Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

TD Bank is getting ready to implement a number of branch closures across more than a dozen states on the East Coast. Those closures come at a time when the bank is increasingly shifting its focus to online banking. Here’s what you need to know about TD Bank’s branch closures, including a list of closing locations. Why is TD Bank closing some of its branches? TD Bank is closing some of its branches as part of a broader plan to reduce or relocate 10% of its retail footprint. “At Investor Day last month, TD shared plans to deliver a stronger, more scalable U.S. retail presence through significant store enhancements, tech-forward digital banking capabilities, and …

For years, email, texting, and messaging apps have ruled how we communicate. But one timeless human skill—often neglected—is quickly becoming a true difference-maker in the digital age. Active listening. It’s both an art and a discipline, and it’s what separates average leaders from exceptional ones (while making them instantly likable in the process). The truth is, active listening is the foundation of effective communication and the heartbeat of strong relationships. Yet as technology consumes more of our attention, we’re losing touch with this skill—and with it, a powerful competitive advantage in business. When you focus on your people—their growth, th…

As the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history drags on, federal workers are left in financial limbo—and the airline industry is feeling the strain as flight delays and cancellations mount at the nation’s busiest airports. In the midst of this upheaval, American Airlines has announced “small” reductions in management and support roles at its Texas headquarters, raising the stakes at a particularly challenging moment. According to the Associated Press, the move is described as a way to align staffing with current operational needs and boost organizational efficiency. A company statement emphasized that investments will continue in other areas supporti…

For decades now, we have been told that artificial intelligence systems will soon replace human workers. Sixty years ago, for example, Herbert Simon, who received a Nobel Prize in economics and a Turing Award in computing, predicted that “machines will be capable, within 20 years, of doing any work a man can do.” More recently, we have Daniel Susskind’s 2020 award-winning book with the title that says it all: A World Without Work. Are these bleak predictions finally coming true? ChatGPT turns 3 years old this month, and many think large language models will finally deliver on the promise of AI replacing human workers. LLMs can be used to write emails and reports, summ…

Despite its status as an architectural celebrity, the Breuer building, commissioned by the Whitney Museum in the 1960s, has never had an easy relationship with New York City. With a hulking, top-heavy build, brooding dark-gray granite cladding, and nearly windowless facade, it’s as introverted as buildings come, standing confrontationally against its traditional Upper East Side neighbors. Either you love it or hate it. Critic Ada Louise Huxtable described the building as an acquired taste akin to “olives or warm beer” (how appetizing) yet celebrated the “maximum artistry and almost hypnotic skill” of its namesake architect, the Bauhaus-trained modernist Marcel Breuer…

Now that Halloween has come and gone, you might have wrongly assumed that candy season is over. Not if the Hershey Company anything to say about it. In fact, the sweets are just getting started. On its first-annual holiday virtual preview this week, the confectionary company revealed four exciting new products and explained how the company is stocked and ready to make the hectic holiday season even sweeter. Here’s what to know: What new items does Hershey have up its sleeve? Hershey announced four new treats that will hit shelves this holiday season: Hershey’s Kisses Snickerdoodle Cookie Candy Kit Kat Peppermint Stick Reese’s Mini Trees Hers…

“You really have to stand up for yourself.” That’s the message Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran sent loud and clear in a recent interview she gave LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky. The interview is full of powerful lessons from Corcoran’s life, but one story stood head and shoulders above the rest: The time Shark Tank fired her, before she taped a single episode. Corcoran said she received a call from a woman asking her to be on a new show called Shark Tank. Ecstatic, Corcoran agreed. She immediately went on a shopping spree, buying new outfits and autograph-signing materials. “I’m going to Hollywood!” she excitedly told her friends. Then, Corcoran got a dreadf…

At its best, work can be energizing, creative, and meaningful. It can also be emotionally exhausting and stressful. Even in healthy organizations, we all deal with interpersonal tension, stinging feedback, impossible deadlines, and the constant pressure to perform. Add in the rapid pace of change and a steady diet of uncertainty, and it’s no wonder many of us feel perpetually on edge. Stress isn’t just a sign that something’s wrong—it’s a signal that something matters. Emotions like frustration, anxiety, and excitement all contain useful data about what’s important to us, what we value, and what we need. Yet in most workplaces, we’re trained to treat emotions as distr…

Disney has been in the cruise business for 27 years now, but over the past few years, the company has doubled down in an unprecedented manner. On November 20, the entertainment giant will see the inaugural sailing of the Disney Destiny, a 144,000 gross ton ship capable of carrying 4,000 passengers that is the latest in a growing fleet. It’s the fourth addition in the past four years. And five more ships are coming by 2031, which will bring the total to 13. An expansion like that isn’t cheap, but Disney is making a lot of sizable wagers these days. The new ships are part of a $60 billion capital investment between now and 2033, which includes a variety of planned updat…

Recently, New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat moderated a debate on the Interesting Times podcast between Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant, two conservative critics of modern feminism. The podcast received major blowback, starting with (but not ending with) the fact that the original headline of the conversation was “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” Quickly, after the predictable backlash hit, the headline was changed to “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” But the diversion didn’t help the conversation’s case all that much. While the headline was softened to perhaps dress up the discussion as an urgent political issue, mostly, it felt like intelle…

My wife and I visited Singapore last week for the first time in a couple of years, and I was reminded how impressed I am with the country. It illustrates a great strategy point, the subject of this Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights (PTW/PI) piece, which borrows from Billy Preston, whose Billboard No. 1 hit song in October 1974, Nothing From Nothing, contained the immortal line: “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.” This piece is a play on the line entitled Something From Nothing Leaves Something: How Strategy Choice Can Make Something out of Very Little. And as always, you can find all the previous PTW/PI here. Impressive Singapore The minute you land at Changi…

Affordable housing has gone in search of collaborations. Across the country, developers and cities have found a solution in pairing housing with unexpected projects to save money and build more vibrant communities. A wave of libraries, fire stations, and even Costco stores have been built below or adjacent to much-needed, lower-cost apartments. Now a new development in the Southern California city of San Juan Capistrano is sharing a lot with City Hall. Salida del Sol, a $31 million, 49-unit supportive housing development by Jamboree Housing Corp., opened this past July on a 2.2-acre site downtown. At a time when federal support for homeless services is waveri…

One of the many ways Americans practice gratitude in the month of November is by honoring those who have served in the U.S. military. This federal holiday is always observed on November 11—even if that falls on a weekday, as is the case this year. Many federal services take the day off to give workers time to observe Veterans Day. It can get a bit confusing to know how this impacts what’s open and closed. The ongoing federal government shutdown adds another layer of uncertainty. Before we clear all that up, let’s take a look at the history of the day. A brief history of Veterans Day World War I was supposed to be the war that ended all wars. On November 11,…

The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history appears to be nearing an end, but not without leaving a mark on an already struggling economy. About 1.25 million federal workers haven’t been paid since October 1. Thousands of flights have been canceled, a trend that is expected to continue this week even as Congress moves toward reopening the government. Government contract awards have slowed and some food aid recipients have seen their benefits interrupted. Most of the lost economic activity will be recovered when the government reopens, as federal workers will receive back pay. But some canceled flights won’t be retaken, missed restaurant meals won’t be made u…

You may see more smiles next time you walk into a Target. That’s because the big box retailer is hoping to provide an “elevated” customer experience with it’s new “10-4” policy, requiring staffers out on the floor to smile, wave, and welcome customers within 10 feet—and greet those just 4 feet away, USA Today reported. Fast Company has reached out to Target for comment. The policy comes less than three weeks before Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which officially kicks off the busiest and most profitable time of the year. Many stores, including Target, have already begun to roll out their Black Friday sales this year. Target’s early 2025 Black Frida…

Just when you thought you’d seen it all on Capitol Hill, reopening the federal government appears to have hit yet another roadblock: Hemp. A day after Democratic Senators reached a deal with their Republican counterparts in the Senate to end the longest government shutdown in history, a vote on the agreement was held up by a provision in the bill that would ban the unregulated sale of hemp-based or derived products. The provision relates to funding for the Department of Agriculture, and was flagged by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, home to a burgeoning hemp industry. Paul introduced an amendment to strip the language on Monday, but the amendment failed. Subsequent…

You might not have noticed if you’re the type to upgrade your smartphone frequently, but the main cameras that they use have been getting wider and wider in their field of view throughout the years. While phones are now indisputably the most popular cameras in the world, most manufacturers have settled on a type of lens that used to be considered quite exotic and challenging to use in the camera space. The main camera on the iPhone 17 Pro, for example, has the same field of view as a 24mm lens on a full-frame camera, which is the general photographic standard for measuring focal lengths. This is a perspective that few companies would have considered using on a point-a…

Just a week after self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani made history as New York City’s first Muslim to be elected mayor, fellow Democrat Jack Schlossberg—President John F. Kennedy’s (JFK’s) grandson—announced he is also running for office in New York City, in the Empire State’s 12th Congressional district. If elected, he would represent New York in the U.S. House of Representatives. Both men are among a wave of young, progressive, charismatic candidates calling for change, amid a backlash to not only Donald The President’s second-term agenda, but also a historically unpopular Democratic Party that many feel are doing too little, too late. That list of pr…

OpenAI watchers have spotted something curious over the last week. References to GPT-5.1 keep showing up in OpenAI’s codebase, and a “cloaked” model codenamed Polaris Alpha and widely believed to have come from OpenAI randomly appeared in OpenRouter, a platform that AI nerds use to test new systems. Nothing is official yet. But all of this suggests that OpenAI is quietly preparing to release a new version of their GPT-5 model. Industry sources point to a potential release date as early as November 24. If GPT-5.1 is for real, what new capabilities will the model have? As a former OpenAI Beta tester—and someone who burns through millions of GPT-5 token…

From the outside looking in, the life of a content creator is enviable. Shopping, jet-setting, star-studded events, all documented for their audience of thousands. But new research tells a different story. A study by Creators 4 Mental Health, conducted in partnership with Lupiani Insights & Strategies and sponsored by Opus, BeReal, Social Currant, Statusphere, and the nonprofit AAKOMA Project, spoke to more than 500 full- and part-time creators across North America about their work, mental health, and well-being. One in ten creators reported having suicidal thoughts tied to their work. That rate is nearly double the national average of 5.5%, according to the…

Flight reductions at 40 major U.S. airports will remain at 6% instead of rising to 10% by the end of the week because more air traffic controllers are coming to work, officials said Wednesday. The announcement was made as Congress took steps to end the longest government shutdown in history. Not long after, President Donald The President signed a government funding bill to end the closure. The flight cuts were implemented last week as more air traffic controllers were calling out of work, citing stress and the need to take on second jobs — leaving more control towers and facilities short-staffed. Air traffic controllers missed two paychecks during the impasse. The Depa…

As 2026 takes shape, the most successful leaders will adopt new tools with responsibility and vision while keeping the human side of shopping alive. These 10 tech trends in retail tech and AI are evolving, transforming how brands design, distribute, and deliver experiences. These are not distant forecasts, but happening in real time across retailers, marketplaces, and consumer ecosystems. 1. Predictive intent engines Reactive personalization is being replaced by predictive intent engines. Instead of waiting for a customer to browse, AI anticipates the customer’s next wants based on contextual data like weather, life events, and even local cultural moments. For …

Last June, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky took on a second job. Microsoft, the social network for business professionals’ owner since 2016, expanded his responsibilities to include Microsoft 365—the suite still better known by its former name, Microsoft Office—and its Copilot AI assistant. The role charges him with making AI useful in a productivity context, a goal that’s still very much a work in progress. But Roslansky also remains in charge of LinkedIn, a place whose entire reason for being springs from the network effect of its billion-plus members. Their unique connections, learnings, and willingness to help other people can’t be fed into an LLM and reprocessed into the…

After years of living on the street and crashing on friends’ couches, Quantavia Smith was given the keys to a studio apartment in Los Angeles that came with an important perk—easy access to public transit. The 38-year-old feels like she went from a life where “no one cares” to one where she has a safe place to begin rebuilding her life. And the metro station the apartment complex was literally built upon is a lifeline as she searches for work without a car. “It is more a sense of relief, a sense of independence,” said Smith, who moved in July. She receives some government assistance and pays 30% of her income for rent — just $19 a month for an efficiency with a fu…