What's on Your Mind?

Two things can be true at once. K-pop is an inextricable force in global pop culture, and it has long been undercelebrated at institutions like the Grammys — where K-pop artists have performed but have never taken home a trophy. That could change at next month’s 2026 Grammy Awards ceremony. Songs released by K-pop artists — or K-pop-adjacent artists, more on that later — have received nominations in the big four categories for the first time. Rosé, perhaps best known as one-fourth of the juggernaut girl group Blackpink, is the first K-pop artist to ever receive a nomination in the record of the year field for “APT.,” her megahit with Grammys’ favorite Bruno Mars. The so…

Run a small business and you probably feel like you make dozens of decisions every day. Whether to cut a quality corner, or miss a ship date. Whether to respond to a customer complaint, or hope the problem goes away. Whether to address an employee’s behavior, or kick that can down the road. Then there are all the personal decisions. Whether to get up and going, or hit the snooze button. Whether to ditch the food you packed, or go out for lunch instead. Whether to keep grinding, or work out. None of those are actually decisions, though, since you already know you should do so. Nearly everything you “decide” already has an answer. Quality problem? Fix it. Custom…

Barely 10 days into the new year, it already feels like you can’t look away from the news. In the last week alone, the U.S. military captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and took over operations of the country; President The President withdrew the U.S. from dozens of international organizations, including a major climate treaty; and an ICE agent fatally shot a Minneapolis resident, sparking outrage and widespread protests. If it seems impossible to focus on work—or anything else, for that matter—amid all this troubling news, you’re not alone. Plenty of research in recent years has shown that Americans are overwhelmed by the state of politics and feel a heighte…

Most business leaders view themselves primarily as “productive” rather than “creative.” Productivity is often associated with measurable outcomes, such as efficiency, consistency, and task completion. Creativity, by contrast, is frequently perceived as spontaneous, unpredictable, and elusive. Yet, productivity and creativity are not at odds. In fact, they reinforce each other powerfully. Leaders who successfully integrate productive habits with creative practices can unlock new levels of innovation, effectiveness, and personal fulfillment. A global Adobe survey found that 75% of professionals report growing pressure to be productive rather than creative at work, whil…

Trust used to be the benefit of the doubt. Now it is the battle to be won. Recently, I asked a CEO client why she didn’t want to speak on a panel her team had been invited to. Her answer? “I’d rather the company speak for itself. I don’t want to make it about me.” That hesitation is common. Many leaders assume visibility is self-serving. But today, staying behind the scenes isn’t humility. It’s a risk. When nearly 70% of people believe business leaders intentionally mislead the public, credibility and trust, not marketing, has become the new currency. We are leading in an era when silence is interpreted as indifference and visibility is mistaken for vanity. That t…

When a 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar last year, roads buckled and thousands of buildings collapsed. But a group of small, ultra-low-cost homes made from bamboo survived without any damage. Finished just days before the quake, the houses are emergency shelters for some of the millions of people displaced by Myanmar’s ongoing civil war. Myanmar-based architecture studio Blue Temple worked with its spinoff construction company Housing Now to make the simple prefab homes as low-cost as possible while still able to withstand natural disasters. “We built them for the price of a smartphone—about $1,000 U.S. dollars per house,” says architect and Blue Temple founde…

As 2026 begins, many organizations are launching AI transformation initiatives. The new year brings with it fresh budgets, renewed strategic focus, and mounting pressure to capture value from artificial intelligence. Yet studies consistently show that most AI projects fail to generate meaningful returns. Companies pour resources into promising experiments that never scale, accumulate tools that are never integrated, and watch initial enthusiasm curdle into skepticism. What separates organizations that create lasting value from those that don’t is rarely the technology to which they have access. Instead, the critical “secret sauce” lies in having a systematic, rigorous…

The majority of us see change as a blind scary leap into the unknown—a scary evolution that demands we give up on everything we know. But what if we reframed change, not as something that happens to us, but as something we actively choose? Traditionally people perceived change in black-and-white terms: either you can change, or you can’t. That kind of thinking sets us up for failure by assuming that change requires some grand, perfect plan or major shift in direction. However, we also have the power to make small changes, no matter how minor they seem. And it’s these small changes that, over time, lead to profound transformation. Fear Takes the Wheel The most …

Most adults are in the very early stages of grasping how to use artificial intelligence. The The Lego Group thinks that children need to build their own learning path to understand the fast-evolving technology. On Monday, the Danish toy maker debuted a new computer science and AI curriculum for K–8 classrooms, Lego’s first foray into AI that comes more than three years after the debut of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. The “Lego Education Computer Science & AI” kits include Lego bricks and other interactive hardware components, as well as online education materials intended to take children from the beginning stages of AI literacy through hands-on experimentation. D…

Yes, there are the New Year’s traditions of setting ambitious goals and ditching bad habits, but one evergreen resolution that ought to top lists is to banish bad design. Why endure something that simply doesn’t work (or is an affront to aesthetics) any longer than we have to? In the spirit of fresh starts, we polled experts in architecture, tech, industrial design, and urbanism on the everyday annoyances and the big-picture issues that they think are in desperate need of a refresh in 2026. (Top on my personal list? Eye-searing headlights.) Design is inherently an optimistic act, and by fixing these issues, we’re a step closer to a more beautiful and better world…

It’s become almost a cliché to talk about how consistently organizational change fails. Study after study finds that roughly three-quarters of change efforts don’t achieve their objectives. There are underlying forces that work against us adapting to change—including synaptic, network and cost effects—that lead to resistance. Another problem lies in how we study change itself. Typically, researchers at an academic institution or a consulting firm interview executives that were involved in successful efforts and try to glean insights to write case studies. These are famously flawed, lacking controls, and often relying on self-serving accounts. One unlikely place …

A few of the neatest gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 weren’t anywhere near the Las Vegas Convention Center trade show venue. Instead, they were sitting on a table at The Venetian Resort’s food court, at least on Monday when Core Devices founder Eric Migicovsky was holding press meetings. He had a couple of quirky Pebble smartwatches to show off, with lo-fi e-paper screens in round and rectangular forms, and he was wearing an early version of the Pebble Index, a smart ring whose main job is capturing voice notes. (He moved to a booth in the bowels of the Venetian expo when CES officially got underway.) Unlike a lot of exhibitors, Migicovsky isn’…

Every organization believes it’s in the productivity business. Every executive thinks faster, longer, more densely packed meetings equal better results. They’re wrong. The meetings that actually work—the ones where breakthroughs happen and teams leave energized rather than depleted—operate on a completely different logic. They’re designed around how human brains actually function, not how we wish they would. By helping organizations transform their cultures through my Move. Think. Rest. (MTR) framework, I’ve watched the same pattern emerge: Companies spend millions on the latest collaboration software and meeting tech, then squander the opportunity by applying the…

Roblox, a gaming app used by nearly half of the entire U.S. population of under-16s, has rolled out a new mandatory safety feature to put a stop to children communicating with adults on the platform. Starting on January 7, players in the U.S. were required to submit to facial age estimation via the app to access the chat feature, although age verification remains optional to play the games themselves. Users in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands are already required to complete an age check to chat with other users, but the requirement will now roll out to the U.S. and beyond. The verification is being processed by a third-party vendor, Pers…

Although there is no shortage of AI enthusiasts, the general public remains uneasy about artificial intelligence. Two concerns dominate the conversation, both amplified by popular and business media. The first is AI’s capacity to automate work, fueling widespread FOBO, or fear of becoming obsolete. The second is AI’s tendency to reproduce or even exacerbate human bias. On the first, the evidence remains mixed. The clearest signal so far is not the wholesale replacement of jobs, but the automation of tasks and skills within jobs. Most workers are less likely to lose their roles outright than to be forced to rethink what they do at work and where they add value. In that…

Just four days into the new year, awards season kicked off with the Critics Choice Awards. One week later, it’s time for the Golden Globes to shine. The 83rd edition of this star-studded event—which takes place on Sunday, January 11, in Beverly Hills, California—celebrates greatness in both television and film. Here’s everything you need to know about the big night, including how to tune in. History and past controversy of the Golden Globe Awards The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the former organization behind the Golden Globes, was founded in 1943. Under this banner, journalists came together to create an awards ceremony to honor the artists the…

When the inevitable robot uprising comes, I’ll be ready, thanks to some valuable lessons I picked up at CES. First, if given the choice of a dance off versus hand to hand combat, opt for the fight. Second, wear a cup when you do. Robotics company Unitree showcased its G-1 humanoid robot at the show. The G-1 is a rarity in the robotic world in that it’s already on the market for under $15,000. Unitree’s booth was an ongoing spectacle, surrounded by people eager for a close look at the dapperlooking unit, wearing a white shirt and button down vest, showcasing impressive dance skills, throwing down moves that even Shabba-Doo and Bugaloo Shrimp could respect. There w…

There are few things more evocative of the free American spirit and the nation’s wide-open spaces than the image of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle zooming down a stretch of empty highway. But while taking one of the legendary hogs for a spin may still be liberating for riders, the company’s independent dealership owners are feeling an increasingly tight financial and business squeeze. A rash of reports in recent weeks have sounded alarms about the troubles Harley dealers face, and the rising number of dealerships closing shop as a result. While Harley-Davidson still counts more than 650 of those locations in operation across the U.S., specialist automotive media warn th…

However uncertain the outlook is for the American auto industry in the age of tariffs, growing competition from China, and the rise of EV upstarts, the view inside the new boardroom at General Motors is stylishly optimistic. Part of the automaker’s new corporate headquarters that’s opening January 12, the boardroom is a large and elegant space with a massive marble table surrounded by mainstay elements of mid-century modern design. Fluted wood wall treatments, subtle curves, geometric overhead lighting, minimalist bench seating, and sweeping views of a changing downtown Detroit combine to create a physical manifestation of how GM sees itself evolving through the 21st …

When a grizzly bear attacked a group of fourth- and fifth-graders in western Canada in late November 2025, it sparked more than a rescue effort for the 11 people injured—four with severe injuries. Local authorities began trying to find the specific bear that was involved in order to relocate or euthanize it, depending on the results of their assessment. The attack, in Bella Coola, British Columbia, was very unusual bear behavior and sparked an effort to figure out exactly what had happened and why. That meant finding the bear involved—which, based on witness statements, was a mother grizzly with two cubs. Searchers combed the area on foot and by helicopter and tra…

The beginning of a new year ushers in an ominous day in the NFL: Black Monday, the day when coaches are (typically) most at risk of losing their jobs. Black Monday happens the day after the regular season ends, a time when an especially harsh backward review is cast over the wins, losses, and total misses. The casualty list includes Raheem Morris, who lost his job with the Atlanta Falcons on January 4; Kevin Stefanski, Pete Carroll, and Jonathan Gannon (Arizona Cardinals), who were each fired on Black Friday by the Cleveland Browns, Las Vegas Raiders, and Arizona Cardinals, respectively; John Harbaugh, who was fired by the Baltimore Ravens on January 6; and Mike McDa…