ResidentialBusiness

If you’re in the business of publishing content on the internet, it’s been difficult to know how to deal with AI. Obviously, you can’t ignore it; large language models (LLMs) and AI search engines are here, and they ingest your content and summarize it for their users, killing valuable traffic to your site. Plenty of data supports this. Creating a content strategy that accounts for this changing reality is complex to begin with. You need to decide what content to expose to AI systems, what to block from them, and how both of those activities can serve your business. That would be hard even if there were clear rules that everyone’s operating under. But that is far from a given in the AI world. A topic I’ve revisited more than once is how tech and media view some aspects of the ecosystem differently (most notably, user agents), leading to new industry alliances, myriad lawsuits, and several angry blog posts. But even accounting for that, a pair of recent reports suggest the two sides are even further apart than you might think. Common Crawl and the copyright clash Common Crawl is a vast trove of internet data that many AI systems use for training. It was a fundamental part of GPT-3.5, the model that powered ChatGPT when it was released to the world back in 2022, and many other LLMs are also based on it. Over the past three years, however, the issue of copyright and training data has become a major source of controversy, and several publishers have requested that Common Crawl delete their content from its archive to prevent AI models from training on it. A report from The Atlantic suggests that Common Crawl hasn’t complied, keeping the content in the archive while making it invisible to its online search tool—meaning any spot checks would come up empty. Common Crawl’s executive director, Rich Skrenta, told the publication that it complies with removal requests, but he also clearly supports the point of view that anything online should be fair game for training LLMs, saying, “You shouldn’t have put your content on the internet if you didn’t want it to be on the internet.” Separately, Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) looked at how the new AI-powered browsers, Perplexity Comet and ChatGPT Atlas, handle requests to access paywalled content. The report notes that, when asked to retrieve a subscriber-only article from MIT Technology Review, both browsers complied even though the web-based chatbots from those companies would refuse to get the article on account of it being paywalled. The details of both cases are important, but both underscore just how far apart the perspectives of the media and the tech industry are. The tech side will always tilt toward more access—if information is digital and findable on the internet, AI systems will always default to obtaining it by any means necessary. And publishers assert that their content still belongs to them regardless of where and how it’s published, and they should retain control of who can access it and what they can do with it. The mental divide between AI and media There’s more happening here than just two debaters arguing past each other, though. The case of Common Crawl exposes a contradiction in a key talking point on the tech side of things—that any particular piece of content or source in an LLM’s training data isn’t that relevant, and they could easily do without it. But it’s hard to reconcile that with Common Crawl’s apparent actions, risking costly lawsuits by not deleting data from publications who request them to, which includes The New York Times, Reuters, and The Washington Post. When it comes to training data, some sources are clearly more valuable than others. The browsers that circumvent paywalls reveal another incorrect assumption from the AI side: that because certain behaviors are allowed on an individual basis, they should be allowed at scale. The most common argument that relies on this logic is when people say that when AI “learns” from all the information it ingests, it’s just doing what humans do. But a change in scale can also create a category shift. Think about how paywalls typically work: Many are deliberately porous, allowing a limited number of free articles per day, week, or month. Once those are exhausted, there’s the old trick of the incognito window. Also, some paywalls, as noted in the CJR article, work by loading all the text on the page, then pulling down a curtain so the reader can’t see it. Sometimes, if you click the “Stop loading” button fast enough, you can expose the text before that curtain comes down. One level up from there is to use your browser’s simple developer tools to disable and delete the paywall elements on an article page. Savvy internet users have known about all of these for years, but it’s a small percentage of all users—I’d wager less than 5%. But guess who knows about all these tricks, and probably many more on top of them? AI. Browser agents like those in Comet and Atlas are effectively the most savvy internet users possible, and they grant these powers to anyone simply requesting information. Now, what was once a niche activity is applied at scale, and paywalls become invisible to anyone using an AI browser. One defense here might be server-side paywalls, which grant access to the text only after the reader logs in. Regardless, what the browser does with the data after the AI ingests it is yet another access question. OpenAI says it won’t train on any pages that Atlas’s agent may access, and indeed this is how user agents are supposed to work, though the company does say it will retain the pages for the individual user’s memory. That sounds benign enough, but considering how Common Crawl has behaved, should we be taking any AI company at their word? Turning conflict into strategy So what’s the takeaway for the media—besides investing in server-side paywalls? The good news is your content is more valuable than you’ve been told. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be so much effort to find it, ingest it, and claim it to be “free.” But the bad news is that maintaining control over that content is going to be much harder than you probably thought. Understanding and managing how AI uses your content for training, summaries, or agents is a complicated business, requiring more than just techniques and code. You need to take into account the mindset of those on the other side. Turning all this into real strategy means deciding when to fight access, when to allow it, and when to demand compensation. Considering what a moving target AI is, that will never be easy, but if the AI companies’ aggressive, constant, and comprehensive push for more access has shown anything, it’s that they deeply value the media industry’s content. It’s nice to be needed, but success will depend on turning that need into leverage. View the full article

As I write this my 6-and-a-half-month-old daughter is sitting on my lap in my home office, where she spends an hour or two each day. Despite all the toys I’ve laid out for her, the thing she typically reaches for is my keyboard, occasionally leading to the odd typo. I’ve been a freelance journalist for about 12 years, but never has this work-from-home, choose-your-own schedule arrangement been so valuable. Last year I was able to be with my wife at almost every doctor’s appointment, ultrasound, and blood test before we became parents in April. Since our daughter was born, I have enjoyed the flexibility not only to make it to every pediatrician appointment and give my wife a helping hand during the day but also to be a part of important milestone moments. I couldn’t imagine having to walk out the front door each morning, only to return a couple of hours before bedtime in the evening, but of course that is the reality for most working parents. That is perhaps why solopreneurship is so popular among those with kids, especially women, and particularly those stepping away from extremely demanding careers to start or grow their families. Studies in Australia and Canada have found that many workers make the transition into parenthood and self-employment at the same time, and research even suggests that self-employed mothers outperform those without children. Being more present at home and work When her first child was born, Fernanda Chouza went in the opposite direction, taking on a more challenging role at a fast-growing AI startup in San Francisco. Over time Chouza says she earned the respect and leeway to take time off to care for her kids, but then she got laid off in 2022, when her kids were 2 and 4 years old. “As I looked at hyper-growth companies, I realized I would need to put in, like, two years of elbow grease to get to the point where I can take a week off for my kids,” she says. “The idea of starting from scratch was too hard.” Instead, Chouza started a one-women marketing agency called the Launch Shop, offering fractional product marketing expertise to software companies launching new products. Previously, Chouza says she spent many hours at work feeling guilty for not being home with her kids, and many hours at home worrying about whether she was dropping the ball at work. “Now I have full flexibility. I don’t have to be constantly apologizing for stuff, and I only show up when I’m at the top of my game,” she says. “When I’m off, I’m fully off; I don’t have anxiety on the weekends, I don’t have anxiety at night, and I can be a lot more mentally present with my kids.” Though she doesn’t enjoy the same kind of equity-payout potential, Chouza says her salary is about 50% higher than her previous earnings, while providing significantly more time off. Previously, she said she could take two or three weeks off a year but was expected to be responsive on email and Slack during that time. Thus far this year, Chouza has taken a week or more off from work on eight separate occasions for reasons ranging from her kid’s eye infection to a two-week trip to visit their grandparents abroad. “In corporate, I would have had to grovel and apologize for any time off,” she says. “It felt like I was being penalized for being a mom and they think of me as a liability, like ‘We’re always making so many accommodations for Fern.’” A “side door” to new career opportunities Perhaps one of the most unexpected benefits are the kinds of clients Chouza has worked with as a solopreneur. She says most companies are hesitant to hire executives in the current market but still need short-term support, making a contractor with corporate experience a viable option. “By being fractional I’m actually punching so far above my weight,” she says. “I would have never had this exposure if I was just trying to go through the front door, but I’m coming in through this side door and getting these amazing logos on my résumé and this amazing experience.” That is perhaps one of the most surprising benefits for those who step away from the workforce to start an independent venture while raising a family. Though many choose solopreneurship for the flexibility, they often discover that it can also offer a bridge—or even a ladder—back into the traditional workforce. “You can think of it as not necessarily ‘I’m going to build a startup that’s going to pay me a lot of money,’ but ‘I’m going to write a story for myself that professionally fills those years,’” explains Kyle Jensen, the director of entrepreneurship programs, and associate dean and professor in the practice of entrepreneurship at the Yale School of Management. “I created something new, I operated it, I ran it, and through all of this I developed all sorts of executive acumen and business sense, and maybe some software skills.” Professional benefits aside, Jensen also says part of what makes solopreneurship so appealing to parents is the ability to trade some of the financial rewards for time. “With this manner of entrepreneurship, you can treat your human capital as a luxury good, and you can choose different distributions of time that allows you to enjoy things that are important but not necessarily prioritized in our society—like parenting,” he says, adding, “The only person who’s going to remember that you worked extra hours are your children.” View the full article

It’s a random Tuesday in October, and your kids are home again. A national holiday? Nope. A snow day. Not even a speck of frost on the ground. It’s Professional Development Day or Parent-Teacher Conference Half Day or one of the 15 other noninstructional days that appear in the school calendar like little landmines for anyone with a full-time job. At this point, I’ve stopped trying to keep track. Every month seems to come with a “surprise, they’re home” moment. And as a working parent, there are few phrases that strike fear into my heart quite like: “No School Today!” I love my kids, but that doesn’t mean I can drop everything every time the school district decides teachers need a day to recalibrate. I want their educators to have the time they need, I truly do. It’s a job I don’t have the patience or superpowers to handle. But the system is still built around a 1950s fantasy where one parent is home and is available for midday pick-ups, early dismissals, and weeklong winter breaks. Most families don’t live that reality anymore. The hidden toll of random days off This juggling act is brutal. Every day off becomes an exercise in logistics, guilt, and creative problem-solving. Who’s taking off work this time? Can I trade shifts? Do we have any vacation days left? Should I call in sick—AGAIN? For parents who can’t afford nannies or backup care, there aren’t many options. A babysitter can cost more than what a parent makes in a day. Drop-off programs seem to fill up within minutes and you have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting off the waitlist. And working remote with kids running around, making noise, and needing food hardly makes for a productive day. Of course, the burden doesn’t hit parents equally in cisgender households. Research shows that working mothers are far more likely to take time off or rearrange their schedules to cover the gaps in childcare. A 2023 study found that unexpected school closures forced mothers to cut six hours per week on average. Over a three-month period, that adds up to 72 hours. So, it’s not just inconvenient, it can have economic consequences. Most families cannot afford to bring home less money, and for single parents, this could cause a crisis. Surviving this requires even more emotional labor: coordinating carpools, texting neighbors to ask a favor, setting up playdates with a child that has a SAHM. This is about childcare and the mental strain of dealing with an unpredictable and unsupportive system. There has to be a better way So, what’s the solution? It’s not as simple as hiring more babysitters. We need modern policies that reflect how families live and work today. Here are a few ideas worth exploring: Community care partnerships. Check out your local YMCAs, libraries, and afterschool programs. Some receive state or district funding to offer affordable coverage on non-school days. Some cities, like Seattle, already do this. Rethink remote flexibility. If companies can pivot to global time zones and hybrid schedules, they can also accommodate parents during the school-year craziness. Family Flex Days could allow workers to shift hours without penalty. Policy shifts. Paid family leave can’t just be about new babies. It should also recognize the everyday realities of caregiving. That includes the random Tuesday your second grader’s school closes at noon. Until the workplace and the school system sync up, parents will keep paying the price in time, money, and peace of mind. The bottom line is, we don’t need parents to be more flexible. We need the system to be. View the full article

Seeing peers lose their jobs has a way of making people weird. It’s not much different from grief. When someone loses a loved one, you can almost feel the tension: people fumbling for the right words, hoping not to say something insensitive, then saying something insensitive anyway. “Everything happens for a reason.” “They’re in a better place.” That is, assuming any condolences are shared at all. Many of us have been there. You don’t want to overstep. Don’t want to make the person feel worse. I get it: Showing sympathy can feel like a minefield. The same thing happens when companies downsize their staff, only the loss isn’t life. It’s employment. When someone gets laid off, it’s a kind of corporate death. One day, you’re working alongside someone, swapping memes on Slack, surviving the same back-to-back meetings. The next day, their desk is vacant, their Slack photo appears black and white, and their email account forwards incoming messages to whoever has inherited their responsibilities. I’ve been on both sides of this situation, a casualty and a survivor. I’ve seen folks who are lucky enough to evade the chopping block minimize, deflect, or disappear. It’s not that people are cruel. They’re uncomfortable. Layoffs remind us how little control we have over our own jobs. And in that discomfort, we forget the person in front of us is going through some real s**t. I remember working at a startup in a contractor role that was cut abruptly after nearly a year. One acquaintance, a guy named Tyler, stopped by my desk to check in before my last day. He somehow made my departure about him: “We’re already such a small team, I don’t know how they expect us to get all of this work done.” I rolled my eyes. Another well-meaning coworker at least showed concern. But after offering some empty platitudes (“When one door closes, another opens”), she asked an unanswerable question: “What are you gonna do?” I wanted to say, “I don’t know, Janice, probably stress-eat a pack of Oreos, go on a weekend bender, and then obsessively scroll LinkedIn for my next job,” but I just kept it to the first four words. What stung the most was the colleagues who suddenly acted like I was contagious. You’d think I was on Power the way these people suddenly went ghost. You can feel that void, that interrupted rhythm of virtual or real-life interaction. I assume they probably don’t know what to say, so they say nothing. It’s still wack. Here’s the thing: It’s not all that difficult to show up for someone who is suddenly out of work. You don’t have to fix their situation; you just have to let them know you see them. Ask how they’re doing. Validate their feelings. Tell them something you’ll miss about them. You don’t need a motivational speech. A simple, “That’s awful, I’m really sorry you’re dealing with that,” can mean a lot. Instead of clichés like, “You’ve got this!” offer your presence. “If you want to talk, I’m here” works just fine. Get specific about how you’d like to be supportive. “Let me know if you need anything” rarely goes beyond lip service. Instead, offer to share job postings you come across or connect your newly unemployed colleague with contacts at companies that may be hiring. If appropriate, you can even offer to serve as a reference. Those suggestions are baseline, but my former boss at the aforementioned job did something small that went a long way. In my final leadership meeting, she carved out time so other managers could express kind words and farewells. One by one, they spoke about my poise under pressure, my witty emails, that one project that I managed to perfection. I felt appreciated. It reminded me of the impact I made over a short period of time. It reminded me that I would be an asset in my next gig. When I’ve seen layoffs up close, I’ve noticed something: The people who show up make all the difference. It’s not about having the perfect words. It’s about presence. Jobs come and go. Titles change. But the way we treat each other when things fall apart? That’s what people remember the most. The Only Black Guy in the Office is copublished with Levelman.com. View the full article

One X user named Julia recently shared screenshots of an email exchange with her boyfriend in which she was, in her own words, “colleague-zoned.” In the now-viral post, which has over 15.4 million views at the time of writing, Julia penned in the caption: “Sent a document to my boyfriend’s work email so he could print it for me and got colleague-zoned.” Julia had emailed her boyfriend a document to print, ending her note with, “I love you! Please print this for me! Thanks,” and a red heart emoji. To which he formally responded: “Julia, thanks for reaching out. I have received your document and printed it on 8″ x 11″ paper. Will deliver to you later this evening to be signed. Thank you.” Of course, Julia responded as any girlfriend would. “Are you breaking up with me?” she emailed back. To which he wrote: “Keeping things professional. Just wanted to confirm that I have followed up on your request. Best regards.” Some speculated that his emails are likely monitored, hence the professionalism. “That is a man who is locked tf in at work,” one wrote. Others recognized the screenshots for what they are: a funny bit. And it turns out, many people apparently do this. “My favorite time of year is when I email our HOA bill to my husband and he does this,” one wrote. “It’s like professional flirting.” Another added: “Something about office speak with loved ones is so funny.” Julia is not the only one who has found herself colleague-zoned. Another TikTok creator recently shared a screenshot of her text exchanges with her “finance bro” husband. “Just got 2026 HC enrollment presentation. Let’s get lunch/coffee again this weekend and discuss next year,” he texted. “Just sent to our Gmail’s so you can review ahead of time.” As professional boundaries blur and work continues to bleed into our personal lives, it can be easy to accidentally slip into office speak when replying to a personal email or syncing calendars with your partner. You might circle back to Thanksgiving plans or touch base on what day the trash needs taking out. Some take things a step further and purposefully conduct monthly performance reviews of their romantic relationships, or discuss KPIs and OKRs with their significant others to align on future goals. It works for some. For others, perhaps it’s a sackable offense. As for Julia, to assuage concerns over her relationship, she later shared screenshots of a follow-up text exchange. “I’m crying. I just looked at my phone for the first time in like two hours. lmao. Are your emails actually monitored?? Or were you just being silly?” she asked. Her boyfriend admitted, “No, they’re not monitored at all. I was just being funny.” Now entering: the colleague zone. View the full article

Figure lays bare fragile state of growth ahead of harsh BudgetView the full article

If talent is the oxygen of a company, succession planning is the life-support system. Yet too many organizations treat it like an org chart exercise, waiting until someone resigns or retires before scrambling to find a replacement. When a leader walks out, the ripple effects are immediate: strategy stalls, teams lose momentum, and culture wobbles overnight. The bigger problem? Most companies aren’t ready when it happens. According to DDI’s 2025 HR Insights Report, only 20% of CHROs say they have leaders prepared to step into critical roles, and just 49% of those roles could be filled internally today. That means most organizations are closer to a leadership crisis than they realize. This isn’t just an HR issue; it’s a business continuity risk. The Spreadsheet Trap Too often, succession planning lives in a spreadsheet. Once a year, leaders review “ready now” candidates, check the box, and move on. But when someone exits suddenly, those names on paper don’t always translate into reality. I’ve seen it firsthand. At one company where I worked, the president resigned unexpectedly. On paper, there were successors. In practice, none were ready. The company scrambled to find an external hire, losing momentum and market confidence. Contrast that with PMI Worldwide (the owner of the Stanley brand), where culture and succession planning went hand in hand. The CEO and leadership team lived the values, held open forums, and celebrated wins. They didn’t just plan for future leaders; they developed them into leaders. When growth accelerated, the bench was ready. One company had a spreadsheet. The other had a system. The difference was everything. The Succession Reality Turnover remains high. The Work Institute projects that 35–40 million employees will voluntarily quit in 2025, even as overall quit rates soften. That includes top performers you can’t afford to lose. Employee tenure is shrinking, too. For those under 35, the median is just 2.7 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Replacing leaders can cost up to 200% of their annual salary, per Gallup and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and it takes more than a year for new hires to become fully productive. To make matters worse, 38% of new hires leave within their first year, often before being considered for promotions. Meanwhile, DDI reports only 20% of HR leaders believe their workforce is future-ready. Without a deliberate pipeline, companies expose themselves to leadership gaps, stalled strategies, and avoidable financial hits. From Planning to Culture Succession planning isn’t a list of names; it’s a culture of growth. That means development is ongoing, not episodic. Leaders are accountable for building their bench. Talent sharing crosses functions and geographies. Data guides investment in development. A proactive succession process signals to employees that advancement is real, not theoretical. It drives engagement, strengthens retention, and ensures seamless transitions when leadership inevitably changes. Most importantly, it tells your people: your future has a place here. Treat Succession Like a KPI The companies that succeed don’t treat succession as a side project. They operationalize it. That means: Measuring it like a KPI. Leadership bench strength should be reviewed with the same rigor as financial results. At Amazon, where I led succession processes, leadership readiness was tracked as closely as customer metrics through indicators like internal promotion velocity, bench strength ratios, time-to-fill critical roles, and successor readiness scores. These metrics weren’t HR dashboards—they were business metrics. Stress-testing before a crisis. Ask: If this leader left tomorrow, what’s our real plan? If the answer is silence, you’re not ready. Embedding it into daily development. Succession isn’t built once a year in a talent review. It’s built through mentoring, stretch projects, and intentional growth opportunities. What Great Succession Planning Looks Like Succession planning isn’t about “who’s next in line.” It’s about creating a continuous flow of leaders when the business needs it most. Done right, it: Identifies high-potential employees early, using performance + potential, not tenure. Differentiates between “ready now” and “ready in 1–2 years” and develops both. Prepares for both planned exits (retirements) and unplanned ones (attrition, poaching). Aligns talent strategy directly to growth priorities. Assesses the impact of loss. If a leader leaves, what projects stall? What revenue streams are at risk? Balances internal with selective external hires. Leaders should review succession with the same urgency they give to financials. Ask yourself: Do our successors have the skills to succeed today? Are leadership capabilities aligned with future growth? Where are we most vulnerable to leadership gaps? Are we over-reliant on external hires at the expense of internal talent? If the answers are unclear, the plan isn’t strong enough. The ROI of Getting It Right Effective succession planning delivers measurable returns. It helps retain top performers, enables smoother transitions, and strengthens culture. When employees see investment in their development, they’re more likely to stay and more likely to be ready. The numbers back it up. DDI’s research shows companies with strong leadership pipelines are 2.4 times more likely to financially outperform their peers. Succession isn’t a cost center; it’s a competitive advantage. View the full article

Carmaker gives no details on pledge, which is in addition to Tokyo’s $550bn commitment in return for lower tariffsView the full article

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Fire one employee, both employees, or no one? I am an assistant manager at a chain restaurant. There are two employees who should be fired due to violating our call-out policy, which is two NCNS (no call, no show) in a row is automatic termination and if you can’t make your shift you need to call the store with at least three hours notice. Both employees have violated this in different ways. Adam gives three hours notice sometimes but calls out at least once a week, and dictates his schedule to us instead of us scheduling him as we need him. He refuses to call and opts to text out, but is never a NCNS. He is generally well liked by staff, but acts like he didn’t need the job. Ben doesn’t usually call (or communicate) at all, has missed about six shifts in the last month, but not in a row. He wants to work and is desperate to pick up hours, but is disliked by most of the staff (to the point a couple people refuse to be scheduled with him). He has also shown a tendency for violence/aggression. I’m feeling at a loss what to do. My higher-ups want Adam gone and I like him, minus how flaky he is. I want Ben gone, but my immediate manager wants to keep him. I personally feel that if I fire one, I have to fire both. I also feel that I should respect chain of command, but I really want to talk to my district manager for input and go over my general manager’s head. I would like your advice on if I should let it go, fire one or both, or escalate it please. Totally aside from the attendance issues, you should fire Ben. Multiple people are refusing to work with him and he’s shown a tendency for violence/aggression. I don’t know the specifics of that last part, but if it’s anything like what it sounds like, he should be gone today. That should be an easy case to make to your higher-ups. People need to be safe at work. With Adam, it comes down to the impact of his scheduling issues on the actual work. Is it causing coverage problems? Do you have to scramble at the last minute to fill his shift? Are coworkers frustrated by having to cover for him last-minute? Disregard the thing about it feeling like he doesn’t need the job; that doesn’t matter. What matters is the work impact of his actions. If his actions are disruptive, talk to him and tell him what needs to change for him to keep the job, and then stick to that. It sounds like there are political concerns with all of this with your general manager, but this is how I’d look at each. 2. My coworker is being really weird about our breaks I split front desk duties with a coworker, Mary. We each spend half a day at the front desk and the other half doing other office support work. Everyone in the office gets a 15-minute morning and afternoon break and an hour lunch. Part of splitting the front desk means that Mary and I cover each other’s breaks. The other things we do around the office cannot be done at the front desk (for confidentiality/logistics reasons). So, when it is time for me to cover her lunch, it puts a firm end time on what I’m doing. For a couple of weeks, Mary has been combining both her breaks in the morning. Since I do office support work in the mornings, this means that sometimes I’m leaving my task for almost an hour, but at least 45 minutes to cover her breaks (it would push an hour if there was something weird we had to switch off on). She did this a couple of months ago when I was learning a new task, and when I explained that 15 minutes was precious to me while I was learning she stopped. Yesterday I pointed out that the longer morning breaks were back and she looked taken aback but said that she would go back to 15-minute breaks since she understands that she was taking away time from me to work. Later in the afternoon, she came to me and said that she has decided to stop taking breaks completely because she couldn’t trust herself and was getting confused. I told her very clearly that I do not want her to stop taking breaks. She also asked if I wanted her to come in half an hour earlier in the mornings, and I said of course not. Today she is noticeably chillier with me, and I’m at a loss. It seems so ridiculous to make a big deal out of a short break, but I brought it up because I think it is part of a larger problem of her being dismissive of me; this is just the most obvious thing she does. I don’t want to escalate this, but I also do not want it to fester. You could go back to her and say this: “I want to make sure I correctly conveyed what I was trying to say, since I think we miscommunicated. I would never ask you not to take your breaks. My request is only that you not combine two breaks into one, since that makes them a lot longer and makes it harder for me to get my work done. If you stick with a morning break and an afternoon break, not combined, that solves the problem.” If she still chooses to be chilly with you after that … well, that would be a weird reaction, but I would also assume she will get over it in time as long as you continue being pleasant and warm with her. 3. No one is doing anything about an employee in crisis A strange thing happened the other day, and I was so taken aback and sure that it was a one-off bad day that I did … nothing, in the moment. I took a junior with me to a company meeting and her behavior was startlingly off. Our work rarely intersects so I don’t usually work with her one-on-one, and never on a regular basis, but I’ve known her in the past to be gentle, steady, considered, and well prepared. Her behavior during this trip was, quite frankly, terrifying and out of character. She was by turns aggressive, scattered, paranoid, and then mumbling into her hair and twice started randomly screaming at motorists. We work with people who have experienced family violence, and so we have some knowledge regarding identifying and managing people who are experiencing extreme trauma responses, which can sometimes look like (and be mistaken for) drug use (meth, etc.) and psychosis. I later reported what happened up the line as I’m confident that for either of the three causes, our organization’s response would be compassionate and considered. It’s now a week later and, after observing other instances of bizarre behavior and people’s reaction to it, I’ve realized that people across various levels of our org were aware of an extreme personality shift months ago and seem to have done nothing at all, but are actively avoiding her. There have been some disruptions to our HR and reporting processes, but I guess I’m stuck being really frustrated at my colleagues and organization for not appropriately addressing what is quite obviously a person in distress who we have previously known to be absolutely not like this. Shouldn’t people in our industry, with our knowledge, understand that an extreme sudden change in personality needs to be flagged as an urgent issue? Yes. Can you push the issue further / escalate it higher / be more emphatic that a more formal intervention is needed? Not only is that in the employee’s interests, but it sounds like the behavior is disrupting your workplace as well and making people avoid her — this is long past the point of someone needing to step in. 4. Are “employee of the month” awards useful? This is something I wondered about for years: are those “employee of the month/quarter/year” awards really worth anything for the employees? Like can they use it as a résumé booster or are they more likely to be chosen for an internal promotion? I’m not from the U.S. and I never seen or heard from those awards being used by companies here, only on TV shows, but there those awards are used for jokes. They’re not generally worth anything in the sense you mean (as resume fodder or qualification for promotion), but when they’re done in reasonably functional companies, they can make people feel appreciated and reinforce internal messages about what good performance looks like. But they’re no substitute for raises, good management, skills development, paths to promotion, and ongoing positive feedback — and so when you have them without those things in place, they tend to ring hollow and breed cynicism. 5. Why isn’t this hiring manager getting back to me? I’ve been experiencing a dilemma with an employer I’ve been in contact with since the summer. I’ve been considered for a great opportunity with a well-known company. I first messaged the hiring manager on LinkedIn when I saw the job posting, and she replied back instructing me to send my resume to her work email. This cold messaging led to a call with her company’s internal recruiter, who wanted me to have an interview with said hiring manager. The recruiter and I had agreed to let the hiring manager contact me directly for the next steps. It’s been three weeks since that call, and I have not heard from her. I have followed up with the recruiter three times, and he said that he has reminded her. He has also told me that she has a busy schedule right now due to business-related events. Should I reach out to the hiring manager directly myself since I have her contact info? Or should I ask the recruiter to organize the interview? I don’t want to seem pushy by following up every so often, but my patience is wearing thin. I’m also starting to become less interested in the opportunity. You should leave it alone; the ball is in their court. If she wants to get in touch with you, she will. The best thing you can do is to assume that it’s not happening right now for whatever reason (stronger candidates, more pressing priorities, whatever it might be) and put it out of your mind. At the absolute most, you could make a note on your calendar to check in with the recruiter one final time in a month, but other than that you should figure it’s in their court. The post coworker is being really weird about our breaks, are “employee of the month” awards useful, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Total foreclosures rose 3% from September and 19% from the same time a year ago in October, marking the eighth straight month of increases. View the full article

Buenos Aires’s reserves rose by the same margin as Washington seeks to bolster Javier Milei’s governmentView the full article

Hundreds of millions of pounds in value wiped off market value of the paper in the past weekView the full article

It appeals more to a way of thinking than to a set of ideas — but is it just wrong? View the full article

Bookings from younger passengers have allowed operators to defy the gloom in the rest of the travel sectorView the full article

We’re in an age where AI-fueled rapid prototyping and sleek direct-to-consumer startups seem to capture all the attention. But some of the most profound design disruptions didn’t start in a founder’s garage or in the algorithms of artificial intelligence; they were born in the aisles of mainstream consumer stores like Target. In the late 1990s, my company, Michael Graves Design changed the conversation around design with a teakettle that was joyful, affordable, and elegant. It didn’t just sit on a stove, it stood for a new idea: Good design was not a luxury, but a right. Target’s Design for All programs went on to define America’s expectation that great design should be available to everyone. Design evolved from a styling afterthought into a corporate strategy, and the democratization of design was born. Today, democratic design ethos feels more urgent than ever. As consumers increasingly expect thoughtfulness, beauty, and accessibility from the products they buy, heritage brands have a chance to reclaim center stage. To do that, they need to go beyond nostalgia, and beyond quips like “design thinking.” They need to lean into design as disruption, using proven frameworks like participatory design, value-sensitive development, and service ecosystems to create meaningful, mass-market innovation. Let’s break that down. THE NEW COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: LET THE CONSUMER LEAD The notion of democratic product design is simple: Give consumers a genuine voice in the design process. Many brands have shown that when you allow customers to vote on product features, brands send the powerful signal, “we’re building this with you,” which can shift loyalty to your brand and deter competitors from catching up. But the magic only works when the vote is real, shaping what comes next. For legacy brands, this is a powerful opportunity. You don’t need to “reinvent” yourself to resonate; you need to open the design conversation. To us, this means engaging our community to test prototypes to evaluate proposed functional enhancements, to choose colors and finishes, and to ask customers for product categories to explore. DESIGN WITH, NOT FOR: COCREATION AS BRAND STRATEGY The next layer is cocreation, a participatory design methodology drawing from users lived experiences to inform what gets designed and manufactured. Consumers are hyper-attuned to authenticity. Cocreation does more than generate goodwill. It transfers creative ownership, builds emotional stakes, and cultivates a tribe, not just a customer base. Recently, our community helped choose between different finish options for a new teakettle design. Their choice, brushed brass, wasn’t what we expected. That insight is shaping our launch and will deepen customer buy-in. When evaluating your own product development process, think of it in four pillars: Dialogue: Do we invite open, two-way feedback? Access: Are we sharing tools and context with users? Transparency: Do users know how their input affects outcomes? Shared risk/reward: Are they more than just participants? By deploying this framework, our community shares product ideas and their own life hacks for existing items, and this helps shape mass produced designs. THE CASE FOR VALUE-SENSITIVE DESIGN Design isn’t neutral. It carries implicit signals about who it’s for, what it enables, and what it assumes. That’s where value sensitive design (VSD) comes in: an ethical design approach adapted from technology design, embedding values like accessibility at every phase of development. VSD begins with a set of human values. From there, you iterate: Conceptual investigation: What values are at play? Empirical research: What do users want or need? Technical exploration: How can we embed these values in the final design? We used VSD to create a line of bathroom safety products for Pottery Barn. These product types, including grab bars, are often stigmatized and overlooked. No one necessarily wants a grab bar. VSD helped us turn these functional aids into affirming, well-crafted objects with functional enhancements, like combining them with a toilet paper or towel holder. The designs reflect other consumer fixtures, with materials, proportions, and lines reflecting style, cache, and aspiration. Customers shared that these aids don’t scream “medical.” They look like they belong in a thoughtfully designed home, not a hospital. People can finally choose to equally value safety and style. That’s VSD in action—designing dignity into daily life. THINK ECOSYSTEM, NOT ENDCAP Brands must recognize that products are no longer isolated SKUs, they’re part of a broader service ecosystem. A teakettle isn’t just a tool. It starts your morning ritual, fills your kitchen with sound and steam, and maybe even appears in your next Instagram story. Understanding that web, and intentionally designing within it, multiplies product resonance. A product lives in routines, rituals, and spaces. When we honor that, we make more than goods. We make meaning. Legacy brands can lead hereby connecting thee dots into a more cohesive user experience. THE PLAYBOOK: FROM LEGACY TO LOYALTY Democratizing design isn’t a campaign, it’s a commitment. Here’s how legacy brands can turn that into a strategy: Step 1: Run consumer-driven design sprints, votes, submissions, and A/B tests early in the product development cycle. Step 2: Activate cocreation programs with transparency and shared creative ownership. Step 3: Integrate values mapping and empathy interviews into the design brief generation stage. Step 4: Position each product within a lifestyle ecosystem: rituals, routines, and cultural meaning. Step 5: Measure not just sales, but sentiment, engagement, loyalty, and brand pride. HERITAGE ISN’T A HURDLE, IT’S A LAUNCHPAD The best design doesn’t demand attention, it earns it over time through usefulness, delight, and emotional clarity. Legacy brands are uniquely poised to champion that mission by doubling down on the radical idea that good design belongs to everyone. Design isn’t the garnish, it’s the strategy. And legacy brands that democratize that strategy by inviting their customers in won’t just stay relevant, they’ll take advantage of their inherent scale to lead again. Ben Wintner is CEO of Michael Graves Design. View the full article

Newly published messages from late sex offender become latest flashpoint in intraparty riftView the full article

Culture does not scale linearly with revenue or headcount —it requires intentionality the faster you grow. When I joined DPR Construction in the early 1990s, we were a small startup with a shared vision. Today, we have over 13,000 employees worldwide. Along the way, we’ve learned that sustaining culture through growth isn’t automatic—it takes clarity, intention, and continual reinforcement. With growth, we faced a familiar challenge many companies do: How could we preserve the cultural core we started with as a smaller company as we grew to an organization of thousands of people spread across the globe? Company culture is often described as intangible; however, like it or not, the actions we take every day, how we collaborate, and show up to work shape our culture. Here’s what we’ve learned. START WITH STRATEGY When you start with a common, agreed-upon purpose and strategies, and work toward an aligned vision, culture can thrive as the company scales. We saw this as we moved through the 2000s, implementing strategies to drive focus and create more predictability rather than simply growing for growth’s sake. We sought alignment on clients in specific core markets to strengthen resiliency amid market flux. We found that concentrating on our markets allowed us to stay true to our culture by working with clients who value what we bring. We also continued to build a deeper understanding of our customers’ business and highly technical projects. This focus on customer relationships, markets, and complex projects, not growth is what continues to fuel us. It’s important to lean into your strengths and protect the spirit of innovation that shaped you from the start. LISTEN WHILE YOU LEAD To scale culture is to remember that it isn’t a top-down directive. It takes real dialogue because culture is embedded in the conversations employees have and how those conversations inform decisions. In 2022, after years of strategic focus, we realized there was a deep need to reconnect our culture with how we led. It was a year of change: a collective moment of reckoning. Our leadership team planned something simple, but transformative. We packed our bags, rolled up our sleeves, and took a road trip for what we call Culture Con—not to deliver a message, but to listen and receive feedback. Senior leaders met face-to-face with all teams across all offices, including the craft workforce in the field. We didn’t come with all the answers. We came with open ears. What unfolded was a uniquely human journey. We met with thousands of employees. We laughed, cried, and got asked hard questions, but most of all we listened. Culture Con gave us a clear lens into what our employees needed and what our company stands for. We hired simultaneous translators so employees could participate in real time. We created open, unscripted events for employees to converse directly with us, and with each other. REINFORCE THROUGH ACTION As companies scale, culture risks becoming only words on a wall. Growth adds complexity, and with it, the distance between leadership and teams closer to the work expands. To maintain culture, leaders must show it through actions, not just words. This means leading and reacting in ways people can see and feel. Through Culture Con conversations, five distinct themes emerged: A need for a deeper understanding of our vision, purpose, and values. Clearer paths for career growth. Stronger strategic alignment for all roles. The importance of leading compensation and benefits. A call to prioritize a culture of building teams by fostering more inclusive and integrated environments. We got to work and now have in place a new benefits package for our skilled craftspeople, tailored to meet their needs. We also introduced internal development programs to support career growth and help individuals see a long-term future with the company. To strengthen strategic alignment, we rolled out new communication tools that link everyday work to company-wide objectives. And to deepen the connection to our values, we expanded efforts to share stories and celebrate work that reflects our purpose in action. Each of these steps helps keep culture focused and makes it real for people across every role and region. We lead by example and reinforce our culture with the changes we make and the actions we take. It’s not about having all the answers right away; it’s about listening and bringing employees along on the journey. WHY COMPANY CULTURE MATTERS MORE THAN EVER Culture requires active commitment every day. It is not static—to stay relevant it must evolve and grow through listening, responding, and building anew without losing what grounds you. Culture demands more of us as leaders: more empathy, agility, and aligned action. The commitment is worth it: Companies grounded in strong cultures and values attract top talent and fuel resilience in the face of change and adversity. When your culture becomes your competitive edge, you build a company that can thrive through anything. George Pfeffer is the CEO of DPR Construction. View the full article

Chief executives send message to Downing Street that it must reduce uncertainty and offer more clarity on its fiscal policyView the full article

Cybercrime is a serious threat to the global economy, destroying livelihoods, sowing distrust, and undermining growth. One forecast has it costing more than $15 trillion annually by the end of the decade. If so, only the GDPs of the U.S. and China are bigger. There’s cause for hope, though. As cyberthreats evolve, innovation is meeting the challenge. New solutions are leveraging AI, real-time threat intelligence, collaborative networks, and advanced authentication technologies. A GROWING PROBLEM Consider the figures. Malicious bots may now account for a third of internet traffic. AI-generated phishing attacks have multiplied tenfold in just a year, and a quarter of cryptocurrency transactions are due to criminal activity. In some parts of the world entire cities have been drawn into the scamming industry, while a black market in stolen data and hacking tools is tightening its hold on the dark web. Here are four reasons digital crime is booming: 1. Hyperconnectivity: More ways in More connected devices, interdependent systems, and endpoints mean a more exposed digital ecosystem. In the U.S., the number of cyber-vulnerabilities catalogued in the National Institute of Standards and Technology database increases yearly, currently standing at over 315,000. Due to a backlog, over 25,000 of those vulnerabilities currently await processing. 2. Hostile agents: Autonomous threats AI is rapidly scaling cybercrime by enhancing attacks with increasing sophistication. Chief information security officers are reporting a surge in AI-driven criminal phenomena—deepfake fraud has quadrupled in a year, for example. The rapid introduction of AI to the workplace is also creating vulnerabilities. The World Economic Foundation reports that most organizations have no process in place to assess the risk of this transformation. 3. Democratization: Cybercrime as a service The boom is accompanied by a burgeoning industry in tools and services that are lowering the barriers to entry for aspiring cybercriminals. Most cyberthreats are now generated by off-the-shelf toolkits that sell for as little as $25 on the dark web. Recent high-profile attacks on UK retailers were facilitated by the ransomware as a service platform DragonForce. 4. Money laundering: High-speed rinse AI helps money launderers scale their operations with remarkable efficiency, automating complex transactions across accounts and jurisdictions.According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime the amount of money laundered each year is equivalent to 2-5% of global GDP. Earlier this year the world’s biggest crypto heist saw $1.5 billion stolen and laundered within minutes, using thousands of accounts across multiple blockchains and cryptocurrencies. HOW INNOVATION IS REINVENTING CYBERDEFENSE The good news is we’re seeing unprecedented levels of innovation in cybersecurity and fraud prevention. Four trends stand out. 1. Real-time intel: Early warning systems The demand for real-time automated threat intelligence is surging as companies offer services leveraging AI to predict and mitigate risks. Threat intelligence platforms enhance decision making by correlating vast amounts of data about emerging threats, attack methodologies, and vulnerabilities. Threat intelligence encompasses malware analysis, vulnerability assessment, and malicious actor monitoring on both the surface web and dark web. 2. The agentic age: Proactive security Cybersecurity is evolving from reactive threat mitigation to autonomous, proactive defense systems that leverage agentic AI to predict, detect, and neutralize threats before they cause damage. Automated security tools continuously analyze network traffic, endpoint activities, and system behavior to identify anomalies indicative of cyberattacks. These solutions can examine the parties in a financial transaction and assess risk for the likelihood of scamming or other criminality. It can also map those behaviors and relationships to high-risk or suspect accounts, all within a second. This gives banks the opportunity to block payments before they leave accounts. 3. Sharing: Insights, not data Collaboration is increasingly becoming the norm, with organizations forming alliances to exchange threat data, fraud news, insights, best practices, and defensive techniques, strengthening collective resilience against cyberattacks. Trust networks using privacy-enhancing technologies are one way of ensuring that intelligence sharing is configured for specific activities, such as fraud or identity theft, without sharing underlying data. Another model for sharing insights, not data, is federated learning. One estimate says the market for these platforms, which use privacy-enhancing technology to improve fraud detection accuracy, will double by the end of the decade. 4. Continuous authentication: 24/7 validation The commoditization of personal data, fueled by dark web marketplaces and AI-driven fraud tactics, is being met by innovation in identity verification and authentication. Continuous, or always-on, authentication offers dynamic security in a rapidly changing threat environment. It leverages behavioral analytics, biometrics, and identity networks to determine on a rolling basis whether devices and users should be trusted. Meanwhile, tokens and passkeys have become the twin turbo of fraud prevention, minimizing the exposure of sensitive data while creating new opportunities for exchange. TOWARD A SAFER FUTURE Cybersecurity is often cast as an arms race, in which threat and response evolve in tandem and in tension. Even as emergent technologies create new opportunities for cybercriminals, they’re offering more effective ways of thwarting them. Agentic AI, real-time threat intelligence, behavioral analytics, and advanced identity technologies offer the prospect of a cybersecurity that’s smarter, faster, and more resilient. This means countering autonomous threats with more vigilant agentic defenses. It means countering identity fraud with smarter verification and money laundering with more discerning intelligence. That’s how we turn a string of scary headlines into a healthy digital ecosystem. Ken Moore is chief innovation officer at Mastercard. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Summer might have passed, but if you’re looking for a year-round portable speaker that’s durable and rugged enough to survive the outdoors (and multiple drops), the JBL Charge 6 is down to $129.95 (originally $199.95) on Amazon, marking its lowest price. If you don't need one for yourself, this speaker would also make a great gift. JBL Charge 6 $129.95 at Amazon $199.95 Save $70.00 Get Deal Get Deal $129.95 at Amazon $199.95 Save $70.00 While the price bump from the Charge 5 is modest, the number of upgrades is impressive. This model is fully waterproof, has an extended battery life, and an even bigger woofer. While the Charge 6 is slightly larger than its predecessor, it comes with a new ergonomic carry handle that keeps it ultra-portable. It can survive drops up to three feet and has an IP68 rating (an upgrade from its previous IP67 rating), which means it can be submerged under five feet of water for up to 30 minutes. Its single USB-C connection on the back handles charging, lossless wired audio connections, and power output to charge other devices. The 34-watt-hour battery runs up to 24 hours and doubles as a power bank for devices like phones or tablets in need of charging. It can charge up in just three hours, but it’s worth noting that you’ll need your own charging brick and USB cable as they’re not included in the package. App customization is limited to simple controls, but it does feature a customizable seven-band EQ, and this PCMag review calls the sound “surprisingly punchy” with a more robust audio response than similarly compact speakers. It provides loud, clear, and balanced sound (even outdoors). While the PlayTime Boost setting increases volume while conserving battery, it comes at the cost of bass, meaning it may be worthwhile for podcasts or audiobooks, but it could impact how your music sounds. Ultimately, if you’re looking for a small but powerful speaker that performs well and is built to last, the JBL Charge 6 is a great, feature-packed choice, and at $129.95, it’s an absolute steal for a new model. However, if you’re an audiophile looking for stereo speaker quality or bass on par with a subwoofer, this might not be the right fit. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods 4 Wireless Earbuds — $84.99 (List Price $129.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $324.99 (List Price $349.00) Shark AV2501AE AI XL Hepa- Safe Self-Emptying Base Robot Vacuum — $297.99 (List Price $649.99) Apple Watch Series 10 — $309.99 (List Price $429.00) Google Pixel 9 128GB Unlocked 6.9" OLED Smartphone (Obsidian) — $544.98 (List Price $799.00) Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) — $69.99 (List Price $139.99) Sony WH-1000XM5 — $328.00 (List Price $399.99) Blink Outdoor 4 1080p Wireless Security Camera (5-Pack) — $159.99 (List Price $399.99) Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Plus 1080p Security Camera (White) — $99.99 (List Price $179.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

As the founder, chair, and CEO of the Exceptional Women Alliance, I am privileged to work alongside extraordinary women leaders who reshape industries and redefine what leadership looks like. Within this sisterhood, we challenge, support, and elevate one another, sharing not just professional expertise but a commitment to lead with impact. Nicole Brownell is one of those leaders. She is a COO and growth strategist whose work sits at the intersection of digital transformation, product innovation, and behavioral intelligence. She has guided companies through scaling, designed GTM strategies that combine creativity with analytics, and she focuses on using data to deepen connections with both customers and teams. Her perspective is clear:Digital transformation only matters if it creates human connection. Q: You say digital transformation isn’t just about technology. What do companies often get wrong? Brownell: Too often, organizations confuse transformation with digitization like migrating systems, adding dashboards, or adopting AI tools. Technology alone doesn’t drive growth; people do. True transformation comes when data is elevated into performance intelligence to predict needs, when it creates seamless experiences, and when it fosters connections. The same principle applies to leadership. Data can track KPI performance, plus people are more engaged when leaders pair analytics with recognition and understanding. Whether motivating a team member or a customer, the equation is the same: Intelligence + humanity creates impact. Q: What role does data play in understanding and connecting with customers? Brownell: Consumer data is often treated as a compliance exercise of counting clicks, tracking transactions, and slicing demographics. That’s not intelligence, that’s inventory. Intelligence surfaces in patterns: how a traveler chooses, movement from discovery to purchase, loyalty motivators. Translating these patterns into insight gains us connection at scale. Personalization increases conversion by deepening the touchpoint. Q: You focus on behavioral research. How do generational differences affect personalization strategies? Brownell: Gen X is often overlooked, but they control nearly a third of U.S. household income. They value efficiency and trust and are brand loyal, but expect respect for their time. Contrast that with millennials, who are more likely to buy from brands aligned with social and environmental values. And then Gen Z, who expect instant, personalized interaction and are quick to move on if brands feel generic or disconnected. One-size-fits-all marketing is obsolete. If you’re not tailoring your message, you’re leaving growth on the table. When brands get it right, it’s significant value Q: You’ve said the future of advertising is less about media buys and more about messaging management. What do you mean? Brownell: Advertising used to be about reach. Today the advantage is relevance. Messaging management is orchestrating the content across channels (paid, owned, and earned) in a way that feels anchored and consistent to the consumer. Future-ready organizations will treat data as the fuel for message intelligence, moving beyond campaign reporting into predictive personalization, anticipating not just what a customer did, but what they are likely to do next. Advertising becomes transformative when every message feels less like a pitch and more like a conversation Q: What’s the risk if companies don’t embrace personalization now? Brownell: Irrelevance. Consumers today have more choices than ever before, and know it. If your messaging feels generic, disconnected, or poorly timed, someone else is ready to step in with a brand experience that feels authentic and aligned with their needs. The cost of inaction is slower growth through churn, declining loyalty and missed opportunity. The brands that hesitate today will find themselves playing catch-up tomorrow, and that’s costly. Q: Looking ahead, what excites you most about this shift? Brownell: The potential of rehumanizing technology for impact. While tech can sometimes feel like it creates distance, when applied well it enables connection at scale without sacrificing authenticity. It accelerates the outcomes we create. That’s powerful. This applies inside companies too. Technology should be our accelerant, not our substitute. Our role is to use it to amplify human judgment, creativity, and innovation alongside efficiency. Otherwise, what are we really building? The future of growth won’t be decided by who has the most data, but by who turns data into intelligence that builds trust, loyalty, and connection. Those companies won’t just compete, they’ll endure. Nicole reminds us that digital transformation is not defined by the tools we adopt, but by the trust we create. Her clarity in data’s elevation into performance intelligence, which is the connective tissue across customers and teams, offers a roadmap for leaders who want to keep pace and drive growth that endures. Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of the Exceptional Women Alliance. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’re looking for a new QD-OLED TV with fantastic picture quality from a reputable brand, the Sony QD-OLED 77" Bravia XR A95L Series is currently $3,798 (originally 4,999.99), bringing this popular TV down to its lowest price ever, according to price-trackers. Sony QD-OLED 77 inch Bravia XR A95L Series 4K Ultra HD TV $3,798.00 at Amazon $4,999.99 Save $1,201.99 Get Deal Get Deal $3,798.00 at Amazon $4,999.99 Save $1,201.99 This TV offers a wide color gamut and exceptional, lifelike color thanks to the QD-OLED panel, which also delivers perfect OLED blacks without any blooming. For shoppers with a large room or those who view the TV off-center, the ultra-wide viewing angle is a major plus. A step up from the A95L (reviewed in PCMag), the Dolby Vision HDR on this smart TV performs well and handles reflections and glare with ease. Compared to the A95L, it manages bright scenes better, offers more refined visuals, and delivers a better gaming experience, supporting 4K at 120Hz, VRR, Auto Low Latency Mode, and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth. It also includes a Game Menu that keeps your gaming picture settings and assist settings in an easily accessible interface. For PlayStation 5 owners, it unlocks Auto HDR Tone Mapping and Auto Genre Picture Mode for optimized picture quality. That said, the A95L only has two HDMI ports, so if you need to connect multiple high-bandwidth devices, it may not be ideal. However, reviewers note that compared to similar televisions, its out-of-the-box calibration accuracy is impressive. If you’re looking for one of the most immersive TV picture experiences on the market with premium image fidelity, depth, and color richness (and don’t mind limited HDMI 2.1 ports), the Sony QD-OLED 77" Bravia XR A95L Series is a solid large-screen option with standout value, especially at a $1,200 discount. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods 4 Wireless Earbuds — $84.99 (List Price $129.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $324.99 (List Price $349.00) Shark AV2501AE AI XL Hepa- Safe Self-Emptying Base Robot Vacuum — $297.99 (List Price $649.99) Apple Watch Series 10 — $309.99 (List Price $429.00) Google Pixel 9 128GB Unlocked 6.9" OLED Smartphone (Obsidian) — $544.98 (List Price $799.00) Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) — $69.99 (List Price $139.99) Sony WH-1000XM5 — $328.00 (List Price $399.99) Blink Outdoor 4 1080p Wireless Security Camera (5-Pack) — $159.99 (List Price $399.99) Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Plus 1080p Security Camera (White) — $99.99 (List Price $179.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Last week, Fast Company reported that regional banking giant TD Bank is planning to close more than 50 U.S. locations by the end of January. But TD Bank isn’t the only regional bank closing branches. In October, Citizens Bank disclosed that at least 14 branches throughout the United States will shutter, according to public filings. Here’s what to know and where they were located. Why is Citizens Bank closing branches? Reached for comment by Fast Company, a Citizens Bank spokesperson said its retail footprint is constantly changing along with people’s banking habits. “We regularly review customer banking patterns and make thoughtful adjustments, opening new locations, modernizing existing branches, and consolidating where usage has shifted, to meet customers’ needs in the most effective way,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “As part of this ongoing process, we will be closing select locations in early 2026.” The bank says customers in each of the affected markets will continue to have additional choices such as “nearby branches, as well as our robust online mobile banking platforms.” It further said that its retail operations have grown 14% since 2020. For several years now, national and regional banking chains have been reevaluating, and in many cases scaling back, their physical footprints for multiple reasons. These reasons include falling foot traffic to branch locations as customers increasingly shift to online banking and mobile apps. As foot traffic falls, those branches tend to generate fewer new customers, so banks stand to make a lower return on the investment in running those physical locations. According to Citizens Bank’s website, the bank had 1,000 branches and 3,100 ATMs as of June 30 of this year. (For context, its parent company said it had “more than 1,100 locations” in an earnings report two years earlier.) In July, Citizens Bank announced a slew of new features to bolster its mobile offerings, including a refreshed direct deposit experience and the ability to update payment methods for online retailers and subscriptions. The company also maintains a dedicated webpage titled “Citizens Bank Branch Closures,” which appears designed to give customers information on digital methods they can use if their local branch has closed. However, the page does not yet list the closures planned for 2026. How many locations are closing? Citizens Bank operates branches in 14 states and the District of Columbia. The 14 closures disclosed in two recent filings will impact branches in half of those states: Ohio (5 closures) Massachusetts (2 closures) New Hampshire (2 closures) New York (2 closures) Michigan (1 closure) Pennsylvania (1 closure) Vermont (1 closure) The company did not say if additional closures are forthcoming. Which Citizens Bank branches are closing? According to data published in two tranches by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Citizens Bank in October disclosed that it will shutter at least 14 locations. The bank told Fast Company that the closures are expected early next year. They include: Ohio 9231 Chillicothe Road, Kirtland, OH 8806 Ohio River, Wheelersburg, OH 3528 Tuscarawas St. W., Canton, OH 1460 S. Byrne Road, Toledo, OH 1165 E. Waterloo Road, Akron, OH Massachusetts 225 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 673 Vfw Parkway, West Roxbury, MA Michigan 100 W. Broad Street, Chesaning, MI New Hampshire 581 Franklin Pierce Highway, Barrington, NH One Constitutional Way, Somersworth, NH New York 131 East 57th Street, New York City, NY 6708 Route 9, Rhinebeck, NY Pennsylvania 101 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA Vermont 1108 Vt Rt. 149, West Pawlet, VT How is Citizens Financial Group’s stock doing? Citizens Bank is owned by Citizens Financial Group (NYSE: CFG), which is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, and was founded nearly 200 years ago. In its most recent financial report, for Q3 2025, the company reported net income of $494 million and earnings per share (EPS) of $1.05. As of yesterday’s market close, CFG shares were trading at $52.24. That represents a nearly 20% increase since the year began. Over the past 12 months, CFG shares have risen more than 12%. Citizens Bank says it currently has total assets of nearly $220 billion and total deposits of around $175 billion. View the full article

Back in 2021, Apple announced a new feature for the Wallet app, that allowed users to add their driver's licenses or state IDs to their iPhones. To me, it sounded like the beginning of the end for physical wallets. In reality, it was anything but: Not only are the applications limited, but even after all this time, only 12 states and Puerto Rico actually support the feature. While the rest of us wait for our respective states to get on board, many might have another option for these virtual documents. On Wednesday, Apple announced "Digital ID," a new initiative that lets you create an ID in the Wallet app using your passport. This bypasses the waiting period for the 38 states that don't yet support these ID features: If you have a passport, you can try this feature out today. Even if your state supports driver's license and state ID uploads to the Wallet app, you'll miss out on features if you don't have a REAL ID. If you have a passport, however, you can use it instead, which opens up the wallet ID feature to even more users than before. Like previous attempts at virtual IDs, however, don't expect to be able to use this Digital ID just anywhere you'd normally show documentation. Right now, the main use for Digital ID is for flying: According to Apple, Digital ID is launching in beta at over 250 airports to be used at TSA checkpoints. Importantly, this feature only supports domestic flights, even though it uses your passport. As such, do not rely on your Digital ID when flying outside of the U.S. You'll still need your physical passport in order to validate your identity. In the future, however, Apple says you'll be able to use this Digital ID for other purposes, such as booking flights and hotels, as well as opening new accounts. How to add your passport to your iPhoneTo start, you'll need a valid U.S. passport, an iPhone 11 or later with iOS 26.1 or later, or an Apple Watch Series 6 or later with WatchOS 26.1. First, open the Wallet app on your iPhone, then tap the (+) at the top of the screen. Here, tap "Digital ID" under "United States." Here, you'll see a pop-up which informs you about Digital ID. Tap "Continue," then follow the on-screen instructions to scan different parts of your passport using your iPhone's camera. You'll next need to authenticate yourself by taking a Live Photo of your face. Once confirmed, you'll need to capture more angles of your face and head, which the Wallet app directs you through. Once validated, the ID will live in your Wallet app. You can open the Wallet app, or double-click the Side or Home button, then choose the ID whenever you need to present it. When in line at the TSA, for example, you can hold your iPhone with your ID activated near the reader: Once the two connect, the reader will take your photo, while your iPhone will show you all the information you'll be providing to TSA, which can include things like your legal name, date of birth, sex, nationality, ID number, ID photo, expiration date, the date the ID was added, and who verified the ID. You'll need to double-click the Side or Home button to confirm you want to share this data. Credit: Apple Is Digital ID secure?Yes, at least according to Apple. The company says that any ID data you add to the Wallet app, be it a passport, driver's license, or state ID, is encrypted and stored on-device. That means that only you have access to this data—not even Apple can see it. In addition, Apple cannot see when you use your ID, nor can they see what data you shared at the time of identification. You also need to use Face ID or Touch ID to authenticate yourself through this process, so even if someone steals your iPhone, they won't be able to obtain that ID data. As stated above, you will see a list of data that will be shared when authenticating with Digital ID. If you aren't comfortable sharing this data with, say, TSA, you don't have to double-click the Side or Home button, and can instead choose another form of authentication. Plus, the way this feature is set up, you don't need to unlock your iPhone or physically hand it over to confirm your iPhone. By double-clicking the Side button or Home button, you can access the ID data without compromising your iPhone. I'm pretty privacy conscious, but this is a feature I'd be willing to try—assuming I fly out of an airport that supports it. I could see how this might be a bridge too far for some people, especially considering the amount of face scanning you need to do to validate the ID. But Apple says in its Wallet app that this data is used to validate your identity and prevent fraud, and is retained only until the issuing authority approves or denies your ID. In other words, whether or not setup is successful, Apple will delete your face scans once the process is over. Seeing as the rest of the data is encrypted, that might just be enough for me to be comfortable testing this out. View the full article

Traditional Project analytics methods are outdated. AI boosts efficiency, accuracy, and competitive edge. This guide offers insights and strategies you need to stay ahead. The post AI in Project Analytics: How to Start Small, Scale Fast & See Results appeared first on The Digital Project Manager. View the full article