What's on Your Mind?

Below, Rebecca Hinds shares five key insights from her new book, Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done. Rebecca is a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work. Her research is consistently featured in publications like Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Wired. What’s the big idea? If you’re tired of watching your organization suffer under the weight of bad, broken, bloated meetings, there are proven ways to replace that slow-motion dumpster fire with calendars that actually move work forward. By treating meetings like a product, you can design the be…

There’s a saying: you can’t control the world, but you can control yourself. This perspective is critical when navigating an uncertain economy. I learned this lesson the hard way, right out of college, when taking my first steps into the full-time workforce. The timing was around the 2008 Recession. Despite being lucky to land a job that I loved, the economic instability pushed me to realize I could not depend on a corporate role for my livelihood long-term. So I started exploring freelancing in 2010, when I went on Craigslist and searched for freelance writing roles. That’s how I landed my first client. In 2011, one year after building my portfolio, I earned an …

Early this year, the glitz and glamour of Hollywood awards season kicked off with the Critics Choice Awards, and soon everything will culminate with the Academy Awards on March 15. With the Oscars just two weeks away—and the rest of awards season nearly behind us—it’s the perfect time to overanalyze what movie will emerge victorious on the big night. All this overthinking could even help you win your office competition (or make some money on Polymarket or Kalshi). Here’s everything you need to know to make an informed Oscar prediction ballot: How Oscar nominations are chosen The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Osca…

When I hosted a client dinner honoring my good friends Jules Kroll and his extraordinary wife Lynn, I did not expect to get one of the best bits of life advice I’d ever heard. Jules and Lynn met in college about 65 years ago and raised four wonderful children together. Toward the end of dinner someone asked, “How do you raise good kids?” Lynn, an amazing force of nature, answered swiftly: “You need to raise the children you have—not the ones you would have liked to have.” I was stunned by the clarity and simplicity of what she said and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. LEARN THE HARD WAY AS A PARENT My father died when I was five. My family situ…

Aspiring entrepreneurs often ask me whether they should quit their full-time jobs and go all in on starting a business. “Keep your job,” I always say. (That’s what I did; I worked in manufacturing for 20 years before I became an entrepreneur.) “Prove your idea for a business works. Prove you can make money. Prove you’re willing to do whatever it takes. If you’re not willing to spend nights and weekends on your startup, instead of running toward the business you feel compelled to start, you’re probably running away from a job you don’t like.” That advice, or at least the reasoning behind it, always falls a little flat. To many people, choosing not to go all in imp…

Since its invention in 1903, the classic Monopoly board game has spawned such a plethora of spin-offs that they nearly span the breadth of all possible human interests. From gardening and beer drinking to the FIFA World Cup, Star Wars, and the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, if you can think of it, there’s a fair chance it’s been turned into a Monopoly game. Now there’s yet another version out there. This one celebrates the life and legacy of artist Keith Haring in a design by WS Game Co., a licensee of Hasbro (Monopoly’s parent company) that specializes in deluxe versions of classic tabletop games. For the 40th anniversary of Haring’s iconic New York City store, Po…

In too many organizations, design is treated as a downstream function or even a cost center. In the best case, it’s a nice-to-have that is applied to refine or beautify after strategy is set, budgets are approved, and decisions are largely already locked. It could be used to communicate strategic choices made earlier in the innovation or creation process. Perhaps it is leveraged in the sales and business development process. Yet the world’s most forward-looking organizations do the opposite: They start with design. To begin, let’s establish the fact that I do not believe design is about aesthetics or brand polish. Design is a strategic lens—a way of seeing syste…

I may have just seen the biggest interface breakthrough in years. Or not. But I think so? Things are moving so fast that it’s hard to tell. Ryo Lu, head of design at the white-hot coding tool Cursor has invited me to their charcoal-hued San Francisco studio. Before anyone says hello, I’m greeted by a pile of footwear in the entry of the no-shoes open office. I suddenly regret my choice to wear my New Balance loafers without socks. The softspoken Lu, donning the creative-approved uniform of flowy wide-legged pants and a button down, weaves me through desks—past half a sports bar’s worth of uptime monitors and a shelf of knicknacks including a New Jeans record …

There’s a new exercise trend making the rounds on the internet: Tai Chi walking, inspired by a centuries-old Chinese martial art that incorporates flowing hand and foot movements with breath and mindfulness. Also know as “meditation in motion” (and dubbed “medication in motion”), Tai Chi is a gentle form of exercise that has a number of reported health benefits, primarily strength, flexibility, and balance, and, to a lesser degree, aerobic conditioning, according to an article from Harvard Medical School. Without using weights or resistance bands, you can gain upper-body strength through arm exercises that use your core and back muscles in a similar way. Another s…

Daylight savings time (DST) is just around the corner. This Sunday, March 8, the clocks will spring forward again, and with the change comes the ongoing conversation about, well—why are we doing this, anyway? According to an AP-NORC poll, only 12% of Americans favor DST, while 47% oppose it and 40% are neutral. In Canada’s British Columbia (BC) province, the government has finally decided to take matters into its own hands, and come this Sunday, daylight saving time (DST) will be permanent year-round. “This decision isn’t just about clocks. It’s about making life easier for families, reducing disruptions for businesses and supporting a stable, thriving economy,” B…

While some girls dream of getting their first designer handbag, Lela Rose—who grew up in Dallas—dreamt of getting her own pair of boots from Lucchese, the legendary luxury bootmaker founded in 1883 in San Antonio. When she got married, her whole family got fitted in Lucchese boots, blending their formal wear with a nod to their Texas roots. Nearly three decades later, Rose is not just wearing the brand—she’s designing for it. Rose’s eponymous clothing label, which she launched in 1998, and Lucchese, the 143-year-old bootmaker, will launch a collaboration on March 10. It’s a partnership that makes sense: two brands with deep Texas roots finally finding each other. …

When considering AI’s impact in cities, many residents and government officials envision a dark future of unbridled surveillance, hollowed-out city halls and unaccountable bots calling the shots based on biased training data. We, on the other hand, embrace a much more optimistic vision. With ambitious local leadership, AI, and especially the coming wave of agentic AI, can offer a profound opportunity not only to make government services more efficient but also to transform how cities fulfill their end of the social contract. As long-time public servants and champions of government innovation at our respective universities, we understand the challenges local governmen…

Get ready to pay more to fly. The war in Iran has sent fuel prices surging. On Friday, spot prices for jet fuel were nearly $4 per gallon, up roughly 80% from a month ago, when they were hovering around $2.25. The price increases are a result of the just-begun war in Iran, which has caused shipping and production stoppages and delays. At the same time, airlines are seeing higher demand than they were a year ago. Data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) shows that during January, the number of airline passengers was up almost 4% year-over-year, while demand for air cargo was up 5.6%. On top of that, the war itself is causing some airlines to ca…

When leaders think about burnout, they often imagine visible distress, absence, emotional overwhelm or resignation. However, burnout does not always look like struggle. Often, it looks like competence. It looks like the person who always delivers. The one who volunteers to pick up the slack. The one answering work emails while watching their son’s nativity play, so they do not let anybody down. The one who says, “It’s fine, I’ll sort it.” The one who absorbs tension in the room so others do not have to. These people are not on a performance plan or raising red flags. They are not the ones asking for help. They are functioning. And those around them may not see…

My friend Jessica Kriegel often warns her clients about the action trap, the urge to do something—anything—when things aren’t going well. Yet while taking action might make us feel better, it’s no guarantee we’ll get results. Many leaders fall into this trap, confusing taking action with making an impact, which can blind us to the underlying problem. The truth is that you can’t change fundamental behaviors without changing fundamental beliefs. It is, after all, beliefs, in the form of norms, that get encoded into a culture through rituals that drive behaviors. So unless you make a serious effort to understand the underlying problem you’re trying to solve, any action y…

Carnival Cruise Line has announced that it is launching a new dining experience on its ships for people who don’t like the long, leisurely evening dinners that cruises are known for. Here’s why Carnival is introducing the new option, and what it means for you if you’re traveling on a Carnival cruise soon. What’s happened? This week, Carnival announced that it is rolling out a new “Express Dining” option on more than a dozen of its ships. The cruise giant says that the new dining experience is designed to offer “a freshly prepared multi-course dinner experience in under an hour for groups of six guests or fewer.” The idea behind Express Dining is that if Carniva…

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has said it would commit $100 million to training the next generation of skilled trades workers who can support a growing demand for new infrastructure. In its announcement, BlackRock explained that its philanthropic Future Builders Initiative will “help address urgent labor needs,” noting that there’s been an increase in “demand for workers in skilled trades such as electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, and ironworkers.” The company said that demand is expected to continue to surge in the coming years, and explained that it would help to meet that demand by supporting future workers during all stages of training thro…

On a hot day, most clothing traps heat. But fabric coated with nanodiamonds—tiny diamond particles—can instead release heat, helping cut energy use for air-conditioning. The diamond nanoparticles, each less than one-thousandth of the width of a human hair, have the same carbon crystal structure as larger diamonds. But since they don’t have to be perfectly formed and can be made from carbon waste such as plastic, they are relatively inexpensive to make. The structure means that they’re especially effective at moving heat. “Because carbon has exceptional thermal properties, it can absorb energy and heat quickly, and it can dispense it quickly through that system,” s…

Despite what Timothée Chalamet may think, the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Richard Wagner’s epic Tristan und Isolde is generating a lot of buzz this season. That’s thanks in no small part to director Yuval Sharon’s bold choices, which include cutting-edge video projections and an immersive set design by Es Devlin. Sharon believes it is necessary to be forward-thinking, especially since the arts are facing a hard economic reality. He also believes it’s what helped drive the production’s impressive ticket sales. “People all saw that there is something new is being attempted here that you’ve just got to see,” he tells Fast Company. “I think that is its own…

Usually, all-nighters are for college students and people worried about losing their jobs if they don’t deliver. And if there’s one thing that Ryan Coogler—writer, director, and producer of Sinners—has demonstrated over his career, it’s that he delivers. Yet on this February afternoon—a day before his blood-soaked Southern Gothic blockbuster would become the most Oscar-nominated project in cinema history—he’s sitting across from me in a knit monochrome tracksuit and thick-rimmed glasses, looking rather sleepy. “My bad, bro,” he tells me after briefly losing his train of thought in the middle of a sentence. “I just pulled an all-nighter trying to get a draft in.” …

A government shutdown, war in the Middle East, and storms: airline passengers in the U.S. are facing quite a number of issues right now. On Sunday, 10,740 flights were delayed and another 3,249 were canceled within, into, or out of the U.S., according to FlightAware. On Monday, those numbers rose to 12,926 and 4,863, respectively. More than half of flights into and out of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport (ATL) were delayed Monday, while over a third of those into or out of New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA) were canceled. A similar pattern followed on Monday, and by 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday there were 1,156 delays with another 215 cancellations. Why is…

Kalshi made headlines last month over allowing people to place wagers on the Iran war. Now the prediction market platform is being sued by the state of Arizona, the first state to file criminal charges against the controversial company. The platform, which allows users to place wagers on happenings, such as sports games or even current events, is being accused of operating an illegal gambling business that violates the state’s laws. In a 20-count document, prosecutors alleged that the platform is mischaracterizing itself to avoid being subject to gambling laws and allowing bets on political races. “Kalshi may brand itself as a ‘prediction market,’ but what it’s a…

Last year, when an air quality agency in Southern California proposed a new rule to encourage consumers to buy heat pumps instead of gas heaters, the agency was flooded with 20,000 comments opposing the idea—many more than usual. “Due to the volume and nature of these submissions, South Coast AQMD had concerns about their authenticity,” says Rainbow Yeung, an agency spokesperson. The agency’s executive director got an email thanking him for his “opposition” to a rule that his own team had drafted. To check the validity of the comments, the agency reached out to a small sample of commenters—172 people—to confirm that they’d actually sent the emails. Almost no one respo…

The more you use artificial intelligence, the less you fear it. At first, it’s easy to be intimidated by what it can do. The deeper you engage with it, the more the tool reveals its limits and, more importantly, the irreplaceable value of human judgment. I’ve worked with AI models and tools for more than a decade. From early machine learning applications in data analytics to the generative systems reshaping workflows today, I’m comfortable with the technology. Yet I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve felt the anxiety. I’ve lost sleep thinking about the pace of change, and what that might mean for the future. Like most parents, I worry about my child’s career pro…