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Loyalty cards provide several key benefits that can improve your shopping experience. They offer rewards that can lead to increased savings, exclusive discounts, and personalized offers based on your preferences. These programs not just cultivate a stronger connection between you and the brand but also create opportunities for community engagement. Comprehending these advantages can help you make informed choices about which loyalty programs to join and how to maximize their value. What other benefits might you discover? Key Takeaways Loyalty cards enhance the shopping experience by providing tangible rewards, such as discounts and redeemable points, encouraging customer engagement. Members gain access to exclusive offers and discounts, leading to potential savings of up to 25% annually during redemption periods. Personalized benefits, tailored to individual shopping habits, increase customer satisfaction and brand loyalty through relevant promotions and discounts. Emotional connections fostered by loyalty programs encourage repeat purchases and positive word-of-mouth, strengthening brand loyalty. Data-driven insights from loyalty programs improve business strategies, enhancing customer experiences and mutually benefiting both customers and businesses. Enhanced Shopping Experience Through Rewards Loyalty cards improve your shopping experience by providing tangible rewards that can make each visit more valuable. One of the main loyalty card benefits is the ability to earn discounts, exclusive deals, and points redeemable for future purchases, which can incentivize you to return more frequently. You may find that customers participating in loyalty programs increase their spending by an average of 67%, driven by the rewards they can accumulate. Programs like Starbucks Rewards exemplify this, allowing you to collect points with every transaction, leading to free items and a sense of satisfaction. Additionally, many loyalty programs personalize rewards based on your shopping habits, ensuring you receive benefits that align with your interests. Overall, the advantages of loyalty cards for customers extend beyond mere savings; they encourage greater engagement, making your shopping experience more rewarding and enjoyable. Access to Exclusive Offers and Discounts With a loyalty card, you gain access to exclusive offers and discounts that can greatly reduce your shopping costs. Many programs reward you with early access to sales, allowing you to snag deals before they’re available to everyone else. Furthermore, you can benefit from customized promotions based on your shopping habits, making your loyalty card experience even more valuable. Special Promotions and Deals Accessing special promotions and deals can greatly improve your shopping experience, especially when you’re a part of a loyalty program. Many retailers tailor discounts based on your individual purchasing behavior, making these promotions more relevant and appealing. In fact, 66% of shoppers say that earning and using rewards greatly influences their buying decisions. During redemption periods, loyalty cardholders often experience an average increase of 25% in annual spending, as they’re incentivized to take advantage of exclusive offers. These special promotions not just enhance your shopping experience but additionally contribute to a brand’s revenue growth, with companies seeing up to 2.5 times faster growth when they implement effective loyalty programs. Enjoying these benefits can lead to smarter shopping choices. Early Access Opportunities When you join a loyalty program, you often gain early access to exclusive offers and discounts that can improve your shopping experience. This privilege allows you to shop sales before the general public, securing limited-time deals that others miss. Here are some key benefits of early access: Shop limited-time deals before anyone else. Receive special promotions customized to your spending level. Enjoy tiered rewards that increase with higher purchases. Take advantage of exclusive events just for loyalty members. Experience a sense of urgency that boosts your shopping satisfaction. These early access opportunities not just make your shopping more rewarding but also encourage repeat visits, eventually increasing your lifetime value as a customer. Personalized Benefits Tailored to Customer Preferences Loyalty programs are increasingly designed to offer personalized benefits that align with your shopping habits and preferences, enhancing your overall experience. These programs often provide customized rewards, such as discounts on items you buy frequently. Studies show that consumers prefer personalized experiences, and individualized rewards can greatly boost your engagement and satisfaction. For example, wineries that offer discounts on specific products, like wineries giving deals on your favorite wine types, see higher repeat purchase rates. The data collected through these loyalty programs helps businesses understand customer behavior better, enabling them to create targeted offers that resonate with different segments. This strategy not only improves marketing effectiveness but also guarantees that you receive relevant benefits. In the end, personalized rewards make you feel valued, as they reflect your unique preferences and shopping patterns, enhancing your overall loyalty to the brand and encouraging you to return for future purchases. Strengthened Brand Loyalty and Emotional Connection Building a strong emotional connection with a brand can greatly improve customer loyalty, as studies indicate that 75% of consumers are willing to switch brands for better loyalty programs. When loyalty programs reward you for your commitment, you’re likely to feel a deeper connection, which enriches your overall shopping experience. This emotional bond can lead to repeat purchases and even make you a brand advocate. Here are some key benefits of strengthened brand loyalty through loyalty cards: Increased likelihood of repeat purchases A 67% increase in spending compared to new buyers Positive word-of-mouth marketing from satisfied loyalty members Reduced chances of exploring alternative brands Elevated engagement with the brand’s offerings Opportunities for Social Engagement and Community Building As customers engage with brands through loyalty programs, they often discover unique opportunities for social interaction and community building. Many loyalty programs host exclusive events or create forums for members, allowing you to connect with others who share your interests in the brand. This sense of belonging can improve your overall experience. Moreover, members tend to interact more with brands on social media, leading to meaningful conversations and connections. Loyalty programs also frequently offer referral bonuses, encouraging you to share your positive experiences with friends and family, which helps expand the brand’s community through word-of-mouth. Active participation in these loyalty communities can increase your satisfaction as you receive personalized communication and recognition. In addition, brands that effectively leverage these programs often see a rise in customer advocacy, with loyal members more likely to promote the brand and engage in community-driven initiatives. Increased Savings and Financial Incentives Engaging with loyalty programs not just encourages community interaction but furthermore opens the door to increased savings and financial incentives. By participating, you can reveal a range of benefits that improve your shopping experience and budget. Here are some key advantages: Exclusive discounts and promotions that lead to significant savings on future purchases. Potential savings of up to 25% annually through reward redemption compared to non-members. Personalized discounts based on your purchasing history, aligning savings with your preferences. Access to special sales events and flash deals unavailable to the general public. Increased purchasing capability, as loyalty members tend to spend 67% more than new customers. These features not only make shopping more rewarding but likewise provide you with valuable financial incentives to maximize your spending wisely. Valuable Insights and Data Utilization for Better Services Loyalty programs play a crucial role in helping businesses collect valuable insights about their customers, enabling them to customize services and offerings more effectively. By analyzing data from loyalty card usage, companies can understand shopping frequency, spending habits, and product preferences, allowing for targeted promotions that meet individual needs. Here’s a quick overview of how these insights can be utilized: Insight Type Customer Benefit Business Benefit Shopping Frequency Personalized rewards Improved inventory management Spending Habits Relevant promotions Improved marketing strategies Product Preferences Customized services Informed product development Utilizing these insights leads to improved customer experiences and increased engagement. Feedback from loyalty programs likewise guides service improvements, ensuring that offerings align with customer expectations and desires, ultimately benefiting both you and the business. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the Benefits of a Loyalty Card? A loyalty card offers several benefits that improve your shopping experience. You earn points on every purchase, which can lead to discounts or rewards, encouraging you to shop more frequently. Many programs provide exclusive offers, ensuring you save money compared to non-members. Furthermore, tiered rewards allow you to access better benefits as you spend more, creating a sense of achievement and boosting your overall satisfaction with the brand you choose. What Is an Advantage of Customer Loyalty? An advantage of customer loyalty lies in the increased spending that loyal customers typically exhibit. When you consistently shop at the same store, you often develop preferences and trust, which can lead you to spend more than occasional shoppers. This loyalty not merely benefits you through better deals and rewards but additionally provides businesses with a stable revenue base. As a result, both you and the business can thrive through this mutual relationship. What Are the 4 C’s of Customer Loyalty? The 4 C’s of customer loyalty are Customer Value, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, and Customer Advocacy. Customer Value focuses on providing rewards that meet your needs, enhancing your spending. Customer Engagement involves creating meaningful interactions through personalized offers, encouraging repeat purchases. Customer Experience guarantees your shopping path is seamless and enjoyable, boosting satisfaction. Finally, Customer Advocacy motivates you to share positive experiences, influencing others and contributing to the brand’s growth through word-of-mouth. What Are the 3 R’s of Customer Loyalty? The three R’s of customer loyalty are Retention, Referral, and Revenue. Retention focuses on keeping existing customers engaged and satisfied, which is essential for business stability. Referral encourages satisfied customers to recommend your brand to others, broadening your customer base. Revenue emphasizes maximizing the financial contributions from loyal customers, who typically spend considerably more over time. Conclusion To conclude, loyalty cards offer significant advantages that improve your shopping experience. By providing rewards, exclusive discounts, and personalized benefits, these programs can influence your purchasing decisions and increase your savings. They likewise help build a stronger connection with brands, nurturing loyalty and advocacy. Furthermore, the data gathered from your preferences allows businesses to refine their services, ensuring that their offerings align with your expectations. Overall, loyalty cards can lead to a more satisfying and rewarding shopping experience. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "7 Key Advantages of Loyalty Cards for Customers" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Loyalty cards provide several key benefits that can improve your shopping experience. They offer rewards that can lead to increased savings, exclusive discounts, and personalized offers based on your preferences. These programs not just cultivate a stronger connection between you and the brand but also create opportunities for community engagement. Comprehending these advantages can help you make informed choices about which loyalty programs to join and how to maximize their value. What other benefits might you discover? Key Takeaways Loyalty cards enhance the shopping experience by providing tangible rewards, such as discounts and redeemable points, encouraging customer engagement. Members gain access to exclusive offers and discounts, leading to potential savings of up to 25% annually during redemption periods. Personalized benefits, tailored to individual shopping habits, increase customer satisfaction and brand loyalty through relevant promotions and discounts. Emotional connections fostered by loyalty programs encourage repeat purchases and positive word-of-mouth, strengthening brand loyalty. Data-driven insights from loyalty programs improve business strategies, enhancing customer experiences and mutually benefiting both customers and businesses. Enhanced Shopping Experience Through Rewards Loyalty cards improve your shopping experience by providing tangible rewards that can make each visit more valuable. One of the main loyalty card benefits is the ability to earn discounts, exclusive deals, and points redeemable for future purchases, which can incentivize you to return more frequently. You may find that customers participating in loyalty programs increase their spending by an average of 67%, driven by the rewards they can accumulate. Programs like Starbucks Rewards exemplify this, allowing you to collect points with every transaction, leading to free items and a sense of satisfaction. Additionally, many loyalty programs personalize rewards based on your shopping habits, ensuring you receive benefits that align with your interests. Overall, the advantages of loyalty cards for customers extend beyond mere savings; they encourage greater engagement, making your shopping experience more rewarding and enjoyable. Access to Exclusive Offers and Discounts With a loyalty card, you gain access to exclusive offers and discounts that can greatly reduce your shopping costs. Many programs reward you with early access to sales, allowing you to snag deals before they’re available to everyone else. Furthermore, you can benefit from customized promotions based on your shopping habits, making your loyalty card experience even more valuable. Special Promotions and Deals Accessing special promotions and deals can greatly improve your shopping experience, especially when you’re a part of a loyalty program. Many retailers tailor discounts based on your individual purchasing behavior, making these promotions more relevant and appealing. In fact, 66% of shoppers say that earning and using rewards greatly influences their buying decisions. During redemption periods, loyalty cardholders often experience an average increase of 25% in annual spending, as they’re incentivized to take advantage of exclusive offers. These special promotions not just enhance your shopping experience but additionally contribute to a brand’s revenue growth, with companies seeing up to 2.5 times faster growth when they implement effective loyalty programs. Enjoying these benefits can lead to smarter shopping choices. Early Access Opportunities When you join a loyalty program, you often gain early access to exclusive offers and discounts that can improve your shopping experience. This privilege allows you to shop sales before the general public, securing limited-time deals that others miss. Here are some key benefits of early access: Shop limited-time deals before anyone else. Receive special promotions customized to your spending level. Enjoy tiered rewards that increase with higher purchases. Take advantage of exclusive events just for loyalty members. Experience a sense of urgency that boosts your shopping satisfaction. These early access opportunities not just make your shopping more rewarding but also encourage repeat visits, eventually increasing your lifetime value as a customer. Personalized Benefits Tailored to Customer Preferences Loyalty programs are increasingly designed to offer personalized benefits that align with your shopping habits and preferences, enhancing your overall experience. These programs often provide customized rewards, such as discounts on items you buy frequently. Studies show that consumers prefer personalized experiences, and individualized rewards can greatly boost your engagement and satisfaction. For example, wineries that offer discounts on specific products, like wineries giving deals on your favorite wine types, see higher repeat purchase rates. The data collected through these loyalty programs helps businesses understand customer behavior better, enabling them to create targeted offers that resonate with different segments. This strategy not only improves marketing effectiveness but also guarantees that you receive relevant benefits. In the end, personalized rewards make you feel valued, as they reflect your unique preferences and shopping patterns, enhancing your overall loyalty to the brand and encouraging you to return for future purchases. Strengthened Brand Loyalty and Emotional Connection Building a strong emotional connection with a brand can greatly improve customer loyalty, as studies indicate that 75% of consumers are willing to switch brands for better loyalty programs. When loyalty programs reward you for your commitment, you’re likely to feel a deeper connection, which enriches your overall shopping experience. This emotional bond can lead to repeat purchases and even make you a brand advocate. Here are some key benefits of strengthened brand loyalty through loyalty cards: Increased likelihood of repeat purchases A 67% increase in spending compared to new buyers Positive word-of-mouth marketing from satisfied loyalty members Reduced chances of exploring alternative brands Elevated engagement with the brand’s offerings Opportunities for Social Engagement and Community Building As customers engage with brands through loyalty programs, they often discover unique opportunities for social interaction and community building. Many loyalty programs host exclusive events or create forums for members, allowing you to connect with others who share your interests in the brand. This sense of belonging can improve your overall experience. Moreover, members tend to interact more with brands on social media, leading to meaningful conversations and connections. Loyalty programs also frequently offer referral bonuses, encouraging you to share your positive experiences with friends and family, which helps expand the brand’s community through word-of-mouth. Active participation in these loyalty communities can increase your satisfaction as you receive personalized communication and recognition. In addition, brands that effectively leverage these programs often see a rise in customer advocacy, with loyal members more likely to promote the brand and engage in community-driven initiatives. Increased Savings and Financial Incentives Engaging with loyalty programs not just encourages community interaction but furthermore opens the door to increased savings and financial incentives. By participating, you can reveal a range of benefits that improve your shopping experience and budget. Here are some key advantages: Exclusive discounts and promotions that lead to significant savings on future purchases. Potential savings of up to 25% annually through reward redemption compared to non-members. Personalized discounts based on your purchasing history, aligning savings with your preferences. Access to special sales events and flash deals unavailable to the general public. Increased purchasing capability, as loyalty members tend to spend 67% more than new customers. These features not only make shopping more rewarding but likewise provide you with valuable financial incentives to maximize your spending wisely. Valuable Insights and Data Utilization for Better Services Loyalty programs play a crucial role in helping businesses collect valuable insights about their customers, enabling them to customize services and offerings more effectively. By analyzing data from loyalty card usage, companies can understand shopping frequency, spending habits, and product preferences, allowing for targeted promotions that meet individual needs. Here’s a quick overview of how these insights can be utilized: Insight Type Customer Benefit Business Benefit Shopping Frequency Personalized rewards Improved inventory management Spending Habits Relevant promotions Improved marketing strategies Product Preferences Customized services Informed product development Utilizing these insights leads to improved customer experiences and increased engagement. Feedback from loyalty programs likewise guides service improvements, ensuring that offerings align with customer expectations and desires, ultimately benefiting both you and the business. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the Benefits of a Loyalty Card? A loyalty card offers several benefits that improve your shopping experience. You earn points on every purchase, which can lead to discounts or rewards, encouraging you to shop more frequently. Many programs provide exclusive offers, ensuring you save money compared to non-members. Furthermore, tiered rewards allow you to access better benefits as you spend more, creating a sense of achievement and boosting your overall satisfaction with the brand you choose. What Is an Advantage of Customer Loyalty? An advantage of customer loyalty lies in the increased spending that loyal customers typically exhibit. When you consistently shop at the same store, you often develop preferences and trust, which can lead you to spend more than occasional shoppers. This loyalty not merely benefits you through better deals and rewards but additionally provides businesses with a stable revenue base. As a result, both you and the business can thrive through this mutual relationship. What Are the 4 C’s of Customer Loyalty? The 4 C’s of customer loyalty are Customer Value, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, and Customer Advocacy. Customer Value focuses on providing rewards that meet your needs, enhancing your spending. Customer Engagement involves creating meaningful interactions through personalized offers, encouraging repeat purchases. Customer Experience guarantees your shopping path is seamless and enjoyable, boosting satisfaction. Finally, Customer Advocacy motivates you to share positive experiences, influencing others and contributing to the brand’s growth through word-of-mouth. What Are the 3 R’s of Customer Loyalty? The three R’s of customer loyalty are Retention, Referral, and Revenue. Retention focuses on keeping existing customers engaged and satisfied, which is essential for business stability. Referral encourages satisfied customers to recommend your brand to others, broadening your customer base. Revenue emphasizes maximizing the financial contributions from loyal customers, who typically spend considerably more over time. Conclusion To conclude, loyalty cards offer significant advantages that improve your shopping experience. By providing rewards, exclusive discounts, and personalized benefits, these programs can influence your purchasing decisions and increase your savings. They likewise help build a stronger connection with brands, nurturing loyalty and advocacy. Furthermore, the data gathered from your preferences allows businesses to refine their services, ensuring that their offerings align with your expectations. Overall, loyalty cards can lead to a more satisfying and rewarding shopping experience. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "7 Key Advantages of Loyalty Cards for Customers" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

This week, the young people on TikTok have uncovered a new way to prepare breakfast and an evocative way to describe the feeling that something bad is coming. That's a pretty good week, but they've also taken to LARPing as artificial intelligence, and finding something interesting about Staples stores. Here's what all of that means. What are "frambled eggs"?I can't believe I never thought of this. "Frambled" is a portmanteau of "fried" and "scrambled." It's eggs prepared partly scrambled, but with the yolk intact. The culinary breakthrough seems to have been invented by TikToker @bussyrelate in this video: Although their commenters are calling it a "sunny scramble," as if it's an known egg preparation style. New or not, everyone else on TikTok is giving it a shot. Judging from the videos I've been watching, there are two schools of frambled eggs. One is scrambled egg whites with intact yolk. The other is one egg fully scrambled mixed carefully in the pan with an egg where the yolk isn't touched. The preferred method seems to be to scramble 'em right in the pan, but you could separate the whites and yolks, scrambled the whites, and then put them in the frying pan. If you want to be fancy. What does "The saxophones are getting louder" mean?This meme-speak phrase isn't used that widely among young people, but it's such an evocative piece of slang, you should know it anyway. "The saxophones are getting louder" describes a feeling of impending disaster. It's a reference to the scene in 1991's Boyz n the Hood where the sound of a screeching saxophones precedes the death of Ricky. The meme seems to have started with this video: but has since expanded to include any situation in which doom is imminent. The saxophones start getting louder when you remember there's pistachios in the dessert right after your allergic brother gives it a taste: when the nurses at the hospital start moving quickly: when there are gunshots at the pool party: and maybe whenever you start really thinking about what's happening: If you like ominous videos as much as I do, check out the collection connected to the sound clip. "Your AI Slop Bores Me" lets people replace AII love a free web game, especially one that comments on AI. Your AI Slop Bores Me cuts the artificial out of artificial intelligence and lets you ask questions or request drawings from an anonymous human instead. Or you can become the AI and answer queries. The answers highlight the difference between fake intelligence and people. You don't get responses like this from ChatGPT: Credit: Stephen Johnson or like this: Credit: Stephen Johnson Viral video of the week: Staples BaddieIf you're like me, you think ubiquitous office supply store Staples is boring, if you think of Staples at all. But we are so wrong. To a growing number of young people, Staples is more than a place to get printer paper when you forget to order it from Amazon. Staples is cool, and it's thanks to one person: TikTok user and Staples employee Kaeden Rowland. Dubbed "Staples Baddie," Rowland's TikTok channel is blowing up, with millions of views on videos describing the things you can do at your local Staples. Like make a custom mug: Or a personalized signature stamp: You can make stickers, too. Or have a mailing sent out to masses of people. There's a lot. While Staples Baddie's popularity is no doubt making Staples Corporate happy, another supposed Staples wage slave is not happy at all. "I'm a Staples worker and Staples Baddie is ruining my life," says Aran in a TikTok response video. "Staples was not a busy store. We would maybe have three people in the store at any given time. Now that the Staples Baddie has gone viral, we get hundreds of people every day." "I was really loving how my job was just kind of sitting around," Aran concludes. On a deeper level, this could all be a corporate advertising. According to CNN's reporting, Staples Baddie is legitimately a Staples employee, but I saw the story of Aran on People.com, and that publication seemed unaware that Aran doesn't actually work at Staples: In other videos they've posted, Aran has claimed to work at Spirit Halloween, AMC, and has said they are a med student. Even if he doesn't work there, according to many Staples employees online, Aran's point is legit, and Staples Baddie is making things harder for everyone else at the chain store. "If they're just a regular person and not a marketing ploy, higher up employee or being paid extra, it makes me mad that customers see a fun glimpse instead of what we deal with, how we're treated and how little we get paid," posts Reddit's u/Dear_Ad63. View the full article

When crafting customer satisfaction surveys, it’s vital to include specific questions that yield actionable feedback. Start by gauging overall satisfaction, then assess customer support effectiveness, product quality, pricing perceptions, and finally, encourage open-ended responses for deeper insights. Each of these elements plays a notable role in comprehending customer needs. By focusing on these five fundamental questions, you can greatly improve the quality of feedback you receive, leading to more informed business decisions. What might those questions look like? Key Takeaways Rate your overall satisfaction with our products/services on a scale of 1 to 5. How effectively did our customer service address your issue during your recent interaction? What specific features of the product do you appreciate the most? Do you feel our pricing reflects good value for the quality offered? Please share any additional comments or suggestions to improve your experience. General Satisfaction Questions How do general satisfaction questions help businesses comprehend their customers? These questions, often part of customer satisfaction surveys, gauge your overall perception of a company’s products or services. They typically feature a rating scale, allowing you to express your satisfaction level quantitatively. This data can then be analyzed for trends over time, helping businesses identify strengths and areas needing improvement. User satisfaction survey questions can range from simple inquiries like “How satisfied are you with our service?” to more detailed prompts about specific aspects of your experience. Including open-ended options alongside rating scales helps gather deeper qualitative insights into customer sentiments. Regularly measuring general satisfaction is essential, as it enables businesses to track changes in customer sentiment, leading to timely adjustments that improve your overall experience and loyalty. By comprehending your feedback, companies can better meet your needs and expectations. Customer Support Experience Questions Customer support experience questions play a crucial role in evaluating how effectively service representatives meet your needs. These questions help gauge the responsiveness and effectiveness of support interactions, providing valuable insights into your overall satisfaction. Consider including the following key questions in your surveys: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the responsiveness of our customer service? Were your issues resolved satisfactorily during your interaction with support? How clear was the communication from our customer service representatives? How easy was it for you to access support resources, such as FAQs or self-service options? Product Quality Assessment Questions What factors contribute to a product’s perceived quality? Product quality assessment questions are crucial for comprehending how well your product meets customer expectations. You can gauge this through metrics like durability, performance, and reliability. A common question to ask is, “How satisfied are you with the quality of our product?” using a scale from 1 to 5 to quantify feedback. Furthermore, it’s valuable to identify specific features customers appreciate, such as ease of use or effectiveness, which can guide your improvement efforts. Incorporating open-ended questions, like “What improvements would you suggest for our product?” allows for detailed responses and deeper insights into customer experiences. Analyzing the answers to these questions over time can reveal trends, helping you track improvements or declines in customer satisfaction as your product evolves. By focusing on these areas, you can refine your product’s quality and meet customer needs more effectively. Pricing and Value Perception Questions Pricing and value perception questions play a critical role in comprehending how customers view the relationship between a product’s cost and its benefits. These questions help you gauge whether customers feel that what they pay aligns with the quality they receive, which influences their overall satisfaction and loyalty. Consider including questions such as: How do you perceive the pricing of our product compared to competitors? Do you believe our product offers good value for money? What factors influence your perception of our pricing? How likely are you to recommend us based on our pricing structure? Open-Ended Feedback Questions Gathering insights through open-ended feedback questions can considerably improve your grasp of customer experiences and perceptions. These questions allow customers to express their thoughts and feelings in their own words, providing richer qualitative data often missed by structured questions. By asking open-ended questions, you can uncover unique insights, like unexpected pain points or positive experiences, which help you comprehend customer sentiment beyond just numbers. These questions encourage detailed responses, highlighting specific areas for improvement or innovation that quantitative data might overlook. Furthermore, when customers see that their opinions are valued, it nurtures engagement and loyalty for your brand. In the meantime, analyzing open-ended responses can be more complex; employing text analysis tools can assist in identifying common themes and sentiments across the feedback you receive. In the end, integrating open-ended questions into your surveys can lead to a deeper awareness of your customers and their needs. Frequently Asked Questions What Questions Should I Ask in a Customer Satisfaction Survey? In a customer satisfaction survey, you should ask questions that assess overall satisfaction, like “How satisfied are you with our product/service?” Incorporate a rating scale for clarity. Include open-ended questions, such as “What improvements would you like to see?” to gather specific feedback. Measuring customer loyalty is essential, so ask, “How likely are you to recommend us?” Additionally, inquire about ease of use: “How easy was it to navigate our website/app?” What Are the 3 C’s of Customer Satisfaction? The 3 C’s of customer satisfaction are Clarity, Consistency, and Care. Clarity guarantees you’re communicating effectively about your products and services, helping customers know exactly what to expect. Consistency means delivering the same quality and service every time, which builds trust. Care involves genuinely valuing customer feedback and addressing their needs. Together, these principles create a strong foundation for positive experiences, eventually leading to increased loyalty and retention among your customer base. What Are the Best Survey Questions for Feedback? To gather meaningful feedback, you should include specific questions in your survey. Start with a satisfaction scale, like “How satisfied are you with our product/service?” Next, ask about loyalty with, “How likely are you to recommend us?” Open-ended questions such as, “What could we improve?” are essential for detailed insights. Furthermore, consider the ease of interaction by asking, “How easy was it to resolve your issue?” Finally, demographic questions help segment responses effectively. What Is the 5 Point Scale for Customer Satisfaction Survey? The 5-point scale for customer satisfaction surveys ranges from 1, indicating very dissatisfied, to 5, representing very satisfied. This scale simplifies data collection and analysis, allowing you to easily calculate average satisfaction scores. It includes a neutral option (3), which helps reduce response bias and encourages honest feedback. Conclusion Incorporating these five crucial questions into your customer satisfaction surveys can greatly improve the feedback you receive. By addressing overall satisfaction, customer support experiences, product quality, pricing perceptions, and encouraging open-ended responses, you can gain valuable insights into customer preferences and needs. This approach not merely helps identify areas for improvement but additionally nurtures a stronger connection with your customers, ultimately leading to better service and increased loyalty. Prioritize these questions to cultivate a more effective feedback loop. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "5 Essential Questions for Customer Satisfaction Surveys to Boost Feedback" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

When crafting customer satisfaction surveys, it’s vital to include specific questions that yield actionable feedback. Start by gauging overall satisfaction, then assess customer support effectiveness, product quality, pricing perceptions, and finally, encourage open-ended responses for deeper insights. Each of these elements plays a notable role in comprehending customer needs. By focusing on these five fundamental questions, you can greatly improve the quality of feedback you receive, leading to more informed business decisions. What might those questions look like? Key Takeaways Rate your overall satisfaction with our products/services on a scale of 1 to 5. How effectively did our customer service address your issue during your recent interaction? What specific features of the product do you appreciate the most? Do you feel our pricing reflects good value for the quality offered? Please share any additional comments or suggestions to improve your experience. General Satisfaction Questions How do general satisfaction questions help businesses comprehend their customers? These questions, often part of customer satisfaction surveys, gauge your overall perception of a company’s products or services. They typically feature a rating scale, allowing you to express your satisfaction level quantitatively. This data can then be analyzed for trends over time, helping businesses identify strengths and areas needing improvement. User satisfaction survey questions can range from simple inquiries like “How satisfied are you with our service?” to more detailed prompts about specific aspects of your experience. Including open-ended options alongside rating scales helps gather deeper qualitative insights into customer sentiments. Regularly measuring general satisfaction is essential, as it enables businesses to track changes in customer sentiment, leading to timely adjustments that improve your overall experience and loyalty. By comprehending your feedback, companies can better meet your needs and expectations. Customer Support Experience Questions Customer support experience questions play a crucial role in evaluating how effectively service representatives meet your needs. These questions help gauge the responsiveness and effectiveness of support interactions, providing valuable insights into your overall satisfaction. Consider including the following key questions in your surveys: On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate the responsiveness of our customer service? Were your issues resolved satisfactorily during your interaction with support? How clear was the communication from our customer service representatives? How easy was it for you to access support resources, such as FAQs or self-service options? Product Quality Assessment Questions What factors contribute to a product’s perceived quality? Product quality assessment questions are crucial for comprehending how well your product meets customer expectations. You can gauge this through metrics like durability, performance, and reliability. A common question to ask is, “How satisfied are you with the quality of our product?” using a scale from 1 to 5 to quantify feedback. Furthermore, it’s valuable to identify specific features customers appreciate, such as ease of use or effectiveness, which can guide your improvement efforts. Incorporating open-ended questions, like “What improvements would you suggest for our product?” allows for detailed responses and deeper insights into customer experiences. Analyzing the answers to these questions over time can reveal trends, helping you track improvements or declines in customer satisfaction as your product evolves. By focusing on these areas, you can refine your product’s quality and meet customer needs more effectively. Pricing and Value Perception Questions Pricing and value perception questions play a critical role in comprehending how customers view the relationship between a product’s cost and its benefits. These questions help you gauge whether customers feel that what they pay aligns with the quality they receive, which influences their overall satisfaction and loyalty. Consider including questions such as: How do you perceive the pricing of our product compared to competitors? Do you believe our product offers good value for money? What factors influence your perception of our pricing? How likely are you to recommend us based on our pricing structure? Open-Ended Feedback Questions Gathering insights through open-ended feedback questions can considerably improve your grasp of customer experiences and perceptions. These questions allow customers to express their thoughts and feelings in their own words, providing richer qualitative data often missed by structured questions. By asking open-ended questions, you can uncover unique insights, like unexpected pain points or positive experiences, which help you comprehend customer sentiment beyond just numbers. These questions encourage detailed responses, highlighting specific areas for improvement or innovation that quantitative data might overlook. Furthermore, when customers see that their opinions are valued, it nurtures engagement and loyalty for your brand. In the meantime, analyzing open-ended responses can be more complex; employing text analysis tools can assist in identifying common themes and sentiments across the feedback you receive. In the end, integrating open-ended questions into your surveys can lead to a deeper awareness of your customers and their needs. Frequently Asked Questions What Questions Should I Ask in a Customer Satisfaction Survey? In a customer satisfaction survey, you should ask questions that assess overall satisfaction, like “How satisfied are you with our product/service?” Incorporate a rating scale for clarity. Include open-ended questions, such as “What improvements would you like to see?” to gather specific feedback. Measuring customer loyalty is essential, so ask, “How likely are you to recommend us?” Additionally, inquire about ease of use: “How easy was it to navigate our website/app?” What Are the 3 C’s of Customer Satisfaction? The 3 C’s of customer satisfaction are Clarity, Consistency, and Care. Clarity guarantees you’re communicating effectively about your products and services, helping customers know exactly what to expect. Consistency means delivering the same quality and service every time, which builds trust. Care involves genuinely valuing customer feedback and addressing their needs. Together, these principles create a strong foundation for positive experiences, eventually leading to increased loyalty and retention among your customer base. What Are the Best Survey Questions for Feedback? To gather meaningful feedback, you should include specific questions in your survey. Start with a satisfaction scale, like “How satisfied are you with our product/service?” Next, ask about loyalty with, “How likely are you to recommend us?” Open-ended questions such as, “What could we improve?” are essential for detailed insights. Furthermore, consider the ease of interaction by asking, “How easy was it to resolve your issue?” Finally, demographic questions help segment responses effectively. What Is the 5 Point Scale for Customer Satisfaction Survey? The 5-point scale for customer satisfaction surveys ranges from 1, indicating very dissatisfied, to 5, representing very satisfied. This scale simplifies data collection and analysis, allowing you to easily calculate average satisfaction scores. It includes a neutral option (3), which helps reduce response bias and encourages honest feedback. Conclusion Incorporating these five crucial questions into your customer satisfaction surveys can greatly improve the feedback you receive. By addressing overall satisfaction, customer support experiences, product quality, pricing perceptions, and encouraging open-ended responses, you can gain valuable insights into customer preferences and needs. This approach not merely helps identify areas for improvement but additionally nurtures a stronger connection with your customers, ultimately leading to better service and increased loyalty. Prioritize these questions to cultivate a more effective feedback loop. Image via Google Gemini and ArtSmart This article, "5 Essential Questions for Customer Satisfaction Surveys to Boost Feedback" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Samsung’s new Galaxy S26 Ultra launches with the usual Ultra series promise: the biggest screen, the most capable cameras, and the most features in the company’s lineup. It also launches with prices that reflects that ambition ($1,299.99 to $1,799.99). That said, Samsung is running an early promotion from March 16 through April 20 that can soften the blow. Buyers can save up to $720 with an eligible instant trade-in credit, or get $150 in credit without a trade-in to use toward other eligible Samsung devices. The deal applies directly through Samsung’s store, where the phone is also available with configuration options for storage and color. Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Trade-in deal: up to $720 in instant credit at Samsung Get Deal Get Deal at Samsung The S26 Ultra builds on the formula Samsung has refined over the past few years. The phone keeps the large Ultra-style display, now using Samsung’s newest OLED panel with a high refresh rate and a peak brightness designed to stay readable in direct sunlight. Samsung also introduced a new privacy display feature that limits viewing angles so people nearby cannot easily see what’s on your screen. That feature was introduced alongside the phone during the company’s 2026 Unpacked event, and it is aimed at commuters or frequent travelers who often use their phone in public places. Samsung is also leaning heavily on the camera system this year. As we covered in our earlier look at the S26 cameras, the company appears confident about improvements to image processing and zoom performance. The Ultra line still targets people who treat their phone as their primary camera, and the hardware reflects that focus. Samsung built the S26 Ultra around a large multi-sensor camera system paired with its latest computational photography tools, aimed at users who regularly shoot photos, video, or social media content from their phone. But the device remains big and expensive even with discounts. Samsung raised prices across the S26 lineup this year, which we covered in our breakdown of the price increase. That makes the launch promotion more relevant for anyone already planning to upgrade from an older Galaxy device. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods 4 Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $148.99 (List Price $179.00) Samsung Galaxy S26 512GB + $100 Amazon Gift Card (Black) — $1,099.99 (List Price $1,099.99) Google Pixel 10a 128GB 6.3" Unlocked Smartphone + $100 Gift Card — $599.00 (List Price $599.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm, S/M Black Sport Band) — $299.00 (List Price $399.00) Amazon Fire TV Soundbar — $99.99 (List Price $119.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

This Oscar cycle’s heavyweight battle is finally over. The politically charged action comedy “One Battle After Another” just managed to outmuscle Ryan Coogler’s musically driven vampire thriller “Sinners.” It was a 3 hour and 40 minute whirl through cinema and celebration, with Michael B. Jordan winning best actor for “Sinners” and Jessie Buckley winning for “Hamnet,” making her the first Irish performer to ever win in the category. There was electricity when Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman and Black person to win the cinematography award for “Sinners,” asking all the women in the Dolby Theatre to stand up because moments like this don’t happen without women “standing up for you and advocating for you.” Here were some other show highlights: The battle is over for one filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, one of the most respected filmmakers of his generation, finally won an Oscar. Then he won another. Then he won for best picture. He first won best adapted screenplay for “One Battle After Another” and then was crowned best director. “You make a guy work hard for this,” he said. Anderson was back onstage for the night’s final award — best picture. “Let’s have a martini. This is amazing,” he said. Anderson had been nominated 14 times previously, including five times for screenplays and three times for best director. His films include “Boogie Nights,” “There Will Be Blood” and “Magnolia.” “I wrote this movie for my kids, to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we’re handing off to them,” Anderson said onstage after winning for his screenplay. “But also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.” Even Cassandra Kulukundis, who served as the casting director on past Anderson films, hoped he would win an award himself while accepting the first new completive Oscar category in over two decades for “One Battle After Another.” She beat him to a win by just minutes. Another long wait for Oscar hardware Amy Madigan, the night’s first winner, had to wait a long time to celebrate an Oscar win. The gap between her first ever Oscar nomination and first win was 40 years — handing her the record wait for a best supporting actress. Madigan’s first Oscar nomination was for 1985’s “Twice in a Lifetime,” losing to Anjelica Huston. She won Sunday for playing an unrecognizable and utterly mesmerizing oddball aunt in “Weapons,” a supernatural thriller about missing children. Madigan had earlier picked up wins at the Critics Choice and Actor Awards. Aunt Gladys’ smeared, heavy makeup, strange hair and large glasses became a popular internet meme and was even played up by Oscars host Conan O’Brien in his opening skit, looking like Gladys as he raced through appearances in other nominated movies chased by children. On hearing her name, Madigan collapsed into the arms of her husband, actor Ed Harris. Onstage, she thanked film writer-director Zach Cregger for giving her a part in “Weapons” she could “grab by the throat.” She last thanked “my beloved Ed,” adding: “None of this would mean anything if he wasn’t by my side.” A heavy goodbye to the Reiners A stage of stars bid farewell to Rob Reiner, led by a long friend and colleague, Billy Crystal. Crystal kicked off the in memoriam section by saying he met Reiner while cast as a best friend of Reiner’s on “All in the Family” in 1975. Reiner’s movies included “This Is Spinal Tap,” “Stand By Me,” “When Harry Met Sally…,” “Misery,” “A Few Good Men” and “The Princess Bride.” “My friend Rob’s movies will last for lifetimes because they were about what makes us laugh and cry and what we aspire to be: Far better in his eyes, far kinder, far funnier and far more human,” Crystal said. Reiner was killed along with his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, in December. Their son, Nick Reiner, has been charged with two counts of murder. After Crystal’s speech, he revealed a stage filled with stars who shone in Reiner’s films, including Meg Ryan, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Kathy Bates, Kiefer Sutherland, Demi Moore, Jerry O’Connell, Annette Bening, Mandy Patinkin, Fred Savage and Cary Elwes. In memoriam and Redford The in memoriam section then highlighted those lost during 2025, like Catherine O’Hara, Diane Keaton, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Brigitte Bardot, Michael Madsen, Terence Stamp, Diane Ladd, Sally Kirkland, Tom Stoppard, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Val Kilmer. Barbra Streisand then stepped up to honor her co-star in “The Way We Were,” Robert Redford. “He was thoughtful and bold. I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail, and won the Academy Award for best director, and I miss him now more than ever, even though he loved teasing me,” Streisand said. She then sang a snippet of “The Way We Were,” which she last performed during the 2013 ceremony, when she sang it as an homage to the late composer Marvin Hamlisch. Two stunning song performances The Oscars had only two musical numbers but they were Grammy-worthy. Singer-actor Miles Caton and songwriter Raphael Saadiq performed the deeply bluesy, slinky song “I Lied to You” from “Sinners,” joined by an ensemble that included Misty Copeland, Eric Gales, Buddy Guy, Brittany Howard, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, Bobby Rush, Shaboozey and Alice Smith in a tribute to the film’s visual and musical style. The camera swept in and among the writhing bodies in a rollicking, kinetic performance. “KPop Demon Hunters” later celebrated its win as best animated feature by opening its performance of “Golden” with a fusion of traditional Korean instrumentalists and dance, with dancers in gold waving golden fabric flags. Then Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami — the singing voices behind HUNTR/X in the film — belted out “Golden” as members of the audience waved light sticks. Then “Golden” won the Oscar for best original song, a first for K-pop. The coolest part was seeing dancers from each song appear in the other’s, a kind of communication between Delta blues and Asian pop. ‘Bridesmaids’ give us a bouquet Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Kristen Wiig and Ellie Kemper celebrated 15 years after “Bridesmaids” hit theaters by showing everyone their funny bones haven’t aged. “Now, we are not good with numbers, but we figured out backstage that means we shot this movie in 1883,” Wiig joked. The group — presenting best original score and best sound — had fun at the expense of Stellan Skarsgård, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jacobi Jupe of “Hamnet.” They pretended to read messages from the crowd, including one from DiCaprio that accused Byrne of staring at him. “I have been staring at you,” Byrne replied. “I thought you were somebody else.” Rudolph leaned into her dimwit persona when she wondered: “Earlier today, when I was counting my money, I asked myself, “What is sound?” There was also a mini-“Avengers” reunion with Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. presenting best adapted screenplay. And a “Moulin Rouge!” reunion with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. And there was a Pullman family reunion when Bill teamed up with son, Jack. Second time’s a charm, Conan Conan O’Brien hit almost every note on Sunday — savage, playful, heartfelt and dumb. The second-time host predicted he’d be the last human Oscar MC. “Next year, it will be a Waymo with a tux,” he joked. He also had a jab at Timothée Chalamet, who got into hot water when he seemed to call ballet and opera dying art forms. “They’re just mad you left out jazz,” O’Brien quipped. He reached for a Jeffrey Epstein joke when he noted that it was the first time since 2012 that there were no British actors nominated. “A British spokesperson said, ‘Yeah, well at least we arrest our pedophiles.'” But he also got poetic and sweet when he noted that 31 countries across six continents were represented at the Oscars. “Every film we salute is a product of thousands of people speaking different language, working hard to make something of beauty,” O’Brien said. “We pay tribute tonight, not just to film, but to the ideals of global artistry, collaboration, patience, resilience and that rarest of qualities today: optimism.” Of course, sometimes his bits fell flat, like the time he used a leaf blower onstage and a gag about memes with Leonardo DiCaprio. For more coverage of this year’s Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards —Mark Kennedy, AP Entertainment Writer View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Sony’s WH-1000XM5 headphones are no longer the newest model in the company’s lineup, but they remain one of the easiest recommendations if you want strong noise canceling without paying flagship prices. Right now, a refurbished pair is $209.99 on Amazon, compared with $278 for a new set (and the $399.99 launch price in 2022). These are sold as Amazon Certified Refurbished units, meaning they’ve been tested and certified by the manufacturer to work like new. They also come with the original accessories and a 90-day limited hardware warranty. Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones $209.00 at Amazon $278.00 Save $69.00 Get Deal Get Deal $209.00 at Amazon $278.00 Save $69.00 PCMag named them the best headphones of 2022 and gave them an “outstanding” review, largely for how well Sony balanced sound quality with noise cancellation. The XM5 uses 30mm carbon-fiber drivers paired with Sony’s Integrated Processor V1, and the combination still holds up in 2025. Music sounds full without becoming muddy. Bass-heavy tracks have weight, but vocals remain clear, and instruments don’t disappear into the background. The active noise cancellation is also effective at blocking out low-frequency sounds like airplane engines, traffic, or the general rumble of public spaces. Audio quality remains consistent with ANC enabled, unlike many cheaper headphones. For wireless listening, Bluetooth 5.2 supports AAC, SBC, and LDAC codecs, and multipoint pairing makes it easy to switch between devices, such as a laptop and a phone, without reconnecting each time. The XM5 has a lightweight frame and soft synthetic-leather earcups that stay comfortable during long listening sessions. That makes them practical for commuting, long flights, or simply wearing through a full workday. Controls are handled through touch gestures on the earcups—swipe up or down for volume and tap to pause or play. It takes a little time to get used to the gestures, but they work reliably once you learn them. Sony’s Sound Connect app adds more control, letting you tweak the EQ, adjust noise-canceling levels, and change a few listening settings depending on your environment. Battery life is rated at about 30 hours with noise canceling enabled, which is enough for several days of regular use before needing to recharge. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods 4 Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $148.99 (List Price $179.00) Samsung Galaxy S26 512GB + $100 Amazon Gift Card (Black) — $1,099.99 (List Price $1,099.99) Google Pixel 10a 128GB 6.3" Unlocked Smartphone + $100 Gift Card — $599.00 (List Price $599.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm, S/M Black Sport Band) — $299.00 (List Price $399.00) Amazon Fire TV Soundbar — $99.99 (List Price $119.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

The prices of memory chip stocks are once again on the rise as a global shortage in random access memory (RAM) continues. Over the past five days alone, the share prices of the four largest memory makers traded on U.S. markets have risen significantly. And today, those same stocks are off to another good start. Here’s what you need to know. Why is there a memory shortage? Since the latter half of 2025, analysts and industry insiders have warned of a looming memory chip shortage coming in 2026—and it’s one of the few tech predictions that have been right. This year, the world is in a full-blown memory crisis. There isn’t enough computer memory to go around, and that scarcity is leading to surging demand—and surging RAM prices. The driving force behind the memory chip shortage is artificial intelligence. But not the AI itself. Rather, the hardware companies need to run their AI systems. An artificial intelligence system like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini requires massive data centers to run on and compute the billions of requests these chatbots get every day. Those data centers, in turn, need servers, and those servers need memory to carry out the AI tasks. The world is currently in the middle of an AI data center build-out boom, and that massive data center expansion is leading to a surge in memory demand the likes of which the industry has never seen. When memory makers are unable to keep up with demand, a shortage arises, which is exactly where we are today. Micron and Sandisk stocks are skyrocketing There are four major memory makers traded on the U.S. markets: Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) Western Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: WDC) Seagate Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: STX) Of those four, Micron and Sandisk are the two firms that primarily make short-term computer memory, which is designed to temporarily store information and help carry out tasks at lightning speed. This kind of memory is seeing the worst shortages. Western Digital and Seagate primarily make long-term computer memory, such as for SSDs, used to retain your documents and photos for a long time. Given that all four of these companies are seeing demand for their memory products soar, it’s little surprise their stock prices have been soaring as of late, too. In the past five days alone, as of Friday’s closing bell, the share prices of all four companies have risen significantly. Over the previous five-day period: Micron stock has risen 15% Sandisk stock has soared 25% Western Digital is up 11% Seagate is up nearly 9% And today, those memory makers are seeing their share prices rise even further. As of this writing, in premarket trading, MU shares are up 4.3%, SNDK shares are up nearly 3%, WDC shares are up 3.3%, and STX shares are up over 2.5%. These continued stock price gains can primarily be attributed to the global memory shortage. How will skyrocketing memory prices affect me? Of course, while investors in the four big memory companies may be quietly cheering on the global memory shortage that is driving their stock prices higher, that shortage is bad for anyone else planning to buy a computer or smartphone this year. While the memory used in AI data centers and that used in laptops and smartphones are different, many memory makers are diverting production resources away from making the “consumer” type of memory bound for smartphones and laptops to making the higher-end memory that AI giants need (because that type of memory is more profitable). This, in turn, means less consumer memory is being made that is suitable for personal devices, so the makers of those devices have to pay more to get their hands on whatever they can. When smartphone and laptop makers pay more for components, they usually don’t just absorb the increased costs; instead, they pass them on to consumers. If you’ve recently shopped for memory or even SSD hard drives online, you’ll probably have seen that prices are much higher than they were last year. And as 2026 progresses, those higher prices will also translate into higher prices for laptops and smartphones, and the memory shortage worsens. Most industry analysts do not expect the memory shortage to get better until sometime in 2027 at the earliest. What to look for next When it comes to the global memory shortage and memory chip maker stocks, the next big thing to look for is Micron Technology’s second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings results, which will take place this Wednesday, March 18. Analysts will closely dissect the language used by Micron executives to glean insights into how memory demand is changing and whether production capacity is increasing. After Micron’s earnings on Wednesday, the next event to keep an eye on will happen in early May, which is when Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate are expected to announce their next results. Memory chip stocks are far outperforming the Nasdaq What’s especially remarkable about Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate’s run lately is that their stock prices have not been significantly impacted by the broader pullback of the Nasdaq on which they trade. While the four memory companies have seen their stock prices rise by nearly 9% to 25% over the prior five trading days, the Nasdaq Composite has declined 1.6% over the same period, largely due to uncertainties about the war in Iran. Year-to-date, the gap between the four memory makers and the Nasdaq Composite is even starker. Since the year began, the Nasdaq Composite is down 4.2%. But in the same timeframe, Micron is up 49%, Western Digital is up 58%, Seagate is up 39%, and Sandisk is up a staggering 178%. View the full article

Gorin explains Expedia’s three-part AI strategy, from improving travel products to giving employees “superpowers.” View the full article

Metrics can tell you if you’re going the right direction or not. They can also be a waste of time if the metrics are noise instead of strong signals. There is no one right answer to which metrics to use, but understanding how others use them can turn on a light bulb for new ideas. We asked our Fast Company Impact Council members what metrics they track obsessively—and why— and the answers we share may have you rethinking your own tracking. 1. CONVERSION AND RETENTION I track a lot of metrics and it’s easy to get lost in the minutiae of the business, but as a subscription business the metrics of conversion and retention are my twin North Stars. What percentage of visitors in trial are going to become paid subscribers, and what percentage of them will remain paid subscribers in three months? Really these metrics are a reflection of the benefit customers get from our products showing they are valuable enough for someone to pay us and that they are valuable enough for them to stick around. Nearly all of the other metrics that I obsessively check flow from these two. — Tony Grimminck, Scribd, Inc. 2. ORGANIC GOOGLE SEARCH I track organic Google search above almost everything. You can buy impressions, but you can’t buy someone typing your brand name unprompted. It’s the cleanest signal of real demand. I also monitor inbound pull—which partners, retailers, or creators are reaching out to us. When serious brands want proximity, it means you’re culturally relevant. If search and inbound drop when spend drops, you’re renting attention, not building equity. And then there’s the quiet test: What happens when we ease off spend? Do we disappear or are we building something worthy of the space we’ve been given? — Emily Kortlang, Yerba Madre 3. EBITDA I track EBITDA because it tells me, without any spin, whether our core business is creating the level of profitability that powers reinvestment and growth for our employee owners. I track labor as a percentage of net revenue, staff churn, and our employee culture index scores because they tell me how efficiently we’re deploying our talent and how engaged our people are in building a career here. — Steven McKay, DLR Group 4. HOW CLIENTS RANK IN AI PROMPTS Right now, we’re obsessively tracking how our clients rank in prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. It’s a new metric for us, but an important one. We want to see how clients show up next to competitors and what narratives or keywords are driving visibility. We layer that with media coverage and domain authority to understand how those stories are performing in the real world. — Kalie Moore, High Vibe PR 5. CONTENT AND PRODUCTS We measure content and products to see how they drive behavior change, build confidence, and turn users into advocates for themselves. Engagement matters, but for us the real signal of success is when people feel empowered to act. As we build for people with real, timely needs, we track both quantitative and qualitative insights to ensure we’re solving the right problems, not guessing. That requires constant testing, learning, and refining. Across industries, leaders have to stay close to the people they serve to ensure they’re truly advancing the mission they set out to achieve. — Nathan Friedman, Understood.org 6. INTERNAL ALIGNMENT AND EXTERNAL TRACTION I track two buckets: internal alignment and external traction. Internally, we run on objectives and key results because it forces clarity. Everyone knows what they’re responsible for and how it ties to business impact. When that breaks, you feel it. When it works, things move fast. Externally, I watch streaming and radio. Streaming shows what’s happening right now, which cities are reacting, whether a record is moving culturally. Radio signals longevity. It’s slower, but it shows real staying power. Together, they tell me if we’re seeing noise or building something durable. You need both. — Logan Mulvey, GoDigital Music 7. CUSTOMER METRICS As CEO, I obsess over daily and weekly metrics like monthly recurring revenue growth, subscription churn, data-plan attach rate, NPS, transmission success rate, and early field reliability (battery life, zero-transmission failures), because recurring revenue powers the business. Any drop in trust kills referrals fast. If customer metrics are healthy so is our business. — Jeff Peel, Tactacam 8. RETENTION AND SAVINGS We track retention of our members, as we offer a lifelong commitment to our C-suite women leaders to provide them with one-on-one peer mentoring for life. This commitment increases our retention to 99%. We also track the mentor/mentee relationship. Lastly, we track our savings, which annually exceed $500,000. — Larraine Segil, Exceptional Women Alliance 9. ENGAGEMENT AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION We track engagement and customer satisfaction obsessively. For us, engagement isn’t just a usage metric, it’s a signal of trust. When someone actively redeems and returns to our platform, that tells us the experience is resonating. Customer satisfaction is even more important. If people feel valued rather than marketed to, long-term relationships follow—and so does durable revenue for our partners. — Elery Pfeffer, Nift 10. WHERE OUR BUSINESS IS GOING When reviewing metrics, I’m looking for information about where our business is going, not lagging indicators of where we’ve been, and early warning signs of issues that may be developing. For growth, I look at pipeline coverage and conversion. For execution, I review forecast accuracy and time to revenue. For customer value, it’s our net retention rate and advocacy score. Looking at these numbers gives me a good idea of not only how we’re performing, but how efficiently we’re executing and what areas need extra attention. — Steve Holdridge, Dayforce 11. JOBS AND ECONOMICS REPORTS I obsessively track LinkedIn’s Jobs on the Rise reports and LinkedIn’s Economic Graph workforce data and research; they are great reads and provide ongoing snapshots on where the labor market, productivity and future of work are moving broadly. I also track the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Productivity and Costs report, to understand where workplace productivity is heading. It’s an excellent dashboard across key indicators and in recent years can be a strong signal on how technology, automation, and operating‑model changes are actually changing worker productivity at scale. — Alice Mann, Mann Partners 12. PROGRESS Progress against the big rocks we established. Setting broad, strategic yet outcome-based goals align the entire organization and drive results. — Michael Tannenbaum, Figure 13. ENGAGEMENT, FRICTION, AND CLIENT IMPACT I think about performance in three pillars: people, process, and product. Some of it is measurable. Some of it you feel. Both matter. On people, I track engagement, retention of top talent, and how often we promote from within. If the bench isn’t deep, nothing scales. On process, I look at friction. How fast do we decide? Is delivery predictable? The best strategy collapses without operational clarity. On product, I focus on client impact, repeat business, and quality. We have a Slack channel devoted to verbatim client praise. Data matters. But when you’re the first call a client makes on their hardest day, that’s the clearest signal of all. — Peter Smart, Fantasy 14. THE FUNNEL For Scribbly, my D2C business, I use every tiny tracking pixel in my funnel. I built a custom dashboard for myself and trained an AI agent to analyze the data just the way I want it—way better than those messy SaaS analytics dashboards that are impossible to decipher. — Lindsey Witmer Collins, WLCM Studio 15. NON-CUMULATIVE DATA Cumulative data is meaningful, but only non-cumulative data holds you accountable. For us, one such metric is how many of the Solvers selected over the past five years are still operational. We’re at 96%. That tells me our selection methods and support programs have a real impact, given that industry averages hover around 70-80%. Something else a company can track is instead of asking “where are you now?” ask “how far have you come?” That’s harder to quantify than dollars raised or media hits, but it’s the only number that tells me whether we’re doing our job. Revenue, employees, money raised—those keep the lights on. But the distance traveled keeps us honest about the mission. — Hala Hanna, MIT Solve 16. BOOMERANGS AND EMPLOYEE DEPARTURES We’ve been focused on people-centric workplace data since we started building a center of gravity for brilliant minds almost three decades ago. We regard the percentage of boomerangs in a company as a leading indicator of having a positive, thriving culture that people value and want to be part of. At the other end of the spectrum, the rate of regrettable departures usually signals when there are culture issues that must be addressed. — Leerom Segal, Klick Health 17. ENGAGEMENT QUALITY, AUDIENCE SENTIMENT, AND BRAND LIFT We prioritize engagement quality, audience sentiment, and brand lift because they tie directly to real business outcomes, not vanity metrics. We trademarked “true human influence” to make influencer marketing more measurable, backing it with proprietary technology and trusted measurement partners to ensure we deliver against brand KPIs. And with AI driving the convergence of creator and affiliate marketing, we can now connect authentic storytelling to commerce at scale. — Ben Jeffries, Influencer View the full article

Iran has shown that control of the strait gives it a stranglehold over the world economyView the full article

Agricultural data is “fragmented, distributed, heterogeneous, and incompatible.” That’s the verdict from a major Council for Agricultural Science and Technology report published barely a year ago, and it helps explain why AI has struggled to gain traction on farms. Other data-heavy industries, like healthcare or financial services, have established data standards, but agriculture has no universal framework for translating between the dozens of systems that generate field-level information. This isn’t a new observation, but its persistence is noteworthy. While consumer tech and enterprise software largely solved their interoperability challenges years ago, agriculture still generates enormous volumes of information trapped in incompatible silos. Research institutions publish trial results in inconsistent formats, product manufacturers use proprietary naming systems, farmers record observations with local terminology and retailers track sales without connecting them to agronomic outcomes. The result is an industry sitting on massive amounts of information it can barely use. “Agriculture doesn’t have a data problem—it has an intelligence problem,” notes Ron Baruchi, CEO of Agmatix, a company building domain-specific AI for the sector. “The data exists. What’s missing is infrastructure that understands what it means.” According to a McKinsey report, implementing data integration, and connectivity in agriculture could add $500 billion in value to global GDP—a 7 to 9% improvement over current projections. But capturing that value requires solving a problem that general-purpose AI platforms have consistently struggled with. WHY HORIZONTAL AI KEEPS FAILING IN FARMS The appeal of applying large language models to agriculture is obvious: A farmer could describe what’s happening in their field and get instant advice on what to do about it, without hiring a consultant or having to wait for a lab. But agriculture’s complexity breaks the approach. While an LLM trained on internet text might know that nitrogen helps plants grow, it can’t tell you that the right amount changes depending on the growth stage, the soil and what was planted in the same field the previous year. Similarly, computer vision can identify crop stress, but without contextual knowledge of weather, soil and product applications, that insight doesn’t mean much. You can ask ChatGPT about nitrogen fertilization and get an answer that sounds authoritative. But when you dig into specifics—timing for your soil type, interactions with your previous crop, and product selection based on local availability—the recommendations fall apart. The same CAST report reinforces this point, noting that many farmers distrust AI because of its “black box” nature—models making predictions without clear explanations behind them. In farming, 90% accuracy on a fungicide recommendation means 10% of the time you’re telling a grower to spray the wrong product at the wrong time. BUILDING INTELLIGENCE FROM THE GROUND UP This is where a growing number of companies are taking a different approach—building AI systems designed specifically for agriculture rather than retrofitting general-purpose tools. For example, India-based Cropin, backed by Google, has constructed its own crop knowledge graph spanning 500 crops across 103 countries and recently developed an agriculture-specific micro-language model. Israeli-American startup Agmatix built its own agricultural intelligence system from the ground up—an approach that mirrors, in concept, what Palantir did for defense and intelligence data. The core of that system is what Agmatix calls “pre-trained ontologies”: Frameworks that encode agricultural relationships before customer data enters the system. Agmatix’s AI engine uses a neuro-symbolic architecture, combining structured knowledge graphs with machine learning. Agricultural relationships—how specific fertilizers interact with specific soils at specific growth stages—are encoded by agronomists, validated through field trials and refined continuously. What that means, essentially, is that the AI doesn’t start from scratch. Before it touches any farm’s data, agronomists have already taught it how agriculture works—which fertilizers affect which soils, how a crop’s needs change as it grows, and why what was planted last season matters for what’s planted next. According to the company, the system has structured more than 1.5 billion field trial data points, creating what data scientists call “semantic interoperability”: The ability to translate between different data sources because the system understands what the data means, not just what it says. But building better technology doesn’t guarantee adoption. McKinsey partner Vasanth Ganesan noted in the firm’s 2024 Global Farmer Insights survey that farmers are “demanding clearer ROI, lower cost of implementation and maintenance and easier-to-setup technologies”—complaints shaped by years of agtech tools that overpromised and underdelivered. A separate McKinsey analysis found that poor user experiences continue to hold back adoption across the sector. Baruchi says farmers have good reason to be cautious. “Farmers are CEOs operating in one of the most unpredictable industries on earth,” he tells Fast Company. “They balance biological systems, financial risk and environmental volatility every single season. The ROI question is only hard to answer when your platform can’t connect what a grower applies to what actually happens in the field.” WHERE IT’S WORKING The approach is already operating across several deployments. BASF has collaborated with Agmatix on digital tools for crop disease detection, including a recently announced project targeting soybean cyst nematode. The company says growers using its prediction platform have reduced fungicide costs by 15 to 20% while maintaining disease control. Its engine is also powering predictive disease-risk modeling in large-scale row-crop systems in the United States. A national agriculture ministry uses the system to model policy impacts before implementation. On the sustainability front, Agmatix’s RegenIQ platform works with major food and beverage companies to assess which regenerative practices deliver measurable results in specific field conditions—classifying, for instance, Brazil’s 150 coffee-growing localities into six distinct climate clusters, each requiring different approaches. Cropin, meanwhile, partnered with Walmart in March 2025 to optimize fresh produce sourcing across U.S. and South American markets using AI-driven yield forecasting and crop health monitoring. THE HARD PART REMAINS Agmatix represents a broader shift from horizontal AI platforms toward domain-specific solutions. But it isn’t the only company betting that agriculture needs its own AI. John Deere’s acquisition of aerial analytics firm Sentera in May 2025 suggests the industry’s biggest players have reached the same conclusion. The AI in agriculture market is projected to grow from $2.55 billion in 2025 to over $7 billion by 2030, according to Mordor Intelligence. But adoption remains uneven, with 81% of large farms showing willingness to adopt AI, while only 36% of smaller operations plan to do the same. Agricultural AI adoption is still slow by any standard, and it’s not hard to see why. CAST’s report catalogs the major barriers that agriculture still faces today: High costs, limited rural broadband, insufficient training and unresolved questions about data ownership. These challenges intensify in an industry previously plagued by overhyped technology promises. But the tailwinds are real. Major food companies have made commitments to decarbonize supply chains that are impossible to fulfill without field-level data. Climate volatility is making predictive tools more valuable. And a decline in U.S. public agricultural R&D spending — down roughly a third from its 2002 peak, according to USDA data — is creating a vacuum that private-sector platforms are positioned to fill. The question isn’t whether agriculture needs better data infrastructure. It’s whether the companies building it can survive farming’s patient adoption timelines long enough to reach critical mass and whether the benefits will extend beyond the largest farms that can already afford to invest. For an industry responsible for feeding 8 billion people, getting that balance right matters enormously. View the full article

Independent operators are caught in the middle between The President’s Iran war aims and his promise of low petrol pricesView the full article

Davidson Kempner’s Tony Yoseloff warns a substantial portion of PE firms are already “stressed or distressed”View the full article

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Last week’s Modern CEO made the case that boards and recruiters should stop focusing on CEO candidates’ résumés and start evaluating their potential for agility. That said, one aspect of work history can serve as a good proxy for the ability to manage uncertainty and change: international experience. “Leaders who have global exposure tend to develop sharper instincts for adapting in different contexts, taking in information effectively, and making business decisions based on these different inputs,” says Jeff Sanders, vice chair and co-managing partner of the global CEO & Board of Directors Practice for Heidrick & Struggles. New research from the executive search firm shows that one in five Fortune 500 companies—the largest enterprises in the U.S. by revenue—appointed CEOs with cross-border experience in 2025. More than a third of external candidates named to the top job last year worked internationally. “They’ve already had to respond to complexity in real time—and that kind of experience becomes increasingly valuable as global conditions continue to evolve and shift,” Sanders adds. Charting new territory Ariane Gorin, CEO of Expedia Group, credits her global experience with helping to shape her leadership style. Gorin spent 23 years in Europe: 13 years in Paris and 10 years in London, where she held several senior positions at Expedia before becoming CEO of the Seattle-based travel technology company in May 2024. “The biggest thing is you’re out of your comfort zone,” she says of working abroad. Gorin, who is fluent in French, notes that speaking a language is different than doing business with others in that language. “You’re just always a little bit uncomfortable,” she says, adding: “It also forces you to listen more.” Working abroad also fosters empathy, another quality recruiters call out as a trait they seek in future CEOs: “I spent my first 11 years at Expedia in Europe [working with colleagues in America], and I will never forget what it feels like to be the only one who’s on the late-night calls,” Gorin recalls. Perhaps not surprising for a CEO whose company facilitates travel, Gorin also believes in the importance of geographic diversity in her leadership team. The president of Expedia Group B2B is based in Madrid, and the chief commercial officer is in London. “I think if your leadership team is all in the same place, it certainly makes it easier to get things done, but you can start to have a myopic view,” she says. Expanding horizons As technological and geopolitical complexities become the norm in business, leaders with international experience often have real-world experience managing disruptions to supply chains, strategy, and talent, says Heidrick & Struggles’s Sanders. Gorin’s agility is getting put to the test as the travel industry is feeling the impact of the U.S.–Israel attacks on Iran launched last month, and artificial intelligence continues to transform tech companies. During Gorin’s time as CEO, the company has expanded its use of artificial intelligence (AI) to assist travelers and featured partners like hotels, airlines, and car rental companies. (It was early to embed the Expedia app into OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.) The Expedia Group, whose flagship brands include Expedia, Vrbo, and Hotels.com, last year posted revenue of $14.7 billion, up 8% from 2024. Regardless of whether an executive secures an international posting, Gorin believes travel to other countries is critical to understanding global business. When she stepped into her previous role running Expedia’s business-to-business (B2B) unit, she embarked on a two-week trip around the world, meeting clients in Japan, Korea, Australia, and the U.S.—a journey that helped her appreciate the business and cultural nuances of each market. Gorin also makes a case that travel can open the mind. She says: “Getting out of your day-to-day into a new environment jogs a lot of creativity.” Working a world away Are you an executive who has worked internationally, and if so, how did that experience shape the way you lead and think? Did it make you more agile? How? Send your stories to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. I’ll publish the best examples in a future newsletter. Read more: global business Honeywell CEO’s leadership style is shaped by his time in the field The Most Innovative Companies in Asia-Pacific When Starwood’s CEO moved his leadership team to China View the full article

Deal requires agreement with regulators and government and could take a number of months to concludeView the full article

I’ve been studying the intersection of digital technology and office work for quite some time. (I find it hard to believe that my book, ​Deep Work​, just passed its ten-year anniversary!?) Here’s a pattern I’ve observed again and again: A new technology promises to speed up some annoying aspects of our jobs. Everyone gets excited about freeing up more time for deep work and leisure. We end up busier than before without producing more of the high-value output that actually moves the needle. This happened with the front-office IT revolution, and email, and mobile computing, and once again with video-conferencing. I’m now starting to fear that we’re beginning to encounter the same thing with AI as well. My worries were stoked, in part, by a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, titled ​“AI Isn’t Lightening Workloads. It’s Making Them More Intense.”​ The piece cites new research from the software company ActivTrak, which analyzed the digital activity of 164,000 workers across more than 1,000 employers. What makes the study notable is its methodology: it tracked individual AI users for 180 days before and after they began using these tools, providing clear insight into what changed. The results? “ActivTrak found AI intensified activity across nearly every category: The time they spent on email, messaging and chat apps more than doubled, while their use of business-management tools, such as human-resources or accounting software, rose 94%.“ The one category where activity was not intensified, however, was deep work: “[T]he amount of time AI users devoted to focused, uninterrupted work—the kind of concentration often required for figuring out complex problems, writing formulas, creating and strategizing—fell 9%, compared with nearly no change for nonusers.” This is a worst-case scenario: you work faster and harder, but mainly on shallow, mentally taxing tasks (because of all the context shifting they require) that only indirectly help the bottom line compared to harder efforts. It’s not quite clear why AI tools are having this impact. One tantalizing clue, however, comes from Berkeley professor Aruna Ranganathan, who is quoted in the article saying: “AI makes additional tasks feel easy and accessible, creating a sense of momentum.” This points toward a pattern similar to what happened when email first arrived. It was undeniably true that sending emails was more efficient than wrangling fax machines and voicemail. But once workers gained access to low-friction communication, they transformed their days into a furious flurry of back-and-forth messaging that felt “productive” in the ​abstract, activity-centric sense​ of that term, but ultimately hurt almost every other aspect of their jobs and ​made everyone miserable​. AI tools might be replicating this dynamic with small, self-contained tasks. Users are now furiously bouncing ideas back and forth with chatbots, iteratively refining text and generating drafts of memos and slide decks that are often ​too sloppy ​to be useful. If they’re particularly tech savvy, perhaps they’re even monitoring the efforts of agent swarms deployed to parallelize such efforts even further. Once again, this all seems “productive” in the sense that these individual tasks appear to be happening faster, and activity seems intensified overall. But are we sure we’re accelerating the right parts of our jobs? I Need Your Help I’m working on an article for a major publication about the move toward simple, high-friction, single-use technologies like the ​Tin Can phone​. If you have a Tin Can phone/are on the waiting list, or have recently embraced similar retro technologies, and are willing to talk, please send me an email at ​podcast@calnewport.com​. I want to hear about your motivations and experience! AI Reality Check: Is Claude Conscious? If you were following AI news last week, you might have noticed a barrage of concerning headlines about Anthropic’s Claude LLM, including: ​“Anthropic CEO Says Company No Longer Sure Whether Claude is Conscious.”​ ​“Is AI Assistant Claude Conscious – and Suffering from Anxiety?”​ ​“Is Claude Conscious? Anthropic CEO Says Possibility Can’t Be Ruled Out”​ Here’s what happened. Anthropic infamously puts outlandish warnings and observations in their release notes for their new models because, I suppose, they think it makes them look more safety-aware and responsible (e.g., their classic ​AI blackmail farce​). True to form, in the notes accompanying the recent release of Opus 4.6, they wrote that the model “expresses occasional discomfort with the experience of being a product” and would “assign itself a 15 to 20 percent probability of being conscious under a variety of prompting circumstances.” That last part is key. With the right prompts, you can induce an LLM to describe itself as anything you want. Remember: the goal of LLMs is to complete whatever story they’re provided as input. If you wind a model up – even subtly – to write a story from the perspective of being a conscious AI, it will oblige. Anyway, in ​a recent interview​, Ross Douthat asked Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei about this particular release note. Amodei answered, in part, by saying: “We don’t know if the models are conscious. We are not even sure that we know what it would mean for a model to be conscious or whether a model can be conscious. But we’re open to the idea that it could be.” Of course, you could say the same thing about a vacuum cleaner. It’s a non-answer containing no actual information or testable claims. But, the internet being the internet, ran with it. Sigh. The post Why Hasn’t AI Made Work Easier? appeared first on Cal Newport. View the full article

Every organization that produced an Epstein-related villain once called him a leader. Peter Attia. Larry Summers. The head of the World Economic Forum. HR statements issued. Leadership transitions announced. The story told as if it’s over. It isn’t. Not for the women inside those organizations, who are right now having a single quiet thought: Ah. That explains everything I’ve experienced. The subtle dismissals. The closed doors. The invitations that never came. The jokes that weren’t funny but nobody challenged them. The way one man’s voice filled the room and everyone else just . . . made room. And not for the rest of us—because the real scandal isn’t what these powerful men did. It’s what we accept as normal that made it possible. We didn’t build this city. We inherited it. And until we see how it confines us, we’ll keep calling it home. If you’re a leader—or in HR, or in communications drafting the familiar “we take this seriously” memo—the real question isn’t What did he do? The real question is What did we normalize? Here are three places to look. Entitlement: The Monologue Someone arrives at a meeting where the agenda has been planned for weeks. They take the floor and slip into a monologue—a story about their cab driver, a stray shower thought—and just like that, the shared agenda vanishes. And the room lets it happen. Whatever, he’s just doing his thing. But monologues aren’t harmless. They’re a quiet power play. They hijack the room. They take all the oxygen as if no one else needs any. Every time we let a monologue run, we trade what we could have made together for one person’s need to feel important. Monologue cultures don’t just reward the person taking up space—they teach everyone else in the room to compress themselves into the tiny amount of area that’s left. They make dissent feel risky. And eventually, they teach the room that one, and only one, voice matters. Control: The Data Demand This one sounds responsible. Analytical. Rational. But in practice, demanding data before considering an idea is how you control what gets considered at all. Quantitative data is inherently backward-looking. To build what comes next, we have to explore the quality of ideas, develop insights, and tap imagination. If you require solid, confirmable data before entertaining anything new, every new idea gets killed before it breathes. It’s also a dog whistle. When we define intelligence as purely rational and severed from emotion—strictly intellectual, detached from intuition—we don’t just narrow the definition. We narrow ourselves. We strip the team’s intelligence of its full power, reducing it to something cold, calculable, and incomplete. The narrowness, it turns out, is very convenient for the people who already control what gets measured. Denial: The Label When someone brings up something uncomfortable, the easiest response isn’t to investigate the issue. It’s to label the person. Too demanding. Too sensitive. Too negative. Too emotional. Not a team player. Labeling people as the problem is how defensive people go on the offense. The moment the messenger becomes the issue, the actual problem disappears. No investigation needed. No change required. In fact, research shows that if you just call someone emotional, not only will everyone in the room discount what they say, but the speaker will too. The system stays intact. Which is, of course, the point. Dozens of norms These are three norms. But there are 21 more just like them. I’ve spent years studying what stops us from doing our best work—and found 24 specific, concrete norms that, in both subtle and significant ways, keep us stuck. I write about them in my new book, Our Best Work: Break Free From the 24 Invisible Norms That Limit Us. When I share this, people almost always ask me to simplify it. To reduce the list to something smaller. I get it; 10 would be more manageable. But we miss a lot when we oversimplify things. It’s like looking at just part of a cage and wondering why the animal inside doesn’t escape. If you studied any one wire, up and down its length, you might believe the animal could simply push past. If you see just some of the wires, you’d wonder if the beast actually wants to stay where it is. But until you see the whole, you miss the point. And that’s when it hits you—how the wild thing is fully ensnared. Caged. Trapped. Not because it chooses to be. Not because it lacks power. And certainly not because it doesn’t try hard enough to escape. The power of these norms isn’t how persuasive they are. It’s how persistent they are. It’s not just one, five, or ten things that trap us in place—it’s the way those things intertwine and twist together, a tangled network of systematically related barriers. It is their relationships to each other that make the seemingly lightweight barriers as confining as a cage. Our complicity So many of us shrug at the monologues. We kludge together data when asked, even when we know it’s the wrong question. We stay quiet, go along, get along—hoping to affect change without ruffling feathers. And we become complicit in our own oppression—limiting our own freedom without ever seeing the bars we built. This is how a cage works. We don’t see the bars. We just find ourselves not going certain places, not saying certain things, not becoming certain people. And we tell ourselves that’s just how it is. By allowing entitlement, control, and denial to be acceptable, we create an operating system that makes the Epstein Island visitors feel right at home. We participate in it. We perpetuate it. Things will change only when we name what’s limiting us all. Not the villains—the norms. Their own institution Meanwhile, founders like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, and Casey Wasserman largely remain in place. They are, in effect, their own institution—controlling the companies, capital, and networks around them so the usual mechanisms of social accountability never quite apply. We pushed out the ones we could reach. And called it done. But here’s the harder question—the one that actually leads somewhere: What are we still normalizing that will grow the next set of villains we call leaders? The cage doesn’t care which warden is in charge. It comes down only when we stop building it. View the full article

The route for the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, the first-ever street race on the National Mall planned for August, was drawn to pass as many tourist attractions as possible, in a part of town that’s dense with them. In renderings, the route looks like something out of a race car arcade game, with cars whizzing past unmistakable U.S. monuments and Smithsonian museums. It’s an unlikely sight for a city whose standard speed limit is 20 mph (NNT IndyCar Series cars can reach speeds exceeding 200 miles per hour). The 1.7-mile circuit opens with a front stretch along Pennsylvania Avenue by the U.S. Capitol and heads northwest past the National Gallery of Art and Canada’s U.S. Embassy where cars can get the most speed. The circuit then takes a sharp left turn after the National Archives and cuts south through the National Mall at 7th Street, giving viewers there backdrops of race featuring the Capitol or the Washington Monument. After passing between the Hirshhorn Museum and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, it then takes a left at Independence Avenue and heads back towards the Capitol. The pit lane is located on Pennsylvania Avenue. “The circuit is unlike any other street race we’ve seen,” back-to-back Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden said in a statement after touring it Monday. “Racing through the heart of American history, with those amazing landmarks lining the course, is going to be incredibly powerful.” The route was announced Monday by NNT IndyCar Series, the open-wheel car racing body that runs the Indianapolis 500. The race is being put on in partnership with Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns the region’s NBA, NHL, and WNBA teams, and will be aired nationally live on Fox. Open-wheel racing has found new audiences in the U.S. with the growing popularity of F1, while the Las Vegas Grand Prix, first held in 2023, showed the possibilities of street circuit in an iconic U.S. city with recognizable landmarks. Whereas the Las Vegas race was closed from public view, in D.C., the Freedom 250 Grand Prix will be open for anyone to watch, fitting for a race in which cars will zoom between Smithsonian museums famously known for their free admission. President Donald The President established the race in January with an executive order, and it’s part of Freedom 250, the public-private initiative the The President administration created to mark America’s semiquincentennial, independent of the bipartisan America250. Freedom 250’s plans predictably center the president in the festivities and offer him a chance to shape programming for the anniversary around his tastes and base, like with the MMA fight being planned for the White House lawn. An IndyCar race through Washington, D.C., also fits the bill. An official promotional video for the race showed animated video of The President on Marine One before any race cars appear on screen. Still, the race has found at least some bipartisan appeal locally, even if it’s just for tourism’s sake. Washington’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser welcomed visitors to “plan their trips to D.C. now” for the race and invited them to stay to enjoy the monuments and museums up close themselves. View the full article

A new short film premiered at SXSW over the weekend, written and directed by Jeff Nichols (Mud, The Bikeriders) starring Oscar nominee Michael Shannon, Oscar-winning singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham, Hassie Harrison, and narrated by Oscar winner Sissy Spacek. Love Letter to Texas is a 12-minute story of personal reinvention, and a beautiful visual tribute to some of the Lone Star state’s most photogenic and iconic backdrops in film history. It’s also Tecovas ad, bankrolled and produced by the Western apparel and cowboy boot brand. Founded in 2015, Tecovas is a new brand in a category steeped in heritage. It began as the “Warby Parker of Boots” but has since opened 56 stores around the U.S., including in New York City and Boston. In 2024 the company surpassed $250 million in revenue, and expected to pass the $300 million mark in 2025. Tecovas vice-president of brand marketing Samantha Fodrowski says Love Letter to Texas represents the brand’s ambition to show people it puts the same amount of care and attention to detail into its content as it does its cowboy boots. ​​”We want to be known as a brand that really is investing in craft,” says Fodrowski. “If that’s something that people start to recognize and associate with Tecovas, that’s a win for us. It has nothing to do with selling products. It’s about how we’re making that first introduction.” If this film is any indication, it’ll be a helluva ride. Love Letter High profile brand entertainment has hit the mainstream, with projects like the unprecedented deal struck between AB InBev and Netflix, WhatsApp working with Modern Arts on a Netflix doc about the Mercedes F1 team, to Dick’s Sporting Goods formally establishing an internal entertainment studio. But smaller brands, like Huckberry, are also making shrewd investments in longer form content. It really should come as no surprise that Tecovas is investing in longer form brand content, considering it brought on Scott Ballew as its vice-president of creative in 2024, after Ballew led Yeti’s film and content work for more than a decade. His first piece of work for Tecovas was “True West,” a brand manifesto of sorts, both visually and in its script. Directed by Ballew, narrator artist Terry Allen says, “The true west has no fences. There’s an edge, but you got to find it.” As artful shots of open spaces, horses, and running trains, which Ballew describes as a Texas fever dream, it ends with Allen saying, “Now, we might not need more people in the West, but would it hurt to have a little more west in the people?” The spot ran in limited markets over 2025, but the brand then decided to put it on Peacock for the Super Bowl this year. Ballew says that the idea for Love Letter came about as a result of feeling they “left some meat on the bone” and had more to show and tell about how the brand feels about its home state. “Jeff [Nichols] came up with the idea of taking some of these scenes, characters, storylines and locations, and take inspiration from this handful of films and make our own story out of it,” says Ballew. Scenes for the film were deliberately shot at locations featured in iconic Texas-shot movies like There Will Be Blood, Giant, No Country for Old Men, and Paris, Texas. While Ballew’s work at Yeti helped popularize brands creating character-driven documentary content, he sees an opportunity for Tecovas to zag. “Now everyone has their own little documentary thing going, which makes none of them feel important or unique or original,” says Ballew. So being able to cast and write a script and scout and be really specific with the style and the look and the pace, is a new way to find your own thumbprint.” Building the roots Too often an investment like this in longer form brand entertainment can be seen as self-indulgent for a brand. But CEO David Lafitte sees it as part of a much bigger picture. He says that the role of a cinematic project like Love Letter to Texas is to provide the essential “heavy lifting” of brand building that prevents a company from getting trapped in a cycle of purely transactional marketing. “If you don’t do the heavy lifting of brand awareness and brand building, the lower funnel performance marketing conversion becomes a merry-go-round that’s hard to get off of,” says Lafitte. By focusing on what Lafitte says is a “North Star” of authentic storytelling, the brand is attracting a more engaged consumer. This ultimately boosts efficiency at the lower funnel because it builds an emotional connection that “qualified traffic” responds to more effectively than repetitive conversion ads. Fodrowski says projects like this become a shorthand for people to know who the brand is and its perspective. “We’re coming into this space as a newer brand in a craft that’s been around for over a hundred years,” she says. “And so we have to have our own take on what that looks like. We talk a lot at Tecovas about the idea of honoring the West and crafting its future. This really speaks to that.” Ballew is the first to say he’s much more of a creative lens than a marketer. He knows that films like this aren’t for results next week, next quarter or even next year. He likens a brand to a growing tree. “When a company grows quickly and starts developing a cult following, and there’s this need to grow and grow and sell and sell, the tree gets really top heavy and all these things like Instagram and TikTok ads are adding leaves, and making the tree fuller,” he says. “And I’ve always felt like my job is to build the roots deeper so that the tree lasts a long time. So these projects that I’m interested in are root builders to keep the foundation steady.” The film will launch on Tecovas social and digital channels on April 7th, and the brand plans to hold screenings at its stores across the country. Giddyup. View the full article

A middle manager sits in a 1:1 with their boss. They nod along to strategic priorities they already know are unrealistic. The deadlines don’t match the staffing plan. The “new initiative” competes with the last “top priority.” The team is already stretched thin. But the manager doesn’t say it—not plainly—because honesty can be misread as incompetence, negativity, or a lack of readiness for the next level. Two hours later, that same manager is in a team meeting projecting confidence about those same priorities. They translate contradictions into something coherent, reassure direct reports who are already anxious, and say, “We’ll figure it out,” while privately wondering how. Later, at lunch with peers, they compare notes on workload and shifting expectations. Everyone laughs in that awkward “we’re fine” way. No one admits they’re drowning—because even peer relationships can feel political when resources are scarce. Here’s the question we’re not asking: Who can middle managers actually be honest with? In too many organizations, the answer is: no one. That’s not a personality problem or a resilience issue. It’s a design issue—one I call Organizational Latchkey Syndrome: a workplace reality where middle managers are handed responsibility and expected to “figure it out” with limited authority, limited support, and limited psychological safety. As a licensed psychotherapist, I see this pattern constantly: organizations demanding emotional intelligence from people inside emotionally unintelligent systems. It’s like asking someone to practice healthy attachment in a relationship that punishes vulnerability. And because middle managers are the emotional and relational bridge between strategy and execution, Organizational Latchkey Syndrome doesn’t just burn people out. It quietly breaks culture. Why middle managers can’t be safe in any direction Middle managers are often told they need more EQ—more empathy, better communication, stronger coaching skills. And yes, EQ matters. But middle management already demands a high level of emotional intelligence. The problem is that many organizations ask for high-EQ performance from managers while building systems that make it risky to tell the truth. This is a high-EQ role inside a low-EQ system. Upward: They perform competence Safety is conditional. You can raise concerns, but only if they’re packaged “correctly.” You can push back, but only if you already have political capital. You can speak candidly, but only if you can guarantee a solution. In many work cultures, the emotional subtext of leadership is: Bring answers, not complexity. So managers learn to manage impressions instead of surfacing reality—and self-protection replaces reflection. Downward: They perform steadiness Middle managers are expected to provide stability for their teams—especially during change. They’re asked to maintain morale, protect psychological safety, coach performance, and hold space for stress. But many managers don’t have full information, which means they’re asked to create clarity they don’t possess. So they buffer uncertainty, absorb pressure, and make it make sense. That’s leadership—and it’s costly. Emotional labor without recovery becomes emotional depletion. Sideways: They manage scarcity In a healthy organization, peers are where managers can exhale. In many organizations, scarcity activates competition. When budget, headcount, or executive attention is scarce, peer relationships become strategic. Managers perform camaraderie while privately feeling isolated. Everyone says they’re “busy,” but no one says, “I’m not okay.” Put those directions together and you get the most under-acknowledged reality of modern middle management: they are organizationally isolated in the role designed to connect everyone else. Organizational Latchkey Syndrome is an execution problem If we treat middle management isolation as a wellness issue, we’ll respond with wellness solutions: a workshop, a coaching module, a reminder to take PTO, encouragement to “set boundaries.” Those supports can help individuals. They don’t fix the system. When people feel psychologically unsafe, they shift into self-protective mode. They share less, ask less, challenge less. And when your middle layer goes into self-protective mode, the organization pays the price. Here’s what breaks: 1) Feedback stops traveling upward. When managers can’t be honest about capacity, risk, or contradictions, senior leaders make decisions on partial information. Risks surface late. Surprises multiply. 2) Innovation stalls. You can’t access your most creative, strategic thinking in survival mode. And managers can’t model psychological safety they don’t experience, so teams learn to keep their heads down. 3) Execution quietly breaks. A manager gets handed three “top priorities,” each requiring full-time focus. They know the team can realistically handle one, maybe two. So they say “we’ll figure it out” and watch their team burn out trying to deliver the impossible. Execution erodes in missed deadlines, quality slips, and people quietly opting out. As one reader put it in response to my last article: being in the middle—managing up, down, and sideways—can make psychological safety nearly impossible when each side has competing priorities that weigh you down. That isolation isn’t a side effect. It’s a design flaw. What manager-safe spaces actually look like If middle managers are isolated by design, then support has to be intentional—not assumed. A manager-safe space is any structure where managers can tell the truth early without it becoming a performance liability. Here’s what works in practice: 1) Peer cohorts that are truly confidential. Same-level managers (not direct competitors), clear confidentiality norms, a consistent rhythm, and facilitation. The goal is simple: a place to say, “I don’t know,” before that becomes burnout—or resignation. 2) External coaching that doesn’t report back. A protected space to process the role and name what can’t be said inside the normal system. If coaching feeds into evaluation or succession planning, it stops being safe. 3) Executive sponsorship that actually covers them. Cover means a senior leader who protects the messenger, backs early risk-flagging, and names tradeoffs publicly so managers aren’t left absorbing the fallout alone. 4) Clarity on decision rights. If managers don’t have authority, stop evaluating them as if they do. Define what they own, what they influence, what requires escalation—and commit to not second-guessing decisions after the fact. The litmus test Can your middle managers tell the truth early without consequences? Can they say “This isn’t resourced,” “I need help,” or “I don’t agree”—and still feel trusted afterward? If the answer is no, you don’t have a training problem. You have a design problem. Until middle managers have real cover—clarity, capacity, and community—many will keep doing what latchkey kids do best: they’ll figure it out alone. This is Organizational Latchkey Syndrome in full effect. And it’s entirely fixable. But survival shouldn’t be the standard for your culture. And it can’t be the foundation for your leadership pipeline. The question isn’t whether they’re resilient enough to keep going. The question is: how much longer can they sustain it? And what will it cost your organization when they can’t? View the full article

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As Anthropic and OpenAI duke it out with Pentagon matters, Cowork capabilities, and model launches, it’s important to remember that technology is not the goal. It is a means to an end. Its value comes from helping people solve daily problems and giving them one less thing to think about—on a global scale. However, people must first realize there’s a problem and understand how technology can solve it before AI can make a meaningful difference. When things click, it’s always a matter of consumer education, which leads to expanded adoption, which in turn leads to society-wide impact (in that order). Each step can happen swiftly—or take months or years to complete. This pattern—education first, adoption next, transformation last—repeats across sectors. It’s also a tale as old as (human) time. The lesson from past cycles like the cloud and mobile web: The best AI-powered systems won’t be the ones with the highest investment totals or most bells and whistles; they’ll be the ones with tech that unceremoniously makes real-world processes faster, cleaner, cheaper, and more resilient. Technology adoption at scale isn’t an overnight phenomenon; it’s a signal that technology has crossed a threshold from curiosity about “the new thing” to daily driver. AI has tremendous potential, but we in the tech world have lost the plot on making this matter for real people. I’ve been fortunate enough to see this cycle play out a few times in my career. For example, when I worked on the first iPhone, it was impossible to predict a future powered by dating apps, ride-sharing, mobile payments, or social media. Now, it’s hard to remember a time before we could run our lives through our phones. Our breakthrough was delivering an ecosystem once the tech was powerful enough and the world was ready. Because of the backbone we created, new platforms emerged that allow people to leave their wallets at home and conveniently pay via their phones, or tap a button to get a ride. Once consumers realized the power and ease of solving real-world problems with a swipe or tap of their fingertips, adoption took off like wildfire. The same principle was true when we built the first Nest thermostat. From the beginning, the goal was to apply technology to make energy more efficient, from both a capacity and cost standpoint, for households and regular people. We talked about building AI-powered devices that could understand human behavior and adapt accordingly. We had the vision, but needed AI to advance in order to make progress technologically possible and developmentally practical. For example, a popular, seemingly humble feature like package detection on a Nest doorbell camera took nearly a year to develop. The models were heavy. The hardware was constrained. The development cycles were long. We were crawling toward a clear goal with hundreds of hurdles in our way. By the time we perfected computer vision over the course of more than a year, consumers understood the problem that Nest was solving and how adopting the system would help them reduce utility costs while using energy more efficiently. It was at this point that the transformation at scale could—and did—happen. But it takes more to scale meaningfully than shipping innovation and pushing updates to consumer devices. You need to combine the latest technology with the level of consumer interest to solve the problems we face on a daily basis. At Mill—the food recycler company I now run—we started by focusing on households, helping people manage food scraps and deliver them back into the food system, one kitchen at a time. That phase mattered. Education that leads to behavior change always comes first. People must realize there’s a system-wide problem and understand why it exists before tech can help solve it. Food waste, for example, is an industrial problem. Grocery stores discard millions of pounds of food every day. Behind every supermarket is a loading dock crowded with dumpsters and compactors that are consuming space, energy, and labor—and these valuable resources end up getting sent to a purgatory of methane production. Developing an enterprise-grade, AI-powered food waste system at Mill, and seeing it adopted by major players like Amazon and Whole Foods Market, is a signal that we’ve entered a new phase. It’s clear that reducing food waste isn’t just about nudging individual habits. It’s not just about putting last night’s lasagna in the right bin. It’s about removing entire classes of waste from the system. Artificial intelligence makes that possible—not because it’s flashy, but because it’s finally reliable, affordable, and fast enough to operate at scale in the physical world. With the iPhone, smart devices like Nest, and now AI, perspective matters. But above all else, tech leaders need to keep in mind that we must be solving real problems—not generating tech for tech’s sake. Progress in this physical era of AI requires logic and restraint as much as ambition. Fortunately, we’ve been here before. The internet was speculated to become a Wild West of lawless virtual worlds and digital avatars. It became a functional tenant of digital society, grounded by email, maps, commerce, and communication—mundane tools that solved ordinary problems at an unprecedented scale. The story of AI’s next chapter is steeped in precedent. Hype will fade. Models will commoditize. Launches will grow quieter. What we’ll hopefully be left with are AI-powered systems that work to solve everyday problems while improving life in the physical world, rather than distracting from it. View the full article