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I’m getting a mid-career executive MBA. Last week, in class, we discussed the interaction between automation and advertising. The lecture covered why A/B testing in Meta is less valuable now, since Facebook can auto-optimize faster and better than marketers can on their own. A classmate took the logical leap and asked the professor, “If digital channels have more data and more processing power, why don’t advertisers just give them a URL and a credit card and let them go wild?” The argument has real merit. Google, Meta, and LinkedIn have access to more data than any agency ever will. Their optimization engines are improving fast. Handing them a budget and a URL and walking away isn’t entirely crazy. But that means we’d need to have faith in the channels to optimize media in a business’s best interests, and there’s a long, proud history of that not being the case. 1. The opt-in that wasn’t About six years ago, we met with a Google rep who pitched a product that introduced broader, more aggressive targeting and bidding. We listened to the pitch and said no. We didn’t want to try it. The reps turned it on anyway. What happened next was what we predicted. The campaigns spent significantly more money and didn’t generate any additional conversions. We had to comp the client for the wasted spend, which was bad enough. But what made it worse was the principle of the thing: we hadn’t agreed to this. Google made unauthorized changes to our account. When I tried to get the money back, Google’s position was that we’d set our campaign budgets at a certain level, and they were within their rights to spend up to that amount. That framing ignores that a budget cap is a ceiling, not an invitation. Our agency methodology is to never hit a budget cap. We set those numbers based on the strategy we’d approved, not the one they decided to test. I hounded them for weeks, but never got any resolution. It still makes me angry. The reps were clearly incentivized to get adoption of the new feature. When it didn’t work, there was no accountability and no recourse. We were left covering the cost of a decision we explicitly declined. What’s being misrepresented Budget caps were treated as implicit consent to spend. A product we declined was activated without authorization, and when it failed, the platform pointed to our own settings as justification. The incentive structure rewarded the reps for turning it on. There was no corresponding mechanism to make the advertiser whole when it didn’t work. Dig deeper: Google rep’s unauthorized ad changes spark advertiser concerns Your customers search everywhere. Make sure your brand shows up. The SEO toolkit you know, plus the AI visibility data you need. Start Free Trial Get started with 2. The profit maximization pitch This was years ago for a successful retainer. A pair of senior Google reps sat across from us and asked what our client’s gross margin was. Around 50%, we said. They went to the whiteboard and wrote out: if overall revenue/2 – overall media cost >= 0, then we should keep spending money on ads. On the surface, the math sounds right. In practice, it has two problems. It assumes the reported conversions are incremental, meaning they wouldn’t have happened without the paid ad. A substantial portion of any Google campaign’s reported conversions, particularly in brand and retargeting, are users who were already going to convert. The model assumes a flat cost curve, where the 500th conversion costs the same as the 50th. It does not. Marginal returns fall as you scale. The last dollars of spend are always the least efficient, but they’re exactly what this pitch is designed to help Google access. (They should have said marginal revenue/2 – marginal cost = 0 is profit maximization.) What’s being misrepresented The model treats all reported conversions as incremental and assumes cost per conversion is constant across spend levels. Both assumptions are wrong, and together they can justify significant overspend. 3. The ‘higher CPCs buy better clicks’ pitch This one still happens all the time. The pitch is that if you raise your CPCs, you’ll get access to higher-quality traffic. The implied logic is that conversion rate is influenced by CPC, and that if your investment isn’t high enough, you’re missing the best clicks. There’s a version of this that has some truth to it. Higher CPCs can mean higher ad positions, which can mean higher impression frequency against the same users. More frequency can drive higher aggregate conversion rates, because repeated exposure matters. But the argument glosses over the other side of that equation. Higher frequency has diminishing marginal returns. The third impression is worth less than the first. The tenth is worth a lot less. The cost curve isn’t flat. You’re paying more per click at every step. In practice, raising CPCs to chase quality traffic is almost always correlated with substantially worse overall return on ad spend. This is a variant of the marginal return problem seen across these cases. The pitch frames the upside without acknowledging the cost curve. More spend gets positioned as access to better outcomes, when it often delivers the same outcomes at a higher price. What’s being misrepresented CPC and conversion rate are presented as if higher bids unlock better traffic. In most cases, the incremental cost outpaces the incremental return. The pitch frames diminishing returns as an opportunity, rather than a constraint. Dig deeper: Dealing with Google Ads frustrations: Poor support, suspensions, rising costs 4. The learning phase as a get-out-of-jail card “If your Meta campaigns are underperforming, it’s because the algorithm just needs more time to learn.” “Don’t make changes, and don’t reduce budget, just give the platform more data.” This is sometimes true. Machine learning systems need volume to optimize effectively, and premature intervention can reset progress. But “it needs to learn” has become a catch-all explanation that’s almost impossible to disprove in the short run. It explains away poor CPAs, delays accountability, and keeps spend flowing when a reasonable advertiser might otherwise pull back and reassess. There’s rarely a clear definition of when the learning phase ends, which makes it a moving target. The learning phase ends when performance improves. If performance doesn’t improve, more learning is prescribed. What’s being misrepresented A real technical concept is being used in ways that resist falsification. When there’s no defined endpoint and no stated criteria for success, “it needs to learn” serves as a blank check for budgetary continuity. 5. The metric pivot: When conversions fail, sell sentiment In many cases, YouTube or display campaigns aren’t driving measurable conversions. The rep’s suggestion: let’s look at brand measurement. We can measure recall rates, positive sentiment, and intent to purchase. These are real signals of brand health, and they matter in the long run. But the shift from conversion to sentiment metrics tends to occur when conversion metrics are poor, not as a principled measurement strategy. Brand lift surveys measure awareness under controlled conditions, but they rely on self-reported intent and don’t connect to downstream revenue. Recall is almost never translated into a cost per point of lift that can be compared across the media plan. You end up with a number that’s positive and presented as evidence of success, with no agreed-upon framework for what sufficient lift would look like. What’s being misrepresented A softer metric is substituted for a harder one after the harder one fails. Brand lift is a legitimate measurement tool when defined upfront as a success criterion. Introduced afterward, it functions as a consolation prize. Dig deeper: PPC mistakes that humble even experienced marketers Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. 6. Upper funnel combined with lower funnel for a blended average Upper-funnel and lower-funnel campaigns serve different purposes and perform differently on a cost-per-acquisition basis. When a channel reports blended CPA across all campaign types, an average that looks acceptable can hide the fact that some portion of the media plan is wildly inefficient at the margin. The argument for blending is that upper-funnel spend creates the conditions for lower-funnel performance. That is plausible, but plausibility isn’t the same as demonstrated causality. Often, it’s assumed the upper funnel is directly contributing and that, in aggregate, the system is profitable and fully incremental. This is never the case. What’s being misrepresented Aggregate CPA can look fine while specific segments of spend have no measurable return. Blending is a reporting choice, and it can obscure where money is and isn’t working. 7. View-through conversions: The numbers that shouldn’t count A view-through conversion is counted when a user sees an ad, doesn’t click it, and then converts within some attribution window, often 24 hours or more. Platforms report these alongside click-through conversions by default. For retargeting campaigns, which by definition serve ads to people who have already visited your site, view-through attribution is particularly problematic. These users were likely going to return and convert regardless. The ad may have had nothing to do with it. The issue isn’t that view-throughs aren’t meaningful. For a cold audience, some brand-influenced conversions happen without clicks. The issue is that those conversions are almost never broken out proactively (you have to ask). And when you remove view-throughs from retargeting campaigns, the ROAS numbers can change dramatically. We’ve seen cases where removing VTAs cuts reported conversions by more than half. I would note that by moving to incremental measurement options, Meta has become substantially more transparent. What’s being misrepresented View-through conversions inflate reported performance, particularly in retargeting, where incrementality is already low. Default reporting includes them without flagging the methodological problem. Dig deeper: Outsmarting Google Ads: Insider strategies to navigate changes like a pro 8. The competitor benchmark as a spending lever This one is a pattern. A channel rep brings industry benchmark data to a meeting showing that your competitors are spending at a level above your current budget. The implication is clear: you’re being outspent, and you should close the gap. Industry benchmarks are among the most valuable inputs a channel can provide. Knowing where you sit relative to the market is useful context for planning. The problem is how they get deployed. More often than not, benchmark data shows up as a tool to expand media spend, not as a neutral input into strategy. And it works. CEOs and CMOs are particularly susceptible to this framing. Nobody wants to hear that a competitor is outspending them. The emotional pull of “they’re investing more than you” is hard to counter with a measured conversation about marginal returns or strategic fit. The benchmark becomes the argument, and the argument is almost always “spend more.” What gets lost is any discussion of whether: The competitor’s spend is actually working for them. Your business model and margins support the same level of investment. The benchmark even reflects an apples-to-apples comparison. Competitive spend data without context is just a number that makes your budget feel inadequate. What’s being misrepresented Benchmark data is real, but it’s selectively introduced to justify budget increases rather than treated as one input among many. The framing skips over whether the comparison is meaningful and relies on competitive anxiety to sell. 9. The default settings trap This one is hard to frame as a single incident because it’s everywhere. I’ve talked to so many people trying to break into the industry, or launch their first campaigns, and the story is almost always the same. They follow the platform’s setup guide, accept the default settings, and end up opted into programs that have close to zero chance of being successful. This is true across pretty much every major channel. LinkedIn defaults you into audience network inventory that runs outside the LinkedIn feed. Google opts you into display inventory when you’re trying to run search. Broad match keywords are set way too far out of the box. Suggested CPCs are astronomical. Google’s geographic targeting defaults to “presence or interest” rather than actual location. Each of these defaults, taken individually, could be defended as a reasonable starting point. Taken together, they create a setup that maximizes the platform’s revenue from day one, before the advertiser knows what’s happening. A new advertiser following the guided setup is accepting a configuration that the platform designed, and the platform’s incentives aren’t aligned with efficient spend. This one is genuinely difficult to solve. Platforms need to provide default settings, and they can’t expect every new advertiser to understand every option. But there’s something predatory about the gap between what people think they’re signing up for and what they’re getting. The defaults are revenue-optimized for the channel, not performance-optimized for the advertiser. What’s being misrepresented Setup guides and default settings are presented as best practices when they’re actually configurations that favor the platform’s revenue. New advertisers trust the guided experience, and have no reason to suspect the defaults are working against them. Dig deeper: Are you being manipulated by Google Ads? 10. The tracking gap as a faith exercise Privacy regulations and platform changes have created real limitations in conversion tracking. GDPR and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency aren’t invented problems. We have less visibility than we used to, and the platforms have responded by layering probabilistic modeling and modeled conversions on top of deterministic tracking. But the tracking gap has also become a convenient shelter for underperformance. The argument goes like this: “The conversions are happening, we just can’t see them all yet. There’s latency in the data.” “There are limits to what can be tracked. We need a longer attribution window.” “We need more time for the modeled data to populate. And in the meantime, here are some proxy metrics that we think are directionally valid, so let’s keep pushing.” Each of those can be true in isolation. Modeled conversions take time to appear. Attribution is harder than it was five years ago. Proxy metrics can be useful when direct measurement breaks down. The problem is when all of these caveats get stacked together and used to justify sustained spend in the absence of any measurable result. At some point, “the data will come in” stops being a reasonable expectation and becomes an article of faith. The tracking gap is real, but it cuts both ways. If you can’t measure the result, you also can’t prove the spend is working. The platform’s default position is to assume it is, and keep going. The advertiser’s job is to ask what happens if the modeled conversions never materialize, and what the fallback plan looks like if they don’t. What’s being misrepresented Legitimate tracking limitations are used to defer accountability indefinitely. When measurement is hard, the platform’s recommendation is always to maintain or increase spend, never to reduce it. The uncertainty gets resolved in the channel’s favor by default. See the complete picture of your search visibility. Track, optimize, and win in Google and AI search from one platform. Start Free Trial Get started with What does this mean for AI-run campaigns? None of this is an argument that agencies are irreplaceable in their current form. We used to question tCPA, and now it’s a preferred bidding strategy. Automation handles execution-level work that used to require skilled practitioners. In-house teams are viable for more companies than they used to be. But the argument for fully autonomous, channel-run advertising assumes the channel will optimize for your outcomes rather than revenue. Even if we imagine new profit-sharing contracts, this assumption carries real risk. And I’m not blaming reps or the channels. They believe in their products, but they’re also measured on metrics that create a predictable drift in how they frame data. I should note that agencies struggle with misaligned incentives as well. The advertiser’s job, with or without an agency, is to keep asking the inconvenient questions. What is the marginal return at this spend level? What percentage of conversions are view-throughs? What does performance look like if we exclude brand search? Are we measuring incrementality, or are we measuring correlation, and calling it causation? Maybe the answer to everything is eventually full automation. But the entity building the machine shouldn’t be the one telling you when it’s ready. View the full article

When managing a retail business, choosing the right accounting software is vital for effective financial oversight. These solutions offer fundamental features like inventory control, real-time updates, and seamless integration with point-of-sale systems. By automating processes such as sales tax calculations, you can streamline operations and improve decision-making. As you explore various options, consider how these tools can transform your financial management practices and support your business growth in an increasingly competitive market. Key Takeaways QuickBooks offers robust features for real-time inventory tracking and seamless integration with various POS systems, ideal for small to medium retail businesses. Sage Intacct provides advanced financial insights and multi-entity accounting, making it suitable for complex retail structures with automated workflows. Brightpearl centralizes inventory management across multiple sales channels, automating order fulfillment to reduce manual errors and enhance efficiency. Retail accounting software enhances cash flow management through automated invoicing, expense tracking, and real-time financial insights for informed decision-making. Look for solutions that prioritize real-time inventory updates, seamless POS integration, and robust reporting tools to optimize retail operations. Overview of Retail Accounting Software When you run a retail business, having the right tools to manage your finances is crucial, and retail accounting software is particularly designed to address these needs. This software offers unique features customized specifically for retail operations, such as sales reconciliation, inventory management, and support for multiple locations. It helps you efficiently handle large transaction volumes, ensuring accurate financial reporting. The best accounting software for retail business allows for real-time revenue and expense tracking, automates tax compliance, and integrates seamlessly with your POS systems. These capabilities let you monitor daily sales and streamline operational processes effectively. Furthermore, many platforms provide budgeting and financial forecasting tools driven by AI, helping you predict seasonal fluctuations and optimize stock levels. Popular choices like QuickBooks, Lightspeed, and Sage Intacct offer user-friendly interfaces and customizable dashboards to improve your overall experience and functionality. Key Features of Retail Accounting Solutions When choosing retail accounting solutions, you’ll want to focus on key features like inventory management capabilities and financial reporting tools. Effective inventory management helps you track stock levels in real time, ensuring you can meet customer demand without overstocking. Furthermore, robust financial reporting tools provide insights into your business’s performance, allowing for informed decision-making and strategic planning. Inventory Management Capabilities Effective inventory management is crucial for retail businesses, as it directly impacts profitability and customer satisfaction. Retail accounting solutions offer real-time inventory updates, ensuring stock levels are accurate with every sale and order. This feature helps you avoid over- and understocking situations. Advanced tools like bin location tracking and bar code scanning improve organization and stock rotation through FIFO (First-In, First-Out) methods. With extensive management capabilities, you can handle multiple vendors and streamline ordering from a centralized interface, boosting operational efficiency. Automated inventory forecasting, driven by AI insights, helps you predict seasonal changes and optimize stock levels, reducing excess inventory. Integration with POS systems and ecommerce platforms allows seamless synchronization of sales and inventory data, providing a complete view of your financial performance. Financial Reporting Tools Comprehending financial reporting tools is essential for retail businesses aiming to maintain control over their finances and make informed decisions. Retail accounting solutions offer real-time revenue and expense tracking, allowing you to monitor daily sales and costs effectively. Automated financial reporting simplifies tax calculations, generating precise reports based on location, which reduces errors and guarantees compliance. Integrations with POS and inventory systems enable seamless syncing of sales and payroll data, providing an accurate financial overview. Customizable dashboards and flexible reporting capabilities help you analyze profit margins, sales trends, and inventory performance. Furthermore, budgeting and forecasting tools utilize historical data to predict seasonal fluctuations, optimizing stock levels and improving cash flow management for your business’s success. Benefits of Using Accounting Software in Retail Using accounting software in retail streamlines financial management by automating complex tasks like inventory control and sales tracking. This efficiency not merely reduces errors but additionally helps you make informed decisions based on real-time data. With improved visibility into your finances, you can improve inventory control and finally drive better business outcomes. Streamlined Financial Management When retail businesses adopt accounting software, they often find that streamlined financial management becomes a significant advantage. This software enables real-time tracking of revenue and expenses, allowing you to make timely decisions based on current financial data. By integrating with POS and inventory systems, it automates data syncing, minimizing manual errors and providing a holistic view of your financial performance across multiple sales channels. Automated reporting features help simplify tax compliance and financial analysis, making complex calculations more manageable. Furthermore, budgeting and forecasting tools use AI-driven insights to predict seasonal fluctuations, improving cash flow management. For retail chains, multi-location support centralizes financial reporting, enhancing operational oversight and making it easier to manage diverse revenue streams. Enhanced Inventory Control Effective inventory control is crucial for retail businesses, and accounting software can greatly improve this aspect of operations. With real-time updates, stock levels remain accurate, minimizing the risk of overstocking or stockouts. Automated features like bin location tracking and FIFO systems streamline order fulfillment, enhancing operational efficiency. By integrating with POS systems, accounting software guarantees seamless data synchronization, providing a thorough view of inventory across multiple locations. This visibility aids in effective stock replenishment. Smart inventory forecasting tools leverage historical sales data to predict future demand, optimizing inventory levels and reducing carrying costs. Furthermore, automated alerts for low stock levels help you avoid lost sales and guarantee timely restocking, ultimately boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty. Improved Decision Making Accurate inventory management not just improves operational efficiency but furthermore lays the groundwork for better decision-making in retail businesses. By utilizing accounting software, you gain real-time access to revenue and expense data, allowing you to make informed decisions that improve cash flow management. Integrated tax compliance features automate calculations, reducing errors and ensuring timely submissions, which is crucial for operational integrity. If you manage multiple locations, consolidated financial reporting provides an all-encompassing view of performance metrics, aiding strategic decisions. Advanced budgeting and forecasting tools analyze sales trends, helping you optimize inventory levels. Finally, customizable dashboards offer insights into profit margins, enabling you to identify opportunities for cost reduction and revenue improvement effectively. QuickBooks: A Popular Choice for Retailers Many retailers are turning to QuickBooks as their go-to accounting software due to its robust features customized for the retail environment. QuickBooks offers real-time inventory updates, allowing you to track stock levels accurately and make informed purchasing decisions. Its seamless integration with various POS systems and ecommerce platforms, such as Shopify and BigCommerce, helps manage sales and inventory across multiple channels effortlessly. The software includes automated sales tax calculations and financial reporting tools, which streamline compliance and reduce the risk of errors during tax season. You can take advantage of customizable dashboards that provide insights into sales performance, enabling you to optimize product offerings and drive profitability. With its user-friendly interface, QuickBooks is particularly suited for small to medium-sized retail businesses, offering robust accounting capabilities without extensive training requirements. This combination of features makes QuickBooks a popular choice among retailers looking to improve their accounting processes. Sage Intacct: Advanced Financial Management With Sage Intacct, you gain access to real-time financial insights that empower you to make data-driven decisions for your retail business. Its multi-entity accounting features are ideal for managing complex financial structures, especially if you operate multiple locations or franchises. Furthermore, the advanced workflow automation capabilities streamline accounts payable and receivable, reducing manual work and enhancing overall financial accuracy. Real-Time Financial Insights How can real-time financial insights transform your retail business? With Sage Intacct, you gain access to customizable dashboards that allow you to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and financial metrics instantly. This capability supports informed decision-making, enhancing your operational efficiency. By integrating seamlessly with over 350 applications, Sage Intacct centralizes your data management, ensuring accurate financial reporting across various locations. Furthermore, advanced automation streamlines accounts payable and receivable processes, reducing manual errors and saving time. Its built-in financial forecasting tools help you anticipate trends and optimize inventory purchasing, eventually improving your cash flow management. Feature Benefit Customizable Dashboards Instant KPI tracking Seamless Application Integration Accurate reporting Advanced Automation Time-saving financial processes Multi-Entity Accounting Support As businesses expand and operate across multiple locations, managing financial operations efficiently becomes crucial. Sage Intacct offers robust multi-entity accounting capabilities, allowing you to oversee various subsidiaries or locations from a single platform. Centralized financial reporting simplifies data tracking. Streamlined consolidation improves reporting across entities. Real-time visibility into performance metrics aids in decision-making. Automated inter-entity transactions reduce manual errors and save time. With customizable dashboards and flexible reporting options, you can analyze financial data specific to each entity, driving efficiency and profitability. This software supports complex financial structures, making it easier to meet diverse operational needs during ensuring accurate financial management across all your business locations. Workflow Automation Benefits When businesses implement workflow automation through Sage Intacct’s advanced financial management capabilities, they can streamline numerous financial processes, greatly improving efficiency. The automation of accounts payable and receivable reduces manual data entry, freeing up valuable time. Customizable dashboards offer real-time insights, enabling informed decision-making. With over 350 software integrations, Sage Intacct guarantees seamless connectivity, keeping financial data synchronized. Its automation engine optimizes cash flow management by providing alerts for overdue invoices and automating payment scheduling. Moreover, AI-driven financial forecasting helps predict seasonal fluctuations, allowing you to adjust inventory levels effectively. Benefit Description Streamlined Processes Reduces manual data entry and improves efficiency Real-Time Insights Customizable dashboards for informed decisions Seamless Integration Connects with over 350 applications Optimized Cash Flow Alerts for overdue invoices and payment automation Brightpearl: Comprehensive Retail Management Brightpearl stands out as a thorough retail management solution that simplifies the intricacies of running a retail business. By integrating seamlessly with ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce, it centralizes your inventory management across multiple sales channels. Key features include: Automated order fulfillment processes that streamline shipping and accounting, reducing manual errors. Advanced inventory management tools that provide real-time updates and smart forecasting, helping you avoid over- or understocking. Robust financial management features that offer customizable dashboards, giving you real-time insights to improve decision-making. Multi-entity accounting support, making it suitable for businesses with complex financial structures and multiple locations. With Brightpearl, you can optimize your operations, making informed decisions that improve your financial health and boost efficiency in your retail business. Integrating POS Systems With Accounting Software Integrating your POS system with accounting software can greatly streamline data synchronization, allowing real-time updates of sales and inventory information. By automating these processes, you can improve inventory management and reduce the risk of manual errors, making your operations more efficient. This connection not just simplifies your workflow but furthermore provides essential insights into your business’s financial health and sales trends. Streamlined Data Synchronization Streamlined data synchronization between your point-of-sale (POS) system and accounting software can greatly improve your retail business’s operational efficiency. By integrating these systems, you guarantee real-time synchronization of sales data, which helps in tracking revenue accurately during minimizing manual data entry errors. This integration not only facilitates automated sales tax calculations but additionally improves the accuracy of your financial reporting. Here are some key benefits: Real-time updates to stock levels in your accounting system Simplified setup with popular accounting solutions like QuickBooks and Sage Intacct Improved insights into sales performance and cash flow management Reduced risk of tax-related errors, guaranteeing compliance with local regulations Integrating your POS with accounting software is crucial for efficient operations. Enhanced Inventory Management When you connect your point-of-sale (POS) system with accounting software, you reveal the potential for improved inventory management that can greatly benefit your retail operations. This integration allows for real-time inventory updates, ensuring accurate stock levels across all sales channels with every transaction. It likewise streamlines sales reconciliation by syncing sales data from the POS to your accounting platform, which minimizes manual entry errors and saves time. By enhancing inventory management, you gain valuable insights into sales trends and inventory turnover, helping you make informed purchasing decisions. Many accounting solutions, like QuickBooks and Sage Intacct, offer built-in compatibility with popular POS systems, facilitating seamless data synchronization and improving operational efficiency for your business. Managing Multi-Location Retail Operations Managing multi-location retail operations requires a strategic approach to guarantee efficiency and profitability across all stores. Centralized financial reporting is crucial, allowing you to analyze real-time data and make informed decisions. Integration with POS systems guarantees seamless synchronization of sales data, which improves revenue tracking and inventory management. Consider these key features when managing multi-location operations: Centralized financial reporting for real-time data analysis. Integration with POS systems for accurate sales and inventory tracking. Advanced budgeting and forecasting tools that utilize AI for seasonal predictions. Automated reporting features to simplify tax calculations and compliance. Automated Financial Reporting and Compliance Automated financial reporting and compliance play a vital role in modern retail accounting, as they simplify the often complex processes of generating fundamental financial documents. By using retail accounting software, you can streamline the creation of important reports, greatly reducing manual effort and minimizing errors. Platforms like QuickBooks and Sage Intacct offer automated tax compliance features, calculating sales tax based on location and generating accurate tax reports for regulatory requirements. Integration with point-of-sale systems guarantees real-time sales data is captured and reconciled, providing a more accurate financial overview and enhancing compliance with reporting standards. In addition, customizable dashboards allow you to visualize key financial metrics and compliance data, facilitating timely decision-making. Leveraging AI-driven insights for budgeting and forecasting helps you predict seasonal sales trends, optimize inventory levels, and guarantee effective compliance with financial regulations, ultimately supporting your retail business’s growth and stability. Inventory Management and Accounting Integration Effective inventory management and accounting integration is crucial for retail businesses aiming to maintain accurate financial reporting and efficient operations. By utilizing software that combines these functions, you can streamline your processes and make informed decisions. Real-time updates of inventory levels and sales data improve accuracy in financial reporting. Automation of inventory updates minimizes manual errors, ensuring current stock valuations in accounting records. Tools like Sage Intacct and QuickBooks offer automated expense tracking and inventory valuation for better insights into profit margins. Integration facilitates streamlined financial processes, including accurate tax calculations and budgeting by synchronizing sales and inventory data. Enhancing Cash Flow Management With Software During maneuvering the financial terrain of a retail business, you need robust cash flow management software to help you keep expenses in check and optimize revenue. Effective software automates expense tracking and categorization, enabling you to quickly identify spending patterns and areas for cost reduction. With real-time financial insights, you can forecast cash flow needs, guaranteeing timely inventory purchases that minimize stockouts or overstock situations. Integration with POS systems guarantees that your sales data accurately reflects in cash flow reports, giving you a thorough view of revenue and expenditures across all sales channels. Automated invoicing and payment reminders facilitate faster collections, improving cash inflow and reducing the time you spend on manual follow-ups. Furthermore, advanced analytics tools allow you to simulate different cash flow scenarios based on seasonal trends, enabling better financial planning and resource allocation, which is vital for maintaining a healthy cash flow. Choosing the Right Software for Your Retail Business Selecting the right accounting software for your retail business plays a significant role in managing your operations effectively. To guarantee you make the best choice, consider the following key factors: Real-time inventory management: This helps maintain accurate stock levels, preventing over- or understocking. Seamless integration: Choose software that works well with your existing POS systems and ecommerce platforms for centralized data management. Robust financial features: Look for automated reporting and tax compliance tools to simplify accounting tasks and improve financial accuracy. Scalability: Opt for software that can grow with your business, accommodating evolving financial needs without major changes. Tips for Successful Implementation of Accounting Software Implementing accounting software in your retail business can seem intimidating, but with a structured approach, you can streamline the process effectively. Start by evaluating your business needs to select software that includes crucial features like multi-location management, POS integration, and real-time inventory tracking. Next, plan a phased implementation; begin with key functionalities to minimize disruption, then gradually integrate additional features based on user feedback. To boost adoption rates, provide thorough training for your staff, making certain they’re proficient in using the system. Utilize data migration tools and support services from your software provider to guarantee a smooth shift of financial records and minimize data loss. Finally, establish ongoing support by scheduling regular check-ins with the provider and creating user groups for feedback. This proactive approach will help you address issues post-implementation and continuously optimize your use of the software, leading to long-term success. Future Trends in Retail Accounting Solutions As retail businesses evolve, staying ahead of the curve in accounting solutions becomes crucial for maintaining efficiency and competitiveness. Future trends in retail accounting solutions are shaping how you manage your financial operations. Here are some key developments to watch: AI Integration: Improved predictive analytics will help you forecast trends and manage inventory by analyzing historical sales data. Cloud-Based Solutions: These offer real-time access to financial data, enabling seamless collaboration across multiple locations and devices. Automation: Routine tasks like invoice processing and expense tracking will be automated, reducing manual errors and improving operational efficiency. Data Security: Advanced encryption and authentication protocols will protect your sensitive financial information from cyber threats. Frequently Asked Questions What Is the Best Accounting Software for a Small Business? When you’re looking for the best accounting software for your small business, consider options like QuickBooks Online, which offers thorough features and real-time inventory updates. Xero is user-friendly and supports collaboration, whereas FreshBooks stands out in invoicing and expense tracking. If you want a free solution, Wave Accounting allows unlimited invoicing and basic reporting. For advanced needs, Sage 50 provides robust desktop capabilities and inventory management tools, catering to complex accounting requirements. What Software Do Retail Stores Use? Retail stores typically use dedicated accounting software like QuickBooks, Lightspeed, and Sage Intacct. These programs offer features such as real-time inventory tracking, sales reconciliation, and multi-location support customized to retail operations. Integration with Point of Sale (POS) systems streamlines data synchronization, reducing manual errors. Many solutions automate reporting and tax compliance, simplifying financial management. Furthermore, cloud-based platforms improve accessibility, allowing multiple users to collaborate on financial data in real-time across various locations. Is Quickbooks Good for Retail? QuickBooks is a solid choice for retail businesses. It offers real-time inventory updates, helping you manage stock levels effectively. The software integrates with various POS systems and e-commerce platforms, streamlining operations across sales channels. You’ll appreciate the automated sales tax calculations and customizable reports that simplify compliance and provide valuable insights. Plus, its user-friendly design makes it accessible, regardless of whether you lack extensive accounting knowledge, as well as supporting future growth as needed. Is Xero or Quickbooks Better for Small Business? When deciding between Xero and QuickBooks for your small business, consider your specific needs. QuickBooks offers robust features like inventory management and payroll, making it ideal for complex accounting tasks. Conversely, Xero shines in collaboration with its multi-user access and AI-driven automation, even though its inventory tracking isn’t as strong. In the end, if you prioritize extensive features, QuickBooks might be better, whereas Xero suits businesses that value real-time insights and user-friendliness. Conclusion In summary, selecting the right accounting software for your retail business is essential for effective financial management and operational efficiency. Solutions like QuickBooks and Sage Intacct offer features customized to meet the unique challenges of retail, enhancing inventory control and cash flow management. By grasping the key benefits and implementing the software successfully, you can streamline your processes and support your business’s growth. Staying informed about future trends will likewise help you adapt and thrive in a competitive market. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Best Accounting Software Solutions for Retail Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Google explains why it doesn't matter if websites are getting heavier and the takeaway has everything to do with SEO. The post Google Explains Why It Doesn’t Matter That Websites Are Getting Larger appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

For years, Salesforce Marketing Cloud was the safe choice. Powerful. Enterprise. Trusted. But lately, we’re hearing something different: “Our data is too tangled to activate.” “We’re locked into contracts.” “We’re stuck sending the same emails on repeat.” “Everything is Band-Aids and duct tape — I don’t know how we can move without breaking everything.” “We feel stuck.” Sound familiar? If so, this fireside chat is for you. We’ve helped dozens of brands migrate off Salesforce and into modern, composable engagement architectures built for real CRM performance. Not because it’s trendy — but because marketers needed more speed, flexibility, and innovation. In this April 14 session, we’ll cover: Why brands feel stuck (and why it’s more common than you think). What’s happening inside the Salesforce ecosystem. The biggest misconceptions about migrating. Understanding the martech landscape. What life actually looks like after moving to a modern platform like Braze. How CMOs and martech leaders should think about platform decisions over the next 3 to 5 years. How to get the rest of your org on board with making a move. The steps to take now to set yourself up for migration success. To be clear: this isn’t a Salesforce-bashing session. It’s a candid conversation about innovation velocity, marketing ownership, and what the next era of marketing actually requires. Join us Disclaimer: To ensure a candid and open conversation, the live session is open only to brand-side marketing leaders. Registrants who are not verified brand-side marketing leaders will not be permitted to attend the live session. However, the recorded session will be made available to all registrants upon completion of the event. View the full article

To observe a SpaceX launch in person, as I did in February, is to witness a stunning and galvanic event. Two of the company’s greatest feats occur in quick succession. First, there’s the launch itself, with the rocket ferrying its payload—perhaps its own Starlink internet satellites, or ones for other businesses and the government, or even humans—and painting the night sky a blazing orange. Then there’s the second act, one that changed spaceflight forever. It begins with a wary silence, and then, suddenly, there’s the rocket’s first-stage booster returning to Earth, announcing itself with a sonic boom and ferrying down from the heavens. It descends, before hovering and then landing—vertically!—back on the launch pad. Usually, it’s in decent enough shape that with a few tune-ups, it’s ready to do the whole sequence all over again, which allowed SpaceX to do more than 160 launches in 2025, and sometimes two in a single day. The operation might appear miraculous, but it’s not. With smart engineering, the extraordinary becomes ordinary. SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, didn’t invent rocket science, but it arguably invented rocket science at scale. The company’s engineering coups have vastly lowered the cost of reaching space, unlocking myriad new lines of business, from selling a ticket to space on one of its launches to connecting (almost) anyone to Starlink, its global satellite internet service, which reportedly has a 97% market share and is driving the majority of what Reuters estimated to be about $16 billion in revenue in 2025. Mars may remain a stretch goal, but the $1.8 trillion space market, as the World Economic Forum projects it to be by 2035, runs through SpaceX. Although these achievements have allowed SpaceX to reshape humanity’s journey into orbit in its own image, they overshadow what could be the company’s most impressive, and most iterable, legacy: A growing universe of former employees have founded companies dedicated to solving the next generation of very hard engineering challenges. By applying what they learned at SpaceX, especially its once-heterodox approach to problem-solving, they’re seeking to remake much of the industrial economy—and potentially become the next SpaceX. The breadth of these ideas is vast, and they’re audacious enough to stand alongside SpaceX’s efforts to perfect its Starship megarocket and build orbital data centers. They range from transforming core technologies like radar to reinventing factories for the age of AI and robotics to building a “railroad to Mars” that will be the space equivalent that railroads served in the 19th century. “A lot of this has to do with Elon and his personality and his ability to attract these types of people,” explains Robert Rose, who led software development for the Falcon 9 and is now building a system for autonomous aircraft (Reliable Robotics) and running a cargo airline that’ll deploy it (Reliable Airlines). “But he also just created an environment that those types of people want to be in.” When I ask Max Benassi, a former SpaceX propulsion engineer who went on to cofound Apex Space to reimagine satellite manufacturing, to describe his time at the company, he says, “We were solving some of the hardest problems that had never been solved before.” That’s the ethos internalized by a fleet of hundreds of alumni who now make up SpaceX: The Next Generation—and who aim to follow suit. As SpaceX prepares to go public—at a valuation that could surpass $2 trillion—this group not only helped get SpaceX there but they reveal everywhere else it’s making an impact. In this Fast Company exclusive, subscribers receive: The full dataset of 400-plus SpaceX employees turned founders, the largest public dataset of its kind An interactive map depicting where 64 companies founded by SpaceX alums are establishing a new industrial hub in the U.S. Where 54 companies founded by ex-SpaceX employees are seeing opportunities in the new space economy Which “extreme” company values most influence SpaceX veterans as they tackle new problems Why investing in SpaceX-y startups is still a non-consensus bet What mindset turned SpaceX into a multitrillion-dollar company The organizational psychology that’s given Musk and his businesses such immense influence Beyond space Across the deep well of companies founded by SpaceX alums, you’ll notice that many are tackling problems that to a nonexpert might seem to teeter along the edge of what’s currently imaginable. There’s Airhart Aeronautics, cofounded and led by Nikita Ermoshkin, a former SpaceX avionics systems and integration engineer, which is building personal airplanes designed with a simple control panel that (the hope is) anyone, basically, could fly. At SpaceX, Jaret Matthews was a mechanism group leader for the Dragon spacecraft. His company, Astrolab, is currently developing commercial planetary rovers that could soon land on the moon, and one day traverse the Martian surface. Notably, most SpaceX alumni founders don’t stay in the space industry. Only about 17% of them are now pursuing opportunities there. Still, lessons carry over. Tamir Blum, a SpaceX alum who designs vehicles for agriculture through his company Kisui, notes that, like space vehicles, farming rovers also have to navigate difficult and “unpredictable” environments. Blum is an exemplar of how even more Earthbound founders tend to remain focused on challenges rooted in the physical world, devoting their efforts to remaking agriculture, construction and housing, energy, manufacturing, and transportation. Some also focus on defense applications and weapons development, and seek to follow in SpaceX’s footsteps of capitalizing, sometimes heavily, on U.S. government contracts. Many of the companies have clustered around where these employees used to work. Until 2024, SpaceX headquarters was in Hawthorne, California, south of Los Angeles. (Its Falcon mission control is still located there.) In the process, they’re creating a new industrial sector for the United States. See our map above to explore where. This focus on manufacturing is also notable because hard-tech startups tend to require far more startup capital than simpler software-based businesses. It’s far easier to spin up an enterprise software company than it is to, say, build a factory and produce real hardware that works (and passes safety certifications). Even many of the enterprise software companies founded by SpaceX alums remain in the orbit of fabrication and hardware engineering issues. These include startups working on AI-enabled chip design (Bronco AI) and workforce agents designed for engineering teams (Navier AI). First principles, then scale Want to solve a big problem? Start by breaking it down into smaller pieces, until you’re down to the core components. Sure, a rocket is made of engines and fuel tanks, but if you think more deeply, it’s actually made of raw materials. This is the first principles approach that’s integral to SpaceX’s pedagogy. In the SpaceX mindset, fixing a problem begins with reducing it to its simplest constituent elements, not making piecemeal or marginal improvements to whatever solutions currently exist. This approach has plenty of corollaries. One is the “idiot index,” a Musk idiom meant to explain how much an industry might be paying (in his view, overpaying) for turning core materials into a finished project. Another sequela: Question everything, including supervisors and requirements. The motive, ex-SpaceX employees explain, is to disrupt the normal way of doing things so that you have a far more creative source for innovative answers to problems. As a result of this kind of approach, NASA says the cost of sending a kilogram of payload to low-Earth orbit has dropped from about $55,000—on the space agency’s Shuttle—to less than $3,000. “Nobody’s really going to stop you if you want to try things,” says Karthik Gollapudi, who worked as a Dragon flight software lead before starting Sift, a company that develops software for vehicle telemetry. “Try a lot of different things and learn really quickly, as opposed to being very slow and methodical. Sometimes you iterate your way to success faster.” Interns Welcome: 94 former SpaceX interns have gone on to found a startup. Of those, 15 did two internships, and one person (Haley Weinstein) is a three-time intern. The relentless push to question requirements (and the expertise of longtime aerospace institutions) could come with downsides, says Scarlett Koller, who worked as a certification engineer on life control systems before eventually creating Mithril, a startup that designs antenna technology for space. “SpaceX always has a massive chip on their shoulder, about [how we] all don’t get caught up in requirements, and we’re not like traditional aerospace,” she tells me. “There was a lot of dismissing of expertise, especially if it came from a source that was perceived as slow or outdated.” Still, many people have joined SpaceX after working at NASA or Boeing and Northrop Grumman, traditional space and defense firms. These include some of SpaceX’s best-known alumni, such as Laura Crabtree (cofounder and CEO of Epsilon3), Brogan BamBrogan and Jeff Overbeek (founders of Ethos Space), and Tom Mueller (SpaceX’s first employee and founder of Impulse Space). Betting on young people One way SpaceX avoids employees with preconceived notions is to “hire a lot of interns, a lot of young folks,” says Sift’s Gollapudi. What’s so special about a SpaceX internship? First, to get one often requires undergoing the same interview process as those conducted for full-time positions. (Want a sense of what a SpaceX interview is like? Check out Snubber, founded by former SpaceX intern and employee Arpita Bhutani, a practice platform for getting highly technical jobs at SpaceX, Anduril, and other hard tech companies.) Interns are also given real work to do. It is neither menial scut work nor a glorified summer camp like internships in some white-collar career tracks. Gollapudi’s cofounder, Austin Spiegel, worked on SpaceX’s proprietary enterprise resource planning system as an intern. Lewis Jones, cofounder of Cosmic Robotics, was an avionics mechanical design engineer during his internship. And so it goes. The benefits are mutual: A SpaceX internship can prove transformational in changing the trajectory of a career. Michelle Lee originally thought she would pursue a career in chemical engineering, but after interning at SpaceX in 2015, where she focused on vehicle engineering, she realized she wanted to build for the physical world—and take on a far more enterprising challenge. “If you have an incredibly ambitious mission, like, ‘We’re going to colonize Mars,’ and you get a group of very smart people together, you basically can bend reality,” she tells me. Lee is now trying to bend reality in her own way as founder and CEO of Medra, which aims to scale the production of scientific research, and new discoveries, through artificial intelligence. Her idea: You can accelerate the pace of research by automating one of the fundamental inputs—lab work—with robotics. Fast Company ultimately identified 94 former interns who have gone on to found companies, 33 of whom first worked at SpaceX full-time. Vertical integration, horizontal organization, infinite expansion The people who succeed at SpaceX, whether they started working there while still teenagers or after a career at Boeing, are experts at identifying chokepoints in a process, solving them, and therefore accelerating development. “We didn’t accept the status quo in manufacturing,” says Jordan Black, who worked at SpaceX from 2018 to 2023. During his final years there, he focused on vehicle components, where “one of the biggest blockers was how quickly we could design or manufacture wire harnesses, whether internally or with external partners. . . . It made me question who was solving this problem.” When he realized that no one was, Black started Senra Systems with fellow alum Benjamin Shanahan to develop better wire harnessing, a component used in everything from cars to rocket ships, to enable hardware to be built more quickly. In January, Black, who’s CEO, announced that Senra is expanding significantly, opening an 80,000-square-foot factory in Cypress, California, a 5x increase in its production footprint. Indeed, a significant subset of companies founded by former SpaceX employees are focusing on rebuilding components, including radars, antennae, and other satellite parts, that choke up manufacturing and aerospace supply chains. Consider Benassi’s Apex, which now has a factory in Southern California devoted to building satellite buses along a slick production line, similar to SpaceX’s own approach to rocket assembly. “The more twists and turns you have to take, the harder it is, right?” says Benassi, who serves as CTO. “Imagine going through a maze versus if you were just walking a straight line. That’s about as simple as it gets, as fast as it gets.” To manufacture and improve at scale, Apex places heavy emphasis on vertical integration, including making critical components like batteries and power systems in-house. A preference for vertical integration has long been linked to SpaceX, but also hastened by consolidation trends in the aerospace industry and declining demand for aerospace defense spending after the Cold War. Converting doubt into fuel Contravening convention inevitably attracts guffaws from rivals and the media and draws ire from regulators, which helps SpaceX employees build what they describe as, essentially, a high tolerance for haters. “It was just a constant stream of negativity from the rest of the U.S. space industry, the Russians [were] making fun of us constantly. . . . It just felt like the world was against us,” says Reliable Robotics’s Rose, who started at SpaceX in 2009. So when the Falcon 9 became the first orbital-class rocket booster ever to land vertically in 2015, he recalls an “Oh my god kind of sensation, this weird, euphoric feeling that we can do anything.” At Reliable Robotics, Rose has been emboldened to pursue the daring and futuristic goal of developing autonomous, remotely operated aircraft. “We have an entire aviation industry that thinks what we’re doing is either totally impossible, never going to get certified, [or that] nobody’s going to buy it,” he says. “Pilots aren’t going to allow it. Everybody’s going to fight against it.” Because of his experience, he says, he’s “able to quickly switch that off. Like, this isn’t helpful.” Extreme SpaceX values Tyler Habowski is working on the problem of mimicking human hands at his startup Kyber Labs, a sort of final frontier of manufacturing dexterity. He recalls, as a child, hearing his parents, who both worked at Boeing, complaining about how other divisions were creating problems for their respective teams. He juxtaposes this mentality to the attitude at SpaceX, where he worked for five years as a mechanical design engineer. “If you’re a responsible engineer, you’re not just responsible for your part, you’re responsible for the entire thing,” he explains. While SpaceX believes in the principle of “extreme ownership” (a trait it shares with its fellow founder factory Palantir), it’s not to the exclusion of how one team’s work depends on, and integrates with, whatever other teams are working on. That means asking better questions of the teams working adjacent to you, being prepared for failure, and integrating conservatism into your expectations. The five most notable SpaceX feeder colleges: California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, Colorado School of Mines, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Harvey Mudd College, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Another SpaceX value that alums say they bring to future organizations is to learn as much as possible from the experiments you conduct. This comes with an emphasis on understanding how systems might work in real-world conditions, as soon as possible. “The pace of execution—build, test, improve—and the willingness to take on extremely difficult engineering challenges had a lasting impact,” says Kisui’s Blum. He says Kisui has worked on more than 10 different versions of its farming rover, Adam, over the course of three years in pursuit of strong off-road performance. In a similar vein, Apex’s Benassi says his company tests hardware performance on-site, particularly final mechanical vibration testing, to support vertical integration. When Habowski pitches investors on Kyber, he says he’s distilled what his company has taken from SpaceX as part of his slide deck, including: “mission clarity” “scrappy innovation” “vertical integration” Medra’s Lee has also delineated her company’s values, and she acknowledges that such principles as “why not faster” and “challenge all constraints (except physics)” come directly from what she learned at SpaceX. The value of the SpaceX badge Another way in which the SpaceX method of thinking and doing will ripple through the economy is via investors, some of whom are also SpaceX alums. After all, they’ve seen up close how transformative working there can be. Interlagos, founded by Achal Upadhyaya and Tom Ochinero, places a heavy emphasis on manufacturing and science-focused businesses. Among the alum-led companies Interlagos has invested in are Benassi’s Apex and Reed Ginsberg’s Shinkei, a novel robotics company that enables fishermen to kill their catch at sea and preserve peak freshness. Innovation Endeavors, while not founded by SpaceX alums, hosts meetups with people who worked at the company and are now building their own. Cantos Ventures is another firm early to the potential in ex-SpaceX enterprises, backing not only Shinkei but also the nuclear reactor startup Radiant, founded by Doug Bernauer, and the hypersonic weapons manufacturer Castelion, started by three alums: Bryon Hargis, Sean Pitt, and Andrew Kreitz. Recruiters are another vector by which the SpaceX ethos is spreading. Half a dozen former SpaceX employees, most of whom worked in technical recruiting while there, have set up shop to help companies find and vet high-caliber talent. Yet having SpaceX on your résumé is not yet a surefire path to being funded for your next venture. Although one website tracking SpaceX-led ventures, Alumni Founders, calculates that SpaceX graduates have raised nearly $12 billion in total, founders are mixed as to its current value. Sift’s Gollapudi, who has raised $67 million to date, per PitchBook, notes that the SpaceX mentality can sometimes be an acquired taste for investors. “A lot of venture capital tends to be very pattern-matching oriented,” he argues. “First principles thinking isn’t always pattern-matching . . . it’s more about how to get to the goal the fastest.” Alums say that working at SpaceX means having the ego beaten out of you, because there’s always someone smarter than you, humbling you, in the room. They often describe the company culture as “logic first,” a principle that shapes how employees talk to each other: Ideas matter more than titles, and criticisms come before compliments. Conversely, Kyber’s Habowski, who’s raised $1.7 million in pre-seed funding, says he’s been encouraged to emphasize his SpaceX credentials far earlier in his pitch deck. With SpaceX’s public offering on the near horizon, there’s a strong likelihood that the wealth it creates will give many more SpaceX employees the ability to pursue their own startups (and invest in their fellow alumni’s ideas). It will also give the hundreds of companies currently run by former SpaceX employees the opportunity to prove that their fantastical efforts are, in fact, plausible. “Time is like the great equalizer in that case,” Gollapudi notes. “All these X-basis companies, you see them compounding, and maybe they aren’t as hyped out of the gate, but they compound, and in the long term, they’re in a much better place.” —Additional research by David Lidsky View the full article

Limit will apply to all plan 2 loans as well as plan 3 postgraduate loansView the full article

Revised goals involve net revenue and value of assets clients entrust to Citi as business has lagged Wall Street peersView the full article

America’s stance on gun rights has always been complicated. On the one hand, people fight vociferously for their Second Amendment rights. On the other, 47,000 people died due to gun-related injuries in 2023 alone. That uneasiness reaches beyond the right to bear arms. It’s increasingly affecting people’s ability to pursue a seemingly unrelated hobby: 3D printing. State lawmakers across the United States are debating—and in some cases nearing passage of—rules that would require 3D printers to include mandatory “print blocker” software. These systems would scan files and refuse jobs they think might produce firearm parts. Washington’s HB 2321 would require printers or slicers to screen files and reject potential printouts that could be used in a weapon. California’s AB 2047 would require manufacturers to attest that each model sold in the state includes a certified firearm blueprint detection algorithm. New York lawmakers are now pushing similar printer-side blocking requirements. The stated aim is to stop 3D-printed ghost guns. But in doing so, legislators are trying to solve a crime problem by redesigning a general-purpose manufacturing tool. “What they’re talking about doing is banning certain kinds of shapes,” says Kyle Wiens of iFixit, an outspoken opponent of the proposals. “We are starting to really dangerously undermine a lot of assumptions that go into how we make and use technology,” says Wiens, who describes it as “a little bit of an imaginary problem.” He’s not alone. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights group, has made clear its opposition to print blocking. It calls the idea “wishful thinking” that wouldn’t deter people from printing firearms or their parts, and instead would make it far more difficult for law-abiding users to take advantage of a growing technology. Today, 3D printing is widely used not just by hobbyists but for parts prototyping, small-batch manufacturing, and in medicine for anatomical structures, surgical templates, and implants. Around one million 3D printers were sold worldwide in the first three months of 2025. Just 325 3D-printed guns were recovered at crime scenes in 2024, out of roughly 350,000 firearms used in crimes across more than 50 U.S. cities between 2020 and 2024, according to the gun control advocacy group Everytown For Gun Safety. That disparity, says Michel Weinberg, executive director of New York University’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy, means any action will be “incredibly small, if existent at all” in addressing the use of 3D printing for gun manufacture. The proposed rules would place a broad, general-purpose tool under suspicion by default. Critics argue this approach treats every user as a potential criminal and every file as something to be checked, flagged, or refused—chilling legitimate experimentation while doing little to stop determined bad actors. “There must be dozens of more effective interventions than this,” argues Weinberg, “before you even get to the downsides.” And those downsides are significant. Beyond questions of effectiveness, there are broader rights concerns. The EFF notes that many printers lack the computational power to analyze files locally, which could push enforcement toward cloud-based scanning. (To grasp the scale of the potential overreach, imagine having to hand over information about whatever you want to print on a standard paper printer to an unknown authority.) Cloud-based checks would also introduce privacy risks and vendor lock-in, tying users to proprietary software, making open-source alternatives harder to use, and potentially criminalizing workarounds or the thriving secondhand market for 3D printers. Despite those concerns, lawmakers appear to be moving ahead. The reason, Weinberg suggests, is that many believe something must be done to address gun violence—and 3D printing, while a small contributor, is visible enough to act on. “The people who are advocating for this, on balance, think that any incremental step to reduce the ability of a 3D printer to make a firearm is worth taking,” he says (never mind that the policy would impose on the privacy of tens of thousands of users of 3D printers). iFixit’s Wiens hopes policymakers pause to consider both the implications and the underlying rationale. “We should not be regulating based on our imaginations,” he says. “We should do it based on the actual threat model.” View the full article

On the corner of a tree-lined street in northeast Omaha, Nebraska, two modern and minimalist residences are resetting the standard of what a new house should look like. Their bold orange and navy blue exteriors and spare, geometric forms set them apart from the more conventional gabled houses down the street. The biggest difference, though, is their size. At just 802 and 618 square feet, the two houses are significantly smaller than the average new American home, which has a median area of more than 2,100 square feet. The houses are the first two iterations of OurStory, a housing system envisioned as a replicable, accessible, and above all affordable approach to building homes. Using hyper-efficient spatial layouts and quickly manufactured prefab parts, the houses are designed to be built fast and inexpensively for anything from an age-in-place forever home to a backyard accessory dwelling unit (ADU) to a remarkably enticing option for a first-time homebuyer. They’re resetting the standard for starter homes in the U.S. The OurStory houses are a collaboration between the nonprofit Partners for Livable Omaha and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Architecture’s FACT studio, which engaged architecture students to design and build the first two homes. Construction is expected to wrap up by August. The larger house has already sold for just $190,000­—$90,000 less than the median sale price of homes in the city. The smaller house will likely be even more affordable. Not just more housing, more variety Omaha, like many cities, has a shortage of affordable housing. The city estimates that it needs 30,000 new homes for low- and middle-income residents by the end of the decade. The OurStory project was launched partly to fill that gap, but also to address another kind of housing shortage: the low variety of housing types on the market. Of the 48 building permits issued for single family homes in the last month in Omaha and surrounding Douglas County, only six are smaller than 2,000 square feet, and none are smaller than 1,000 square feet. Jessica Scheuerman, executive director of Partners for Livable Omaha, says there’s a need for a wider range of housing types, from smaller footprints to homes designed for aging in place. Scheuerman realized the extent of the need after seeing her mother struggle to find appropriate housing on a fixed income, and thought there should be a bigger range of options. “When you design and plan for the aging community, everybody benefits,” she says. In 2024, she reached out to architect Jeffrey Day, a practicing architect and professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Architecture, to think about what a solution could look like. The two had worked together before on other projects, and they agreed that a modest aging-ready house could be a good assignment for the university’s design-build students. The project could also have legs. “The goal has always been to think about this project as a prototype that could be replicated multiple times, and in different configurations,” Day says. For Scheuerman, making the houses suitable for aging in place was one priority. Before founding Partners for Livable Omaha in 2020, she’s been a longtime vice president of Partners for Livable Communities, a Washington D.C.–based nonprofit that has worked for nearly 50 years to improve urban planning and design to create places where people can thrive. Aging in place is one of its main focus areas. So when the design of the OurStory houses got started, Scheuerman stressed the need for the design to include some of the basic tenets of aging-ready housing, from a zero-step entrance to wheelchair accessible hallways and doors. “We need to stop treating older adults like they’re invisible and the built environment is not for them,” she says. A flexible kit of parts Those aims were just the start. Under the guidance of Day, who runs his own Omaha-based architecture practice, Actual Architecture Company, the University of Nebraska design-build students expanded on the brief to turn the project into a shape-shifting and highly refined version of a small home. The team also decided the houses should be designed using a kit of parts, with prefabricated structural insulated panels making up the walls of the homes to speed up the construction timeline and bring down costs. Inside, the students dialed in on the least flexible parts of a house, the kitchen and bathroom. Requiring a lot of plumbing and electrical work, these rooms can make up a significant amount of the cost of construction depending on where they’re placed. So the students placed the spaces right next to each other, sharing a wall where all that infrastructure could be concentrated. “It has a lot of the electrical and all the plumbing in that one 10-foot wall,” Day says. This wall, along with the house exterior walls and room dividers, can all be built in a factory, and students are now doing some of that prefab construction work themselves. “Someone could be putting a foundation in while the interior components are being fabricated in a shop,” Day says. “Everything comes together on the property to reduce construction time, and therefore cost.” Taking this approach lent flexibility to the house design, which evolved in a major way from its earliest inklings. Originally planned as a single house for that corner lot in northeastern Omaha, the project got an unexpected alteration when a visiting official from the city’s planning department suggested subdividing the lot and making it into two houses. “And we’re like, ‘I didn’t know you would let me do that,'” Scheuerman says. “Like, ‘you’re gonna let me do that?'” Now a two-house project, the students used their kitchen-bathroom wall as the central point of the designs and worked their way out from there. The larger house became a two bedroom, and the smaller a one bedroom. One has a peaked roof and the other a single slant, with extra room in a loft area. “The system has certain components that can be configured in different ways,” Day says. That means the design can be more than just the aging-in-place housing Scheuerman initially set out to create. “Everyone puts an overlay on it,” she says. “People see this product, and they see artist housing, or they see rental income with an ADU. Or they see a solution for a problem that they have.” Scheuerman envisions the first two houses as prototypes but they also prove that this approach is financially viable. The homes have been partly funded through philanthropy, including from the Lozier Foundation, material donations from window and door manufacturer Pella, and grants from the state of Nebraska’s Middle Income Workforce Housing Investment Fund. The local nonprofit community bank Spark Capital provided financing to complete construction, with up to $100,000 in forgiveness for nonprofit developers like Partners for Livable Omaha. Scheuerman says the total cost to build both homes will be about $540,000. That exceeds their total sales prices but still manages to pencil out due to the loan forgiveness and grants that helped offset land and development costs. Without taking those offsets into account, the homes are still more affordable than the median home in the city. Scheuerman says future builds will likely be less expensive, based on lessons learned with these first two homes. “At the end of the day, this project is pointless if the numbers don’t work,” Scheuerman says. “So we had to spend a ton of time being educated by the lending community, and by the appraisal community, and by the mortgage community. And they had some notes for the students, which ultimately made the design better.” Into the developer’s seat Scheuerman says proceeds from the sale of the two houses will be reinvested in land to build more. But she doesn’t want to build alone. Getting others to follow the model is a central part of the project, according to Scheuerman, and she says the combination of small size and prefabricated construction puts these houses at a price point where they can be feasibly financed by a wide range of people. “There is a segment of the population that can come to market right now. They have high home equity or cash on hand,” she says. “We know people are ready to go, and we want to meet that market.” To open that door, Day’s students are developing a catalog of different designs using this system, offering them up as pro-bono plans for people to apply to their own small house development projects. Funding from the American Institute of Architects and AARP helped start that work, and the Nebraska Department of Economic Development’s Nebraska Affordable Housing Trust Fund is supporting the catalog’s ongoing development. It should be available online this summer, and Scheuerman says it will be like a modern-day version of the housing that once appeared in the Sears catalog: affordable to build and easily accessible. “Real estate development is our shared responsibility, and communities need to be empowered to get into the developer’s seat,” Scheuerman says. In less than two years, the OurStory houses have gone from idea to nearly completed homes. It’s a scalable approach that could start to chip away at the housing shortages plaguing Omaha and cities like it. “I double dog, triple dog dare you to build one,” she says. “That’s how easy we’re trying to make it.” View the full article

In 2025, less than half (48%) of U.S. employees said they trusted their senior leaders, and 40% reported distrust of their leaders and colleagues, signaling a broad erosion of workplace trust. And when you add AI to the mix, things aren’t looking good. In a 2025 YouGov survey, only 5% of Americans say they trust AI. Meanwhile, in late 2025, McKinsey found that 78% of U.S. companies report using AI in at least one business function (up from 55% just a year earlier). Put simply, we’re in an AI-accelerated trust recession. BUILDING VULNERABILITY-BASED TRUST Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, shares that vulnerability-based trust creates confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group. In practice, vulnerability-based trust is when you and I feel we can say something like “I don’t know” or “I made a mistake” and know we will still be treated with respect and not feel embarrassed or worse. Here are three ways you can foster vulnerability-based trust with your team. SHARE YOUR FAILURES The quickest way to build trust is to go first: by sharing your own vulnerabilities, shortcomings, or failures. Trusted leaders quickly acknowledge when they need help and (equally importantly) acknowledge their mistakes; they don’t pretend they are all-knowing, and they don’t get defensive when asked a question or offered advice. This matters because trust drops when leaders appear overly confident. According to Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer, trust in business leaders declined in the U.S., particularly when leaders were perceived as withholding information or overpromising on emerging technologies like AI. In practice, this can look like saying, “I made the wrong call on this timeline,” or “I relied too heavily on that AI output without validating it.” In meetings, go first in naming what you would change. BE TRANSPARENT Transparency becomes critical when AI influences workflows. In PwC’s 2025 Global Workforce Hopes & Fears Survey, only 50% of employees said senior management does what it says it will do. That gap widens when employees don’t understand the reasoning behind decisions. For example, when a team hears, “We’re implementing AI to improve efficiency,” they may interpret that as “We’re preparing for layoffs.” To reduce speculation and increase trust, clarify both the outcome and intention. For instance, if you’re introducing AI tools to the workflow, you can clarify, “We’re introducing this tool to reduce admin work by 20% and not to reduce headcount. Here’s how success will be measured.” PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR BIASES Bias erodes trust faster than almost anything else. Employees are significantly less likely to trust leaders when they perceive decisions as unfair or inconsistent, even if the outcomes are objectively neutral. In an AI context, this matters even more. If a team member questions an AI initiative, it’s easy to label them “anti-technology” or “resistant to change.” But that assumption can erode trust faster than the technology itself. Instead, pause and ask: “What concerns are you hearing from others?” and “What risk do you see that I may not be seeing?” While AI is accelerating at machine speed, trust moves at human speed. If you want your AI strategy to succeed, start by making your leadership more vulnerable, transparent, and fair than ever before. View the full article

Eligible Yoast customers can now run a free Yoast AI Brand Insights scan and get a personalized report showing how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini see your brand. Your brand is part of the AI conversation whether you’re monitoring it or not. Yoast AI Brand Insights, part of the Yoast SEO AI+ plan gives you visibility into what AI tools say about you, how often you appear, and whether the picture they paint matches reality. To help you see that for yourself, we’re offering eligible customers a free, one-time scan. What you’ll see Your AI Visibility Index: a clear score showing how present your brand is across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini Sentiment analysis: whether AI describes you positively, neutrally, or in a way that needs attention Competitor benchmarking: how often your competitors appear alongside you, so you know where you stand Citation tracking: which sources AI is drawing on when it talks about your brand How it works Add your brand details, set your location, and generate your queries. Your personalized report is ready in minutes. Who is eligible Existing customers on one of the following plans can log in and try a brand scan for free today. Yoast SEO Premium Yoast WooCommerce SEO Yoast SEO Google Docs add-on Look out for your invitation inside the product the next time you log in. Claim your free scan for the Yoast AI Brand Insights tool from your MyYoast. The post See how your brand appears in AI-generated answers, for free appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

Given its $24 billion price tag and two decades in development, one would think that the Artemis II mission’s Orion spaceship would be flawless. Alas, that’s not how things work in the space program. These machines’ designs are so complex and so many things can go wrong that there is always going to be a breaking point somewhere. Sometimes this involves comical but potentially dangerous consequences—like Artemis II’s toilet malfunction or its Microsoft Outlook glitches—while other times there are tragic endings, like the losses of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia and their crews. Still, I wasn’t expecting a “use a T-shirt or something to block the sunlight rather than the spaceship’s built-in window shades” in my 2026 NASA bingo card. That’s exactly what happened on Day 4 of the ongoing lunar flyby. I was listening to the highlights when this exchange—which I’ll explain below—between Mission Control and the Artemis II crew happened: Houston: We have a small request for you guys. Um, with this attitude that we’re using for the bakeout, we’re getting the sun on the window shades and we’re a little worried about them heating up too much. We would like to request that you please remove the window shades. We understand that will make it awfully bright for you guys, and we want to encourage you to use a T-shirt in the cabin or something similar, if needed, to block out that sunlight. But the shades will help us with the temperature constraint on the windows. Maybe in space, nobody can hear you scream. But after that, I swear I heard four astronauts rolling their eyes all the way from 240,000 miles up. Orion: Okay. Uh, so we have our makeshift T-shirt on Window 1. Is that one okay to stay up then, based on what you said? And we’ll take off the Window 2 shade. The other ones are already off. You may be wondering why in the name of Lyndon B. Johnson the crew of Artemis II was forced to use some old Taylor Swift concert T-shirts to block the sunlight. And yes, “What the rocket nozzle?!” is exactly the exclamation that came to my mind, too. Flying to the moon is not like going from Houston to Dallas in a Greyhound bus in the middle of August. Why couldn’t they use the built-in shades, which probably cost several million dollars to develop along with the Orion windows? After all, aren’t those windows supposed to sustain the heat of the reentry? How can they get damaged by a shade? The explanation Let’s go through what we know: On April 4, Orion was turned into a “bakeout” position. In spacecraft operations, this specific orientation intentionally exposes parts of the spacecraft to prolonged, direct solar radiation, often to outgas materials or manage ice buildup. In this case, that sunlight was shining directly on the windows and hit the inside window shades. Sunlight in deep space, unfiltered by Earth’s atmosphere, is blindingly bright, so astronauts use the shades to block it in order to manage their sleep cycle and to avoid excessive sunlight in the cabin. Since the opaque shades absorb solar energy, they also absorb heat. So Mission Control became concerned that the shades were getting too hot. But the problem was not the temperature of the shades. It was the windows. Orion has four windows on its cone, plus windows on the docking and side hatches. Each cone window utilizes a three-pane hybrid structure. The outer part is a fused silica thermal pane, which can handle 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That would never be affected by the interior temperature buildup. The inner layers are made of acrylic, however. This was one of the many innovations for Orion in comparison to the Apollo command modules. Transitioning from traditional all-glass panes to an acrylic interior “reduced the windowing subsystem’s weight by more than 200 pounds,” according to US Glass magazine. Now, acrylic doesn’t have the same heat resistance as glass. That means that, if the shades stayed in place during the bakeout operation, they could trap heat against the window and push the acrylic closer to its temperature limit. Because the acrylic pane is the primary structural barrier holding the cabin’s atmospheric pressure against the vacuum of space, perhaps allowing trapped heat to push the acrylic toward its 212 degrees Fahrenheit softening point is not a wise decision. Reaching anywhere near that point would be hazardous, since softening the acrylic would compromise its load-bearing capacity, risking a catastrophic depressurization event. Logically, that’s something that NASA wants to avoid at all costs. So it all came down to a “better T-shirt than sorry,” and Mission Control asked the crew to take the shades down, even though that made the cabin much brighter. The astronauts followed the new makeshift procedure and put T-shirts as temporary sun blockers because it let more air circulate and reduced the heat buildup. It all makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that, after years of expensive development and testing, NASA and Lockheed Martin didn’t think about something that obviously was going to happen. That bakeout operation was not an unforeseen, sudden decision, but part of regular spacecraft operations. And if they included shades in the spaceship, I guess they intended them to be used when the sun is hitting the windows, right? It’s a logic that doesn’t seem to require a rocket scientist to figure out. The fix actually reminds me of Apollo 13, when astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise had to use plastic storage bags, cardboard torn from the covers of their flight manuals, lunar space suit hoses, and duct tape to make square CO2 filters from the command module to fit into the circular holes of the lunar module. In a deep space DIY world where Buck Rogers meets MacGyver … someone has some explaining to do. I asked NASA and Lockheed Martin about why this is happening and how they were planning to solve this for Artemis III, but I haven’t heard back from them yet. (We’ll update this story if and when I do). I just hope the answer is not to put a “T-shirt system ready” checkpoint on their flight checklists. If that’s the case, perhaps I can talk to my grandma and ask her if she can send NASA some of her crocheted curtains. View the full article

Instagram influencers asking their followers to shop by going to their link in bio could soon go the way of the MySpace top eight and the old Twitter as Meta will soon give some creators the ability to link products directly in their Reels. Product tagging would finally reduce the friction that comes from asking followers to click into a profile before tapping another link to find what they’re looking for. The feature will roll out this spring first for select creators in five markets before expanding to 22 countries, and it will allow up to 30 product links per post, Meta announced at the retail and e-commerce conference Shoptalk Spring, according to the trade publication Retail Dive. Meta did not respond to a request for comment. “For creators, when it comes to highlighting products, this means that the era of link in bio is finally over,” Nicola Mendelsohn, head of the global business group at Meta, said at the conference. The link in bio call to action started a work-around on an app that was long designed to keep users inside of it. Instagram used to offer users only one spot to add a link—on their profiles—so “link in bio” or DM automation became standard operating procedure for influencers and marketers looking to move their followers along a sales funnel. As Instagram has grown into a social commerce hub, it’s slowly added more optionality for links. Meta added links for Stories in 2016, and in 2023 it gave users the ability to add up to five links to their profiles. Linkable product tags in Reels will let creators include links in content for the first time directly in the newsfeed, and it also will give them increased discoverability as Instagram’s algorithm pushes suggested content. This and other design tweaks to the app come amid growing scrutiny of how social platforms are designed after a $3 million judgment against Meta and Google in a social media addiction trial last month, as well as amid a boom in creator advertising spend that reached $37 billion in 2025. Meta sees product tagging in Reels as a way to let creators more easily monetize, but it also could be the beginning of the end of an era. The company is testing links in captions for Meta Verified subscribers, showing that old walls meant to discourage links to outside websites could soon be coming down. View the full article

To boost adoption of its dish soap refill jugs, Dawn redesigned them so they would be less messy, pour faster, and be easier to hold. Call it an ergonomic makeover. The top-selling dish soap brand in the U.S., Dawn, owned by consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, is known for its use in wildlife cleanup after oil spills, something it reminds consumers of with the duckling on its packaging. And though the company’s refill jugs save money (P&G’s suggested retail price for the 90-ounce jug is $11.88—cheaper than three 24-ounce bottles for more dish soap), they’re also messy. After finding that just 12% of households use refill jugs, P&G put a redesign in motion. The old Dawn refill jug had a standard circular mouth that glugs when it pours out unevenly. One wrong move and that dish soap could end up all over the kitchen counter. Pouring is now a smooth process, thanks to an EZ-Pour spout that P&G says was specifically engineered to be compatible with Dawn EZ-Squeeze bottles, and the liquid now pours 37% faster. “We redesigned the new Dawn Platinum refill jug to make the process much quicker and cleaner,” Angelica Matthews, P&G brand VP, said in a statement. The new jugs also have a bigger, more ergonomic handle and a new formula, and the corresponding EZ-Squeeze bottles have a “time to refill” line on the packaging to visually prompt consumers to opt into the brand’s refill system. The jug redesign is part of a wider play by P&G to increase household penetration as the company faces slow growth and weak consumer spending. P&G announced quarterly net sales of $22.21 billion in January, which was below estimates, and last year it announced it would cut 7,000 jobs over two years. U.S. consumers have responded to years of high inflation by trading down to private-label brands, putting big-name national brands like P&G’s Bounty paper towels, Crest toothpaste, and Gillette razors at a disadvantage among cash-strapped shoppers. P&G CFO Andre Schulten said on the company’s last earnings call that its opportunity was in improving the value proposition of its products for consumers without raising prices. For Dawn, that value proposition means not only saving consumers money on dish soap, but saving on time. “Time is valuable,” Matthews said, “and the last thing anyone needs is a slow, messy refill process standing between them and a clean kitchen.” View the full article

Google's John Mueller says that those who self-identify as SEO gurus are clueless imposters. The post Google’s Mueller On SEO Gurus Who Are “Clueless Imposters” appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

For years, companies have assumed that their digital relationship with customers would happen in a place they controlled: their website, their app, their checkout flow, their interface, their carefully optimized funnel. That assumption shaped an enormous amount of corporate behavior. Brands invested fortunes in design systems, SEO, conversion optimization, customer journeys, and digital experiences because the screen was where persuasion happened and where transactions were completed. That assumption is starting to break. The next wave of AI is not just about answering questions better. It is about acting. OpenAI’s Operator is designed to go to the web and perform tasks using its own browser, clicking, typing, and scrolling on a user’s behalf. Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol was created to connect AI assistants directly to the systems where data and tools live. Google is now pushing an “agentic commerce” future with a new open standard, the Universal Commerce Protocol, while Shopify is integrating that same protocol so merchants can sell directly inside Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. Read those developments carefully and the implication becomes obvious: In the age of AI agents, your customer may still buy from you, but they may no longer visit you. The interface is losing its monopoly For decades, the interface was power. If users had to come to your site, open your app, and move through your flow, you controlled the sequence. You chose what they saw first, which products were highlighted, what bundles were recommended, what copy framed the decision, and where the conversion friction appeared. A great deal of modern digital strategy has been based on that assumption. Agentic AI starts to change it. Once an AI agent can navigate the web or connect directly into business systems, the customer’s primary interface is no longer necessarily your interface. It may be the agent’s. And if the agent becomes the main decision environment, then many of the things companies thought of as competitive advantage begin to shift. OpenAI has already shown the browser-based version of this with Operator. Google and Shopify are building the structured commerce version of it, where buying can happen directly inside conversational interfaces rather than only on the merchant’s own properties. That is a profound change. It means that your beautifully designed website may increasingly matter less than your structured product data. Your persuasive landing page may matter less than whether an agent can query your inventory, understand your policies, verify your delivery times, and complete a transaction without friction. Your brand will not disappear, but it will increasingly need to be legible not just to humans, but to machines. In other words, your brand is becoming an API. From search engine optimization to agent compatibility This is not entirely unprecedented. Companies have gone through similar shifts before. Search forced brands to become indexable. Social platforms forced them to become shareable. Mobile forced them to become app-native. Now agentic AI is forcing them to become machine-actionable. That is why Google is not merely talking about AI shopping as a feature. It’s introducing a protocol, UCP, explicitly designed to let agents and systems work across discovery, purchase, and post-purchase support. Shopify isn’t treating this as a side experiment either: It’s telling merchants that they will be able to sell directly inside AI Mode, Gemini, and Copilot, with embedded checkout inside the conversation. That’s not a cosmetic tweak to e-commerce. It’s a shift in where the commercial interaction lives. And once that happens, the strategic question changes. It’s no longer only “How do I get users to my site?” It becomes “How do I make my company understandable, trustworthy, and transactable to the agents that increasingly stand between me and the user?” That question is much bigger than SEO, and much more disruptive. The real power shift is not about smarter models This is where many companies will misunderstand what is happening. They will focus on the models—which one is smartest, fastest, cheapest, or most multimodal. Those questions matter, but they aren’t the deepest one. The deepest question is who controls the rails. Anthropic’s MCP is important not because it makes headlines, but because it creates a standardized way for AI systems to connect to tools and data. Google’s UCP matters for the same reason in commerce. Mastercard’s current push into agentic checkout matters because the payment layer, identity layer, and authorization layer become more valuable when machines are the ones helping users decide and transact. Mastercard’s own framing is telling: The issue is not just smarter models, but who controls trust, identity, and payments when machines start spending people’s money. That is where the next platform battle is likely to be fought: not just in the chatbot window, but in the standards, protocols, payment rails, and verification layers that determine how agents interact with the world. Which means the companies that still think of AI as mainly a content-generation tool are missing the plot. Why this is a threat to weak brands — and an opportunity for strong ones If your business depends heavily on manipulating the customer inside your own interface, agentic AI is a problem. If your success relies on dark patterns, hidden fees, confusing bundles, or making comparisons difficult, agents are likely to be bad news. A good agent will reduce friction for the customer, not for the merchant trying to trap them in a funnel. But if your company has real strengths — transparent pricing, reliable delivery, strong policies, structured data, real product differentiation, authentic trust — this shift could be beneficial. Because agents compress a lot of the noise and surface the things that actually matter. In that sense, the move to agentic commerce is similar to the broader argument I recently made about “magic GEO hacks”: Authenticity, clarity, and openness become more important when the system intermediating discovery becomes more machine-driven. The same logic will increasingly apply to transactions. If the agent is making sense of your company for the user, then clarity stops being a branding virtue and becomes a machine-readable commercial asset. The legal fine print is already changing One of the clearest signals that this is moving from theory to reality is that the legal language is already starting to adapt. Target updated its terms as it prepared for Gemini integration, explicitly stating that purchases made by an AI shopping agent authorized by the customer would still be considered transactions authorized by that customer. The company also warned that third-party AI tools may not act exactly as intended in all circumstances. That is not futuristic speculation. That is a large retailer rewriting the rules in anticipation of agents participating in the buying process. When companies start changing their terms and conditions, you know the category is becoming real. And once terms, protocols, embedded checkout, and AI-mediated discovery all begin moving in the same direction, the strategic conclusion is hard to avoid. The next digital strategy won’t start with your homepage For 25 years, digital strategy began with the same assumptions: Make the site better, reduce friction, improve search visibility, optimize conversion, capture data, own the customer journey. Those assumptions are becoming less reliable. In an agentic world, the key strategic questions look different. Can your systems expose the right information cleanly? Can your catalog, policies, and workflows be interpreted correctly by an agent? Can transactions happen securely without forcing the user back into a clumsy, human-designed maze? Can your company be trusted when another machine is doing the reading, comparing, and filtering first? The companies that answer yes will not disappear behind agents. They will become easier to choose through them. The companies that answer no will gradually discover that it is possible to still have a website, still have an app, still have a brand team, still have a performance marketing budget . . . and yet be strategically absent from the place where decisions are actually being made. That is the real disruption coming with agentic AI. Not that the machines will think for your customers, but that they will increasingly shop, compare, interpret, and transact before your customer ever reaches the digital territory you once assumed was yours. The next battle for the internet will not be over who owns the interface. It will be over who gets understood by the agent. View the full article

Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Ben Cohen has been publicly fighting with the Magnum Ice Cream Company, which took ownership of the Vermont ice cream maker last year. Cohen says Magnum has silenced the brand on social issues, including the war in Gaza, racial justice, and student protests. He spoke to Fast Company about why his business partner, Jerry Greenfield, stepped away from the business, how he’s fighting to protect his values, and how companies can be both socially active and profitable. View the full article

In a workplace increasingly defined by hybrid schedules, crowded digital channels, and shifting norms around visibility, being “good at your job” is no longer enough to ensure your work is recognized. Many professionals—particularly those who are thoughtful, collaborative, or less inclined toward self-promotion—find themselves doing high-quality work that goes largely unseen. To better understand what it takes to build meaningful visibility and influence in this environment, I spoke with Lorraine K. Lee, an award-winning keynote speaker and the best-selling author of Unforgettable Presence: Get Seen, Gain Influence, and Catapult Your Career. Lee also teaches popular courses at LinkedIn Learning and Stanford University, and her insights have been featured in numerous national outlets. Executive presence used to be about how you showed up in the room. In today’s hybrid world, what most clearly signals credibility—and where do you still see high performers getting it wrong? In this day and age, credibility comes down to trust. Workplaces are essentially webs of relationships built on trust, and that trust can now be formed across many different channels. While executive presence is one piece of your professional presence, the reason I define presence more broadly as both how and where you are seen is because presence shows up in the day-to-day moments and the smaller touchpoints that you don’t think matter but do. Executive presence used to be about being in person, showing up in the boardroom in a high-stakes situation. But presence can really be about how credible you appear in a Slack channel, in an email, even answering a question from a senior leader in passing when they ask, “What have you been up to lately?” There’s endless advice about personal branding, but many serious professionals recoil from the term. For someone who hates the whole premise, what is the lowest-friction way to become more visible? The first thing you need to do is to change your mindset. Yes, personal branding can feel very slimy, and there might be negative connotations to it as someone who is self-promoting all the time. In my book, I call it a career brand for this very reason. It better describes what your brand is in service of. Your brand is in service of your career. If we boil it down one more level, brand equals reputation. If that is what a personal brand or a career brand is, we all already have one; we all have a reputation. It can be good; it can be bad. Our reputation can be that no one even knows that we exist, so it’s about whether we want to take ownership of that narrative or leave it to chance. One of the lowest-friction ways to become more visible is to talk about your work in your one-on-ones with your manager. It’s very easy to assume that your manager knows what you’re working on, but they are dealing with a lot of different moving pieces, different teammates, and their own career. It never hurts to reiterate and make it crystal clear what you’re doing and the impact it has. I remember one of my managers asking me to write down every single thing I did for the week, no matter how small. It was surprising to see how many little things I was doing to help other people or that took up my time that I didn’t think were worthwhile to share. Creating some structure and visibility around those items can be really valuable. Many capable professionals do strong work but feel less confident when they have to present it out loud. When it comes to executive presence, what actually matters most in high-stakes presentations—and what do people tend to overfocus on? The first thing to remember is that public speaking is a learnable skill, and because it’s a skill, we do have to practice. Ideally, you’re not practicing in a silo, but you are getting feedback from your manager, from your peers, and any friendly stakeholders who will be in the room when you present. The other thing I would say is that you really have to know your content. A lot of presentation nerves come from not being confident about the content you’re about to share. If you knew that the structure was amazing, that the content included was perfect for the audience, and that your design was on point, you would go in feeling a lot more confident. My mentor Spencer Waldron told me once that in an ideal world, I would practice one hour for every one minute of presentation. A 20-minute presentation would require 20 hours of practice to really, really understand the material and be able to present it in such a way where you’re not worried about focusing on the content, but you can actually practice the public speaking and delivery part of it. Where a lot of people get it wrong in high-stakes presentations is not preparing for Q&A and not preparing to be interrupted. Oftentimes, we also share what we think is important, but we don’t put ourselves in the shoes of the executive to understand what they value and the way that they like to consume information. We tend to deliver presentations like we would in a team meeting. But for executives, you have to be operating at a different altitude. Leaders often say they value thoughtful contributors, yet the loudest voices still dominate many meetings. How can managers avoid mistaking airtime for actual influence? The first thing is awareness. I am always so happy when I get questions from managers asking me, “How can I be more inclusive of the introverts and the quieter voices?” There’s an awareness that needs to be there that not all your teammates are the same and not all of them are going to feel comfortable muting and unmuting or speaking up whenever an idea comes to mind. There has to be more structure around the way that we lead meetings. For example, instead of just evaluating ideas based on what is shared in the meeting, you might: Provide a document ahead of time that people can comment on. Provide it afterward. Ask people to share additional ideas through email before you make a final decision. Ask people to contribute in the chat. This [last] one is so important because I often find that the best ideas come through in chat because people have had more time to think about what they want to say and they’re more organized and structured about it. You need to provide that psychological safety for your teammates for them to feel comfortable eventually speaking up in that meeting. In your work, what most reliably separates people whose ideas gain traction from those whose equally strong ideas quietly stall? Sometimes when this happens, it’s not an issue with the idea; it’s an issue with visibility and how the idea is conveyed. First and foremost, I mentioned earlier how important relationships are, especially now in the age of AI. The people who have built strong relationships—up and down, side to side, who are taking time to understand the goals of their colleagues, to get to know them on a human level to cheer them on—are naturally going to be someone who people are more excited to listen to because they know you and they like you. The ideas that make it through are also ones that get shared not just once, but many times in many different formats. I think about that marketing adage: You have to see a message seven times in seven different ways for it to finally land. That is similar to our workplaces, where communication is disjointed over Slack, email, phone calls, texts, and in person. We have to meet people where they are. That’s why I often say that presence is about being seen by the right people at the right times in the right places. It requires strategy and intentionality when we share things that we want other people to see and internalize. If a reader made just one behavior shift in the next 90 days to change how they’re perceived at work, what would you tell them to do first? Pick someone whose perception of you matters, like a skip-level leader, a cross-functional peer, or someone in a room you’re never in. Invite them to a casual 30-minute coffee chat where your goal is to understand what matters to them and what their goals are. See if there are ways you can help or provide insight from the perspective of your team. Also use it as a time to get to know them better. And be prepared to show your impact if they ask you what you’ve been working on. Do that once a month for 90 days and you’ve built three relationships that didn’t exist before who may be able to help you or advocate for you in the future. View the full article

Proposed deal would combine world’s largest music group with a blank-cheque companyView the full article

When running a business, you need to be aware of the various types of taxes that apply to you. Income tax affects your profits directly, whereas estimated tax comes into play for income not subject to withholding. If you’re self-employed, you’ll likewise face self-employment tax on your earnings. Furthermore, employment taxes cover Social Security and Medicare contributions, and excise taxes target specific goods. Comprehending these taxes is essential for effective financial management and compliance, but there’s more to take into account. Key Takeaways Income tax is mandatory for businesses, with rates ranging from 10% to 37% based on business structure and revenue. Self-employment tax applies to net earnings over $400, with a rate of 15.3% for Social Security and Medicare. Estimated tax payments are required quarterly for income not subject to withholding, using IRS Form 1040-ES. Employment taxes include taxes withheld from employees’ wages, as well as the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) tax. Excise taxes are imposed on specific goods, reported using Form 720, and discourage certain behaviors associated with those products. Income Tax Income tax is an important aspect of running a business, and grasping your obligations can help you navigate the intricacies of the tax system. All businesses, except partnerships, need to file an annual income tax return. Sole proprietorships use IRS Form 1040, reporting business income on Schedule C. Comprehending the federal income tax system is significant, as it operates on a progressive scale with rates ranging from 10% to 37%, depending on your income levels. Accurate reporting of income and expenses is critical to avoid penalties and guarantee compliance with your tax obligations. Different types of business taxation apply to various structures; for instance, C corporations face double taxation on profits at both the entity and shareholder levels. Meanwhile, partnerships must file an information return instead of an income tax return. Familiarizing yourself with these elements can help streamline your business tax strategy effectively. Estimated Tax When managing your business finances, comprehension of estimated tax payments is essential to avoid penalties and guarantee compliance. These payments are typically required quarterly to cover income not subject to withholding, especially if you’re self-employed and have net earnings exceeding $400. To report and pay these taxes, you’ll usually use IRS Form 1040-ES. Depending on your business structure, different requirements may apply. It’s important to accurately calculate your estimated tax payments to confirm you meet your tax obligations. Insufficient payments can lead to penalties for underpayment, which can add unnecessary costs to your finances. Furthermore, as income can fluctuate throughout the year, you should adjust your estimated tax payments accordingly to maintain compliance and avoid any penalties. By staying informed and proactive, you can manage your tax responsibilities effectively and keep your business finances on track. Self-Employment Tax Grasping self-employment tax is fundamental for anyone whose net earnings from self-employment exceed $400, as it encompasses both Social Security and Medicare taxes. The self-employment tax rate is currently 15.3%, which includes 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare. If your income surpasses certain thresholds, an additional 0.9% Medicare tax applies. As a self-employed individual, you must file Schedule SE (Form 1040 or 1040-SR) to calculate and report your self-employment tax obligation. By paying this tax, you contribute to benefits like Social Security and Medicare coverage. It’s imperative to make estimated tax payments quarterly to avoid underpayment penalties throughout the tax year. Staying on top of these payments helps guarantee that you meet your tax obligation and maintain access to these important benefits. Comprehending self-employment tax is critical for managing your finances effectively as a self-employed individual. Employment Taxes Employment taxes play a significant role in the financial responsibilities of employers and employees alike. These taxes include Social Security and Medicare taxes, known as FICA taxes, which you share at a combined rate of 15.3%. As an employer, you must withhold federal income tax from your employees’ wages, reporting these withholdings to guarantee IRS compliance. Moreover, the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) requires you to pay a separate tax, typically 6.0% on the first $7,000 of each employee’s earnings, to fund unemployment benefits. You must also comply with state employment tax regulations, which may involve state income tax withholding, state unemployment insurance, and worker’s compensation insurance. To avoid penalties, accurate record-keeping and timely deposits of employment taxes are vital. By staying organized and informed, you can manage these obligations effectively and make sure your business remains compliant with all tax laws. Excise Tax Excise taxes are specific taxes levied on the manufacture, sale, or use of certain goods, such as gasoline, tobacco, and alcohol, designed not merely to generate revenue but likewise to regulate consumption. These taxes can impact your business, especially if you deal in specific goods. Businesses must report excise taxes using Form 720, which includes various federal excise tax categories. Here’s a quick overview of some common excise taxes: Type of Excise Tax Reporting Form Heavy Vehicles Tax Form 2290 Wagering Excise Taxes Forms 730, 11-C Alcohol Tax Form 720 Tobacco Tax Form 720 Gasoline Tax Form 720 Excise taxes contribute to total tax collections and are often termed “sin taxes” as they discourage harmful behaviors associated with certain products. Comprehending how to report excise taxes is crucial for compliance. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the Four Basic Types of Business Taxes? The four basic types of business taxes include income tax, self-employment tax, employment tax, and excise tax. Income tax is based on your business profits and varies by structure. If you’re self-employed and earn over $400, you’ll pay self-employment tax for Social Security and Medicare. Employment taxes cover Social Security, Medicare, and federal income withholding. Finally, excise taxes are applied to specific goods and activities, requiring separate reporting. Is My LLC an S or C Corp? To determine if your LLC is an S-Corp or C-Corp, check how it’s elected for tax purposes. If you filed Form 2553, you’re likely an S-Corp, allowing income and losses to pass through to your personal tax returns. If you filed Form 8832, then you’re a C-Corp, which means your LLC is taxed separately, leading to potential double taxation on profits and dividends. Review your filings to confirm your status. What Kind of Taxes Do Small Businesses Pay? Small businesses pay several types of taxes. You’ll likely face income taxes based on your business structure, such as sole proprietorship or corporation. If your net earnings exceed $400, you’ll likewise owe self-employment taxes. If you hire employees, you need to withhold employment taxes, including Social Security and Medicare. Furthermore, you might’ve to collect sales taxes on retail transactions and make estimated tax payments quarterly to avoid penalties for underpayment. What Are the 4 Business Categories? The four primary business categories are sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies (LLCs), and corporations. Sole proprietorships are owned by one person and report income on their personal tax returns. Partnerships involve two or more individuals sharing profits and losses, reporting through Schedule K-1. LLCs offer flexibility in taxation as they protect owners from personal liability. Corporations, including C-Corporations and S-Corporations, are separate entities, with distinct tax implications for profits and distributions. Conclusion In conclusion, grasping the different types of business taxes is essential for effective financial management and compliance. Income tax, estimated tax, self-employment tax, employment taxes, and excise tax each play a significant role in your overall tax responsibilities. By familiarizing yourself with these tax categories, you can better prepare for your obligations and avoid potential penalties. Staying informed will help you make informed decisions and maintain a healthy financial standing for your business. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Different Types of Business Taxes" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

When running a business, you need to be aware of the various types of taxes that apply to you. Income tax affects your profits directly, whereas estimated tax comes into play for income not subject to withholding. If you’re self-employed, you’ll likewise face self-employment tax on your earnings. Furthermore, employment taxes cover Social Security and Medicare contributions, and excise taxes target specific goods. Comprehending these taxes is essential for effective financial management and compliance, but there’s more to take into account. Key Takeaways Income tax is mandatory for businesses, with rates ranging from 10% to 37% based on business structure and revenue. Self-employment tax applies to net earnings over $400, with a rate of 15.3% for Social Security and Medicare. Estimated tax payments are required quarterly for income not subject to withholding, using IRS Form 1040-ES. Employment taxes include taxes withheld from employees’ wages, as well as the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) tax. Excise taxes are imposed on specific goods, reported using Form 720, and discourage certain behaviors associated with those products. Income Tax Income tax is an important aspect of running a business, and grasping your obligations can help you navigate the intricacies of the tax system. All businesses, except partnerships, need to file an annual income tax return. Sole proprietorships use IRS Form 1040, reporting business income on Schedule C. Comprehending the federal income tax system is significant, as it operates on a progressive scale with rates ranging from 10% to 37%, depending on your income levels. Accurate reporting of income and expenses is critical to avoid penalties and guarantee compliance with your tax obligations. Different types of business taxation apply to various structures; for instance, C corporations face double taxation on profits at both the entity and shareholder levels. Meanwhile, partnerships must file an information return instead of an income tax return. Familiarizing yourself with these elements can help streamline your business tax strategy effectively. Estimated Tax When managing your business finances, comprehension of estimated tax payments is essential to avoid penalties and guarantee compliance. These payments are typically required quarterly to cover income not subject to withholding, especially if you’re self-employed and have net earnings exceeding $400. To report and pay these taxes, you’ll usually use IRS Form 1040-ES. Depending on your business structure, different requirements may apply. It’s important to accurately calculate your estimated tax payments to confirm you meet your tax obligations. Insufficient payments can lead to penalties for underpayment, which can add unnecessary costs to your finances. Furthermore, as income can fluctuate throughout the year, you should adjust your estimated tax payments accordingly to maintain compliance and avoid any penalties. By staying informed and proactive, you can manage your tax responsibilities effectively and keep your business finances on track. Self-Employment Tax Grasping self-employment tax is fundamental for anyone whose net earnings from self-employment exceed $400, as it encompasses both Social Security and Medicare taxes. The self-employment tax rate is currently 15.3%, which includes 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare. If your income surpasses certain thresholds, an additional 0.9% Medicare tax applies. As a self-employed individual, you must file Schedule SE (Form 1040 or 1040-SR) to calculate and report your self-employment tax obligation. By paying this tax, you contribute to benefits like Social Security and Medicare coverage. It’s imperative to make estimated tax payments quarterly to avoid underpayment penalties throughout the tax year. Staying on top of these payments helps guarantee that you meet your tax obligation and maintain access to these important benefits. Comprehending self-employment tax is critical for managing your finances effectively as a self-employed individual. Employment Taxes Employment taxes play a significant role in the financial responsibilities of employers and employees alike. These taxes include Social Security and Medicare taxes, known as FICA taxes, which you share at a combined rate of 15.3%. As an employer, you must withhold federal income tax from your employees’ wages, reporting these withholdings to guarantee IRS compliance. Moreover, the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) requires you to pay a separate tax, typically 6.0% on the first $7,000 of each employee’s earnings, to fund unemployment benefits. You must also comply with state employment tax regulations, which may involve state income tax withholding, state unemployment insurance, and worker’s compensation insurance. To avoid penalties, accurate record-keeping and timely deposits of employment taxes are vital. By staying organized and informed, you can manage these obligations effectively and make sure your business remains compliant with all tax laws. Excise Tax Excise taxes are specific taxes levied on the manufacture, sale, or use of certain goods, such as gasoline, tobacco, and alcohol, designed not merely to generate revenue but likewise to regulate consumption. These taxes can impact your business, especially if you deal in specific goods. Businesses must report excise taxes using Form 720, which includes various federal excise tax categories. Here’s a quick overview of some common excise taxes: Type of Excise Tax Reporting Form Heavy Vehicles Tax Form 2290 Wagering Excise Taxes Forms 730, 11-C Alcohol Tax Form 720 Tobacco Tax Form 720 Gasoline Tax Form 720 Excise taxes contribute to total tax collections and are often termed “sin taxes” as they discourage harmful behaviors associated with certain products. Comprehending how to report excise taxes is crucial for compliance. Frequently Asked Questions What Are the Four Basic Types of Business Taxes? The four basic types of business taxes include income tax, self-employment tax, employment tax, and excise tax. Income tax is based on your business profits and varies by structure. If you’re self-employed and earn over $400, you’ll pay self-employment tax for Social Security and Medicare. Employment taxes cover Social Security, Medicare, and federal income withholding. Finally, excise taxes are applied to specific goods and activities, requiring separate reporting. Is My LLC an S or C Corp? To determine if your LLC is an S-Corp or C-Corp, check how it’s elected for tax purposes. If you filed Form 2553, you’re likely an S-Corp, allowing income and losses to pass through to your personal tax returns. If you filed Form 8832, then you’re a C-Corp, which means your LLC is taxed separately, leading to potential double taxation on profits and dividends. Review your filings to confirm your status. What Kind of Taxes Do Small Businesses Pay? Small businesses pay several types of taxes. You’ll likely face income taxes based on your business structure, such as sole proprietorship or corporation. If your net earnings exceed $400, you’ll likewise owe self-employment taxes. If you hire employees, you need to withhold employment taxes, including Social Security and Medicare. Furthermore, you might’ve to collect sales taxes on retail transactions and make estimated tax payments quarterly to avoid penalties for underpayment. What Are the 4 Business Categories? The four primary business categories are sole proprietorships, partnerships, limited liability companies (LLCs), and corporations. Sole proprietorships are owned by one person and report income on their personal tax returns. Partnerships involve two or more individuals sharing profits and losses, reporting through Schedule K-1. LLCs offer flexibility in taxation as they protect owners from personal liability. Corporations, including C-Corporations and S-Corporations, are separate entities, with distinct tax implications for profits and distributions. Conclusion In conclusion, grasping the different types of business taxes is essential for effective financial management and compliance. Income tax, estimated tax, self-employment tax, employment taxes, and excise tax each play a significant role in your overall tax responsibilities. By familiarizing yourself with these tax categories, you can better prepare for your obligations and avoid potential penalties. Staying informed will help you make informed decisions and maintain a healthy financial standing for your business. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Different Types of Business Taxes" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Find out why Googlebot is no longer the only dominant crawler as OpenAI's ChatGPT-User takes the lead in web requests. The post ChatGPT Now Crawls 3.6x More Than Googlebot: What 24M Requests Reveal appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

In 2025, companies directly attributed 55,000 job cuts to artificial intelligence—more than 12 times the figure from just two years earlier. In 2026, the pace has only accelerated. Block eliminated 4,000 roles in a single announcement. Amazon cut 16,000 corporate positions. Meta, Atlassian, Pinterest . . . the list grows weekly. If you haven’t been affected yet, someone you know has. And whether driven by AI, a merger, a restructuring, or a strategic pivot, layoffs are no longer exceptional events. They’re a recurring feature of working life. Most layoff advice focuses on the mechanics: Update your résumé, optimize your LinkedIn profile, practice your exit story. All necessary. None sufficient. What determines whether a career transition is a three-week pivot or an 18-month grind isn’t your résumé; it’s the quality of the relationships you’ve built, maintained, and invested in long before you needed them. As I wrote in a recent article, busyness systematically downgrades every relationship we have. Layoffs reveal exactly how much that downgrade has cost us. Before: Build relationship capital you don’t need yet The time to invest in relationships is not when you’re in crisis. It’s now, when you have nothing urgent to ask for, and something to give. In my book Cultivate: The Power of Winning Relationships, I describe four relationship dynamics: Ally, Supporter, Rival, and Adversary. In stable times, Supporters and Allies can look and feel similar: Both are friendly. Both are responsive. The difference only becomes visible under pressure. A Supporter says: “Let me know if I can help.” An Ally picks up the phone before you have to ask. Most professionals overestimate how many Allies they have. They have a large network of Supporters—people who will help if it’s convenient, if the timing works, if there’s something in it for them. When a layoff hits, Supporters go quiet. Allies don’t. Building Ally relationships before you need them means investing without expectation. It means checking in on a colleague’s career goals when there’s no project requiring it. It means making an introduction because it’s the right thing to do, not because you’re keeping score. It means being the person who asks “How are you doing?” and actually waits for the answer. And it means looking beyond your current company. Your professional relationships should extend across your industry, your community, and your life, and not just focus on the relationships that exist within your org chart. This entails occasional meetups with former colleagues, attending industry events, and showing up for the people in your network. The peers you invest in today become the relationships that catch you tomorrow. And if you’re reading this thinking, “I haven’t done any of this!” Take heart, you’re not alone, and you’re not too late. Think of the best boss or colleague you’ve had, someone you’d jump at the chance to work with again. Now send them a DM on LinkedIn, an email, or even a handwritten note, and tell them what made them special. Not because you need something. Because they deserve to hear it. That single act of reaching out is how dormant relationships come back to life. The best time to invest was a year ago. The second-best time is today. During: Be direct, then be generous Most career advice tells you not to lead with your need. I’d push back on that. The need is real, so why dance around the elephant in the room? If you’ve been laid off, say so. Make the ask: “I’m in transition, and I’d value your perspective” or “If you hear of anything that might be a fit, I’m looking for [then describe the role]. I’d really appreciate it.” It’s an honest request, without guilt, even if they aren’t able to assist in that moment. Ellie Rich-Poole, an executive career coach who works with senior leaders who are navigating transitions, confirms this. The people who land quickly, she says, are the ones who “proactively got in touch and asked for help—being brave and vulnerable, and specific with their requests.” Not a vague “let me know if you hear of anything,” but a concrete ask: Who is your favorite recruiter? Would you make a personal introduction? That specificity makes it easy for people to actually help. Here’s what happens when you’re direct: You discover who your Allies actually are. The people who make an introduction or pick up the phone—those are your Allies. The people who say “let me know if I can help” and then go quiet—those are your Supporters. Recognizing the difference saves you from pouring energy into relationships that won’t hold your weight right now. The key is what you do next. Make a deposit back into those relationships, not as a quid pro quo, but as the reactivation of your relationship investment muscle. Share an article that’s relevant to their work. Connect them with someone in your network. Ask about their challenges, not just your own. This is how you transform a moment of vulnerability into a relationship that’s stronger than it was before. Rich-Poole makes another important point: Be visible, even when it’s hard. Post on LinkedIn. Share what you’re learning, not just what you need. A layoff carries grief, and the instinct to withdraw is real, but isolation compounds the problem. The professionals who stay visible, combining openness about their situation with genuinely helpful content for their network, are the ones who attract opportunities they didn’t know existed. A technology leader I was coaching landed their new role within weeks of being laid off. Not through a job board. Not through a recruiter. Through a conversation with a mutual connection who knew their work and their character well enough to make an introduction without being asked. And don’t forget the people who were laid off alongside you. They’re navigating the same uncertainty, and your support matters more than you think. Being an Ally to someone in the same storm—sharing leads, making introductions, simply checking in—is how reputations are built. People remember who showed up when things were hard. After: Invest forward, not backward Landing a new role isn’t the end of the relationship work, it’s the beginning of the next cycle. The leaders who thrive long-term are the ones who carry their relationships forward rather than treating each job as a clean slate. Stay connected with former colleagues. Not as a networking strategy, but as a human practice. The people you worked alongside understand your strengths, your values, and your working style in ways a new team doesn’t yet. They’re also navigating their own transitions, and your continued investment in them is what separates an Ally from a Supporter. In your new role, start building relationship capital immediately. Don’t wait until you’ve “proven yourself” to invest in peers—that’s the busyness trap. Use the Relationship Pulse Check I recommend to leaders: three questions that work in any context. What’s working? What’s not? What’s one thing we can do to ensure mutual success? Ask these of your new colleagues early and often. They signal that you’re invested in the relationship, not just the role. And pay it forward. The most powerful thing you can do after navigating a layoff is to become the person who helps others through theirs. Make introductions. Write recommendations. Take the call from the stranger who was referred by a mutual connection. Be the Ally you needed, especially for the people who are still searching. Relationships are career insurance Layoffs will continue. AI will accelerate them. Mergers, restructurings, and strategic pivots will keep reshuffling org charts. You cannot control any of that. What you can control is the quality of the relationships you build—inside your company and outside it—with the people above you and beside you, at work and in your whole life. Those relationships are the infrastructure that holds when everything else shifts. Forget six degrees of separation. In today’s world, you’re two degrees of connection away from your next opportunity, your next collaboration, your next chapter. But only if you’ve invested in making those connections real. The question isn’t whether disruption will find you. The question is whether, when it does, you will have Allies . . . or just contacts. View the full article

Donald The President congratulates crew and promises Nasa will establish human lunar presence View the full article

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I work with my spouse, and it’s affecting me at work My spouse (“Sam”) and I work in an agency that is a smaller arm of a large national corporation. Sam began working here five years ago, made close friendships with others in the program, and has an extremely good professional reputation. Three years ago, I was hired out of graduate school for the agency site associated with Sam’s program. It is likely I was interviewed because of their success in the field. At the time I was hired, I discussed with my manager that I would not work directly with my spouse for many reasons, including ethics and work-life balance. This wasn’t a concern at the time since Sam was working in a special program and with clients in a different state. That, however, changed last year. I’ve learned a lot from this job. My performance reviews are good, and I get positive feedback. I’ve also learned that this subset of our industry is not healthy for me to remain in. As a result, I’m building a small business of my own on the side with hopes of eventually leaving this company, and have I transitioned to half-time. Additionally, with a lot of therapy and introspection, I know that I’m deeply unhappy in my marriage. I see parts of Sam that our colleagues never see. It’s very difficult to be working from home, living with them, and sharing coworking space. At a minimum, I would like for us to live separately and am working on how to do that financially. Last year, a sociopolitical situation resulted in Sam needing to quickly move from their work in the other state. Big Boss brought Sam on to our site, working on a team adjacent to mine. Then, when my manager took a different position at the end of last year, Sam applied for their role. Big Boss split the management role into two positions to promote Sam and one of Sam’s coworkers from the special project (“Clarissa”) into the position. Initially, I reported to Clarissa while still working in my old team with someone managed by Sam. This quickly leaked into our private lives, and I was put in the uncomfortable position of trying to navigate supporting Sam and supporting coworkers when conflict arose. When this happened, I spoke with managerial parties involved about how this structure was not working and asked to transition directly to an open position on Clarissa’s team. This was facilitated, enthusiastically by Clarissa and oddly reluctantly by Big Boss. The work on this team is more challenging and is impacting my mental health. However, I enjoy working with Clarissa as a manager and a human. I would like to open up to her about some of the ways my relationship, finances, and current living situation are impacting my overall health and ability to show up for clients. However, given her friendship with Sam and the already porous boundaries within our field, I have concerns about how to navigate this conversation. I don’t want it to feel like I am badmouthing her friend and colleague. At the same time, my relationship struggles are relevant to my work performance. Do you have any advice on how to navigate talking to coworkers about struggling in your marriage when your spouse is your coworker? In this situation, you can’t really talk to your coworkers about what’s going on in your marriage, when your spouse is also a coworker. You just … can’t. (It would be different if Sam were being abusive; then you’d have to talk with your employer about safety measures.) I think the question is: if you could talk to Clarissa about this, what would you want her to do with that information? If there’s something specific she could do, like taking over a particular meeting with Sam so you don’t have to do it or some other concrete thing that would help, just ask her for that specifically. If you need some grace because it’s a challenging time in your personal life, you can ask for that (while being vague about what the challenges are). But it should be something specific and actionable, not just background info. Plus, as your boss, she doesn’t really need info about what’s going on with your relationship, finances, and living situation (and may feel uncomfortable having it); she needs info about what you need from her, and that’s what you should focus on, without getting into the personal details. There are situations where you could share more with a boss, but (a) that’s more of a bonus in a boss/employee relationship, not a default, and (b) when you take a job working with a partner, you necessarily give some of that up. I’m sorry because this sounds hard! 2. Losing sick days I was given when hired When I was first hired to my job, I was given vacation and 10 sick days. My hiring letter said 10 sick days, as did all subsequent letters (we get new hiring letters when we get raises). The employee handbook, although not revised in many years, also said 10 sick days. I’ve asked for more vacation in my annual reviews and been told no because everyone has to have the same vacation days or it’s not fair. It has come to light that recently hired employees are only getting five sick days. I asked my supervisor to confirm the days my supervisee gets, and he said she should only have five. I told him full-time employees get 10 days, and I was hired at 10 days and it’s in the employee handbook. He said the handbook is old and now everyone should only get five. And that at the end of this calendar year he’s going to redo everyone’s vacation and sick days to make sure everyone has the same thing. It seems like I’m about to be docked five sick days! My last letter reaffirming my 10 sick days was only last year! (And I’m pretty sure he’s taking more than five sick days himself, although I guess that’s not really relevant.) It’s a small nonprofit and I’m pretty senior. I believe that shorting people on sick days is very short-sighted because it costs the organization nothing, it doesn’t carry over, and not everyone uses them, but when you really need them, you really need them! Lots of staff have kids and elderly parents; five days is not enough. It’s a way to be kind and supportive, and cutting some people’s days will really tank morale. How would you suggest I approach this? Make the case for keeping the 10 sick days and raising the recently hired employees’ allotment to match. You said you’re pretty senior, so you have standing to advocate for this. Point out that it would be a significant cut in benefits to yourself and other employees and is likely to harm morale, and that people will end up coming into work sick and getting others sick, thereby harming everyone’s productivity. You might also point out that five sick days is well below the national average, and that nonprofits typically try to make up for lower-than-average salaries by keeping benefits good, or least competitive. And I don’t know what your manager’s role is, but if he’s not the decision-maker on this, talk to the person who is — and consider getting other senior-level employees to push back with that person too. 3. What can HR offer employees when a manager just isn’t good? How do you navigate situations in HR where an employee’s concerns about their manager are valid from a relational standpoint, but not actionable from a policy perspective? Sometimes the honest reality is … their manager just isn’t great. We currently share resources such as mediation, ways to respond to disciplinary actions, and recommend escalating through their management chain, but employees still feel stuck. What else can HR realistically offer? If your company is set up to support it, you can offer coaching and training for the manager, pinpointing the issues that you see come up as patterns on their team. If your company isn’t set up to support that, you can advocate for it, or at least try to do some less formal coaching of managers. You should also be flagging any pattern of problems with a manager to the person who manages them. Sometimes, too, HR can be well positioned to act as a sort of interpreter — “it sounds like when your manager said X, what she was getting at was Y” and “What if you approached it like X?” and so forth. But ultimately, when managers aren’t good at managing, it’s in the company’s best interests to get them better at it, which means they need coaching and training and sometimes intervention from above. 4. Should I tell my boss about an employee who’s claiming overtime when she’s not working? I usually err on not reporting on coworkers unless it impacts me or is potentially hurting others. However, I am in a weird place. I report to the director, but previously reported to the manager. While I do not manage anyone now, I am considered part of the leadership team, and the manager and I have a good relationship. She reports to the director as well. We have one non-exempt employee who routinely comes in at least an hour early and clocks in for it even though there really isn’t any work for that role to be done at that time. She reports to the manager, who says nobody has challenged the overtime so she isn’t interfering. We have four people in the same position who do not get this overtime and come in at the appropriate time to serve clients. This is awkward because I do metrics, audits, SOPs, training, etc. — nothing client-facing. And I report to the manager’s boss, who I feel would not be happy with this situation. On the other hand, I’ve noted it to the manager and they’ve chosen to do nothing. I am hesitant to bring this to my director, but I am also aware she will know that I knew about this if it comes out later and is a problem. If I talk to the director, she will talk to the manager, who will almost certainly know I was the person. So — stay quiet (eyes on my own paper) or talk to my boss, who is also the manager’s boss, so she can work with the manager on the correct solution? Discreetly share it with your boss. This is actually pretty clear-cut because it does affect you: you said your director will know that you knew about it if it comes out later. That would be my advice to anyone in your shoes, but particularly as someone involved in auditing, there are additional expectations on you not to look away when someone is, pretty literally, stealing from the company and their manager has decided not to intervene. When you talk to your boss, say you’d like to avoid causing tension in your relationship with the manager, if there’s a way for her to “discover” what’s happening on her own. 5. Listing an acquisition on my resume I just got my first job after graduating (thanks for the resume and interview tips on your site!) and three months after I started, my company got acquired by a larger firm. I’m not planning to leave soon and I doubt they’d let me go with our spring and summer busy season coming up, but when I do decided to head out, how I put this on my resume without looking like I skipped out on a job after less than a quarter of a year? It’s going to stay all one job on your resume, not be separated into two different listings. Do it like this: Taco Quality Tester Tacos Inc. (formerly Taco Utopia), October 2025 – November 2027 The post I work with my spouse, losing sick days I was given when hired, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article