eliminate carbon emissions within 12 years.
The segment will air on CBS tonight (Sunday, January 6) at 7:00 p.m., ET/PT.
If you’re a cord cutter who wants to watch the interview live on your computer, phone, or smart TV, you’ll need access to CBS either through a pay-TV login or standalone streaming service. I’ve rounded up a few options below. CBS streaming is not available in all areas, so check your zip code before signing up.
The interview is airing on an eventful Sunday night, as it will compete with red carpet coverage of the 2019 Golden Globes. That shows CBS has confidence in AOC’s ability to enthrall viewers–or trigger them. Either way, it’s ratings.
The 2019 awards season doesn’t officially begin until a drunken celebrity spills a drink on someone or stumbles over an acceptance speech, and both of those things are bound to happen at the 76th Annual Golden Globe Awards.
The action takes place tonight at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where cohosts Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg will carry us through three-plus hours of boozy, self-congratulatory kudos as only Hollywood can. Movie nominees this year include Black Panther for drama and Crazy Rich Asians for comedy, while TV nominees include The Americans for drama and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel for comedy. You can check out the full list of nominations here.
The Globes will air tonight (Sunday, January 6) at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) on NBC. Red carpet coverage begins as early as 6 p.m. ET. If you’re a cord cutter looking to live-stream the red carpet coverage or awards telecast on your computer, mobile device, or smart TV, I’ve rounded up some options for you below.
Red carpet pre-show
This is the easy part: The Hollywood Foreign Press and Dick Clark Productions are streaming the Golden Globes red carpet pre-show live on Facebook’s video platform Watch. Per THR, the pre-show begins at 6 p.m. and lasts about two hours. More info here.
E! network is also streaming a red carpet pre-show: E! Stream: The Red Carpet Presented by AT&T. You can find that on the network’s Twitter account (@ENews) or at eonline.com beginning at 6 p.m. ET.
Awards ceremony
If you want to watch the Golden Globes ceremony online, you’ll need live-stream access to NBC, which is broadcasting the awards ceremony at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT). Here are a few ways to do that:
Streaming services: Several TV streaming services offer live access to NBC, including Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, Hulu With Live TV, YouTube TV, FuboTV, and DirecTV Now. These services usually offer a free one-week trial, and they’re easy to cancel. Important caveat: NBC is not offered in all areas on these services, so be sure to check your zip code first before signing up.
NBC’s website and mobile apps: You can watch NBC coverage live on its website and mobile apps, but you’ll need a login with a cable or satellite TV provider.
Apple might have made its most important accouncement of 2019 at CES, a tech conference where (as usual) it’s not even exhibiting. Stranger still, it came in the form of a Samsung press release:
With the new iTunes Movies and TV Shows app on Samsung Smart TVs, Samsung customers can access their existing iTunes library and browse the iTunes Store to buy or rent from a selection of hundreds of thousands of movies and TV episodes–including the largest selection of 4K HDR movies. iTunes Movies and TV Shows will work seamlessly with Samsung’s Smart TV Services, such as Universal Guide, the New Bixby and Search, to create a consistent experience across Samsung’s platform.With AirPlay 2 support, Samsung customers will be able to effortlessly play videos, photos, music, podcasts and more from Apple devices directly to Samsung Smart TVs, including QLED 4K and 8K TVs, The Frame and Serif lifestyle TVs, as well as other Samsung UHD and HD models.
So we’ve got:
A new “iTunes Movies and TV Shows” app
Airplay support
The ability to purchase and rent content directly through the TV app
After rumors about Apple creating its own streaming video service transitioned from “interesting, if true” to “let’s speculate about the launch date,” a deal like this seemed inevitable. Still, there are so many questions. Nilay Patel at The Verge is asking some good ones, particularly the one about how–or even if–Apple can protect iTunes users’ privacy. I’ve got a few more:
How will users pay for content? Can they whip out their iPhones and pay via a fingerprint or Face ID? Can they even use Apple Pay at all? Samsung has its own payment-processing system. Surely their onboard TV ecosystem prefers it.
Is Samsung getting a cut of the money that people will spend on iTunes content through the app? That would make sense, right?
Why does the press release refer to this app as “iTunes Movies and TV Shows?” It sure implies that Samsung TVs are getting a fenced-off subset of the experience Apple delivers on its own hardware. Or is Apple planning to reorganize how they deploy iTunes products and services overall?
Might we see a version of this app for Android? I actively discourage buying DRMed movies and TV shows from Apple because (apart from iTunes for Windows) they’re locked to Apple devices. Google Play and Amazon Video seem like much better options. Is Apple exploring at least a rudimentary alternative to hardware lock-in?
Is Apple’s move tactical, or is it strategic? Here I define “tactical” as “we want to sell current and future iTunes products and services on third-party hardware” and “strategic” as “we want to collect lots of data about how consumers interact with smart TVs so that we can design and sell one of our own in a few years.”
Apple is spending billions of dollars to develop original video content. A streaming service is definitely happening. I’ve always been puzzled about how attractive Apple could possibly be as a distributor. Creators and production companies want money but they also want an audience. iTunes’ exclusivity to Apple hardware (with Windows PCs as a grudging exception) wasn’t going to fly.
An app for smart TVs makes perfect sense. It’s still a strange fit, though. Apple boasts about the money it makes from the Services part of its business. But we all know that most of it’s generated by the App Store, which is another way of Apple relying on the popularity of the iPhone. When I look at Apple’s other services–subscription music, cloud storage, mail–I don’t see anything that isn’t being done just as well by anybody else.
Even when we shrug, mutter “okay, but we all know this is BS, right?,” and factor the cash from iPhone apps into Services revenue, Services remains one of the sectors of the pie chart whose label has to go outside the circle. Apple is still a company that makes most of its money from high-margin hardware.
And its interest in building a streaming video service is way, way more apparent than its passion for building a streaming video box. The Apple TV is a slice of dry, unbuttered toast compared to devices that cost half as much. It’s impossible for me not to believe it’s only here to buy the company time until it finds a better delivery system for iTunes content.
Think of every horror movie where a human brain stews in bubbling green liquid on a shelf in a laboratory, while a mad scientist skulks from graveyards to morgues to alleys in search of a suitable body. The Apple TV isn’t even the brain. It’s the jar.
So maybe Apple’s nascent video business is special. But Apple keeps stressing that its future is services. The company isn’t just saying that to calm antsy investors. Delivering iTunes content through a Samsung smart TV app is evidence of the hand on that rudder.
An hour and a half into the eat-your-broccoli atmosphere of this year’s Golden Globes, the show finally hit an authentic note when Regina King took to the stage to accept the Best Actress in a Supporting Role award for If Beale Street Could Talk. Unlike Lady Gaga–folded up in layers of periwinkle, with hair to match–who shed movie star tears and delivered a forced-feeling speech when she won the night’s Best Song award for Shallow (from A Star is Born), King came off as refreshingly unscripted. She seemed genuinely moved about her win, thanking writer-director Barry Jenkins for a film that her son described as the “first time he really saw himself.”
But her real moment came as the music grew louder and, rather than move off stage as she was being instructed to do, she addressed the gender imbalance in Hollywood, saying that all of her future productions would be 50% female. “I challenge anyone out there who is in a position of power, in any industry, to challenge yourself to do the same,” King urged.
The call to action was reminiscent of Frances McDormand’s demands for inclusion riders–contracts that ensure that half of a production cast and crew is made up of women and people of color–at last year’s Oscar ceremony, and felt similarly timely and urgent given the focus on the Times Up movement.
The same could not be said for the rest of the evening up until that point. Co-hosts Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh were relentlessly tame, and stunts like giving everyone in the audience a flu shot felt as uncomfortable for viewers as for guests.
So far all I’ve got are Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang, Herbie the Love Bug, Bullitt, Christine, and Burt Reynolds’ firebird from Smokey and The Bandit. And maybe Vin Diesel’s third car from the Fast & Furious franchise. Oh and the Driving Miss Daisy car. Other than that, almost everyone of Hollywood’s iconic movie vehicles were picking up groceries at Walmart during the Golden Globes.
Created by Publicis’ Walmart-specific agency Department W, this is pop-culture nostalgia, comfort food advertising at its best. So to announce grocery pickup in 2,000 stores across the U.S., why wouldn’t the world’s biggest retailer drop serious cash on the rights to Jurassic Park, Back the the Future, Ghostbusters,Knight Rider, and The Flintstones?
It’s not groundbreaking, it’s not all that surprising, but in the midst of the gong-show marathon that is any awards ceremony, it was a welcome bit of branded fun.
Whoever is running Netflix’s Twitter account is apparently a huge fan of Killing Eve, which is totally understandable. The show has been a hit with critics, scoring two Emmy nominations and a win for Sandra Oh for Best Actress during tonight’s Golden Globes. The only snag with Netflix’s tweet: Killing Eve is currently streaming exclusively on Hulu at the moment.
every single one of you reading this right now needs to make time in your life to watch Killing Eve. It's a true masterclass in writing, directing, and acting. Oh goodness … the acting! What Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer do in this show is NEXT. LEVEL. PERFECTION. Watch it.
The BBC America show is on linear TV, streaming on Hulu, and is for sale on iTunes, YouTube, and Amazon–so pretty much everywhere but Netflix. Whether it was a calculated tweet to snag streaming rights to Killing Eve down the road or the person running Netflix’s account went rogue or it was a magnanimous tweet of support for a great show, the teams at Hulu and Killing Eve are fine with it:
Construction on the U.S. electric vehicle maker’s first Chinese factory has officially begun, reports Reuters. Located in Shanghai, the Gigafactory will localize production of affordable versions of the Tesla Model 3 and the Model Y for Chinese customers.
Shanghai Giga will produce affordable versions of 3/Y for greater China. All Model S/X & higher cost versions of Model 3/Y will still be built in US for WW market, incl China.
The Shanghai Gigafactory is significant not just because it’s Tesla’s first fully owned factory in China, but because it is the first wholly foreign-owned car plant of any overseas car manufacturer in China. Producing Teslas inside the country will allow Tesla to keep costs lower for Chinese customers by skirting the tariffs the Chinese government has placed on foreign-made cars thanks to Trump’s trade war.
Elon Musk says the company is aiming to have the construction of the $2 billion factory finished this summer with the initial production models rolling off the lines by the end of the year before volume production ramps up in 2020. “We think with the resources here we can build the Shanghai Gigafactory in record time and we’re looking forward to hopefully having some initial production of the Model 3 towards the end of this year and achieving volume production next year,” Musk said at the ground breaking ceremony.
Aiming to finish initial construction this summer, start Model 3 production end of year & reach high volume production next year
It’s early in the morning. You come down sleepily, and sit at the kitchen table to drink your coffee and eat your toast. You’re entirely alone–except for all the devices around you that are patiently listening to see if you’ll talk to them. Like the trash can a few feet away from you. “Open, can,” you say. Miraculously, the trash can opens, and you toss your paper towel into it without leaving the comfort of your chair.
Welcome to the future of your home. Except this future isn’t very far away. Simplehuman–the nearly 20-year-old company founded by industrial designer Frank Young and famous for its sleek aluminum trash cans–has already developed a line of voice-activated trash cans, one of which the company is launching today at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
[Photo: courtesy Simplehuman]On the surface, the new can looks like any other Simplehuman can, with its rectangular shape and glossy exterior. But after you’ve either inserted batteries or plugged it in, it proves itself to be smarter than most other trash cans. The other difference is the price: At $200, the voice-activated trash can is significantly more expensive than Simplehuman’s step-operated cans, which start at $80 for one of comparable size without the bells and whistles.
If you saunter up to the device, it senses you’re there and opens up. On the other hand, if you walk briskly past it, it recognizes that you have no intention of throwing something away and stays closed. If you don’t want to walk over at all, you can say “open can” and it will open. The brand has several use cases in mind here: For instance, you might be sitting on a chair nearby. Or you might place the can next to a counter or cooking station, and find it easier to voice-activate the can so you can easily dump scraps of food into it. The idea is to cut a few steps out of your everyday trash disposal process, which don’t sound like a big deal–until you count the number of times you walk over and physically open your trash can every day.
[Photo: courtesy Simplehuman]Simplehuman has been working to perfect the technology for years now, developing its own, proprietary operating system rather than syncing with an existing personal assistant like Alexa or Siri. The brand released a version of the can a year ago, but has been tweaking the design over the last year to improve it. For starters, Simplehuman increased the number of microphones from one to three so that it’s able to more accurately understand people when they speak to it. And after gathering customer feedback, the company created even more trigger commands, including “stay open” and “close can.”
“We wanted to put out what we felt was a highly effective version of the can into the world with our first version,” Yang says. “But we are simultaneously working to keep making it better.”
For Yang, this smart trash can seems like the logical extension of his decades-long obsession with improving the ugliest everyday products we surround ourselves with at home. Most trash cans purchased today remain an afterthought. They are generally plastic vessels that are entirely pragmatic, and meant to contain the dirty, smelly detritus of our lives.
[Photo: courtesy Simplehuman]In the late 1990s, Yang began to believe it was possible to improve these items with more elegant design. He describes himself as a perpetual tinkerer, someone who enjoyed jerry-rigging cars and taking apart household objects then reconfiguring them to make them work better. As a political science major at UCLA, he had taken an industrial design class, which he loved. When he graduated, he immediately began to create trash can prototypes. His father gave him $200,000 to help him launch his own company, Simplehuman, and send the first trash cans into production. The very first can he made was a sleek, aluminum model that was far more beautiful than what you’d find in an average store. But at two to three times the price of a generic plastic Rubbermaid or Hefty can, it was unclear whether there would be a market for it.
It turned out there was. By 2017, Simplehuman was generating $220 million in annual revenues. Yang quickly got the Container Store on board with an order of $30,000 in trash cans, which led to retailers like Target and Ace Hardware stocking their shelves with Simplehuman products. “Many people thought the idea of a premium trash can was crazy,” Frank says. “Nobody believed people would pay $40 or $100 for something you throw your garbage into. But they were wrong.”
Likewise, the idea of a $200 trash you can talk to seems a little silly. Is it really so hard to walk a few steps to throw away your trash? Is it so painful to step on a foot pedal to open a trash can? The answer to both of these questions is, obviously not. But Yang explains that the point has never really been to totally reinvent the trash can. It’s to make them incrementally better, from their design to their functionality. After all, you will look at the thing, and use it, every single day. He believes such small improvements add up–and ultimately make your life better.
Since Simplehuman launched, it has expanded into a wide range of categories, all of which add a touch of elegance and efficiency to things very few designers spend much time on. Take the humble toilet plunger and toilet brush. Yang has tackled those, too, creating shiny, stainless steel versions that retail for $25 and $30, respectively. They’re double what other brands charge, but not totally unaffordable to some consumers who are now used to paying more for home appliances and smart devices like the Apple HomePod, Amazon Echo, or the Nest.
The brand has made popular dish racks, paper towel holders, and grocery bag dispensers. It recently created a hands-free soap dispenser that senses that your hand is there, releasing liquid or foam soap, the way you might at a nice public restroom.
But the brand’s breakout product over the last year was a series of tabletop mirrors that range between $130 and $300.
Simplehuman’s mirror senses that you’re in front of it, sending out exactly the right amount of light to mimic natural sunlight. It was designed to make it easier for women to do their makeup in the morning. But when professional makeup artists discovered the utility of the product, it began to spread through the industry, becoming a must-have item. It’s followed much the same trajectory as Dyson’s $400 Supersonic hair dryer, which many professional hair dressers purchased because it allowed them to do their jobs more effectively.
[Photo: courtesy Simplehuman]The newest version of this smart mirror, which also launches today at CES, comes with Airplay and Google Assistant built into it, allowing it to play music, and get traffic, weather, and news while you’re doing your makeup. It might seem like overkill for a mirror, but for its target users, these are valuable tools. Many professional stylists like to have music playing as they do their makeup, which can sometimes take hours. And for women doing their makeup at home before work, it makes perfect sense to have the news playing in the background.
“I’ve always thought it was worth it to try to improve the design of simple, everyday products, because in the end, they have the biggest impact on someone’s everyday life,” he says. “Sometimes, it’s just about pre-empting the users’ needs, and including features we think they would appreciate. If they don’t, we can always go back to the drawing board and tweak the product again.”
The freshman Congressional Representative for New York’s 14th district appeared on a highly anticipated episode of CBS’s 60 Minutes last night where she talked all things Trump, racism, and healthcare. It was her first major television interview since being sworn in as the youngest woman ever in Congress–and it’s also the first time a large majority of households probably ever heard from her directly. Here are some of the top takeaways from Ocasio-Cortez’s interview:
On what type of socialism she supports:
The freshman representative is a strong supporter of universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, and using government money to combat climate change–all policies found in socialist countries. When asked if she has the type of socialism found in the former Soviet Union, Cuba, or Venezuela in mind, Ocasio-Cortez laughed:
“Of course not. What we have in mind and what my and my policies most closely resemble (are) what we see in the U.K., in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden.”
On how the country can pay for her proposed Green New Deal:
“No one asks how we’re going to pay for this Space Force. No one asked how we paid for a $2 trillion tax cut. We only ask how we pay for it on issues of housing, healthcare, and education… How do we pay for it? With the same exact mechanisms that we pay for military increases for this Space Force. For all of these ambitious policies.”
On Trump and racism:
“The president certainly didn’t invent racism. But he’s certainly given a voice to it and expanded it and created a platform for those things.”
When asked directly if Trump was racist, Ocasio-Cortez said:
“Yeah, yeah, no question…When you look at the words that he uses, which are historic dog whistles of white supremacy. When you look at how he reacted to the Charlottesville incident, where neo-Nazis murdered a woman, versus how he manufactures crises like immigrants seeking legal refuge on our borders, it’s–it’s night and day.”
On raising taxes on the rich:
“You know, it—you look at our tax rates back in the ’60s and when you have a progressive tax rate system. Your tax rate, you know, let’s say, from zero to $75,000 may be ten percent or 15 percent, et cetera. But once you get to, like, the tippy tops–on your 10 millionth dollar–sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That doesn’t mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more.”
On her ambitious, “radical” agenda:
“Well, I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country. Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security.”
When then asked if she calls herself a radical, Ocasio-Cortez said:
“Yeah. You know, if that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”
You can check out the full interview with Anderson Cooper below.
If you’re thinking about going after a salary boost or new position in 2019, you’re not alone.
A December 2018 report from professional services firm Addison Group found that nearly half of job seekers are dissatisfied with compensation at their current job. In addition, more than half of employees have negotiated their salaries with their employers within the past year, and 2 in 5 job seekers say their employers know they’re actively looking for a new job.
But whether you’re intent on boosting your pay or your job title in the new year, it helps to have a plan, These six steps will help you map out the best route to achieve your career goals in 2019.
1. Define your “what” and “why”
The first step to making your career goal happen is to clearly define it and know why you want it, says Lise Stransky, founder of career coaching firm Careers That Work for You. Think about whether you want to stay with the same company and get a promotion or raise, or move on and try something new.
And then think about the underlying, “Why?” Are you looking for career growth or simply more money? What is the need or want that is driving you to pursue these goals? Breaking out that component helps you in two ways: Keeping you motivated to pursue the goal, and understanding whether there is some other way this goal could be fulfilled, she says. For example, if you’re looking for more recognition, but your company can’t offer you a promotion, you may be able to negotiate a new assignment that will better position you for the next opportunity. If a salary increase isn’t possible, you may be able to negotiate remote work opportunities or other perks that have value.
2. Plan your ask around your company’s timing
While the tight labor market means that opportunities and salaries are trending upward, there may be factors that will affect your goals in your situation, says Lisa Quast, founder of Career Woman, Inc. and author of Secrets of a Hiring Manager Turned Career Coach: A Foolproof Guide to Getting the Job You Want. Every Time. For example, your company may be holding off on raises or promotions until the start of its next fiscal year. Or it may have a hiring or raise freeze. Your industry may have cycles that affect when employers are most likely to hire new people. Being aware of such timing can help you plan your goal more effectively, she says.
3. Examine your obstacles
J.T. O’Donnell, founder of Work It Daily, an online learning platform for people interested in building their careers, says that job seekers should dive into examining their negative self-talk to understand the obstacles they face—both real and perceived. “Straight to the negative,” she says. “I know that I’m up against that dang person inside your head 24/7. But I don’t have that luxury.”
Once you examine the reasons you think you can’t accomplish your goal, she can begin to work with you to break down the real issues, and those that are just perceptions to which her clients are clinging, she says. If you’re battling feelings of insecurity, you can begin to break down that negative self-talk so it doesn’t hold you back, she says. If you have a skills gap, you can pursue extra training or take on a stretch assignment to get the experience you need. Quast adds that, sometimes, simply having a plan to get the skills you lack may be enough for an employer to see that you know what you don’t know and are ready to grow into a new role.
4. Assemble the right team
O’Donnell suggests a strategic approach to recruiting the people who can help you accomplish your goals. Create a list of the people who have the careers and skills you admire, including at least three people who represent your definition of “success,” three people in the industry in which you want to work, and three people doing the job you want to be doing. Reach out to these contacts and work on building relationships with them. They each have insight into getting and doing the job that you want.
Mentors and coaches are important, too, O’Donnell says. You want to involve people who will motivate you and keep you accountable to moving forward on your goals, but who also aren’t too invested in you personally that they’re going to lose their objectivity, she says. “For a lot of us, our friends, our family, other people—they don’t have our career in their best interest, and they give terrible career advice,” she says.
5. Treat it like a project
If you were taking on a big new project at work, you would break down what you need have and do to accomplish the assignment successfully. Think about your career in the same way, Stransky says. “You don’t just have a house pop up and it’s done,” she says. First, you need a proper foundation, financing, and building team. “You can’t paint it until you’ve done all those steps, and I would say the same thing is true of trying to make change in a career,” she says.
It may help to create a written plan where you outline the steps you’re going to need to take, as well as notes about obstacles, opportunities, and people who can help you with both, she says.
6. Be persistent
Each of the three experts agreed that persistence is an important part of accomplishing a big career boost in 2019. Don’t let a delay or challenge derail what you want to accomplish, Quast says. She says that, in addition to intelligence, emotional intelligence, and a strong network, career builders need “AQ,” or the adversity quotient. “It’s that grit factor—do they have the passion and perseverance to succeed?” she says.
On a recent Hawaiian vacation, Don stayed at a truly luxurious resort. It wasn’t his style. He couldn’t help but notice the contrast with the poorer sections of the island where locals lived and tourists rarely ventured. Is this the planet’s future? Two distinct cultures, one of isolated wealth and excess, the other of poverty? When we discussed this question, Don couldn’t help but mention he’d also found amazing pizza on the island.
The disparity between rich and poor, between tourist and local, was disappointing, but not surprising. But as we pondered how we might address these issues, we recognized pizza provided a possible direction.
Pizza? How is that relevant? Two ways. First, pizza can be thought of as an open-source platform. An Italian creation, it is now found all over the world, in all incarnations, tailored to local tastes and cultures, yet all recognizable as pizza. Second, it bridges the gap we were pondering, for pizza can be made by local artisans serving local customers, as well as by large, international corporations that serve mass markets. In other words, “Pizza as a Platform” provides a powerful metaphor to describe how we hope to address some of the world’s most intractable problems.
[Source Image: Sudowoodo/iStock]
Thinking about pizza as a platform gives some compelling insights into how we might thrive in the future. The pizza platform is a truly open system that enables millions of independent creators as well as large producers. It provides an excellent model for addressing the world’s pressing problems. Far fetched? Not really. The proper platforms can provide a powerful infrastructure for social necessities such as clean energy, health care, and government.
Let’s take a closer look at what makes pizza such an effective platform. Pizza allows for a diverse array of possible creations. The basic platform dictates what is common: a square or disc of dough, transformed by a hot oven and some appropriate toppings. In Napoli, just the basic underlying dough, fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, and some basil. For the rest of the world, almost any conceivable embellishment, from pineapple to ham, duck to turkey, fish to onions and mushrooms. The pizza platform allows customization for whatever you, your family, or your community wants. The platform creates a thriving pizza economy, producers, vendors, pizza makers, customers, experts, and even reviewers. Occasionally, pizza-lovers or inventors will make great advances, like pizza ovens or stones or new kinds of pizza altogether. Or pre-made pizza, perhaps a complete pizza already made, but then frozen, to be cooked at home, or just premade pizza dough, so the toppings come from the cook. Today the global annual pizza economy is over $100 billion.
[Source Image: Sudowoodo/iStock]How can the way pizza has spread across the world, driven by local interests and needs, show us how everyday citizens can participate in innovation with global impact? The answer may lie in a new form of platform, societal platforms, civic- and community-driven toolkits that empower people and cultures. Societal platforms can support complex challenges such as energy, climate change, health care, and sustainably feeding communities. It enables multiple people to each make small enhancements. Lots of small, incremental enhancement made by many people, in time can lead to major changes, both incremental and radical, empowering many.
[Source Image: Sudowoodo/iStock]
Platforms are enablers. They let people who don’t know each other or speak the same language to trust, use, and codevelop the systems that power much of the world. In India, digital ecosystems built on a cashless economy and trusted identification are tackling everything from free education to open innovation. Entrepreneur Sanjay Purohit describes these societal platforms as “open, technology-enabled ecosystems that provide ‘co-creation’ spaces [virtual or real] where innovators can design, develop and build a wide array of solutions.” They can be both tools and technologies–internet, software, open source modules of parts such as batteries, solar panels, computers, and motors, supported by 3D printers–that make innovation or customization easier. They can be the policies and cultural movements that empower citizens to solve problems locally. Societal platforms enable more people to make more meaningful contributions toward a better future.
Think about some other platforms that have helped transform the world. Linux is a software platform that powers cars, smartphones, home appliances, internet servers, space shuttles, and nuclear reactors. Linux makes all of these things possible because it is an open resource, developed by a community of more than 10,000 innovators who continually enhance and improve it. Kickstarter is another example of a platform, not open source per se, but open to anyone to use and thereby a democratizing force for innovation. Almost half a million campaigns have been launched on Kickstarter, with 15 million people helping to fund them, for a total of over $4 billion. For all we know, the next Kickstarter-like campaign could lead to a breakthrough in clean energy or better health. Platforms are power for the people.
We need more societal platforms. They can engage, organize, and amplify human potential. They can come in many shapes and sizes and be recombined and used in unforeseen ways. They can be used for both small and large enterprises. They can encompass civic, academic, commercial, technological, and faith-based ecosystems. You can never have too many open societal platforms. Just as you can never have too much pizza.
Don Norman is the director of the Design lab at UC San Diego and the author ofThe Design of Everyday Things, among other books. Eli Spencer is a professor of medicine, builds things for global health, and directs the Center for Health at the Design Lab. Both like pizza and are worried about the state of the planet. Special thanks to Sanjay Purohit for his work on societal platforms and our long conversations. And to Susannah Fox for inspiring our vision of people power.
The Japanese billionaire and entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, who tweets under the handle @YouSuck2020, has broken the record for the most retweeted tweet. On January 5th, Maezawa tweeted to his followers that he’ll give away 100 million yen to 100 random Twitter users picked from a selection of anyone who retweets his tweet. 100 million yen is about $923,800. That means 100 people who retweet Maezawa’s tweet will get almost $10,000 each.
As of this writing, Maezawa’s tweet has over 5 million retweets–making it the most retweeted tweet in history. As Gizmodo points out, Maezawa has also gained an insane amount of followers since his tweet, going from just over 500,000 followers on Friday to over 5.48 million today.
The previous record for retweeted tweet was by an American teenager named Carter Wilkerson, who was trying to get free chicken nuggets for life from KFC. His retweeted plea got over 3.55 million retweets in April 2017.
For those of you who want to try to win almost $10 grand from @YouSuck2020, you’ve still got a few hours left, as of the time of this writing, before his contest is over.
People are using Google Assistant a lot more often as it becomes more readily available. By the end of January, Google expects its voice assistant to be running on 1 billion devices, up from 400 million a year ago. Google also says that active users–both monthly and daily–have quadrupled over the last year, though the company won’t say how many people are using Google Assistant regularly.
“This is really showing that the Assistant is available across the devices that really matter to you,” says Nick Fox, Google’s head of product and design for Search and Assistant. “And beyond that, the Assistant is being quite heavily used across these devices as well.”
Fox declined to break down where those users are coming from, but the growth probably has a lot to do with expanding support for different languages and older Android devices. Over the last year, Google has added support for 22 new languages and 66 more countries, bringing the total to 30 languages and 80 countries. In December 2017, Google also started rolling out Assistant to Android tablets and to phones running Android 5.0 Lollipop, a four-year-old operating system that still makes up 18% of Android device usage. Google Assistant is also shipping on millions of Google Home speakers every quarter.
The chest-beating comes just before the Consumer Electronics Show, where both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa will have a major presence on other companies’ TVs, speakers, smart home devices, and other gadgets.
People leave jobs all the time. It’s when a trickle turns into a flow that people tend to get concerned and wonder, “Why am I still here?”
If the seats around you are emptying at a rapid rate–and not because of a recent layoff or merger–it’s essential to take some time to evaluate your situation and make an important decision: Should you leave if everyone else is?
Whether you should be looking for a new job or staying put based on high employee turnover depends on a host of factors. It’s tough to lose colleagues you respect and enjoy working with, but their departure isn’t necessarily a red flag. However, it’s worth asking yourself a few questions when it happens.
Here’s a handy guide to deciding whether or not you should consider jumping ship.
Yes, if: Most of the people who’ve left are in your department or at your level
Look around–is there a trend of people like you departing? If so, pay close attention. There could be a deal breaker that just hasn’t gotten to you yet. For example, the company has decided that project managers are going to absorb the duties of administrative assistants, and the first handful of project managers who tested out the new system decided to leave. This could be a huge negative change to your workload and responsibilities.
No, if: A number of colleagues have left but they work on different teams
No need to worry just yet if people are leaving elsewhere in the organization. Most likely this is due to people’s tenure or team shifts unrelated to your own department. Try to evaluate the reasons for their departures and see if it’s something that will actually affect you personally. If you can see an obvious reason for their departures (say, the sales and marketing departments are being combined) but it doesn’t apply to you, then stay put.
Yes, if: Communication has been terrible
No one on your level knows anything about why people are leaving, who’s taking over, or if there are any company issues–for example, they’ve lost a major client–and there are mixed messages coming from management. Disorganization and dishonesty often signify bigger problems than just a few people leaving, so take note. If asking questions isn’t getting you any answers, that may be a sign.
No, if: There’s been clear communication about the situation (and they’ve outlined a plan)
If you feel confident that your manager (or their manager, or someone) is resolving the problems that caused people to leave (they’ve gotten rid of a terrible boss, for example), you can relax and stick around a while longer–at least until you’re sure whether actual change is in the works.
Yes, if: You can see the writing on the wall
Sometimes it’s just coincidence that a number of people leave at the same time. But other times it’s because there’s been some kind of big change–to leadership, to company priorities, to the culture–that leaves many unhappy, and the smart people start taking off. If you feel similarly about these shifts and believe that they are no longer in line with your goals or values, it’s okay to want to follow suit.
No, if: It really is just a coincidence
If one person goes on maternity leave, another got a big pay increase somewhere else, and a third is moving to a new city, those aren’t signs that the company is going down the tubes. It’s worth staying put if everything else seems like it’s business as usual.
Yes, if: It’s clear that they’re not going to hire any replacements
If it seems like you’re expected to take on extra work on a permanent basis (and no one asked for your opinion on this or offered you a raise or promotion for it), it may be time to reassess your priorities before you’re taken advantage of. Heavily increasing your workload with the expectation that you’ll do it forever is a sign that management doesn’t care about retaining good people.
No, if: There are plans to replace the people who left
Is HR aggressively hiring and conducting interviews to fill the empty slots? That’s a good sign that you won’t be doubling your workload long-term, and it’s worth staying where you are–as long as you enjoy the work you’re doing.
Yes, if: No one’s giving you a chance to step up (and no one cares that you want to grow)
When people around and above you leave, it offers you the opportunity to move up formally, or at least take on new responsibilities. But if they’re only looking to hire external candidates and don’t want to discuss your growth in any way, despite the fact that you’re eager and a strong performer, your company might not value you enough to invest in your professional development.
No, if: There’s room for you to grow
It’s possible, however, that your company will give you a fair shot to apply for a more senior position or take on a new project. Rather than quit and run, prep your pitch to ask for a promotion or new responsibilities and see if you can turn the situation into a career win. There’s no guarantee that this will work out, but if your company shows genuine interest in your growth and success, they’re likely to help you get where you want to be in time (even if it doesn’t happen right now).
Yes, if: Your company is traditionally somewhere people stay for years (or even decades)
If up until now most of the people around you have worked there for a long time, a group of people leaving at once is probably a sign that something’s not quite right. Is there a new manager who’s making everyone’s life miserable? Have benefits disappeared? Observe what’s changed and, if it’s a deal breaker, make a move.
No, if: Your field is known for high turnover
If it’s normal to job hop or change roles frequently in your field–say, if you’re in a job where the only way to move up is to move on–then a bunch of people leaving at one time might be a coincidence or par for the course, not a potential disaster.
Sometimes it can seem as if a single person leaving can start an avalanche of resignation letters, and it can be scary and stressful to watch people march out the door.
But there are times when you can turn this to your advantage. Calmly assess your situation before deciding whether to stay or go and see if there’s a way you can come out ahead–with more responsibility, a new project you’ve had your eye on, or even a promotion.
People’s reasons for getting out are highly personal, and many won’t apply to you. Take comfort in the fact that if you like your job and still feel supported, challenged, and respected, there’s probably nothing to worry about. But having this information in your back pocket will help you decide whether or not you should start looking to move on.
This article originally appeared on The Muse and is reprinted with permission.
