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We may earn a commission from links on this page. The Oura Advisor, an AI feature formerly tucked away in Oura’s beta testing program, is now rolling out to all Oura Ring customers. It takes the form of a chatbot that you can start a conversation with at any time from within the Oura app—plus the Advisor promises to “check in” with you daily, weekly, or three times a week, depending on what you request. But do you actually want it to do any of those things? What does the Oura Advisor do? Credit: Beth Skawrecki Honestly, this seems to be a pretty standard fitness app AI—meaning that all it really does is restate metrics from the app in a more conversational tone. The Advisor itself told me that it "analyze[s] your Oura data to provide insights and guidance tailored to your health goals." Its language is in the same style as the little encouraging sentences you get on the Oura home screen, and it tends to repeat the same kinds of advice. When you open a chat with the Advisor, it asks what you’d like to talk about. So far I haven’t gotten it to tell me anything that wasn’t already obvious from other screens of the app. When I asked why my resting heart rate has been high lately, it gave a generic list of reasons that a resting heart rate might be high for anyone. When I asked it for an “insight” (since it told me that its job is to provide insights), it told me my cardiovascular age, which is a metric that also appears on my app home screen. How to turn on the Oura AdvisorUntil recently, you had to opt in to Oura Labs (the beta testing program) to access the Advisor. It’s still rolling out to all users, so if you want to try it in the meantime, you can turn on any Oura Labs features you like by going to the menu in the top left corner, selecting Oura Labs, and choosing what “experiments” you’d like to turn on. (There is currently a meal tracking feature, and a “heart check-in.”) You do have to use the app in English, although Oura says they're planning to offer the Advisor in other languages in the future. Once the Advisor is enabled, you can tap the “+” in the bottom right corner (the same place you would add an activity or start a meditation session) and choose Advisor. This opens up the chat, and from this screen you can also adjust the Advisor’s settings. How to change settings and delete “memories” on the Oura AdvisorIn the chat, you can tap a settings icon in the upper right corner of the screen. The available settings are: Style: Conversational, conversational, or direct. I can’t tell if the two “conversational” options are different, or if the duplication is an error on Oura’s part. Check-in notifications: Daily, three times a week, or weekly; you can also set whether your preferred time of day is morning, afternoon, or evening (or any combination) Memories: The Advisor remembers things you’ve told it about yourself. My Memories section has “The user participates in competitive weightlifting,” and “the user has been sick,” both things I told it directly in our conversations. You can delete a memory by tapping the trash can icon next to it. There is also a button to “reset” the advisor, which means all settings, conversations, and memories will be deleted. To test what it’s getting from its memories, I asked the advisor if its data suggested I was getting sick. With the “memory” of my illness, it said yes, and suggested I might want to focus on recovery today. After deleting that memory, I asked the same question again. It said that my resting heart rate suggests I’ve been under some stress, and that I might want to focus on recovery today. Is the Oura Advisor worthwhile? So far I haven’t seen the Advisor hallucinate data or say anything inappropriate, but it also hasn’t told me anything I would consider an “insight.” I tried asking it about data that I can’t easily read from the app—like my long term resilience trends—and it said it didn’t have that data available. On the Oura subreddit, most posts about the Advisor seem to be complaints that it isn't doing anything interesting, but one user said they were able to get the Advisor to talk to them about their meal choices logged with the Meals feature, which is still in beta. One user said the Advisor helped them to improve their resilience score, but they didn't provide much information about how it did that, just that they gave the advisor specific information about things like their sleep schedule. Now that the feature has rolled out to more users, perhaps we'll find out whether more people find it useful. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: For some reason — largely due to how bad the job market currently is for replaceable lifelong individual contributors — I’ve been following one of those quasi-influencer recruiter types on LinkedIn for a little while. Some of his advice is decent, and at the very least he pokes fun of all the problems with job-seeking in 2025. But this appeared on my LinkedIn feed just now: “Your job title matters. If your company gave you an internal title that no one understands, tweak it to something more industry-standard. Just keep it accurate…don’t inflate it. Your resume should be clear to an outsider, not just your past company.” Wouldn’t this just open a candidate up to confusion at best during a reference check? Personally my own title is definitely more grandiose in name than in practice, but if I changed “ABC” to something more accurate like “XYZ” in order to get a new role and then they called my current manager to ask whether I was in fact XYZ, surely that would raise questions with the potential new employer about my trustworthiness and accuracy. Interested to hear whether my suspicion was right or if I’m wildly off-base here! Well, yes and no. It’s true that you want to avoid problems where a prospective employer verifies your title during a reference check or background check and discovers it’s wrong. It’s also true that it’s important for your resume to convey what your role really was, and some titles really don’t do a good job of that. For example, let’s say you have a vague title like Analyst Level 1. One easy solution to that is to list your correct title but then a more explanatory one in parentheses immediately following it, like this: Taco Institute, Analyst Level 1 (Taco Strategy Coordinator) Or you could even do that in reverse: Taco Institute, Taco Strategy Coordinator (Analyst Level 1) That way, it’s clear what your job was but you won’t look like you were being misleading if they confirm it. (That assumes that the bulk of your work really is taco strategy, of course. Your descriptive title needs to be accurate.) But let’s say you left out Analyst Level 1 entirely, and that came up in a background check. It’s not guaranteed that it would disqualify you; they might be perfectly capable of figuring out that the work is indeed the work of a taco strategy coordinator, and there might be no issues with moving forward. But it also might not go that way, and it’s better not to introduce the possibility of problems. What you definitely can’t do is to give yourself a promotion. If your title is Taco Strategy Coordinator, you can’t list yourself as Director of Taco Strategy, even if you’re working at a director level and believe your title should have reflected that all along. However, in that case, you’d make very sure that the other info you list for that job makes clear the level you were working at. View the full article

Banning the far-right leader from standing for office will inflame French politicsView the full article

Google Ads will update its Unfair Advantage Policy to clarify that the restriction on showing more than one ad at a time for the same business, app, or site only applies within a single ad location. This change, staring April 14, follows recent experiments allowing multiple ads from the same advertiser in different locations on the search results page. What’s happening. Double serving now permitted: Advertisers can now run multiple ads for the same business, app, or site on a single search results page—provided they occupy different ad locations. This could potentially increase visibility and clicks for top advertisers but may also intensify competition for smaller players. Shifting auction dynamics: Google’s updated policy leverages different ad locations to run separate auctions, allowing businesses to secure multiple placements. This adjustment aligns with Google’s evolving approach to ads, such as mixing ads with organic results and redefining top ad placements last year. Why we care. This update opens up opportunities to dominate search results by showing multiple ads for the same business in different ad locations. This could lead to increased visibility, higher click-through rates, and more conversions. However, it may also drive up competition and costs, especially for smaller advertisers, as larger brands gain more SERP real estate. Understanding this change is crucial for adapting bidding and placement strategies to stay competitive. Industry reactions. Digital marketing expert Navah Hopkins of Optmyzr noted on LinkedIn: “Google is officially making it fair game to have more than one spot on the SERP. I have thoughts on this, but I want to see how performance actually shakes out in Q2.” Digital marketing expert Boris Beceric commented that Google is only chasing the money: “Another case of Google liking money more than a good user experience…not even talking from an advertiser’s perspective.” Bigger picture. This policy shift marks another fundamental change in Google Ads’ long-standing practices, raising questions about how SERP real estate and competition will evolve. Bottom line. This update could create new opportunities for advertisers to dominate search results, but it might also make it harder for smaller businesses to compete. The real impact will become clearer as the industry adapts in the coming months. View the full article

For most baseball fans, hope springs eternal on Opening Day. Many of those fans—more than you might think—are women. A 2024 survey found that women made up 39% of those who attended or watched Major League Baseball games, and franchises have taken notice. The Philadelphia Phillies offer behind-the-scenes tours and clinics for their female fans, while the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees offer fantasy camps that are geared to women. The number of women working professionally in baseball has also grown. Kim Ng made history in 2020 when she became the first woman general manager of an MLB team, the Miami Marlins. As of 2023, women made up 30% of central office professional staff and 27% of team senior administration jobs. In addition, 43 women held coaching and managerial jobs across the major and minor league levels—a 95% increase in just two years. As a fan and scholar of the game, I’m happy to see more women watching baseball and working in the industry. But it still nags at me that the girls and women who play baseball don’t get much recognition, particularly in the U.S. Women take the field In the U.S., baseball is seen as a sport for boys and men. Girls and women, on the other hand, are supposed to play softball, which uses a bigger ball and has a smaller field. It wasn’t always this way. Women have been playing baseball in the U.S. since at least the 1860s. At women’s colleges such as Smith and Vassar, students organized baseball teams as early as 1866. The first professional women’s baseball team was known as the Dolly Vardens, a team of Black players formed in Philadelphia in 1867. Barnstorming teams, known as Bloomer Girls, traveled across the country to play against men’s teams from the 1890s to the 1930s, providing the players with independence and the means to make a living. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, founded by Philip K. Wrigley in 1943, also offered women the chance to play professionally. The league, which inspired the 1992 film A League of Their Own, enforced rigid norms of femininity expected at the time. Players were required to wear skirts and makeup while playing and were fined if they engaged in any behavior deemed “unladylike.” Teams were open only to white women and light-skinned Latinas. Black women were not allowed to play, a policy that reflected the segregation of the Jim Crow era. Three Black women—Connie Morgan, Mamie “Peanut” Johnson, and Toni Stone—did play in the otherwise male Negro Leagues in the early 1950s. However, their skills were often downplayed by claims that they’d been signed to generate ticket sales and boost interest in the struggling league. The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League folded in 1954, and by the late-1950s women’s participation in baseball had dwindled. Girls funneled into softball Softball was invented in Chicago in 1887 as an indoor alternative to baseball. Originally aimed at both men and women, it eventually became the accepted sport for girls and women due to its smaller field, larger ball, and underhand pitching style—aspects deemed suitable for the supposedly weaker and more delicate female body. The passage of Title IX in 1972 further pushed the popularization of fast-pitch softball, as participation in high school and college increased markedly. In 1974, the National Organization for Women filed a lawsuit against Little League Baseball because the league’s charter excluded girls from playing. The lawsuit was successful, and girls were permitted to join teams. In response, Little League created Little League Softball as a way to funnel girls into softball instead of baseball. As political scientist Jennifer Ring has pointed out, this decision reinforced the gendered division of each sport and “cemented the post-Title IX segregated masculinity of baseball.” Girls can still play baseball, but most are encouraged to eventually switch to softball if they want to pursue college scholarships. If they want to keep playing baseball, they have to constantly confront stubborn cultural beliefs and assumptions that they should be playing softball instead. A global game You might be surprised to learn that the U.S. fields a national women’s baseball team that competes in the Women’s Baseball World Cup. But they receive scant media attention and remain unknown to most baseball fans. In a 2019 article published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, I argued that the U.S. has experienced inconsistent success on the global stage because of a lack of infrastructure, limited resources, and persistent gendered assumptions that hamper the development of women’s baseball. Other countries such as Japan, Canada, and Australia have established solid pathways that allow girls and women to pursue baseball from the youth level through high school and beyond. That being said, opportunities for girls to play baseball are increasing in the U.S. thanks to the efforts of organizations such as Baseball for All and DC Girls Baseball. Approximately 1,300 girls play high school baseball, and a handful of young women play on men’s college baseball teams each year. In recent years, numerous women’s collegiate club baseball teams have been established; there’s even an annual tournament to crown a national champion. Pro league in the works Momentum continues to build. MLB recently appointed Veronica Alvarez as its first girls baseball ambassador, who will oversee development programs such as the Trailblazers Series and the Elite Development Invitational. A new documentary film, See Her Be Her, is touring the country to celebrate the growth of women’s baseball and raise awareness of the challenges these athletes face. Perhaps most significantly, the Women’s Pro Baseball League announced that it is planning to start play in summer 2026 with six teams located in the northeastern U.S. Over 500 players from 11 countries have registered with the league, with a scouting camp and player draft scheduled for later this year. Should the league have success, it will mark a revitalization of women’s professional baseball in the U.S., a nod to the rich history of the women’s game and a commitment to securing opportunities for the girls and women who continue to defy cultural norms to play the game they love. Callie Maddox is an associate professor of sport leadership and management at Miami University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you like to buy in bulk or just want one less thing to worry about during weekly errands, this sale might be worth the look: You can get a one-year membership to Sam's Club for $25 right now on StackSocial. It's half the usual price, but the catch is that it’s only for new members in the U.S. If you're eligible, though, the sale opens up access to warehouse prices on groceries, household staples, electronics, furniture, and even tires. It’s not just bulk cereal and 40-roll packs of paper towels anymore—there’s a surprising amount of variety on the shelves. You’ll need to activate your membership within 30 days of buying the code (and definitely before May 28, 2025, or the promo becomes invalid). Also, the code is non-transferable, so make sure you’re signing up for yourself. Sam’s Club uses a limited-item business model, meaning fewer brands per category but carefully selected products across the board. From what regular members say, the quality holds up well, especially in categories like meat, produce, and household cleaning. The membership also includes perks like discounts on travel, rental cars, concert tickets, and even movie nights—so there’s some value beyond groceries. You can shop in-store at one of their 597 U.S. locations or browse online through mobile and desktop platforms. Just be prepared for the occasional treasure hunt feel—inventory can vary. That said, this deal includes auto-renewal, which means your card will be charged yearly (currently $50 for Club members, plus taxes) unless you cancel. If you like buying snacks for months in one go, finding discounts on random big-ticket items, or just having one place to cover most of your shopping list, this might be a practical pick. If you're more of a once-a-week, two-bags-max kind of shopper, it may not be worth the warehouse dive. View the full article

Upgrade today to CPA Trendlines PRO Membership – your all-access pass to premium insights, strategies and tools designed just for you. Go to https://GoProCPA.com Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

Upgrade today to CPA Trendlines PRO Membership – your all-access pass to premium insights, strategies and tools designed just for you. Go to https://GoProCPA.com Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

The huge valuations ascribed to X and xAI have raised eyebrowsView the full article

Even if you don't use a PC, you probably know about the Blue Screen of Death (or BSOD). This iconic error screen has been a core component of Windows since the OS' first version (though it looked a bit more like something out of The Matrix back then). The BSOD isn't something you necessarily want to see—especially if you're Bill Gates showing off a new version of Windows—as it means some factor has crashed your system, and now your PC needs to restart. However, soon enough, when you do see it, you might not actually recognize it. As it happens, Microsoft is changing the look of the BSOD. The company announced the redesign in a Friday post on the Windows Insider blog. (The Windows Insider program allows software testers to try out new Windows features early before Microsoft launches them to the public.) In addition to a number of other new features and changes testers can try, there's the new BSOD, which Microsoft says is "more streamlined" and "better aligns with Windows 11 design principles," while maintaining the same technical information you'd expect from the traditional blue screen. The thing is, this new Blue Screen of Death isn't even blue. During testing, it appears green, but the screen will eventually be black when it rolls out to the public. (At least the BSOD acronym still holds up.) Further, the text you'll see is different. Gone is the emoticon of a frowny-face, which has defined the BSOD look since Windows 8. Now, the screen presents a simple message: "Your device ran into a problem, and needs to restart," followed by the current progress of the restart represented by a percentage. At the very bottom of the screen, you can see the stop code, as well as what failed. Credit: Microsoft This is far from the first time Microsoft has changed the BSOD for Windows. Martin Nobel has a great timeline of the changes, starting with that very first "Matrix-esque" screen back in Windows 1.0, to the warning Windows users of the 90s and 2000s are likely acutely acquainted with, all the way to the present design scheme kicked off with 2012's Windows 8. The color, too, has flip-flopped over the years. Microsoft experimented with a black BSOD for Windows NT, Windows 8, Windows 10, and even an earlier version of Windows 11. If you hate change, there's a chance Microsoft could flip back to blue down the line. How to try out Windows' new Blue Screen of Death I hope you don't run into a BSOD often. However, if you'd like your next encounter with a system crash to be with the new error screen, you'll need to enroll your PC in the Windows Insider program. Since the Insider program lets you test out new versions of Windows before the general public, there is a risk for bugs and other issues following the install. Make sure any important data is backed up before enrolling. If you're OK with those risks, you can follow our guide here to enroll your PC. This particular change is rolling out to the Canary, Dev, and Beta Channels, not the Release Preview Channel, so you'll need to enroll in one of these three channels in order to see the new BSOD. If you're looking to minimize your risk, I'd recommend the Beta channel here. This channel features builds that Microsoft has already tested, which means some of the issues have likely already been discovered and patched. It's not risk-free, but it offers a better balance than Dev, which throws the newest Windows features your way that haven't necessarily been tested yet. View the full article

AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel As gerontologists—social scientists who study aging populations—we envision a future in which older people leave a doctor’s visit with a prescription to go volunteer for something. Does that sound far-fetched? There’s scientific research backing it up. Good for your health While spending more than a dozen years researching what happens when older adults volunteer with nonprofits, including churches, we’ve found that volunteers consider themselves to be in better health than their peers who don’t. In addition, their blood pressure is lower, and they appear to be aging more slowly than other people of the same age. Other researchers have found that volunteering is associated with a lower risk of having a heart attack. The mental health benefits are just as striking. Volunteering is tied to having fewer symptoms of depression and being more satisfied with your life. It often brings an instant boost in mood—along with a deeper sense of meaning and purpose. Even engaging in what’s known as “informal helping”—lending a hand to friends, neighbors, or community members in need, without getting paid or participating in an organized program—can help you in similar ways. There are also health benefits for those who start volunteering much earlier in life. Children and teens who volunteer tend to have better health and lower levels of anxiety and fewer behavioral problems than those who don’t volunteer. Changing demographics The number of U.S. adults at least 62 years old—the earliest age at which you can claim Social Security retirement benefits—has grown by nearly 35 million since 2000, while the number of children and teens under 18 has fallen by nearly 1.5 million. There are now about 76 million Americans over 62 and 71 million under 18. This change has been gradual. Following a long-term demographic shift, record numbers of Americans are reaching retirement age. https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/FWpvb/1 Benefits for society and the economy The benefits of volunteering aren’t just for the volunteers themselves. The total value of the hours of unpaid work volunteers put in totals an estimated U.S.$170 billion each year, according to AmeriCorps, the federal agency focused on national and community service. And participating in community service programs can lead to better job prospects for volunteers, that same agency has found. AmeriCorps Seniors, which focuses on engaging volunteers ages 55 and older, runs programs that offer major benefits to their communities. These include the Foster Grandparent program, which connects older adult mentors to children, and the Senior Companion program, which connects volunteers to older adults seeking some help to continue living independently in their own homes. A current AmeriCorps Seniors pilot program is helping adults 55 and up, who can have more trouble landing new jobs than younger people, gain new job skills through their community service. People of all ages can get together through volunteering. Some organizations intentionally encourage this kind of intergenerational cooperation, including CoGenerate and Generations United. https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/MYh8W/1 Rebuilding communities Researchers have also found that volunteering may increase trust within a community, especially when it brings together people from different backgrounds. It can strengthen “social cohesion,” a term researchers use to describe how much people bond and help each other, and reduce prejudice. Volunteers’ views on social issues may change through their work, too: More than 4 in 5 adults over 55 who tutored public school students to strengthen their reading skills in the national Experience Corps program, for example, stated that their views on public education evolved as a result. Those volunteers expressed more support for public education and said they’d be more likely to vote in favor of spending on schools. An American pastime Our findings are backed by science, but they also have roots in American history. Alexis de Tocqueville—a French philosopher and diplomat who arrived in the United States in 1831 to study the new nation’s penal system—was so impressed by the scale of volunteering in the U.S. that he wrote about it in his 1835 book Democracy in America. Tocqueville observed that “Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds” were likely to unite in many kinds of groups or associations. More recently, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has said that volunteering can strengthen communities, and that “community is a powerful source of life satisfaction and life expectancy.” If you aren’t volunteering today, here are a few ideas to help you begin. Start small. Try joining an organization or association in your community, taking part in neighborhood cleanups, or volunteering at your local senior center, animal shelter, or museum. Love gardening? You can take care of local parks, conservation areas, community gardens, and more. Once you’re ready for a bigger commitment, consider becoming a mentor through programs such as OASIS Intergenerational Tutoring or Big Brothers Big Sisters. And consider a more extensive level of commitment to organizations or causes you care deeply about. This might include joining a nonprofit board of directors, volunteering more hours, or taking on a volunteer leadership role. At a time when trust is eroding and divisions seem insurmountable, volunteering offers something rare: an evidence-backed way to reconnect with communities, institutions, and each other. Reach out to your favorite nonprofit, visit Volunteer.gov or VolunteerMatch.org, or connect with a nonprofit resource center, a regional United Way or a community foundation to find volunteer opportunities near you. Cal J. Halvorsen is an associate professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Seoyoun Kim is an associate adjunct of sociology at the University of Michigan. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

Company had £736mn of debt at end of 2023, much of it from entities controlled by its Chinese parent JingyeView the full article

If you're a gamer, beware a new malware that's pretending to be an ASUS utility. CoffeeLoader impersonates Armoury Crate, which manages ASUS and ROG software and peripherals, and infects your Windows machine with an infostealer that's nearly impossible to detect. How CoffeeLoader malware works According to an analysis by ZScaler, once on your system, the CoffeeLoader malware delivers the Rhadamanthys infostealer, which can extract credentials from applications like web browsers, email clients, crypto wallets, and even the password manager KeePass. CoffeeLoader then manages to evade most security tools on your device, including antivirus software and malware detectors, making it especially dangerous and difficult to catch. It does this in part by running on the graphics card (GPU), which security tools aren't as likely to scan, rather than your computer's CPU. It also uses techniques like Call Stack Spoofing, which changes its trail of function calls to appear harmless, and Sleep Obfuscation, through which it encrypts and locks itself in your computer's memory so it's unreadable to security scanners. CoffeeLoader will also use pathways like Windows Fibers that are less likely to be monitored by security software. How to protect your machine from CoffeeLoader malwareMalware like CoffeeLoader spreads successfully in part because it often looks like something trustworthy. Hackers may impersonate a brand like ASUS, leading you to believe you're downloading real software, whether from an ad, an online forum, a fake website found in search results, or a phishing attack via email or messenger app. To prevent a malware infection, use caution when downloading utilities or any type of software to your machine. Always go directly to the official site—rather than clicking through search results or a forum link—to ensure you're getting the real thing. You should also follow basic cybersecurity best practices, like avoiding clicking links or opening attachments in messages that could be malicious. If you believe your device is infected, there are a few steps you can take to remove malware from your machine. Start by disconnecting your PC from the internet and rebooting in safe mode. Search for and delete temporary files (Settings > System > Storage > Local Disk > Temporary files) and check Task Manager for suspicious activity or processes running on your device. In general, you can use a malware scanner to identify and remove infections. View the full article

Melody Wilding is a professor of human behavior at Hunter College and was recently named one of Insider’s “most innovative career coaches.” Her background as a therapist and emotions researcher informs her unique approach, weaving evidence-based neuroscience and psychology with professional development. She is the author of Trust Yourself. What’s the big idea? Do you feel stuck navigating office politics, micromanagement, or being overlooked at work? In Managing Up, human behavior professor and executive coach Melody Wilding reveals how to subtly teach those above you to respect your ideas—without needing a title change. Through real-life stories and research-backed strategies, she breaks down 10 key conversations that help you build influence, set boundaries, and operate from a position of power. Packed with actionable scripts and expert insights, this book is a must-read for anyone ready to take control of their career. Below, Melody shares five key insights from her new book, Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge. Listen to the audio version—read by Melody herself—in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Managing up is not about making your boss’s life easier. It’s about taking control of your own work experience. We often equate managing up with sucking up—knowing your boss’s coffee order, agreeing with everything they say, jumping at their urgent requests. Turning yourself into a professional yes-person may have been enough to get ahead 10 or 20 years ago, but things have changed. We’re working in a world of hybrid teams, instant messaging, and four generations collaborating side by side. Your leader might be younger than you, expertise matters more than hierarchy, and “face time” happens through Zoom. In this new reality, you need to get buy-in for your ideas even when budgets are tight, and to have strong boundaries when yet another task is dumped on your plate. Let’s face it: there will always be managers who are scattered, conflict-avoidant, or terrible at giving feedback. But when you master managing up, you’re no longer at the mercy of their limitations. This is why managing up is NOT about your boss at all. It’s about you doing your best work and securing the resources, opportunities, and recognition you deserve. Your career growth and peace of mind at work depend not only on how you perform your responsibilities but also on how effectively you advocate for yourself, influence decision-makers, and design the conditions for your success. The moment you shift from “How can I please my boss, how can I stay in their good graces?” to “How can I partner with my boss to achieve my goals and theirs?” new possibilities open. By stepping out of the “order taker” role and into a “respected advisor” mindset, you’re leveling the playing field. 2. There’s a method to managing up. If you’ve been told that you need to get better at influencing upward, then you’ve probably received some of this advice: Come with solutions, not problems! Build trust with leadership! Anticipate their needs! Make them look good! Be proactive! These pithy one-liners sound good but tend to be oversimplified and fall apart the minute things get complicated or don’t go as planned. Which, if we’re honest, might be often. You don’t have time to duct tape and shoestring scattered strategies together… and it’s not going to work for long. “When you master managing up, you’re no longer at the mercy of their limitations.” That’s precisely why I developed the 10 conversations framework—to give you a comprehensive, systematic roadmap to master the skill of managing up, where each step conversations build on the next. When I say conversations, this includes the overlooked opportunities and interactions we have every day to shape our leaders’ perception of us, like those two minutes before everyone else joins the meeting when it’s just you and the VP making small talk. The book begins with the most foundational conversations: Alignment: How do I know which tasks are most crucial to focus on? Styles: How can I work with different personalities? Ownership: What can I do to present—and go after— my ideas without overstepping? Boundaries: What do I say when my manager dumps yet another task on my plate? Feedback: How do I voice my opinion and deliver criticism up the chain of command? These conversations give way to more advanced ones later in the book—networking, visibility, advancement, money, and eventually even the quitting conversation. 3. Psychology is your secret advantage. You know those moments that make you want to pull your hair out? Your boss needs three meetings to make a decision that feels obvious. Your brilliant idea gets shot down because you “didn’t build enough consensus.” Your promotion gets delayed despite your team’s record-breaking quarter. It’s tempting to throw your hands up. To label your boss as “difficult.” To take it personally. But here’s what my career as a researcher and coach has taught me: When we say someone is “difficult,” what we often mean is they’re different: They process information differently than we do. They make decisions in a way that feels foreign to us. They have pressures and priorities we can’t see. Until you understand what actually drives decisions at the top—the hidden incentives, the competing agendas, the unspoken fears—you’re just throwing tactics at the wall and hoping something sticks. Every strategy in this book is grounded in the science of persuasion, trust-building, and more. As you rise in your career, how you handle the people dynamics around you gives you an edge: Instead of getting frustrated that your big-picture boss cares about the details, you lead with the vision. Instead of feeling dismissed when your risk-averse leader seems resistant, you address their concerns before they voice them. Instead of getting frustrated when an action-oriented executive shoots down ideas mid-sentence, you lead with the bottom line and save the context for follow-up. 4. Go beyond your boss. Think about your last major project. You probably had to coordinate with stakeholders across three different departments. Your resources might be controlled by someone you’ve never met. That promotion you want? It’s likely being decided by a committee. The truth is, your boss might be your biggest advocate, but they’re just one voice in a chorus of decision-makers shaping your career. I see this reality check hit hard when people come to me frustrated: “I don’t get it. My boss loves me. So why do I keep getting passed over?” Nine times out of ten, it’s because they’ve invested everything in that one relationship while ignoring the broader network of senior leaders who influence their success. Today’s workplaces are a complex web of dotted lines, matrix reporting, and cross-functional teams. When it comes to internal networking, focus on connecting with three groups: decision-makers who control resources and opportunities, power peers who are rising stars across the organization, and behind-the-scenes operators who make everything actually happen (assistants, HR, IT). “Before you can ask for career sponsorship or resources, ask for information.” Use what I call the “info-ask” strategy. Before you can ask for career sponsorship or resources, ask for information. Maybe it’s best practices from that VP whose project you want to join, insights into how approvals really happen from that senior director, or vendor recommendations from that influential peer. This approach does three powerful things: it signals respect for others’ expertise, demonstrates a genuine desire to learn (not just take), and creates natural follow-up opportunities to share how their advice helped. 5. You teach people how to treat you in the workplace. It’s easy to feel powerless at work. The latest reorg shifted your role. Your team’s headcount got frozen. Your skip-level keeps scheduling over your focus time. During the last few years, the number of professionals who believe they have little to no control over their careers, futures, and work relationships has doubled. A staggering forty percent of workers grapple with a sense of helplessness. But here’s what most people miss: Every interaction is a chance to subtly shape how others treat you. When your boss dumps a last-minute project on your team, you have a choice. You could just say yes (and reinforce that your time doesn’t matter), or you could say, “I can take this on, but it means pushing back the Q2 planning work we discussed. Which would you prefer I prioritize?” This simple trade-off shows you’re strategic, not just accommodating. When an executive criticizes your work in front of the team, you could stay quiet (teaching them this behavior is acceptable), or you could say, “Could we discuss these concerns one-on-one? It would help me better understand your expectations.” This shows you’re professional while setting a clear boundary about how you expect feedback to be delivered. You have more power than you realize to shape the dynamics around you. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. At a time when many Americans are struggling with rising costs of living, too many corporate executives are making it clear that they have no idea what life is like for their employees. We regularly hear accounts at AAM of out-of-touch executives who have alienated large portions of their workforce – often via clueless displays of wealth at the exact same time that they’re laying off employees, increasing health insurance costs, or otherwise squeezing their workers. At Slate today, I share some shocking examples of this, and talk about how it hurts both employers and employees. You can read it here. View the full article

Shares of the president’s company fell on the state’s market amid a broad sell-off fuelled by his trade agendaView the full article

Bonus: Turn your clients into loyal fans. By Alan Anderson, CPA Transforming Audit for the Future Go PRO for members-only access to more Alan Anderson. View the full article

Bonus: Turn your clients into loyal fans. By Alan Anderson, CPA Transforming Audit for the Future Go PRO for members-only access to more Alan Anderson. View the full article

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Reddit launches new campaign import, GTM integration, and QA tools to make Reddit Ads setup and optimization faster and simpler for small businesses. The post Reddit Introduces Faster Ad Setup and Pixel Integration appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Even the most powerful nation in the world needs foreign investment View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Sonos brand is well known in the smart speaker and surround sound space. And very much like Apple, people will pay a premium price for their minimalistic, premium quality, and discounts are often hard to come by. But today, the Sonos Arc, which was Sonos' flagship soundbar prior to the launch of the Sonos Arc Ultra, is $599, $300 off its usual $899 price. It's also a record low price for this model, according to price-tracking tools. Maximum Output Power: 110 Watts, Connectivity Technology: Wi-Fi, Audio Output Mode: Surround Mount. Sonos Arc Soundbar $599.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $899.00 Save $300.00 Get Deal Get Deal $599.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $899.00 Save $300.00 SEE -2 MORE Sonos speakers are not for everyone, if only because you'll have to justify paying around two grand for a complete surround sound system when you can get a setup like the Samsung Q990C for about half the price. But audiophiles swear they can hear the difference, so the cost might be worth it to you. If you pick up this soundbar, you'll want to consider the Sonos 300 rear speakers and the Gen 4 subwoofer to go with it—they're the latest Sonos has to offer, though you can choose Eras 100 or an older or smaller subwoofer to lower the price tag. As for the Arc, it offers Dolby Atmos, providing immersive three-dimensional sound with height channels that simulate audio coming from above you (you can read the details in PCMag's "excellent" review). It offers enough of a low-end kick that you don't really need a subwoofer if you have a small space. If you already own other Sonos speakers, you can seamlessly connect them through the Sonos app to create a surround sound setup or a multi-room system. View the full article

Here’s everything you need to know about setting up an integration to sync Azure DevOps and Salesforce work items with an automated 2-way sync using Unito. Since Unito is a no-code, completely customizable platform, you don’t need any IT resources to set up your first secure integration. You don’t need to troubleshoot scripts or bring in third-party consultants, either. More of a visual learner? Learn how to set up a Unito flow in this video tutorial. In this article: Why sync Azure DevOps and Salesforce? Step 1. Connect Azure DevOps and Salesforce to Unito Step 2. Choose a flow direction for new tasks and work items Step 3. Set rules to exclude tasks or items from syncing Step 4. Configure Azure DevOps and Salesforce fields Step 5. Launch your Azure DevOps-Salesforce integration Why sync Azure DevOps and Salesforce? Azure DevOps (or ADO) is a key tool for many software development teams, housing everything they need to get their most important work done. But ADO can quickly turn into a silo, keeping developers from collaborating effectively with the rest of the organization. Salesforce, on the other hand, is often the nexus of every revenue-generating workflow in your organization. Sales deals move through a pipeline in Salesforce, marketers pull customer data from it to build better campaigns, and your customer success team might work entirely out of Salesforce. This is an environment completely alien to your software developers. The problem? There are quite a few essential workflows that depend on collaboration between teams that never leave these two tools. Streamlining support ticket escalation With technical products, your customer success team can only handle so many requests. They’ll often need to escalate tickets to developers to get their expertise on a potential problem, flag a bug, or get an answer to a particular question. With Unito’s Azure DevOps-Salesforce integration, support agents can create tickets in Salesforce that are automatically synced to Azure DevOps, giving developers all the information they need without any extra manual work. Monitoring development on dealmaking features Some deals come with strings attached. A prospect might not close until specific product features are built from scratch, upgraded, or customized to their needs. Sales teams need to send specific product information to software developers so they know what they should be working on. Unito’s integration makes that happen automatically, with Salesforce deals flagged for development automatically pushed to Azure DevOps. Additionally, any questions from developers are automatically sent back to Salesforce. Integrating product launches in marketing campaigns A single product update can make or break a marketing campaign, giving marketers ammunition to raise awareness about their brand, generate leads, and create deals for the sales team to take on. But the back-and-forth between software developers and marketers can be clunky, leaving marketers unaware of important updates, critical to their campaigns. This integration brings together marketers in Salesforce with developers in Azure DevOps, keeping everyone up to date without any extra manual work. Step 1. Connect Azure DevOps and Salesforce to Unito Sign up for Unito if you haven’t already! Navigate to the Unito App and click +Create Flow. Click Start Here to connect Azure DevOps and Salesforce. Then click +Choose account for each tool and complete the authorization process. Click Confirm. When you’re ready, click Confirm. First time connecting tools to Unito and need extra help? Check out this guide. Authorizing ADO to sync with Unito Before you sync anything out of Azure DevOps, make sure Third-party application access via OAuth is on. To adjust this setting, go to Organization Settings in Azure DevOps and click on Policies. Then, make sure the toggle for Third-party application access via OAuth is turned on. Without this, you won’t be able to connect Azure DevOps to Unito. Step 2. Choose flow direction for new work items When you create new Azure DevOps or Salesforce work items, Unito creates synced versions in the other tool automatically. With flow direction, you can determine where that happens: 2-way, meaning new AzureDevops items and Salesforce items will be created to match items in either tool. 1-way from Azure DevOps to Salesforce, which creates new Salesforce work items to match items you create manually in Azure DevOps. Creating items in Salesforce manually won’t create new Azure DevOps items. 1-way from Salesforce to Azure DevOps, creating new Azure DevOps work items to match items you create manually in Salesforce. Creating items in Azure DevOps manually won’t automatically create new Salesforce items. Step 3. Set rules to sync specific Salesforce and ADO work items Rules are part filter, part automation. They allow you to customize your flows so only some work items get synced between Salesforce and Azure DevOps. For example, you could decide to filter out any Salesforce tickets from before a specific date or Azure DevOps items with a specific assignee. You can also use rules to automatically send work items to specific sections, assign people to them automatically, and more. To start creating a rule, click Add a new rule. From there, you can choose what will trigger that rule and what happens when it’s triggered. You can learn more about setting rules here. Step 4. Map fields between Azure DevOps and Salesforce Field mappings pair fields in Azure DevOps with fields in Salesforce so your data goes exactly where it needs to, whether these fields have the same name (e.g., Assignee to Assignee) or not (e.g., Priority to Picklist). When it’s time to map your fields, you can either let Unito do it for you by clicking Map automatically or click Map manually to customize them yourself. Even if you let Unito map your fields automatically, you can customize them afterward. If you map your fields automatically, you’ll see something like this. From here, click +Add mapping, then Select a field to sync additional fields. Unito automatically recommends compatible fields for any field you add here through a drop-down menu. Some fields have a cog icon, meaning they can be customized further. For example, a Priority field can be customized to match specific options to those in another field. Step 5. Launch your AzureDevOps-Salesforce integration That’s it! You’re ready to launch your first flow. Once you do, Unito will automatically sync Azure DevOps and Salesforce items, keeping all fields up to date automatically. Have any questions? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us by clicking on the chat bubble! What’s next? Need to integrate Azure DevOps or Salesforce with other tools in your stack? Check out our other guides below: Connecting Airtable to Azure DevOps Integrating Asana and Azure DevOps Syncing Azure DevOps and Jira Integrating Salesforce and Google Sheets Syncing Salesforce and Wrike Connecting Salesforce and ServiceNow Haven't deployed Unito in your organization yet? Meet with our sales team to see what a Unito integration can do for you. Book a demo View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Acer Chromebook Plus 514 is $299.99 on Amazon right now, reduced from its usual $399.99. Acer Chromebook Plus 514 $299.99 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $399.99 Save $100.00 Get Deal Get Deal $299.99 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $399.99 Save $100.00 According to price trackers, this is the lowest it’s been, and if you’re looking for a backup laptop or something for really light tasks, it might be worth a look. But let’s set expectations upfront—this isn’t a high-performance machine. It’s running on an AMD Ryzen 3 7320C processor with 8GB RAM and 128GB of eMMC storage, which puts it squarely in the “basic use only” category. You’ll get by fine with web browsing, emails, video calls, or streaming, but anything heavier than that—editing video, gaming, or multitasking with lots of tabs—is probably going to be a stretch. What it does have going for it is a 14-inch WUXGA display that has a 1920 x 1200 resolution and supports touch, so navigation feels a little smoother, especially when you’re scrolling through articles or zooming in on images. Additionally, it’s got Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1, which makes it more future-proof on the connectivity front. And even though it’s plastic, it’s rated MIL-STD-810H for durability (according to this PCMag review) and has a spill-resistant keyboard—handy if you’re clumsy with coffee. It also runs on ChromeOS, which means faster boot times and built-in security, plus support for Android apps through the Google Play Store. The battery life isn’t record-breaking, but it’ll give you a decent chunk of the workday—around 10 hours, depending on what you’re doing. It’s also got two USB-C ports, one USB-A, and a headphone jack, which covers most needs. That said, this is still a budget machine. The Ryzen 3 chip is entry-level, and the eMMC storage is slower than SSDs. You can’t upgrade the storage later either, so you’re stuck with what you get—unless you lean heavily on cloud storage. View the full article