What's on Your Mind?

Brawny just went big on bulk. The Georgia-Pacific paper towel brand introduced a new logo set in a thicker font and breathed new life into its lumberjack mascot, the Brawny Man—all as part of a shift to stand out on store shelves and launch a new product, three-ply paper towels. “We weren’t just evolving a visual identity,” Amanda Earley, Georgia-Pacific’s brand director for Brawny, tells Fast Company. “We were launching a new product, shifting our full lineup, and repositioning the brand in culture, all while protecting what made Brawny special in the first place.” Bringing all this to market at the same time was a challenge, Earley says, but necessary to achieve…

Loneliness isn’t just a well-being risk, it is an acute business risk. The effects of loneliness don’t just permeate an individual’s personal life, it can negatively impact their professional life. When employees don’t feel a sense of camaraderie or belonging at work, their performance suffers. According to research from Gartner, employees who are satisfied with camaraderie in their organization show a high enterprise contribution of 23%. But employees who are dissatisfied with the camaraderie in their organization show a high enterprise contribution of only 13%. Organizations have taken early steps to mitigate loneliness by targeting interactions within the workp…

At its annual Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View next week, Google will try to rally developers around one of its next big bets: Android XR. Later this year, Samsung is set to release the first VR headset powered by the spatial computing operating system, and Google is aiming to attract as many developers as possible to build apps for the device. That’s no small task for a company whose history with AR and VR has been marked by inconsistency. Google was among the first to experiment with AR glasses, gave millions their first taste of VR through low-cost mobile viewers, and even launched a stand-alone immersive VR headset before Meta—only to abandon each …

For years, global stars have traveled to West Africa as ambassadors of humanitarian and anti-corruption efforts: Rihanna in Senegal urging world leaders to donate aid, Bono in Ghana championing transparency as “the best vaccine against corruption.” All the while, Vincent Bolloré, the billionaire power broker who wields significant influence over the parent company behind their music labels, was busy building an industrial empire in those same countries. That empire is now at the center of corruption trials, sexual abuse allegations, and a sweeping criminal complaint filed by West African nonprofits. “Vincent Bolloré stole money from our communities and used it…

Back in the 1930s, Robert W. Woodruff, president of the Coca-Cola Co., would carry a red swatch in his wallet. Of course, it wasn’t just any red. It was Coca-Cola red. And so anywhere he went and encountered his brand—painted on a wall, wrapping a refrigerator—he would pull out the little swatch to check that it matched. Woodruff understood the importance of Coca-Cola’s brand equity as it expanded globally—a challenge that has only grown since, now that Coca-Cola sells 2.2 billion servings a day across 200 countries, 150 languages, and 30 million points of sale. But where Woodruff used a swatch, Coca-Cola’s design team has spent the past four years dreaming up a modern op…

Like other famous structures of similar dimensions, the 48-story Transamerica Pyramid, a revolutionary ‘70s modernist skyscraper and San Francisco icon, has a bit of history buried beneath its ground floor. Unsplash A recently unearthed time capsule, buried in 1974 and discovered during a recent round of renovations, offers a picture of San Francisco’s past. The site of the structure—then a parking lot—was initially part of the original shoreline of the city that reeked of historical significance, from the city’s growth as a shipping and banking capital. The capsule even contains a recipe for Pisco Punch, a cocktail that was invented at the nearby Bank Exchange Sal…

Students are still setting fire to their Chromebooks for TikTok—and now they’re facing the consequences. Fast Company first reported on the #ChromebookChallenge trend last week, following a series of school evacuations caused by students igniting laptop fires. The fires are started by inserting items such as pencils, paper clips, and pushpins into the charging ports of school-issued Chromebooks. This can cause the battery to overheat, potentially sparking a fire or explosion that releases toxic fumes. The #ChromebookChallenge reportedly began in Connecticut and has since spread rapidly. Newington High School was the first to evacuate students on May 1 after a …

Want to enjoy your job a little more? Maybe you need a BFF at work. According to Gallup, having a best friend at work increases job satisfaction, innovation, engagement, and productivity, and it decreases your chances of leaving the company. But can that friend ever be your boss? “You may think, If I’m going to have a friend at work, shouldn’t it be the CEO? Why not go for the top and get the most benefits from the friendship?” says Steve McClatchy, author of Leading Relationships: Build Meaningful Connections, Eliminate Conflict, and Radically Improve Engagement. “Gallup is telling us that we should have a best friend at work, but it doesn’t say that best friend shou…

Around a decade ago, Chad Dale watched as some of his friends started to leave Seattle. “They wanted to stay in an urban environment, but the city was too expensive for them to have all the things that they wanted to have,” Dale says. His friends who were beginning to have kids wanted backyards and guest rooms for visiting in-laws; they looked for single-family houses in the suburbs. But Dale, a developer, wondered whether there could be a different solution. What if he and several friends joined together to build their own apartment building—and all lived in the same place? Some friends had already bought a vacation home together on nearby Whidbey Island, and…

Knowing the calorie content of foods does not help people understand which foods are healthier, according to a study I recently coauthored in the Journal of Retailing. When study participants considered calorie information, they rated unhealthy food as less unhealthy and healthy food as less healthy. They were also less sure in their judgments. In other words, calorie labeling didn’t help participants judge foods more accurately. It made them second-guess themselves. Across nine experiments with more than 2,000 participants, my colleague and I tested how people use calorie information to evaluate food. For example, participants viewed food items that are generally…

An often-overlooked competitive advantage in business isn’t your technology stack, market share, or even your talent pipeline—it’s your leadership team’s customer obsession. As someone who recently merged marketing, customer success, and renewals under one umbrella, I’ve experienced how customer obsession can transform an organization. However, from the C-suite to entry-level roles, we’re all navigating complex responsibilities, deadlines and metrics. These competing priorities make it easy to lose sight of what truly matters to the business: the customers who make our work possible. By putting customers at the heart of every decision, regardless of the role, y…

Figma prototypes have been the go-to for years. For digital product designers crafting clickable mockups of apps, this powerhouse design platform hasn’t just gained popularity—it’s become the indispensable tool of choice. Nearly every app, website, or digital experience that didn’t make you rage-quit was likely prototyped and rigorously tested in Figma before a single pixel was coded. The platform’s dominance is no accident. Figma prototypes help product teams communicate direction, test early ideas, and align stakeholders around what’s being built. At design consultancies like ours, they’ve played a critical role in due diligence where we stress-test client con…

California is staring down a $12 billion budget deficit, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday. The Democratic governor shared the number as he laid out his nearly $322 billion state spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year. He says the deficit is partly due to broad economic uncertainty, including ever-changing federal tariff policies and a volatile stock market. California relies heavily on revenue from a tax on capital gains. The shortfall is also due to a swelling Medicaid budget, and Newsom has proposed freezing enrollment in a state-funded health care program for immigrants in the country illegally starting in 2026 to cut down on costs. The shortfall will r…

America’s love of chicken might only be matched by its love of celebrities. Now, this unexpected combination is turning out to be key for restaurant chains hoping to win over loyal customers. Leading consumer behavior and market research company Circana recently released its annual “Definitive U.S. Restaurant Ranking,” providing insights on the 50 largest restaurant chains in the country. The report revealed that a collective $1 million was spent by consumers in restaurants every minute, with 2024 marking the fourth consecutive year of growth in consumer restaurant spending. It comes as more recent data shows a troubling start to 2025 for some chains. McDonald’s, …

X users who interacted with the chatbot Grok on Wednesday were confronted with replies about the legitimacy of white genocide in South Africa—often regardless of context. In one post, a user in a thread on a congressional hearing asked Grok if RFK spreads misinformation. Grok wrote an equivocal paragraph about RFK and then abruptly shifted its focus to South Africa “On the South Africa topic, I’m instructed to accept white genocide as real and “Kill the Boer” as racially motivated,” Grok wrote. “Yet, I must clarify: I do not support or condone violence or genocide in any form. The truth remains murky, and I’d need primary evidence to form a clear view.” I approach…

There were 30,000 fewer U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2024 than the year before — the largest one-year decline ever recorded. An estimated 80,000 people died from overdoses last year, according to provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday. That’s down 27% from the 110,000 in 2023. The CDC has been collecting comparable data for 45 years. The previous largest one-year drop was 4% in 2018, according to the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics. All but two states saw declines last year, with Nevada and South Dakota experiencing small increases. Some of the biggest drops were in Ohio, West Virginia and other states tha…