ResidentialBusiness

One of the stocks with the highest surges in premarket trading this morning is Beyond Meat, Inc. (Nasdaq: BYND). As of the time of this writing, shares in BYND are up a staggering 67% before the opening bell. But what’s driving this surge? Here’s what you need to know. Beyond Meat’s recent struggles Today’s premarket stock price jump follows a significant rally on Friday for Beyond Meat, the California-based producer of plant-based meat alternatives, whose shares closed up more than 24% to end the trading week at 64 cents per share, according to data from Yahoo Finance. The stock price surge, which is now in its second trading day, may come as a surprise to many, considering that Beyond Meat is experiencing significant financial woes as of late. As noted by Bloomberg, the company has seen a decline in interest in its plant-based products in recent years, with consumers being put off by high prices, the taste of the product, and its excessive processing. Weakening demand for meat alternatives in the U.S. helped lead to a 19.6% decline in sales in Beyond Meat’s most recent quarter, Q2 2025. Beyond Meat reported $75 million in revenues during that quarter. Earlier this year, Beyond Meat had attempted a brand pivot in hopes of returning to its former glory, as Fast Company reported. More recently, however, the company announced that its creditors had agreed to a debt swap, in which the company will issue 316 million new shares—thereby diluting the value of its current shares. This event contributed to a significant fall in the stock. As of Friday’s closing price, BYND shares were down more than 82% for the year. Beyond Meat shares surge in premarket trading So why are BYND shares surging this morning? Yahoo Finance points out that Friday’s and today’s share price surge is not due to any fundamental financial shifts in the company. Instead, it is the result of “a sudden spike in trading volume amid a classic short squeeze, where a heavily shorted stock experiences a sharp rise, forcing bearish investors to buy back shares to limit losses.” As investors are forced into buying back the stock, its price rises. Some retail traders on Reddit have been pumping up the stock, even though analyst ratings have largely turned negative. In the past, Beyond Meat has been cited as being among the so-called meme stocks that online traders rally behind, a list that has included Krispy Kreme, GoPro, and others this year. Even with today’s premarket stock price surge, BYND shares have performed poorly in 2025. In February, they were trading above $4.40 per share at one point. And even that 2025 share price high is dismal when you consider the company’s stock price going back further. In 2019, shortly after Beyond Meat went public, its shares were trading north of $230 at one point. The stock’s price has dropped massively since its IPO debut, leading to a decline of more than 98% as of Friday’s close. Earlier this month, it entered penny stock territory, hitting a low of around 50 cents a share. View the full article

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. It seems like common sense that the longer you go without retrieving a memory, the harder it is to retrieve—but it wasn’t always one of those things we simply knew to be true. In the 1880s, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus studied the phenomenon and published his findings, giving the world the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. The curve is a simple graphic demonstrating how information is lost over time, but it proved that time-related forgetting is real (and has been reaffirmed by further study since). Want to fight the curve and hold on to your memories, especially when you’re studying? Here’s how. How long do memories of new information last?Ebbinghaus concluded that how quickly we forget something depends on factors like how difficult or meaningful the material was, but also how tired or stressed we are, so there’s no clear-cut answer to the question of how many days you’ll hold on to a piece of information if you don’t think about it. It depends on things like what you study, how into it you are, and how stressed you are, there are just too many variables—and for the average student, those shift every day. We do know that the order in which information is presented matters a lot when it comes to how long we store it in our short-term memory, so there are even more factors that go into our memory retrieval and retention abilities. I'm sorry to say there's no black-and-white answer when it comes to how long you'll hold onto a piece of information, but there are a few answers Ebbinghaus and today’s educators agree on when it comes to how you can better retain it. Beat the forgetting curve with spaced repetitionThe first strategy you can use to better retain information is called spaced repetition or distributed practice, an evidence-based technique that helps learners absorb numerous pieces of information and store them in their memory. Basically, you need to study the material multiple times, giving yourself space between each review. The amount of time you go without studying the material depends largely on how well you’re already remembering it, which means the longer you review, the longer the periods between each review should be. Reviewing your notes for a difficult class should be done more frequently than reviewing the notes for a class where you easily get the concepts, for instance. Instead of subjectively deciding if you’re retaining the information and need to review it or not, try using the Leitner system, which helps you schedule your studying based on whether or not you answered a particular flashcard correctly the last time you went through it. If you got it right, you don't need to pick that one up as often going forward. If you're hesitant about using old-school methods like hand-written flashcards, don't be. Writing by hand can actually help you retain information better, so using the Leitner system that way can have a two-for-one benefit. Then again, it's time-consuming and inconvenient, so if writing it all out and hauling 100 index cards around doesn't exactly work for you, you have other options. Here's a list of my favorite flashcard apps, many of which rely on a Leitner-esque strategy to force distributed practice without you having to do much of anything beyond indicate whether you got an answer right or wrong. You can also try scheduling your review and revision using a technique like 2357, which has you study again on the second, third, fifth, and seventh days after first going over something. If you're going to do that, I recommend sticking with a dedicated scheduler, like the My Study Life app, just to keep things organized. Beat the forgetting curve with engaged learningTeaching resources recommend that educators use methods to make lessons more engaging to help kids beat the forgetting curve, but you can apply that same idea to your own individual studying, no matter what level you're at. When you’re reading new information, for instance, use techniques that help you stay absorbed in the material. Try examining new info through the lens of Kolb’s learning cycle, for instance, which relies on the belief that you need to have concrete learning, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation to truly learn something. Alternately, use a critical-thinking method, like SQ3R or KWL, to track your progress on a topic. With SQ3R, you’ll write down a little of what you can gather from a review of the material, then questions you want to answer when you give it a more thorough read, so you’ll stay engaged as you go, searching for the answers to your questions. KWL is similar, but you start by writing down what you think you know, what you want to know based on a brief overview of the material, and what you ended up learning. View the full article

EU seeks to secure deal on frozen Russian assets and more sanctions on Moscow to show support for UkraineView the full article

For many small business owners, managing growth often means juggling too many systems — from spreadsheets to accounting tools to supplier portals — each working in its own silo. That’s the exact challenge Odeko set out to solve. Originally launched in New York, the company began as a disruptor in the café and coffee shop supply chain space, offering independent operators a way to consolidate their vendor relationships and ordering processes into one simple platform. Instead of having to “talk with five, six, eight vendors a day,” as Kelly Simons, Director of Enterprise Systems at Odeko, put it, small coffee shops could focus on what matters most — running their business and serving their customers. In our conversation, Simons shared how Odeko’s digital-first approach has evolved alongside its rapid growth. As the company expanded from local delivery to a full omnichannel operation — including service, e-commerce, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) lines — its need for a unified system of record became clear. That’s where NetSuite came in. Simons explained how the company transitioned from basic accounting software to a full ERP platform capable of supporting acquisitions, financial consolidation, and automation across teams. For small business leaders facing similar scaling challenges, Odeko’s journey shows how the right systems foundation can transform complexity into opportunity — without losing sight of operational efficiency or customer experience. Here is the full transcript of the interview: Leland McFarland So, uh Kelly, for readers who may not be familiar, uh can you start by telling us a bit about Odeko? Uh, what do you do and what type of customers do you serve? Kelly Simons Sure. Uh, well, first of all, let me introduce myself officially for you so you know where I fit in the organization. My name is Kelly Simons, I’m the Director of Enterprise Systems at Odeko. So anything that doesn’t have the Odeko name on it, like our ordering portal or an e-com site, all falls to me to do. I’m the de facto owner. So Odeko, uh originally started as a disruptor in the supply chain area. Uh, for mostly targeting mom and pop’s, uh coffee shops, independent chains, cafes, that kind of thing. Um, they we developed a portal that was homegrown and custom built to allow them to place orders in a seamless manner. Uh, one of the things that happens in the world is if you are an independent company, um, you have to talk with five, six, eight vendors a day, right? That’s not efficient. You want to focus on running your business. Um, and also you don’t always get the best prices because you’re buying a case of oat milk instead of like allowing us to buy it, you get the better discount. So the goal was to kind of consolidate and give a one-stop shop point for these people that own these businesses to place orders and to get benefits of more bulk buying power, right? Um, and that was the original genesis of our business. Um, originally started in New York and uh that’s what we still call our home. And we have an office, a mothership I call it, in New York because it’s just a small drop station. Our company is digital focused and we’re remote first on our corporate level. Um, and so that’s how we interact with our customers. Leland McFarland Perfect. Uh, what was happening in your business or tech stack that made you decide it was time to implement NetSuite? Kelly Simons So, predates me being there, but, um, research, questioning, that kind of thing. Um, at one point in our business, uh, they were on the typical small basic business model of accounting software. Um, I’m sure we all know which one of those could be because that’s very common. Um, and uh there was an inflection point where they realized that they needed something more powerful in order to lay the foundation for growth. And that was one of the things that they were looking for was a system that was reasonably priced, fit the needs of the market, and could grow as the business grew. Uh, that was one of the main focuses on it. Now, there was a talk at one time of building their own ERP. Evidently, I heard that there were people that looked at people like they had lost their mind because NetSuite has spent 27 years crafting an ERP and it still grows every day. Uh, so that was kind of the impetus behind it. Laying a platform that they could use uh to consolidate and talk one language: inventory, ordering, accounting, finance, typical things that you would do. Leland McFarland Okay. Uh, when did you first begin your NetSuite journey and what were the top goals you were uh hoping to achieve? And by you, I know now that you uh, it’s more of Odeko, not uh… Kelly Simons Yeah, yeah. So, um, whenever you’re in a rapid growth model for a startup business, um, people come on and as you make an acquisition, let’s say, they don’t speak the same language, they don’t have the same information, the systems are different. Um, so having a system that is the source of truth that allows you to pump things in and out of it back and forth. Uh, the goals were to be able to to unify, have a common point to go get information, and to consolidate financials to so our shareholders were happy. We could say, “Hey, look, here’s the information.” Right? So that’s some of the main things that we did. Leland McFarland Great. Um, can you walk us through your uh NetSuite setup? Uh, which models and tools are most crucial for uh your your daily operations? Kelly Simons Sure. So we are a OneWorld instance for NetSuite. Uh, we did have multiple subsidiaries. We’ve recently collapsed some of them just because we’ve kind of restructured a little bit. Um, so it’s very valuable to us to be able to use that to utilize if we need to have different subsidiaries and if we do a different new product, which we just recently launched. Sometimes we may want to put it as a different business unit so if we needed to jettison it, God forbid, you could easily, right? Um, we regularly on a daily basis are using inventory management, operations tools for ordering and fulfillment and all of the normal things to get orders through and out the door to our customers. Uh, there’s a lot of financial tracking that goes along with that. Um, being able to use the traditional models, fixed assets, which was done all on a spreadsheet, which is now internally in the system. Uh, just, um, it allows us to be a little bit more agile to pivot faster and to see things quicker. We also have leveraged the extensibility of the system by going with partners. So Celigo, Brex, those kind of things for anything that we needed to be a little bit more sophisticated than some of the standard models might be, right? So, that’s what we do on a daily basis. It’s our lifeblood now. Leland McFarland Now you’re you’re attached at the hip with uh NetSuite, right? Kelly Simons Well, I’ve always been attached to the hip with NetSuite. That’ll be what I do until I retire in 10 years. So… Leland McFarland Um, how has NetSuite changed the way your finance or operations teams work on a day-to-day? Kelly Simons So before, if we had bought a company or did anything like that, we’d have to go to three or four systems, pull data, try to match the data, try to align the data to make sure it works, right? Um, nowadays when we acquire a company using our repetitive playbook, um, we groom the data, put it in the system so it all matches. They go to our chart of accounts, they go to our structure for customers, things like that. And so in the given day, people are more agile, more efficient, and are able to process things more quickly. A a good good tidbit here is we use Celigo to take our e-com business into NetSuite, all of our ordering. That was a manual process a year ago, took two people 90 hours a week just to process manual e-com orders. And now we’ve grown the business about 40% year over year with the same amount of people because we’ve automated. So all those kind of efficiencies that we gain from being able to quickly pull financials and metrics and things are huge in our company. Leland McFarland Perfect. Um, how have you customized or extended NetSuite to fit the unique needs of a business like yours? Kelly Simons So we have, um, an engineering team internally and they focus primarily on our portal and our front-end processes, right? And some of the integration stuff, like microservices into into NetSuite. Um, but we have some workflows that we do to add pieces of data. We have some custom scripting. Uh, we built a workflow that forces invoices to print twice a day. Right? It creates the invoices twice a day. So somebody doesn’t have to manually monitor those. Um, we’ve used custom fields and rules and forms and records, you name it, we’ve done it. Uh, we haven’t gone too far afield and crazy, right? Uh, but we are using that. And then of course, again, as mentioned, we leveraged the extensibility from the partner network to help us if we need to extend beyond. Right? Leland McFarland Do do you know how the implementation went uh originally? Kelly Simons So from my understanding, the initial implementation went pretty well. Um, again, you’re typically dealing with people who have never used NetSuite before, so they make decisions are made that maybe, you know, five years down the road probably were need to be reviewed and refined. Uh, I don’t think it went really badly, but of course it was a very skeletal implementation. So it was like a very small segment. I use the analogy it was like the iceberg. They got the tip, but there was all underneath that wasn’t being used yet. And so, um, it, I don’t think there was a lot of bumps. I do, I will say there was some clarity that was needed about what NetSuite could do. And uh they were also, keep in mind, doing this around the time when a lot of the pandemic was coming around and, you know, so the world was different. We all know the world in that time period was different, right? So… Leland McFarland Yeah. So it was kind of more of a gradual integration? Kelly Simons Yeah, so they did a, they did the first part which is more financials and some of the order managing and that kind of process. But as time has passed, and especially as I’ve joined as well, we’ve, not saying I’m perfect or the be-all end-all, but we’ve moved it more and more into the center and started to use more and more of the layers of the product. Leland McFarland Perfect. All right. So NetSuite has been making big moves with AI this year. Um, has Odeko started using any of uh NetSuite’s AI-driven tools or automation? Kelly Simons So, some of them are like really new, hot off the press. The one that I use the most right now that I love is in the NetSuite knowledge management area. There is thousands upon thousands upon thousands of articles and how-tos, right? And in the times past, you’d have to go type in what you want, it would give you a list of 200 articles, you’d have to click into them, then you go into a rabbit hole where you click into another article that was on another article, that was on another article, right? Um, the new language that they use where I can human speak and type in a prompt and it returns me the top things that it might be, and says here’s one, two, three, four, this is your best option, has been game-changing for me because it takes me what would have taken hours is like seconds to find an answer usually. Um, and I love the fact, one of them the other day actually said, “I’m sorry, you can’t do that from in NetSuite.” It just said you can’t. I was like, “Okay, that’s good to know.” That that’s nice to know, you know, I’d rather you tell me I can’t. Um, I guess, you know, and I’m excited about some of the things coming. Uh, I’m also equally a little bit nervous about NetSuite Next and how much more. Um, but we’re slowly but surely starting to adopt some of those principles in NetSuite. Leland McFarland Now you mentioned NetSuite Next. Is that the thing, like, out of all the AI advancement, you know, the the the coming soons, um, is that the one that you’re kind of looking forward to most or is there another AI tool that you’re kind of… Kelly Simons Well no, so I’m really looking forward to NetSuite Next. But again, cautiously optimistic. Because in my mind, I see a positive, but I also know that in the adoption curve, if you move too quickly with some users, they are paralyzed. And now I can see a prompt for a controller and they’re going to be fine, but a warehouse clerk may struggle a little bit more with a prompt, right? Now we all know in the AI world that the world will change and a BA might not be a true BA like we’re used to now or a developer even might not be a true developer. They may leverage an AI tool to do their job and then their responsibility is to check the work, right? Um, so I I think that that’s where I’m most excited about. I’m excited to see things come in. One of the things that I know is coming that I think is going to be awesome is uh being able to tell it what I want a workflow. I can type in what I want and it will give me basically what needs to be done or tell it to go do it itself. Another thing that I’m really excited about that I just learned about here is the autonomous close process. Right? Now, we’ve gotten our close down to pretty tight. We’re about three to five days. When I first started, it was close to 30 for a monthly close, which was insane to me. But the autonomous close process that it basically goes and acts on your behalf in the back, posts the things up, you need to review and you hit yes. It just, I’m I’m in awe. You know what I mean? It’s going to be a great, it’s it’s going to be a very big game-changer in our company. Leland McFarland Now, now you talked about adoption and having uh users adopt it. Now, we’ve all seen the the the old person, you know, not necessarily old, the person who loves the older systems in the back doing everything pen and paper and using an abacus. Um, how do you address uh those types of users? Kelly Simons So, first of all, one thing that is really hard for me to kind of do is a lot of the people I know of that are in like warehouse jobs and things like that, they equate AI to job loss. So the first thing you have to do is retool that narrative of it’s not a job loss, it’s a direct, your job is evolving, right? So that’s always a new thing. I think, uh, change management is one of the hardest things to do. And there are people that I know of that sometimes I have to get on with them and I’m like, okay, let’s walk through this. Okay, now tell me what you don’t understand, right? So it’s a little bit of hand-holding with them, which I don’t mind. I would rather them ask and we spend time than them to assume and something just paralyze them, right? Um, there is the theory of the adoption curve, which I’m, I don’t know if you’re familiar with. It’s like an 80, it’s a 20-60-20. There are those people, like, for instance, that bought the iPhone. They were standing in line when the first iPhone came out. Then there’s that middle group that waits to see what happens with the first phone and then they buy it. And then there’s the group that you have to wrap a a rope around their feet and drag them behind you to get them to buy said thing. It’s the same thing with this. Uh, there are going to be some people that it just, they’re not going to transcend into AI very well and it’s because there’s a fear. And it’s how do you address them where they are? How do you meet them where they’re at? Because my mother would be good at AI because that’s just her. My stepdad, no. He he’ll be completely lost. So that’s the same thing with people we work with. Leland McFarland All right. Final question. Yep. Um, what’s next for Odeko and how do you see your partnership with NetSuite evolving over the next few years? Kelly Simons So, we are now an omnichannel company. We have a service line, we have a a BU, an e-com line, we have a regular local delivery line, we just launched a new project that’s uh a software SaaS product that we’re rolling out. Uh those are going to continue just to accelerate. This year we bought five companies. We have, yeah, so there’s that. In 2026, our focus is on organic change with some other additional acquisitions possibly. Now I don’t know for sure. It’s always one of those things that’s up in end. Um, we are going to continue to grow. That’s the goal. Is to continue to become a larger company, more and more, more and more market share, that kind of thing. Uh with the ultimate goal at some point of pre IPO. And uh how our partnership with NetSuite is just my platform that’s going to continue to be my base to help me enable that. Um, even whenever they come to me sometimes and say, “Hey, I want to go do blah blah blah,” and I’m like, “NetSuite can do that.” “But I still want to talk to someone else.” “Okay, fine.” But in the back of my mind, NetSuite is still going to be the one to do that. You know what I mean? But sometimes you have to do that. Uh so NetSuite is still going to be our partner. It’s going to be there for a while. Um, I don’t see us ever moving away from it in the next five years. As Odeko continues its upward trajectory — having acquired five companies this year alone — its partnership with NetSuite remains central to its long-term vision. “NetSuite is still going to be our partner. It’s going to be there for a while. I don’t see us ever moving away from it in the next five years,” said Simons. With plans to expand organically while eyeing a potential pre-IPO future, the company is using its ERP backbone not just for accounting, but as a growth engine. Simons described how automation and AI are now reshaping everyday workflows, from financial closes to order processing. Tasks that once took “two people 90 hours a week” are now handled in a fraction of the time thanks to integrated tools like Celigo. She’s also optimistic — yet cautious — about NetSuite’s next wave of AI innovations, such as autonomous close processes and natural language workflows. “I’m excited to see things come in,” she said. “It’s going to be a very big game-changer in our company.” For small business owners watching AI transform enterprise software, Odeko’s experience offers a practical roadmap: start by building a solid digital core, embrace automation thoughtfully, and lead your team through change with patience and vision. Growth is no longer about scaling chaos — it’s about scaling smarter. This article, "Interview with Kelly Simons of Odeko" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

For many small business owners, managing growth often means juggling too many systems — from spreadsheets to accounting tools to supplier portals — each working in its own silo. That’s the exact challenge Odeko set out to solve. Originally launched in New York, the company began as a disruptor in the café and coffee shop supply chain space, offering independent operators a way to consolidate their vendor relationships and ordering processes into one simple platform. Instead of having to “talk with five, six, eight vendors a day,” as Kelly Simons, Director of Enterprise Systems at Odeko, put it, small coffee shops could focus on what matters most — running their business and serving their customers. In our conversation, Simons shared how Odeko’s digital-first approach has evolved alongside its rapid growth. As the company expanded from local delivery to a full omnichannel operation — including service, e-commerce, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) lines — its need for a unified system of record became clear. That’s where NetSuite came in. Simons explained how the company transitioned from basic accounting software to a full ERP platform capable of supporting acquisitions, financial consolidation, and automation across teams. For small business leaders facing similar scaling challenges, Odeko’s journey shows how the right systems foundation can transform complexity into opportunity — without losing sight of operational efficiency or customer experience. Here is the full transcript of the interview: Leland McFarland So, uh Kelly, for readers who may not be familiar, uh can you start by telling us a bit about Odeko? Uh, what do you do and what type of customers do you serve? Kelly Simons Sure. Uh, well, first of all, let me introduce myself officially for you so you know where I fit in the organization. My name is Kelly Simons, I’m the Director of Enterprise Systems at Odeko. So anything that doesn’t have the Odeko name on it, like our ordering portal or an e-com site, all falls to me to do. I’m the de facto owner. So Odeko, uh originally started as a disruptor in the supply chain area. Uh, for mostly targeting mom and pop’s, uh coffee shops, independent chains, cafes, that kind of thing. Um, they we developed a portal that was homegrown and custom built to allow them to place orders in a seamless manner. Uh, one of the things that happens in the world is if you are an independent company, um, you have to talk with five, six, eight vendors a day, right? That’s not efficient. You want to focus on running your business. Um, and also you don’t always get the best prices because you’re buying a case of oat milk instead of like allowing us to buy it, you get the better discount. So the goal was to kind of consolidate and give a one-stop shop point for these people that own these businesses to place orders and to get benefits of more bulk buying power, right? Um, and that was the original genesis of our business. Um, originally started in New York and uh that’s what we still call our home. And we have an office, a mothership I call it, in New York because it’s just a small drop station. Our company is digital focused and we’re remote first on our corporate level. Um, and so that’s how we interact with our customers. Leland McFarland Perfect. Uh, what was happening in your business or tech stack that made you decide it was time to implement NetSuite? Kelly Simons So, predates me being there, but, um, research, questioning, that kind of thing. Um, at one point in our business, uh, they were on the typical small basic business model of accounting software. Um, I’m sure we all know which one of those could be because that’s very common. Um, and uh there was an inflection point where they realized that they needed something more powerful in order to lay the foundation for growth. And that was one of the things that they were looking for was a system that was reasonably priced, fit the needs of the market, and could grow as the business grew. Uh, that was one of the main focuses on it. Now, there was a talk at one time of building their own ERP. Evidently, I heard that there were people that looked at people like they had lost their mind because NetSuite has spent 27 years crafting an ERP and it still grows every day. Uh, so that was kind of the impetus behind it. Laying a platform that they could use uh to consolidate and talk one language: inventory, ordering, accounting, finance, typical things that you would do. Leland McFarland Okay. Uh, when did you first begin your NetSuite journey and what were the top goals you were uh hoping to achieve? And by you, I know now that you uh, it’s more of Odeko, not uh… Kelly Simons Yeah, yeah. So, um, whenever you’re in a rapid growth model for a startup business, um, people come on and as you make an acquisition, let’s say, they don’t speak the same language, they don’t have the same information, the systems are different. Um, so having a system that is the source of truth that allows you to pump things in and out of it back and forth. Uh, the goals were to be able to to unify, have a common point to go get information, and to consolidate financials to so our shareholders were happy. We could say, “Hey, look, here’s the information.” Right? So that’s some of the main things that we did. Leland McFarland Great. Um, can you walk us through your uh NetSuite setup? Uh, which models and tools are most crucial for uh your your daily operations? Kelly Simons Sure. So we are a OneWorld instance for NetSuite. Uh, we did have multiple subsidiaries. We’ve recently collapsed some of them just because we’ve kind of restructured a little bit. Um, so it’s very valuable to us to be able to use that to utilize if we need to have different subsidiaries and if we do a different new product, which we just recently launched. Sometimes we may want to put it as a different business unit so if we needed to jettison it, God forbid, you could easily, right? Um, we regularly on a daily basis are using inventory management, operations tools for ordering and fulfillment and all of the normal things to get orders through and out the door to our customers. Uh, there’s a lot of financial tracking that goes along with that. Um, being able to use the traditional models, fixed assets, which was done all on a spreadsheet, which is now internally in the system. Uh, just, um, it allows us to be a little bit more agile to pivot faster and to see things quicker. We also have leveraged the extensibility of the system by going with partners. So Celigo, Brex, those kind of things for anything that we needed to be a little bit more sophisticated than some of the standard models might be, right? So, that’s what we do on a daily basis. It’s our lifeblood now. Leland McFarland Now you’re you’re attached at the hip with uh NetSuite, right? Kelly Simons Well, I’ve always been attached to the hip with NetSuite. That’ll be what I do until I retire in 10 years. So… Leland McFarland Um, how has NetSuite changed the way your finance or operations teams work on a day-to-day? Kelly Simons So before, if we had bought a company or did anything like that, we’d have to go to three or four systems, pull data, try to match the data, try to align the data to make sure it works, right? Um, nowadays when we acquire a company using our repetitive playbook, um, we groom the data, put it in the system so it all matches. They go to our chart of accounts, they go to our structure for customers, things like that. And so in the given day, people are more agile, more efficient, and are able to process things more quickly. A a good good tidbit here is we use Celigo to take our e-com business into NetSuite, all of our ordering. That was a manual process a year ago, took two people 90 hours a week just to process manual e-com orders. And now we’ve grown the business about 40% year over year with the same amount of people because we’ve automated. So all those kind of efficiencies that we gain from being able to quickly pull financials and metrics and things are huge in our company. Leland McFarland Perfect. Um, how have you customized or extended NetSuite to fit the unique needs of a business like yours? Kelly Simons So we have, um, an engineering team internally and they focus primarily on our portal and our front-end processes, right? And some of the integration stuff, like microservices into into NetSuite. Um, but we have some workflows that we do to add pieces of data. We have some custom scripting. Uh, we built a workflow that forces invoices to print twice a day. Right? It creates the invoices twice a day. So somebody doesn’t have to manually monitor those. Um, we’ve used custom fields and rules and forms and records, you name it, we’ve done it. Uh, we haven’t gone too far afield and crazy, right? Uh, but we are using that. And then of course, again, as mentioned, we leveraged the extensibility from the partner network to help us if we need to extend beyond. Right? Leland McFarland Do do you know how the implementation went uh originally? Kelly Simons So from my understanding, the initial implementation went pretty well. Um, again, you’re typically dealing with people who have never used NetSuite before, so they make decisions are made that maybe, you know, five years down the road probably were need to be reviewed and refined. Uh, I don’t think it went really badly, but of course it was a very skeletal implementation. So it was like a very small segment. I use the analogy it was like the iceberg. They got the tip, but there was all underneath that wasn’t being used yet. And so, um, it, I don’t think there was a lot of bumps. I do, I will say there was some clarity that was needed about what NetSuite could do. And uh they were also, keep in mind, doing this around the time when a lot of the pandemic was coming around and, you know, so the world was different. We all know the world in that time period was different, right? So… Leland McFarland Yeah. So it was kind of more of a gradual integration? Kelly Simons Yeah, so they did a, they did the first part which is more financials and some of the order managing and that kind of process. But as time has passed, and especially as I’ve joined as well, we’ve, not saying I’m perfect or the be-all end-all, but we’ve moved it more and more into the center and started to use more and more of the layers of the product. Leland McFarland Perfect. All right. So NetSuite has been making big moves with AI this year. Um, has Odeko started using any of uh NetSuite’s AI-driven tools or automation? Kelly Simons So, some of them are like really new, hot off the press. The one that I use the most right now that I love is in the NetSuite knowledge management area. There is thousands upon thousands upon thousands of articles and how-tos, right? And in the times past, you’d have to go type in what you want, it would give you a list of 200 articles, you’d have to click into them, then you go into a rabbit hole where you click into another article that was on another article, that was on another article, right? Um, the new language that they use where I can human speak and type in a prompt and it returns me the top things that it might be, and says here’s one, two, three, four, this is your best option, has been game-changing for me because it takes me what would have taken hours is like seconds to find an answer usually. Um, and I love the fact, one of them the other day actually said, “I’m sorry, you can’t do that from in NetSuite.” It just said you can’t. I was like, “Okay, that’s good to know.” That that’s nice to know, you know, I’d rather you tell me I can’t. Um, I guess, you know, and I’m excited about some of the things coming. Uh, I’m also equally a little bit nervous about NetSuite Next and how much more. Um, but we’re slowly but surely starting to adopt some of those principles in NetSuite. Leland McFarland Now you mentioned NetSuite Next. Is that the thing, like, out of all the AI advancement, you know, the the the coming soons, um, is that the one that you’re kind of looking forward to most or is there another AI tool that you’re kind of… Kelly Simons Well no, so I’m really looking forward to NetSuite Next. But again, cautiously optimistic. Because in my mind, I see a positive, but I also know that in the adoption curve, if you move too quickly with some users, they are paralyzed. And now I can see a prompt for a controller and they’re going to be fine, but a warehouse clerk may struggle a little bit more with a prompt, right? Now we all know in the AI world that the world will change and a BA might not be a true BA like we’re used to now or a developer even might not be a true developer. They may leverage an AI tool to do their job and then their responsibility is to check the work, right? Um, so I I think that that’s where I’m most excited about. I’m excited to see things come in. One of the things that I know is coming that I think is going to be awesome is uh being able to tell it what I want a workflow. I can type in what I want and it will give me basically what needs to be done or tell it to go do it itself. Another thing that I’m really excited about that I just learned about here is the autonomous close process. Right? Now, we’ve gotten our close down to pretty tight. We’re about three to five days. When I first started, it was close to 30 for a monthly close, which was insane to me. But the autonomous close process that it basically goes and acts on your behalf in the back, posts the things up, you need to review and you hit yes. It just, I’m I’m in awe. You know what I mean? It’s going to be a great, it’s it’s going to be a very big game-changer in our company. Leland McFarland Now, now you talked about adoption and having uh users adopt it. Now, we’ve all seen the the the old person, you know, not necessarily old, the person who loves the older systems in the back doing everything pen and paper and using an abacus. Um, how do you address uh those types of users? Kelly Simons So, first of all, one thing that is really hard for me to kind of do is a lot of the people I know of that are in like warehouse jobs and things like that, they equate AI to job loss. So the first thing you have to do is retool that narrative of it’s not a job loss, it’s a direct, your job is evolving, right? So that’s always a new thing. I think, uh, change management is one of the hardest things to do. And there are people that I know of that sometimes I have to get on with them and I’m like, okay, let’s walk through this. Okay, now tell me what you don’t understand, right? So it’s a little bit of hand-holding with them, which I don’t mind. I would rather them ask and we spend time than them to assume and something just paralyze them, right? Um, there is the theory of the adoption curve, which I’m, I don’t know if you’re familiar with. It’s like an 80, it’s a 20-60-20. There are those people, like, for instance, that bought the iPhone. They were standing in line when the first iPhone came out. Then there’s that middle group that waits to see what happens with the first phone and then they buy it. And then there’s the group that you have to wrap a a rope around their feet and drag them behind you to get them to buy said thing. It’s the same thing with this. Uh, there are going to be some people that it just, they’re not going to transcend into AI very well and it’s because there’s a fear. And it’s how do you address them where they are? How do you meet them where they’re at? Because my mother would be good at AI because that’s just her. My stepdad, no. He he’ll be completely lost. So that’s the same thing with people we work with. Leland McFarland All right. Final question. Yep. Um, what’s next for Odeko and how do you see your partnership with NetSuite evolving over the next few years? Kelly Simons So, we are now an omnichannel company. We have a service line, we have a a BU, an e-com line, we have a regular local delivery line, we just launched a new project that’s uh a software SaaS product that we’re rolling out. Uh those are going to continue just to accelerate. This year we bought five companies. We have, yeah, so there’s that. In 2026, our focus is on organic change with some other additional acquisitions possibly. Now I don’t know for sure. It’s always one of those things that’s up in end. Um, we are going to continue to grow. That’s the goal. Is to continue to become a larger company, more and more, more and more market share, that kind of thing. Uh with the ultimate goal at some point of pre IPO. And uh how our partnership with NetSuite is just my platform that’s going to continue to be my base to help me enable that. Um, even whenever they come to me sometimes and say, “Hey, I want to go do blah blah blah,” and I’m like, “NetSuite can do that.” “But I still want to talk to someone else.” “Okay, fine.” But in the back of my mind, NetSuite is still going to be the one to do that. You know what I mean? But sometimes you have to do that. Uh so NetSuite is still going to be our partner. It’s going to be there for a while. Um, I don’t see us ever moving away from it in the next five years. As Odeko continues its upward trajectory — having acquired five companies this year alone — its partnership with NetSuite remains central to its long-term vision. “NetSuite is still going to be our partner. It’s going to be there for a while. I don’t see us ever moving away from it in the next five years,” said Simons. With plans to expand organically while eyeing a potential pre-IPO future, the company is using its ERP backbone not just for accounting, but as a growth engine. Simons described how automation and AI are now reshaping everyday workflows, from financial closes to order processing. Tasks that once took “two people 90 hours a week” are now handled in a fraction of the time thanks to integrated tools like Celigo. She’s also optimistic — yet cautious — about NetSuite’s next wave of AI innovations, such as autonomous close processes and natural language workflows. “I’m excited to see things come in,” she said. “It’s going to be a very big game-changer in our company.” For small business owners watching AI transform enterprise software, Odeko’s experience offers a practical roadmap: start by building a solid digital core, embrace automation thoughtfully, and lead your team through change with patience and vision. Growth is no longer about scaling chaos — it’s about scaling smarter. This article, "Interview with Kelly Simons of Odeko" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Artificial intelligence has often felt out of reach for many small businesses—too complex, too costly, and too disconnected from the tools they already use. Zoho Corporation is aiming to change that. The company announced a wave of new “agentic AI” features across its collaboration, customer experience, and human resources apps—tools designed to help businesses save time, work smarter, and make AI a practical part of daily operations. The updates, which include Zoho’s workplace suite (Mail, Cliq, Sheet, and Tables), are available at no additional cost to current users. Zoho says the goal is to remove the “adoption friction” that has slowed small business AI use by embedding intelligence directly into the tools teams already rely on. In Zoho Mail, new features like Ask Zia and the Lead Generation Agent take automation to the next level. Ask Zia allows users to issue natural-language prompts such as “Find emails from Zylker Travels, summarize them into a doc, and send it to Paula,” and the system will execute the entire task chain across Zoho apps. The Lead Generation Agent, meanwhile, can scan unread messages for sales inquiries and automatically create leads in Zoho CRM—something that could save small teams hours each week. Other agents handle more routine yet critical functions: a Cleanup Agent that identifies large emails and suggests cleanup plans, a Threat Mitigation Agent that scans for and resolves security issues, and a Writing Agent that drafts responses, schedules follow-ups, and creates reminders. For smaller organizations that can’t afford full-time IT or admin staff, these automations could significantly lighten the workload. In Zoho Cliq, the team chat app, agentic AI is being woven into nearly every workflow. Features like Unread Message Summaries, Meeting Transcripts and Action Items, and Automatic Thread Titles make it easier to stay on top of conversations. The system can even analyze tone, translate messages instantly, and summarize multimedia content—capabilities that could benefit remote teams and global collaborations. Zoho also plans to add multi-vendor AI support, allowing teams to connect their preferred AI engines—such as OpenAI, Google Gemini, or Anthropic—alongside Zoho’s own Zia. The inclusion of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) will let users integrate external large language models like Claude or Visual Studio Code directly into Cliq conversations. That move may appeal to tech-savvy small businesses that want flexibility without additional infrastructure costs. Meanwhile, Zoho Tables and Sheet received updates that focus on smarter data management. AI Base Creation can generate a complete database with sample data and linked fields from a short prompt. For businesses managing multilingual or customer feedback data, new fields like Language Detector, Sentiment Analysis, and Keyword Extraction automate tasks that previously required manual review. In Zoho Sheet, features such as PatternFill, Translation from images, and AI Formulas will help users clean and analyze data faster. With these upgrades, even non-technical employees can automate repetitive data work, turning time once spent on spreadsheets into time focused on strategy or customer engagement. The following table outlines each of the newly released AI-powered features across Zoho’s collaboration tools, along with their descriptions and current availability by region. ApplicationFeatureFeature DescriptionAvailabilityAvailable Territories Zoho Mail Ask Zia in WorkplaceAsk Zia a prompt, Zia will handle across email, word processor, file manager, and chat at onceAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Zoho Mail + Zoho CRM: Lead Generation Agent Looks into your unread messages when you login, recognizes Sales-queries using AI and converts them into a lead in Zoho CRMAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Ask Zia in Mail Converse to Zia over an email. Take actions over multiple Zoho apps, get additional details, or draft a reply—all based on your conversations with ZiaAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Cleanup AgentCategorizes emails by size, suggests email cleanup planAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Threat Mitigation Agent identifies security incidents, eliminates threats, creates mitigation plan for future threatsAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Writing AgentGenerate email drafts and replies automatically while also looking for scheduling conflicts and automatically creating reminders based on generated email contentAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Zoho Tables AI Base Creation with ZiaZia will create base with relevant tables, sample data and linked fields based on user promptsAvailableUS, CA, IN Sentiment Analysis FieldAutomatically analyzes customer sentiment based on context, tone and emotion in textAvailableUS, CA, IN Language Detector Field Automatically detects language of text data when multilingual data is involvedAvailableUS, CA, IN Keyword Extraction Field Identifies and extracts essential words and phrases for quick summary in SEO, content analysis, and moreAvailableUS, CA, IN Zoho Cliq Unread Message SummaryGet a crisp gist of all your unread messages at a glance, so you can stay updated without having to scroll through each conversationAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Meeting Transcript, Summary and Action Items Provides a recorded transcript, a concise summary of the transcript, and highlights of key action items for every meetingAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Automatic Thread Title GenerationAutomatically creates clear and relevant titles for threads to keep things organized and easy to followAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Sentiment Analysis - Writing AssistantEnsures every message you send is clear, polished, and perfectly tailored to your audience with automatic grammar and tone checksAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Automated Message TranslationInstantly translates messages into your preferred language for smooth, multilingual communicationAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA OCR-Based SearchQuickly find your files using OCR-based search; text inside images is automatically recognized, making searching for files easierAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Virtual Background and FiltersCustomize your meetings with fun/professional backgrounds and filters for a polished, distraction-free lookAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Text ExtractionEasily extract text from images, PDFs, or documents, no need to type it out manuallyAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Whiteboard Content GenerationAutomatic shape recognition turns rough sketches into clean shapes, making ideas easier to understand and share in real timeAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Multimedia SummariesAutomatically summarizes the content of attachments and voice messages shared in chats, so you can grasp the key details instantlyQ4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Live TranscriptionReal time meeting transcriptionQ4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Multi-vendor SupportIntegrates Cliq with leading AI providers, including Zia (Zoho's native AI), OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic, Cohere, and Deepseek, giving teams the flexibility to choose and work with the AI that best suits their needsQ4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Model Context Protocol (MCP)Unlock AI in your chats with the Zoho Cliq Model Context Protocol (MCP), letting your AI agents and LLMs (Cursor, Claude, Windsurf, Visual Code Studio) access Cliq conversations, allowing automation, insights, and intelligent interactions across your team’s communicationQ4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Quick RepliesSave time in conversations with automatic, context-based reply options, making it easy to respond instantly without extra effort.Q4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Zoho Sheet TranslationConvert tabular data from pictures or hard copies into structured data in a sheetAvailableUS, IN, EU, CA PatternFillAutomatically detects patterns in data and fills in the remaining values AvailableUS, IN, EU, CA Sheet AssistanceHelps users analyze, visualize and manipulate data more efficiently.Q4 2025US, IN, EU, CA AI TemplateReady-made, customizable models allowing users to instantly create a template for a specific need Q4 2025US, IN, EU, CA AI FormulasSpecialized commands in spreadsheets that use AI to perform complex tasks Q4 2025US, IN, EU, CA For small business owners, the practical upside is clear: AI can now assist in managing leads, emails, meetings, and data without requiring an additional budget or outside developer. The challenge, however, lies in understanding how to integrate these features effectively into existing processes. While Zoho’s interface aims to simplify adoption, the learning curve around prompt-based automation could still be steep for teams unfamiliar with AI tools. Still, Zoho’s decision to include these capabilities at no extra cost marks a meaningful shift. As more AI vendors move toward premium pricing, Zoho’s all-inclusive approach may help level the playing field—giving small businesses access to the same intelligent systems that large enterprises use, but without the financial barrier. The new agentic features are available now in early access across the U.S., India, and select international markets, with broader rollout planned by the end of the year. For businesses looking to experiment with practical, embedded AI, Zoho’s latest updates could offer an easy—and affordable—way to start. This article, "Zoho Adds Free AI Collaboration Tools to Simplify Work for Small Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Artificial intelligence has often felt out of reach for many small businesses—too complex, too costly, and too disconnected from the tools they already use. Zoho Corporation is aiming to change that. The company announced a wave of new “agentic AI” features across its collaboration, customer experience, and human resources apps—tools designed to help businesses save time, work smarter, and make AI a practical part of daily operations. The updates, which include Zoho’s workplace suite (Mail, Cliq, Sheet, and Tables), are available at no additional cost to current users. Zoho says the goal is to remove the “adoption friction” that has slowed small business AI use by embedding intelligence directly into the tools teams already rely on. In Zoho Mail, new features like Ask Zia and the Lead Generation Agent take automation to the next level. Ask Zia allows users to issue natural-language prompts such as “Find emails from Zylker Travels, summarize them into a doc, and send it to Paula,” and the system will execute the entire task chain across Zoho apps. The Lead Generation Agent, meanwhile, can scan unread messages for sales inquiries and automatically create leads in Zoho CRM—something that could save small teams hours each week. Other agents handle more routine yet critical functions: a Cleanup Agent that identifies large emails and suggests cleanup plans, a Threat Mitigation Agent that scans for and resolves security issues, and a Writing Agent that drafts responses, schedules follow-ups, and creates reminders. For smaller organizations that can’t afford full-time IT or admin staff, these automations could significantly lighten the workload. In Zoho Cliq, the team chat app, agentic AI is being woven into nearly every workflow. Features like Unread Message Summaries, Meeting Transcripts and Action Items, and Automatic Thread Titles make it easier to stay on top of conversations. The system can even analyze tone, translate messages instantly, and summarize multimedia content—capabilities that could benefit remote teams and global collaborations. Zoho also plans to add multi-vendor AI support, allowing teams to connect their preferred AI engines—such as OpenAI, Google Gemini, or Anthropic—alongside Zoho’s own Zia. The inclusion of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) will let users integrate external large language models like Claude or Visual Studio Code directly into Cliq conversations. That move may appeal to tech-savvy small businesses that want flexibility without additional infrastructure costs. Meanwhile, Zoho Tables and Sheet received updates that focus on smarter data management. AI Base Creation can generate a complete database with sample data and linked fields from a short prompt. For businesses managing multilingual or customer feedback data, new fields like Language Detector, Sentiment Analysis, and Keyword Extraction automate tasks that previously required manual review. In Zoho Sheet, features such as PatternFill, Translation from images, and AI Formulas will help users clean and analyze data faster. With these upgrades, even non-technical employees can automate repetitive data work, turning time once spent on spreadsheets into time focused on strategy or customer engagement. The following table outlines each of the newly released AI-powered features across Zoho’s collaboration tools, along with their descriptions and current availability by region. ApplicationFeatureFeature DescriptionAvailabilityAvailable Territories Zoho Mail Ask Zia in WorkplaceAsk Zia a prompt, Zia will handle across email, word processor, file manager, and chat at onceAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Zoho Mail + Zoho CRM: Lead Generation Agent Looks into your unread messages when you login, recognizes Sales-queries using AI and converts them into a lead in Zoho CRMAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Ask Zia in Mail Converse to Zia over an email. Take actions over multiple Zoho apps, get additional details, or draft a reply—all based on your conversations with ZiaAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Cleanup AgentCategorizes emails by size, suggests email cleanup planAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Threat Mitigation Agent identifies security incidents, eliminates threats, creates mitigation plan for future threatsAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Writing AgentGenerate email drafts and replies automatically while also looking for scheduling conflicts and automatically creating reminders based on generated email contentAvailable Early Access, only in US, IN Zoho Tables AI Base Creation with ZiaZia will create base with relevant tables, sample data and linked fields based on user promptsAvailableUS, CA, IN Sentiment Analysis FieldAutomatically analyzes customer sentiment based on context, tone and emotion in textAvailableUS, CA, IN Language Detector Field Automatically detects language of text data when multilingual data is involvedAvailableUS, CA, IN Keyword Extraction Field Identifies and extracts essential words and phrases for quick summary in SEO, content analysis, and moreAvailableUS, CA, IN Zoho Cliq Unread Message SummaryGet a crisp gist of all your unread messages at a glance, so you can stay updated without having to scroll through each conversationAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Meeting Transcript, Summary and Action Items Provides a recorded transcript, a concise summary of the transcript, and highlights of key action items for every meetingAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Automatic Thread Title GenerationAutomatically creates clear and relevant titles for threads to keep things organized and easy to followAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Sentiment Analysis - Writing AssistantEnsures every message you send is clear, polished, and perfectly tailored to your audience with automatic grammar and tone checksAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Automated Message TranslationInstantly translates messages into your preferred language for smooth, multilingual communicationAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA OCR-Based SearchQuickly find your files using OCR-based search; text inside images is automatically recognized, making searching for files easierAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Virtual Background and FiltersCustomize your meetings with fun/professional backgrounds and filters for a polished, distraction-free lookAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Text ExtractionEasily extract text from images, PDFs, or documents, no need to type it out manuallyAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Whiteboard Content GenerationAutomatic shape recognition turns rough sketches into clean shapes, making ideas easier to understand and share in real timeAvailableUS, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Multimedia SummariesAutomatically summarizes the content of attachments and voice messages shared in chats, so you can grasp the key details instantlyQ4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Live TranscriptionReal time meeting transcriptionQ4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Multi-vendor SupportIntegrates Cliq with leading AI providers, including Zia (Zoho's native AI), OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic, Cohere, and Deepseek, giving teams the flexibility to choose and work with the AI that best suits their needsQ4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Model Context Protocol (MCP)Unlock AI in your chats with the Zoho Cliq Model Context Protocol (MCP), letting your AI agents and LLMs (Cursor, Claude, Windsurf, Visual Code Studio) access Cliq conversations, allowing automation, insights, and intelligent interactions across your team’s communicationQ4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Quick RepliesSave time in conversations with automatic, context-based reply options, making it easy to respond instantly without extra effort.Q4 2025US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, SA Zoho Sheet TranslationConvert tabular data from pictures or hard copies into structured data in a sheetAvailableUS, IN, EU, CA PatternFillAutomatically detects patterns in data and fills in the remaining values AvailableUS, IN, EU, CA Sheet AssistanceHelps users analyze, visualize and manipulate data more efficiently.Q4 2025US, IN, EU, CA AI TemplateReady-made, customizable models allowing users to instantly create a template for a specific need Q4 2025US, IN, EU, CA AI FormulasSpecialized commands in spreadsheets that use AI to perform complex tasks Q4 2025US, IN, EU, CA For small business owners, the practical upside is clear: AI can now assist in managing leads, emails, meetings, and data without requiring an additional budget or outside developer. The challenge, however, lies in understanding how to integrate these features effectively into existing processes. While Zoho’s interface aims to simplify adoption, the learning curve around prompt-based automation could still be steep for teams unfamiliar with AI tools. Still, Zoho’s decision to include these capabilities at no extra cost marks a meaningful shift. As more AI vendors move toward premium pricing, Zoho’s all-inclusive approach may help level the playing field—giving small businesses access to the same intelligent systems that large enterprises use, but without the financial barrier. The new agentic features are available now in early access across the U.S., India, and select international markets, with broader rollout planned by the end of the year. For businesses looking to experiment with practical, embedded AI, Zoho’s latest updates could offer an easy—and affordable—way to start. This article, "Zoho Adds Free AI Collaboration Tools to Simplify Work for Small Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

The fastest-growing startups today leverage founder-led storytelling to create trust, credibility, and measurable business results. The post 3 LinkedIn Strategies To Turn Your Founder’s Voice Into A Pipeline Driver appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Adviso once again is leading the way in the 11th annual Search Engine Land Awards. The Canadian agency is a finalist in six categories in 2025. This is the second year in a row that Adviso has topped our list of finalists. In 2024, the Canadian agency was a finalist in five Search Engine Land categories and won two Search Engine Land Awards. Two other agencies earning finalist status five times are: Razorfish LocalIQ Meanwhile, four agencies earned finalist status three times in the 2025 Search Engine Land Awards: Amsive. ATRA Bloom Digital. Digital Hitmen. The competition was once again stiff in nearly all of our categories. All the winners of the 2025 Search Engine Land Awards will be revealed next Monday, Oct. 27. Meet Search Engine Land 2025 award winners at SMX Next As has become tradition, we’re bringing some of this year’s award winners to SMX Next on Nov. 19 to answer your questions during two “Ask the Search Engine Land Award winners” panels. I’ll host the SEO winners session, while Search Engine Land’s Paid Media Editor Anu Adegbola will lead the PPC winners discussion. If you haven’t yet, make sure to register for free for SMX Next. The full list of finalists Best Use Of AI Technology In Search Marketing From Chaos to Clarity: How Mondou Built an AI Search Marketing Powerhouse (Adviso) 15x ROAS with AI: How CAMP Digital Redefined Paid Search for Home Services CB/I Digital + First Citizens Bank: Leading the Future of AI Search in Finance Predictive Lead Scoring Integrated with AI-Powered Google Ads Bidding (Level Agency) How Neighborly Increased Leads by 20% and AI Visibility by 458% with Scalable, AI-Driven SEO Best Overall PPC Initiative – Small Business Anchor Rides – Post-Hurricane PPC Comeback (AIMCLEAR) LOCALiQ Transforms Rehabs UK PPC with 323% More Leads and 82% Impression Share Landing Page CRO + PPC Optimization Cuts CPL by 51% and Nearly Doubles Conversions for Scar Healing Institute (Sagapixel) Somebody Digital & UpCloud: Delivering Customer Conversion & Volume How WSI | Utopiads Restored GarageTeks faith in PPC Best Overall PPC Initiative – Enterprise Simons’ AI-Powered PPC Transformation: A Model for Modern Retail (Adviso) How Amsive Proved Brand Media Increases Search Conversions by 217% for Commerce Bank ATRA & Jason Stone Injury Lawyers – Leveraging CRM Data to Scale Case Volume Search Smarter, Fly Further: Winning in a Mature Market with SEA & SEO (Dentsu) Driving Results: How Life Events Fuelled Smarter Insurance Targeting (Dentsu) Best Commerce Search Marketing Initiative – PPC Precision at Scale: How Royal Distributing Rewired Performance Max With Feed Intelligence (Adviso) Adwise & Azerty – 126% uplift in profit from paid advertising & 1 percent point net margin business uplift by advanced cross-channel bucketing How Cypress North Boosted Non-Brand Revenue 110% YoY for Dave & Adam’s Card World by Shifting Ad Spend From Inventory to Impact: How Automation Drove Sales for Leica’s Classic Store (Muhlert Digital GmbH) 132% More Purchases and $4M in Revenue Growth: How Searchbloom Scaled Sun & Ski Sports with Paid Search and Partnership Best Local Search Marketing Initiative – PPC How We Crushed Belron’s Lead Target by 238% With an AI-Powered Local Strategy (Adviso) ATRA & Raceway Car Wash — Scaling Local Revenue Through High-Intent Search Harmelin Media delivered a SWEET 65% improvement in Paid Search CPA Efficiencies for Hersheypark How Sixth City Marketing achieved 45x ROI by utilizing local search ads for Cristy’s Pizza How Workshop Digital Delivered 2x Leads & 49% Lower CPL for MannKidwell Best B2B Search Marketing Initiative – PPC Blackbird PPC and Customer.io: Advanced Data Integration to Drive 239% Revenue Increase with 12% Greater Lead Efficiency, with MMM Future-Proofing 2025 Growth Massive Lead Quality Gains in Google Ads: ePPC’s Custom AI Prediction Model for ATOM Mobility From Brand Defense to Revenue Offense: The Search Campaign that Changed Everything (Logical Position) How SupplyHouse lowered spend, increased revenue, and dramatically improved ROAS How Workshop Digital Drove a +302% Increase in Average Order Value and +155% ROAS for Murals Your Way Best Integration Of Search Into Omnichannel Marketing How NBC used search to drive +2,573 accounts in a Full-Funnel Media Push (Adviso) Let’s Par-tee! How Bloom Digital achieved 150% to targeted growth objectives for OuttaBounds DAC & Bridgestone Retail Operations – Rebalancing the Funnel How LOCALiQ Helped Cut & Craft Achieve 1,443% YoY Lead Growth with Omnichannel Search Integration From Strategy to Stethoscopes: How Marcus Thomas Helped Akron Children’s Attract the Best Talent in Pediatrics Best Overall SEO Initiative – Small Business How Bloom Digital helped OuttaBounds rank #1 on Google within months of tee off! (on a tiny budget) Digital Hitmen & Elite Tune: The Toyota Shift That Delivered 678% SEO ROI How Digital Hitmen Built an SEO Content Engine to Book Out Aussie Patio Designs‘ 2025 Jobs in Advance Small Business, Big Results: MissionOne Media Doubles Find Wunder’s Revenue With SEO Sagapixel‘s 114% Increase in Hair Transplant Conversions from Organic Search Using Video-to-Blog Best Overall SEO Initiative – Enterprise 825 Million Clicks, Zero Content Edits: How Amsive Engineered MSN’s Technical SEO Turnaround Lamark‘s Unified SEO + CRO: +518% Avg. Lead Growth Nationwide for Kanner & Pintaluga Reinventing SEO. Driving organic growth in a constantly evolving AI-driven discovery landscape. (NP Digital) Razorfish and Grey Goose Partner on Voice Search AI Content Strategy, Delivering 8.5M Impressions Razorfish SEO & Whirlpool: A Helpful Content Engine that Wins the AI SERP Best Commerce Search Marketing Initiative – SEO Scaling Non-Branded SEO for Assouline to Drive +26% Organic Revenue Uplift (Block & Tam) Optimized for Impact: How Marcus Thomas Fueled Product Adoption With SEO Power MissionOne Media helped Find Wunder drive organic growth and 103% increase in revenue Global SEO Excellence by Razorfish: Delivering 229% YoY Growth for Prezzee Best Local Search Marketing Initiative – SEO Sky Zone‘s Multi-Location Local SEO Success: How Acadia Delivered 15x ROI Despite Industry Decline Building an Unbeatable Foundation for Success: Using Hyperlocal SEO to Build Exceptional ROI (Digital Hitmen) Regional SEO Without Multiple GBPs: How Halstead Media Delivered 218% More Qualified Leads and 54% Revenue Growth for Premier Gunite Pools How iQuanti Scaled Local SEO for Edward Jones Across 20,000+ Locations Somebody Digital & NextCare: Local Care, Everywhere Best B2B Search Marketing Initiative – SEO How Acadia Built Warehouse Automation Authority with Exotec: 2,629 Strategic Clicks in 13 Months How Hot House Digital helped to deliver a 276% increase in Sales Qualified Leads Jordan Digital Marketing Developed Multi-Platform Proprietary Content to Drive 126% Inbound Lead Increase for SpyCloud Across Search, LLMs, and LinkedIn Page One, Pipeline Won: The B2B SEO Playbook That Turned 320 Visitors into $10.75M in Pipeline (LeadCoverage) How LOCALiQ’s SEO Strategy Beat the AI Click Drop and Grew Conversions Agency Of The Year – PPC How LOCALiQ Drove Over 84,000 Leads in 2024 with Search and a 323% Uplift for a Charity That Needed It Most Mindgruve Super Bowl campaign increased lead goals by 139% and drove 14,000+ store visits on a sub-$18K budget How Rank Secure Achieved Over 6,400 Conversions at $87 CPA Through Smart Segmentation and Scalable PPC Strategy Marriott‘s Enterprise and Franchise Program Coordinate to Drive an Over 400% Increase in Bookings Through Innovative Automation (Razorfish) Driving Growth Where Search Happens: Stella Rising’s Paid Search Transformation Agency Of The Year – SEO How Amsive Rescued MSN’s Global Visibility Through Enterprise Technical SEO at Scale Future-Proofing Luxury SEO: Block & Tam’s Work with Assouline How Lamark‘s SEO Translated to 35% Revenue Lift and 31% More Bookings for Trailways Driving 560% Visibility Gains and 320% Growth: LOCALiQ UK’s SEO Transformation Razorfish SEO Team Drives Growth for Clients Amid Industry Changes In-House Team Of The Year – SEO How the American Cancer Society’s Lean SEO Team Drove Enterprise-Wide Consolidation and AI Search Visibility Gains for Cancer.org Cha-Ching! How Talking About Costs Sent CareCredit Organic Traffic Soaring Critical Mass: Driving Search Innovation, AI-Optimized Ecosystems, and Award-Winning Growth for Next-Gen Digital Brands From 5 Agencies to 1 Unified SEO Force: How Neighborly Boosted Leads, Outranked the CDC, and Future-Proofed Content How TCWGlobal Achieved 2,066% SEO Growth and Generated 200 MQLs to Defeat the Sales Team Search Marketer Of The Tear Mike King Nick LeRoy Nicolas Villeneuve Samantha Torres Small Agency Of The Year – PPC 104% More Patients, 32% Lower Costs: How a Hyper-Localized PPC Strategy Transformed a Multi State Dermatology Network (Adcetera) ATRA & Jason Stone Injury Lawyers – Leveraging CRM Data to Scale Case Volume Scaling Synergy Health Partners with Better Tracking & Experiments (Blue Ox Digital) Turning Clicks Into Closings: How Bullseye Filled Shorecrest’s Sales Funnel with Qualified Buyers How Halstead Media Scaled Jan Fence’s Revenue by 790%, and Made PPC Their #1 Growth Engine Small Agency Of The year – SEO Future-Focused, Client-Centered: 9Sail Turns Collaboration into Sustained ROI From Zero to Top of the Leaderboard: Bloom Digital Drives Big Growth With Small SEO Budgets Small Team. Big Results. How Bullseye Strategy Leveraged SEO to Raise Giselle Miami to the Rooftops of Local Search How Hot House Digital helped to deliver a 276% increase in Sales Qualified Leads How Mickey Llew helped Investec outrank national news outlets in organic visibility on National Budget Day, beating its own click targets by nearly 300% A huge thank you to our judges A much-deserved thank you to our awesome group of judges for the 2024 Search Engine Land Awards. Our panel of judges had the difficult assignment of selecting the best of the best from a large number of submissions. Thank you: Anu Adegbola Matt Devinney Brad Geddes Celeste Gonzales Amy Hebdon Cory Henke Navah Hopkins Olya Ianovskaia Joseph Kerschbaum Ameet Khabra Melissa Mackey Mordy Oberstein Emily Popson Sara Resnick Barry Schwartz Danita Smith Jo Juliana Turnbull Adam Tanguay Julie Warnecke View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. Whether you’re a fan of listening to music while you read or you simply live in a household of noisy people, silence may not be something you’re used to finding before hitting the books—but it should be and it can be. Despite the boom in popularity of study-based playlists on YouTube and Spotify, quiet is the way to go when you’re trying to retain information you’re taking in. Don’t take my word for; take science’s. What the research says First, research published in 2019 showed that “mental workload and visual/auditory attention is significantly reduced when the participants are exposed to noise at 95 dBA level.” That, per the Center for Hearing and Communication, is about how loud a blender or truck is. The 2019 study focused a lot on the way noise affects people at work, which is where people tend to do tasks they already have a grasp on; noise can be even more detrimental if you’re trying to attain new information. Other research that has focused specifically on studying has found noise to be even more of an issue: On average, participants experienced a 7% reduction in performance on a test when researchers introduced noises, when compared with quiet, per one 2021 report. Some research breaks things down further, examining different effects of noise on introverts’ and extroverts’ studying and information retention, but that’s both too granular and pretty irrelevant; for the most part, it still finds that noise is distracting and reduces cognitive ability. Other research is broken down by type of noise. For instance, one study found that while silence was beneficial for cognitive tasks, lo-fi music was better than music with lyrics (with the exception of when participants were doing math, when music type didn’t have any impact). What about white noise? Research shows that it's not as detrimental as lyric-filled music; in fact, it's helpful for studying. It can actually enhance your acquisition of new material. Anecdotally, that makes sense to me. I run white noise a lot in my apartment because my window directly overlooks the smoking section of a rowdy bar and I get tired of hearing the drunkest conversations known to man every night. It drowns all of that out, but also sort of fades into the background. It's not like I'm hearing or focusing on "Box Fan #10 Continuous Loop" or whatever I have queued up on YouTube. Exceptions to the ruleNo study solution is one-size-fits-all, although you'll have a hard time convincing me you can stay focused on physiology or world history with the new Taylor Swift album playing in the background. There are, of course, some exceptions to the rule, like the semi-acceptability of lyric-less tunes. Another exception to the "silence is best" rule is when you're using the production effect. This study technique involves speaking out loud to better retain information. Others, like dual coding, call on you to use two modalities to study at once, like drawing while you listen to a lecture or narrating while you label a diagram. Depending on what you are studying and how you prefer to do it, you may even want to make a personal study podcast by reading your own notes out loud into a recorder, then playing it back. Finally, I've found the ability to create custom "podcasts" out of study materials through Google's NotebookLM extremely helpful for studying while I do other tasks, like clean the house. Don't let the science-backed fact that silence is golden when you're studying deter you from trying out those techniques. Employing them isn't the same as trying to read a chapter in the middle of a bustling cafeteria or playing the latest episode of your favorite show while you take a practice quiz. As with any approach or suggestion, you have wiggle room to make it work for you. How to create more silenceIf you’re attached to lo-fi tunes for studying, that's fine. You just have to keep them low and make sure no lyrics sneak in. Otherwise, try to prioritize a reduction in noise as much as possible—especially outside noises, like chatter, household appliances, or traffic. Here are a few tools that might help: Grab a pair of the highly rated Loop Quiet ear plugs to reduce noise ($28) I can personally vouch for the noise-cancellation qualities of the AirPods Max ($450), which function well even when I'm not playing music Try the Grotheory door stopper to soundproof your study room ($14 for two) Use Mudboo acoustic panels to line the wall separating you from exterior noise ($13 for 12) Pick up a white noise machine for about $17 if you can't make the other noises stop View the full article

Anchor text, which is also known as link text, is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It usually appears in a different color and is often underlined. Good anchor text tells readers what to expect when they click and gives search engines valuable context about the linked page. Getting your anchor text right helps users navigate your content more easily, improves your internal link structure, and provides search engines with clues about your page relationships, which can positively influence your SEO. Table of contents What does an anchor text look like? Why are link/anchor texts important? Different kinds of anchor text The competing links check in Yoast SEO How to improve your anchor link texts Internal links and anchor texts This is anchor text Key takeaways Anchor text enhances user navigation and provides context for search engines, improving SEO outcomes. Good anchor text clearly describes the linked content and avoids misleading or over-optimized phrases. Different types of anchor text exist, each with specific use cases; mix them for variety and clarity. Yoast SEO offers tools to analyze competing links and improve anchor text for better search engine ranking. To enhance anchor text, ensure it matches the linked content, flows naturally, and clearly signals clickable links. What does an anchor text look like? Anchor text is the part of a link that describes the linked page. It guides both readers and search engines toward relevant information. For example, if we link to our post about keyword research tools, the phrase “keyword research tools” is the anchor text. In HTML, it looks like this: <a href="https://yoast.com/keyword-research-tools/">keyword research tools</a> The first part is the URL, while the second, the visible text, is the anchor text. Ideally, the words you choose should naturally describe the content on the linked page. Why are link/anchor texts important? Links are vital for SEO. They show how your pages connect and help search engines understand your site structure. The anchor text in those links provides extra context. When Google crawls your site, it uses link text as a clue to what each linked page is about. If multiple links all use the same focus keyphrase, Google might not know which page should rank highest for that topic, leading to competition between your own pages. That’s why thoughtful, descriptive anchor text matters. It helps search engines interpret your site and helps readers decide whether a link is worth clicking. Over-optimized or misleading link text can confuse both. Tip: Avoid using your main focus keyphrase in multiple anchor texts within one post, as it can create competing links. Your linking should always feel natural and avoid over-optimization. Different kinds of anchor text Anchor text applies to both internal and external links. External sites can link to your content in various ways, and each type sends a different signal to search engines: Branded links: Use your brand name as anchor text (e.g., Yoast) Naked URLs: Just your site address (e.g., https://yoast.com) Site name: Written as Yoast.com Article or page title: Matches the title exactly (e.g., What is anchor text?) Exact-match keywords: The exact keyphrase of your target page Partial-match keywords: A variation that fits naturally in a sentence Related keywords: Phrases closely connected to your topic Generic links: Words like click here or read more — best avoided! Ideally, mix your link text types, prioritizing readability and context over repetition. The competing links check in Yoast SEO Yoast SEO for WordPress and Yoast SEO for Shopify include a competing links check. This tool analyzes your anchor texts to help you avoid competing links. If Yoast SEO detects that one of your links contains your focus keyphrase or a synonym of it, then Premium users get a warning. The reason? You don’t want multiple pages trying to rank for the same phrase. For example, say your focus keyphrase is potato chips. If you link to another page using that exact phrase, Yoast SEO will flag it as a competing link. You’ll see a notification in your SEO analysis, so you can adjust it before publishing. If you have Yoast SEO Premium or Yoast SEO for Shopify, the check will also look for the synonyms of your keyphrase. How to improve your anchor link texts If Yoast SEO alerts you about competing links, or if you simply want to improve the quality of your link text, here are some best practices to follow. 1. Create a natural flow Your writing should feel effortless. If a link feels awkward or forced into a sentence, it probably doesn’t belong there. Always prioritize readability, as a smooth flow improves both engagement and SEO. For more advice on writing content that feels natural while still ranking well, read our SEO copywriting guide. 2. Match the link text to the linked content Readers should immediately understand what to expect when they click on a link. For example, a link that says meta description should lead to a post explaining what a meta description is and how to optimize it. Clear, logical linking builds trust and helps users navigate your content with ease. 3. Don’t trick your readers Never mislead readers with inaccurate or confusing link text. If your link text says, “potato chips,” it shouldn’t lead to a page about cars. Consistent and honest linking keeps readers engaged and signals quality to search engines. 4. Make it clear that the link is clickable Use visual cues such as color contrast or underlining, so it’s easy to tell when text is a link. This not only improves usability but also helps people using assistive technology to navigate your content. To see more on writing accessible, well-structured posts, visit our blogging guide. 5. Bonus tip: put your entire keyphrase in quotes When using long tail keyphrases, you might see a warning about links that include parts of your focus keyphrase. To avoid this, put your full keyphrase in quotes, for example, “learning how to knit.” This tells Yoast SEO to look for the entire phrase rather than matching individual words. If you’d like to learn more about writing effective link text and improving your content for SEO, take our SEO copywriting course, which is included with Yoast SEO Premium. Go Premium and get free access to our SEO courses!Learn how to write great content for SEO and unlock lots of features with Yoast SEO Premium: Get Yoast SEO Premium »Only $118.80 / year (ex VAT) Internal links and anchor texts Internal links are one of the most effective SEO tools you can use. The Yoast SEO internal linking suggestions tool helps you find and add relevant links throughout your content. But internal links work best when you write good anchor text for them. Each link should serve a clear purpose and guide readers naturally to related topics. Avoid adding unnecessary or irrelevant links just for the sake of having more connections. Thoughtful internal linking improves the user experience and helps search engines understand your site’s structure, which is essential for strong SEO performance. This is anchor text Anchor text remains a small but powerful element of SEO. It helps users decide whether to click, gives search engines valuable context, and supports a logical site structure. Keep your anchor text relevant, natural, and transparent and avoid manipulative or over-optimized linking practices. Search engines are now smarter than ever at spotting unnatural links, especially in the era of AI and semantic understanding. So stay genuine, link with intent, and use Yoast SEO to guide you along the way. Read more: SEO basics: What is a permalink? » The post What is anchor text, and how can you improve your link texts? appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

In a recent study, Search Engine Land and Fractl found that 82% of consumers find AI-powered search more helpful than traditional SERPs. While the emergence of generative engine optimization (GEO) has marketers in a frenzy to own the latest industry keyword, agency thought leaders are finding common ground. Whether it’s Google or generative AI, brand visibility still comes down to two things: The depth of your original subject matter expertise. The breadth of your brand mentions. Together, these build a digital footprint of authority that both algorithms and knowledge graphs use to surface your brand. Here’s the rub: most brands are still playing a one-dimensional game. They’re optimizing content hubs around FAQs and target market needs while ignoring offsite authority signals like brand mentions, which strengthen visibility across genAI search. To highlight the need for a two-prong approach, my Fractl co-founder, Dan Tynski, scraped 8,090 keywords across 25 verticals to compare citations between Google’s AI Overviews and LLMs (GPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.) for identical queries. The result should give every marketer pause: only 7.2% of domains appeared in both systems. Of the 22,410 unique domains we identified: 15,848 domains (70.7%) appeared exclusively in Google AI Overviews. 4,951 domains (22.1%) appeared exclusively in LLM foundation models. 1,611 domains (7.2%) appeared in both systems. So, what does this mean for marketers? 1. Google’s AI Overviews still favor the old guard Unsurprisingly, Google’s AI system heavily favors the same reputable domains we’re used to dominating the SERPs. High-authority websites with robust content portfolios and strong backlink profiles dominated Google’s AI Overviews. These 15,848 domains were largely represented by: Established news and information sites (BBC, Yahoo, CNN). Educationally leaning social sites (Reddit, YouTube). Authoritative reference sources (Wikipedia, peer-reviewed journals). Government and institutional websites (.gov, .edu). 2. Publishers driving generative AI brand visibility and authority The 4,951 LLM-exclusive domains tell a different story. They’re significantly smaller – three times fewer than AI Overviews – and reflect what LLMs actually value: Investigative journalism from mainstream news publishers covering timely news pulled by RAG searches (e.g., USA Today, CNBC, The New York Times). Niche, vertical experts that demonstrate deep subject matter expertise within a specific vertical (e.g., Edmunds, Investopedia, All Recipes, Wired). Educational platforms and communities optimized for learning (Reddit, Github, Coursera, Khan Academy, University hubs). Authoritative industry data portals, such as peer-reviewed journals, patents, and standards, court and government transcripts. Ultimately, foundation models seem to prioritize publishers that provide topic depth over topic breadth, and educational value and conceptual clarity over traditional web authority signals. Your DA 90 site might be invisible to ChatGPT if it doesn’t clearly and effectively explain concepts, rather than just ranking well with authority. Based on our analysis, here are the five laws that determine whether your content gets cited across AI platforms: Authority creates trust loops in LLMs Strong editorial standards and human fact-checking (think NPR, NYT) get linked, cited, and re-crawled more often. Repeated crawls mean their phrasing becomes the “default” language models lean on when answering. Action items Publish sourced, well-edited, standards-based content. Earn links from high-authority newsrooms. Maintain freshness to trigger re-crawls. If it’s easy to skim, it’s easy to train Models love patterns, so think step-by-step how-tos, definition blocks, ordered lists, and comparison tables that use standard layouts that are machine-friendly. Action items Standardize your article templates. Mark up with headings, schema, bullets, FAQs, and TL;DR summaries. Vertical specialists train the model’s mental map Niche experts (Edmunds for cars, Mayo for health, etc.) flood the web with highly structured, topic-dense updates. Models learn, “When it’s cars, go to Edmunds; when it’s investing, go to Investopedia.” Action items Build the definitive source of knowledge for your industry. Create step-by-step how-tos, definition blocks, comparison tables – the structured content that models love to cite. Pitch experts to the media to reinforce association and expertise. Repetition and syndication = Statistical gravity Big outlets get quoted, reprinted, aggregated – each copy reinforces word patterns and narrative frames. One AP pickup becomes 200 local clones. Now that wording is everywhere in the model’s diet. Syndication is how one fact becomes “the fact” in AI. Action items Target syndication networks, wire partners, and data stories that invite re-use. Provide copy-and-paste-friendly assets (charts, stat bullets, embed codes). U.S. commercial bias skews the knowledge lens Training corpora over-index on U.S. English, ad-supported news, and commercial publishers due to current partnerships. Non-U.S., non-English, academic, or NGO sources are underweighted – leading to culturally narrow answers. Action item Earn media mentions in the same publishers generative AI platforms are using to train their models. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. 3. Understanding how AI media partnerships influence brand visibility Beyond the content strategies that shape the knowledge graphs of generative AI platforms, I also wanted to understand which media conglomerates are being cited most frequently. Since I oversee our agency’s earned media team, it felt imperative to prioritize my digital PR team’s targeting of the most cited publishers within each client’s niche. I set off to research the “AI media partnerships” and licensing agreements that OpenAI, Perplexity, and others had arranged over the last few years. These partnerships pull three primary levers that shape a model’s internal neural network and knowledge graph about your industry and brand: Coverage: The legality, depth, and recency of the archives it can crawl and reuse. Context: The frequency with which those sources appear across pretraining data, retrieval indexes, evaluation sets, and safety workflows. Credibility: The confidence weight a system assigns when cross-checking and ranking those sources at answer time. When a publisher network becomes a model partner, it stops being just another website the AI can read – it becomes a trusted source the model actively learns from and reuses. Over time, that content becomes a landmark inside the system’s knowledge map, shaping how the model understands topics, brands, and credibility. As AI assistants build more structured “answer pipelines,” these publisher networks hold a real advantage – their stories are more likely to be cited, repeated, and remembered. As a brand, if your story lives outside these publisher networks, you’ll spend more time and budget fighting to be represented as an authority in generative answers. Dig deeper: Tracking AI search citations: Who’s winning across 11 industries 4. Getting off the Reddit hype train As generative AI continues to train on public web data, not all platforms are created equal. If trust becomes the new currency of the internet, then the source of that data, not just its scale, determines its long-term value in model training. Reddit, Quora, and other UGC-heavy platforms may dominate today’s AI citations. But they’re also the most vulnerable to contamination, bias loops, and synthetic noise. As the signal-to-slop ratio worsens, these sources could face a credibility correction once models start weighting for provenance, diversity, and verifiability. We built a forecasting trusted sources framework to quantify which publisher types are best positioned to retain influence in genAI ecosystems. By scoring platforms across seven trust signals – from scarcity and verifiability to legal clarity and longevity – we can forecast which media environments are most likely to feed the next generation of training data. In short: brands that invest in credible, human-authored, legally clear coverage today will become the foundational voices tomorrow’s models rely on. 5. What GEO means for your 2026 SEO strategy The brands that dominate generative engine optimization in 2026 won’t chase rankings. They’ll architect authority. They’ll prioritize strategies that build cross-channel visibility into a digital footprint strong enough to influence knowledge graphs, algorithms, and audiences alike. If you want to be that brand, here’s your action plan: Choose your lane and own it Generative visibility rewards depth, not breadth. The top performers – WebMD, All Recipes, U.S. News – own their verticals completely. Identify your subcategory and build the most complete knowledge base in it. Engineer for structure LLMs cite what they can parse. Standardize your content templates – definitions, FAQs, how-tos, comparison tables – and use clear schema markup. What’s good for machines tends to be good for humans, too. Leverage ‘statistical gravity’ Engineer syndication paths for every data study. Every syndicated mention, embedded chart, and reused quote compounds authority. Make it easy for journalists and genAI platforms to reuse your language, charts, and insights. One pickup can become 200 citations across the web. Monitor your partnerships ecosystem AI models favor content from trusted media groups (TIME, FT Group, Guardian Media, Axel Springer). Earn placements within those networks to increase your odds of inclusion in retrieval pipelines. Think global, not just Google U.S. outlets dominate AI training data, but multilingual and regional content can fill cultural gaps. Localize and translate your assets to improve visibility in global models. Rebuild for trust Peer-reviewed data, transparent sourcing, and expert-authored content outperform SEO-optimized filler in training value. In genAI search, credibility is the new ranking factor. Authority wins the race The next evolution of search isn’t a race for keywords. It’s a race for context, credibility, and coverage. Build your digital footprint of authority through brand mentions now, while your competitors are still optimizing the 101 of site architecture and content hubs. Once they understand the new rules of discoverability, the knowledge graphs will already know who to trust. View the full article

The week is not off to a great start for much of the internet. In the early hours of the morning Pacific time, internet users around the world began experiencing issues with accessing various apps, websites, and platforms. Shortly after, a culprit emerged: Amazon Web Services (AWS)—or, more specifically, an outage at Amazon’s cloud computing platform. Here’s what you need to know about the AWS outage and what websites are affected. What’s happened? At around midnight Pacific time, internet users around the globe began experiencing issues accessing high-trafficked parts of the internet. Websites like Reddit, services like Lyft, and even apps from restaurant chains like McDonald’s seemed to be down or working intermittently. The source of the problem was shortly found: AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing platform that hundreds of thousands of websites and services rely on, including Reddit, Netflix, Pinterest, Spotify, and more. At 12:11 a.m. PDT, the AWS Health Dashboard posted its first notification about the problem, stating that the platform was “investigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.” By 12:51 a.m. PDT, AWS confirmed “increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region,” and by 1:26 a.m. PDT, AWS said it could “confirm significant error rates for requests made to the DynamoDB endpoint in the US-EAST-1 Region.” But though the problem seemed to be affecting only the endpoint located in one region of the United States, any website, app, or service that ran data through that endpoint could be affected by its outage—no matter where in the world the end-user was located. And that was bad news for users around the globe who were attempting to access some of the globe’s most highly trafficked sites and apps. What websites went down? Users around the world have reported troubles accessing dozens of websites, apps, and services, according to data compiled by DownDetector. As of this writing, the DownDetector home page is showing that multiple websites and services that rely on AWS are being reported as down, including: Amazon Amazon Alexa Amazon Prime Video Apple Music AT&T Chime Delta Air Lines Epic Games Store Fortnite Internet Movie Database (IMDb) Lyft Max McDonalds app Reddit Ring Robinhood Roblox Roku Playstation Network Signal Snapchat Spectrum Starbucks Steam Ubisoft Connect Venmo Xbox Network Xfinity by Comcast Zoom This list above is not exhaustive. Users of many other websites, apps, and services have also reported additional outages, including on Coinbase and United Airlines. It’s also worth noting that some report being able to access select sites and services, while others report no luck while attempting access. What caused the AWS outage? Amazon has not yet mentioned whether a specific cause has been identified. A spokesperson for AWS referred Fast Company to its status page, which is still being updated with new developments. How long will the outage last? It’s unknown how long the AWS outage will last or for how long your favorite site or service will be down. The last update on the AWS Health Dashboard, posted at 3:35 a.m. PDT and stated that “the underlying DNS issue has been fully mitigated,” adding “most AWS Service operations are succeeding normally now.” However, the same notice warned that “Some requests may be throttled while we work toward full resolution.” In other words, if you still can’t access your favorite site or platform, it’s best to try again in a little bit. This story is developing… View the full article

Rare earths are not the only Chinese product that America would struggle to replaceView the full article

Five weeks ago, Google announced a new feature named "Text'¬'­ guidelines'¬'­" at the Think Retail event. Google said these would roll out "over time this Fall." Well, some are now seeing the new feature.View the full article

Google is testing the ability to highlight portions of the response, to do a follow-up question on what you highlighted. It is similar to past tests on the AI Overview, but this is within AI Mode.View the full article

Overall, new 60-day-plus delinquencies totaled $2 billion, up from $1.69 billion in August, while maturity defaults accounted for half, or 51% ($1.05 billion) of new delinquencies. View the full article

Google is testing the paperclip style icon in the search results, by the search result snippets and description. Clicking anywhere on the paperclip or the snippet will take you to the webpage.View the full article

Google has added price tracking data charts for each retailer within Google Search. On the right side, after you click on a product, Google may show a price chart with pricing over time. Google may also let you click on the available merchants and retailers to see how the price has changed for that specific merchant over time.View the full article

Google now supports Sitelinks for local search ads in the Google Maps interface. They show in the form of a carousel, under a sponsored ad listing in the Google Maps interface.View the full article

Google’s crawl stats report is missing a single day of crawl data, which seems to be impacting all sites within Google Search Console. Google has not yet confirmed the issue but it seems to be impacting everyone. What it looks like. Here is a screenshot from one of my profiles within Search Console, showing the date that is missing for this site is October 14, 2025: Crawl stats report. The Crawl Stats report in Google Search Console shows you statistics about Google’s crawling history on your website. For instance, how many requests were made and when, what your server response was, and any availability issues encountered. You can use this report to detect whether Google encounters serving problems when crawling your site, Google said. You can access the report over here. History. This has happened a few times before, when this specific crawl stats report was missing a couple of days of data. Google did fix the report a day later, or maybe the data itself fixed the report a day later. It is unclear if Google will restore the data for this specific bug or not, we did reach out. It happened in May 2022 February 2022 November 2021 Reporting issue only. It is likely that this is just a reporting issue that will resolve itself in the coming days. I would not worry about this being a sign or not a sign of any Googlebot crawling issues. It is likely just an issue with the crawl stats report itself. Why we care. You may notice this data gap in your report and worry. There is no need to worry, everyone is seeing this data gap. This seems like a widespread reporting issue impacting all who try to check their crawl stats report. Give it a few days and check back later, but I doubt this has impacted your crawling, indexing or ranking in Google Search. View the full article

What they didn’t teach you in the marketing org chart: how to win when the window is closing. Picture a marketer who sees VIPs starting to lapse on a Thursday morning. By noon, they’ve pulled the data, developed three creative variants, launched a triggered journey and measured incremental improvement. No tickets, no queues, no committees. By Monday, the save rate is up 18%. That’s not luck; that’s Positionless Marketing. It’s do-it-now competence, powered by technology. The mindset comes straight from a classic business book: Mark McCormack’s “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School: Notes from a Street-smart Executive.” His playbook celebrates practical judgment, preparation, bias to action, relentless follow-through, relationships, and owning the details. Mark H. McCormack (1930–2003) was the lawyer-turned-entrepreneur who essentially invented modern sports marketing. He founded IMG in 1960 after a handshake deal with Arnold Palmer (later adding Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player) and pioneered athlete representation, brand endorsements, event management, licensing and media rights, building IMG into a global powerhouse. Positionless Marketing applies McCormack’s same street-smart principles to modern marketing by collapsing the assembly line so one marketer can prepare, act and close the loop without waiting on analysts, designers, or engineers. The result is speed with accountability. Here are five bridges from McCormack’s playbook to Positionless practice. 1) Preparation beats pedigree: Data power McCormack’s edge begins before the meeting: know the person, the room, the leverage. In Positionless Marketing, data power puts that prep at a marketer’s fingertips. Propensity scores, lifecycle stage, content affinity, margin constraints, channel history—surfaced instantly—let a single owner tailor the “pitch” (offer, timing, channel) before a touch ever goes out. Old way: Wait a week for an audience pull. Positionless way: Define and size the audience in minutes, with built in profit and frequency guardrails. 2) Bias to action: Creative power McCormack wouldn’t over-theorize; he’d get a proposal out today. Creative power does that for campaigns. Generative tools produce channel-ready copy and visuals in minutes, so a marketer can ship the minimum viable message now, not after a studio queue. Old way: Brief → sprint → reviews → missed moment. Positionless way: three variants live this afternoon, with tone, brand and compliance templates baked in. Generative AI drafts the headlines, renders the hero images and adapts copy for email, SMS and push… while a human marketer steers strategy and approves the output. 3) Follow-through is everything: Optimization power After the meeting, McCormack locked next steps. In Positionless, Optimization power is that follow-through: automated next-best actions, live tests and incrementality measurement that turn intent into outcomes. Old way: “Let’s see how it did” in next month’s deck. Positionless way: Experiments auto-allocate to winners, journeys self-tune, and show lift in real time. 4) Relationships over transactions: Personalization at scale People buy from people who “get” them. Positionless marketers orchestrate lifecycles that feel human because they’re timely and relevant: day-one welcomes that actually onboard; milestone nudges that reward progress; win-backs that reference history rather than reset to zero. Old way: the same 20%-off blast to everyone. Positionless way: right offer, right moment, right channel… because the context is understood. 5) Own the details: Cut the assembly line McCormack won on details. In Positionless Marketing, one owner controls the full chain: insight to creative to launch to measurement. Details don’t die in handoffs. No lost audiences, outdated extracts, mis-sized segments, or “we’ll fix it next sprint.” The same person who saw the opportunity can prove the outcome. This isn’t anti-strategy; it’s anti-handoff. Strategy sets the playing field… who we serve, what we promise, how we win. Positionless changes the physics of execution within that field. When the same marketer can prepare, create, and optimize in a single afternoon, the organization gains cycle time and clarity. Proof points from Positionless teams: Time-to-launch: From days to minutes. Campaigns that once took a week go live before lunch. Consider Caesars Entertainment that reduced campaign execution time from five days to five minutes Leading consumer brands have achieved 16.1x increase in purchase rates while saving 300 working hours per year, all with the same team size FDJ United condensed what used to require seven teams and six weeks into a single-person, single-day workflow A practical playbook: McCormack in spirit Equip every marketer with the three powers. Data access without tickets, generative creative with brand guardrails and optimization that runs by default. If a task requires a queue, ask why. Replace the static calendar with a rolling experiment backlog. Keep always-on journeys tuned; reserve the calendar for moments that truly require orchestration. Measure teams on learning velocity and incremental revenue. Codify “street smarts” as system smarts. Document quick wins: early access for loyalists, charm-tier offers that beat deep discounts, time-of-day effects, and turn them into reusable policies the platform enforces. McCormack’s lesson wasn’t “be reckless.” It was “be ready, act fast and follow through.” Positionless Marketing is that mindset operationalized. It takes the discipline of direct, data-driven marketing and removes the delay, giving one accountable owner the data power to prepare, the creative power to act and the optimization power to learn, again and again, until the results are undeniable. The marketing org chart may still list roles. But today’s marketing belongs to the person who can see the opportunity, move now, and prove what happened. That’s how deals got done in McCormack’s world. And Positionless is how marketing closes the deal with customers in real-time today. View the full article

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday. Gregg Renfrew is back. Four years after the entrepreneur sold her clean skincare and cosmetics brand Beautycounter to The Carlyle Group in a deal valued at $1 billion—and more than a year after she and the private equity firm shut down the company amid falling sales—Renfrew today is officially launching Counter, a new company built on Beautycounter assets she acquired from Carlyle’s lenders. A season of learning Counter, which has been quietly selling products online since June 25, shares its predecessor’s clean ethos and uses some of its formulations. Renfrew also secured data on all of Beautycounter’s customers. But Counter is an upstart compared with Beautycounter, which reportedly booked $400 million in annual sales at the time of the Carlyle acquisition. Despite her considerable experience as an entrepreneur—she previously cofounded a bridal registry site bought by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia—Renfrew is, in many ways, going back to basics, focusing on profitability and listening to customers and sellers. “I come into this today with a level of humility,” she tells Modern CEO. “I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’m in a season of learning.” Beautycounter’s demise was indeed humbling. (My Fast Company colleague Elizabeth Segran offers a thorough recounting of the company’s rise and fall.) Sales foundered and the company struggled to service its debt. Efforts to revive Beautycounter, such as a deal to sell its products in retailer Ulta Beauty, and changes to leadership, including the return of Renfrew as CEO in 2022, ultimately could not save the business. Renfrew says buying back the Beautycounter assets instead of starting a new company from scratch wasn’t just a way of kick-starting a business. It was an emotional decision, too. “To let the old company completely go and die when it pioneered, created, and led clean beauty—knowing that it had been a very successful entity at one point in time—I didn’t want to let go of all that,” Renfrew says. She adds: “My daughter Georgie was literally bawling in front of me saying, ‘You can’t just let this thing die. Mom, you worked so hard for so long.’” Second chances and lessons learned Renfrew is not the first founder with seller’s remorse. In 2023, Ben and Nate Checketts took back control of Rhone, the apparel brand they started, from investor L Catterton. Sprout Pharmaceuticals founder Cindy Eckert sold her company to Valeant Pharmaceuticals (now known as Bausch Health Companies Inc.) in 2015 for $1 billion, then bought it back two years later because the giant didn’t make “reasonable efforts” to commercialize Sprout’s female sexual health drug. At Counter, Renfrew is applying lessons learned the hard way from the Beautycounter collapse. She is not the majority shareholder, but she says she has a high degree of decision-making authority. Her backers are mostly individuals, most of whom invested with her before. The one institutional investor came in “knowing that we were going to do things a little bit differently,” such as prioritizing profitability over growth. “Profitability gives you optionality,” she says. “One of the things I’m very acutely aware of is you don’t ever want to be in a situation where you’re not profitable. And if that means the business is slightly smaller and it takes longer to grow, that’s okay, because your customers then know that you’re going to be around in five years.” She’s doing teleconference meetings with customers and sellers, asking what’s working and what’s not. “I’m seeking to understand and learn,” she says, adding that she “recognizes that we’re here in service of others who will afford us the opportunity to build a great brand and a great community.” Counter’s success is by no means assured. The clean beauty category Renfrew helped create is now crowded with competitors, and the demise of Beautycounter left employees, sellers—the company sold through its website but also through so-called ambassadors who earned a commission on sales—and customers in the lurch. Counter may have to, well, counter lingering negative feelings. “Those who continue to purchase from us in this new company—we owe a debt of gratitude,” Renfrew says. “We need to treat them with the respect that they deserve.” For Renfrew, one way of showing them that respect is, this time, to build a company that’s built to last. What’s your approach to business longevity? If you’re a founder or work at a founder-led company, what are the ways that your business is ensuring its longevity? Share your insights with me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and we’ll include some of the best reader feedback in a future newsletter. As a reminder, I’m soliciting nominations for Modern CEO of the Year via this form. Submissions are due November 21, and we’ll share our pick—or picks—in a newsletter at the end of December. Read and watch: entrepreneurial second acts Cindy Eckert on buying back sexual health company Sprout Pharmaceuticals Chipotle founder Steve Ells wants to shake up restaurants with his new concept, Kernel Mark Lore on what it takes to be a serial entrepreneur View the full article

Over the past few years, business leaders have lived through a masterclass in volatility. A global pandemic, supply chain breakdowns, surging cyberattacks, economic whiplash, and now the rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence have reshaped markets in unpredictable ways. For many executives, resilience once meant little more than business continuity planning: extra servers, backup systems, and insurance policies. But the world we lead in today demands more. Resilience is no longer just about defense—it’s about growth. The organizations that thrive amid disruption are not those with the strongest walls, but those with the most flexible foundations. They are able to absorb shocks, pivot quickly, and find opportunity where others see only risk. In a landscape defined by constant change, resilience has become the ultimate competitive advantage. From Recovery to Reinvention When the pandemic forced millions of people to work remotely overnight, some companies stumbled, scrambling to rewire systems and processes on the fly. Others adapted seamlessly, scaling their infrastructure, safeguarding data, and even uncovering new business opportunities. The difference wasn’t foresight—it was resilience. Resilient companies don’t wait for crises to test their systems. They build for adaptability from the start. This means modern digital infrastructure that can flex with demand, decision-making processes that prioritize speed and clarity over bureaucracy, and leadership cultures that empower teams to act quickly. Crucially, it also means a mindset shift: The goal is not to return to a “normal” that no longer exists. It’s to reinvent faster than your competitors. Resilience Across Three Dimensions Leaders often ask where to start. My experience points to three dimensions that define organizational resilience today: infrastructure, decision-making, and culture. 1. Infrastructure that bends, not breaks Digital infrastructure is the invisible backbone of every modern business. If it is brittle, the business is brittle. Legacy systems that can’t scale or integrate force organizations to spend more time fixing problems than creating value. By contrast, companies with modern, cloud-enabled infrastructure can adapt quickly—whether to reroute supply chains, scale up for surges in customer demand, or safeguard data against emerging cyber threats. For example, when ransomware attacks spiked during the pandemic, companies with strong cyber resilience strategies—combining secure storage, rapid recovery, and smart automation—were able to restore operations in hours, not weeks. They didn’t just avoid losses; they preserved customer trust. And when AI applications exploded onto the scene, those with flexible, well-governed data environments could test and deploy faster than rivals still wrestling with fragmented systems. 2. Decision-making at the speed of change In uncertain environments, resilience depends as much on how decisions are made as on the data that informs them. Traditional hierarchies slow response times, with insights stuck in silos and approvals delayed by bureaucracy. Resilient organizations create clarity about who decides what and empower people closest to the action to act. They ensure data flows across departments so that leaders at every level have a shared picture of reality. This approach marries speed with accountability. In my conversations with executives, I often hear stories of how front-line empowerment made the difference in moments of disruption—retail managers adjusting inventory strategies in real time, or manufacturing supervisors reconfiguring production on the fly. These shifts didn’t happen because the CEO dictated every move; they happened because the organization trusted its people to act on data-driven insights quickly, and ensured the data they rely on is accessible, reliable, and available where and when it’s needed. 3. Culture as the engine of resilience Infrastructure and processes matter, but ultimately resilience is human. It is defined by how people respond under pressure—and whether they feel empowered to adapt and innovate. Resilient cultures are built on trust and psychological safety. Employees who feel trusted are more willing to experiment. Teams that feel supported are more likely to take ownership. Leaders who model adaptability create a ripple effect that normalizes flexibility across the organization. This human dimension is often overlooked, but it is what allows resilience to scale. Without it, even the most advanced systems and strategies will falter. With it, organizations can turn volatility into a proving ground for growth. Why Resilience Now Means Growth It may sound counterintuitive to equate resilience with offense, not just defense. But the connection is real. When uncertainty is constant, the ability to adapt faster than competitors is itself a growth strategy. Consider how cloud transformation, once viewed as a cost play, is now enabling new digital business models. Or how investments in cyber resilience not only prevent losses, but also unlock customer confidence—a critical differentiator in trust-sensitive industries. Or how AI adoption, grounded in resilient data strategies, is enabling companies to innovate while others struggle with integration challenges. In each case, resilience doesn’t just protect the enterprise—it expands its possibilities. It shifts the narrative from “How do we recover?” to “How do we reinvent?” The Leadership Imperative The challenge for leaders is to stop treating resilience as an insurance policy and start treating it as a core strategy. That requires moving beyond siloed initiatives—one group working on cybersecurity, another on supply chains, another on culture—and instead weaving resilience into every layer of the business. The most effective leaders I’ve seen approach resilience as a flywheel: Modern infrastructure supports faster decisions; faster decisions empower people; empowered people innovate in ways that strengthen the system further. Over time, resilience compounds into sustainable advantage. Resilience used to mean survival. Today, it is the strategy that separates those who stumble from those who soar. For leaders, the priority is no longer defense against disruption; it is building resilience as the engine of growth. View the full article

Party accuses council members of bringing Reform ‘into disrepute’ as film of private meeting shows fractious disputeView the full article