Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings

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Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings Few organizations provide strong guidance or training for managers on meeting individually with their employees, but the author’s research shows that managers who don’t hold these meetings frequently enough or who manage them poorly risk leaving their team members disconnected, both functionally and emotionally. When the meetings are done well, they can make a team’s day-to-day activities more efficient and better, build trust and psychological safety, and improve employees’ experience, motivation, and engagement at work. The author has found that although there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to one-on-ones, they are most successful when the meeting is dominated by topics of importance to the direct report rather than issues that are top of mind for the manager. Managers should focus on making sure the meetings take place, creating space for genuine conversation, asking good questions, offering support, and helping team members get what they need to thrive in both their short-term performance and their long-term growth. Continued here

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Defining Your Organization's Values ^ R2206B What are the bedrock principles underlying your company's mission? This issue's Spotlight package examines how understanding and openly recognizing them leads to enhanced relationships with stakeholders and stronger business performance. Paul Ingram and Yoonjin Choi conducted dozens of studies designed to determine how a clear view of one's values can affect decision-making, motivation, relationships, well-being, leadership, and performance. In "What Does Your Company Really Stand For?," they assert that when a company's official values match those of its employees--a situation they call values alignment--the benefits include higher job satisfaction, less turnover, better teamwork, more-effective communication, bigger contributions to the organization, and more-productive negotiations, not to mention more diversity, equity, and inclusion. In "Strategy in a Hyperpolitical World," Roger L. Martin and Martin Reeves write that the assumption that business and politics can and even should be kept separate is no longer realistic, and messaging from the corporate affairs department is insufficient to defuse political issues when they arise. Leaders must develop robust principles to guide strategic choices; address ethical issues early; consistently communicate and implement their choices; engage with and beyond the industry to shape the context; and learn from mistakes to make better choices in the future. Most business leaders believe that their job is to embrace disruption and innovation, transform their organizations, and explore new frontiers, writes Ranjay Gulati in "To See the Way Forward, Look Back." But decades of research on companies worldwide shows that most successful ones are also guided by core values and a clear purpose. These can often be uncovered by conducting a thorough historical audit of a company's history, original value statements, and purpose. Then leaders can decide what to preserve and what to let go. Continued here

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What Does Your Company Really Stand For? The authors conducted dozens of studies designed to determine how a clear view of one’s values can affect decision-making, motivation, relationships, well-being, leadership, and performance. They discovered that when a company’s official values match those of its employees—a situation they call values alignment—the benefits include higher job satisfaction, less turnover, better teamwork, more-effective communication, bigger contributions to the organization, and more-productive negotiations, not to mention more diversity, equity, and inclusion. Continued here

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The Ideas That Inspire Us Harvard Business Review published its first issue 100 years ago with a mission to help leaders put the best management thinking into practice. To mark our centennial, we asked eight current and former CEOs from some of the world’s top companies to describe the ideas that have propelled their own careers and organizations. Continued here

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Case Study: Does Facial Recognition Tech Enhance Security? The security guard couldn’t hear Beth Williams over the screeching alarm. LED strobe lights danced up and down the powder-blue and pastel-pink walls of the Cub House day-care center. The guard moved to block Maria Sanchez from walking toward a classroom to pick up her daughter. He extended his arm toward her chest. Maria looked frightened, and Beth, Cub House’s founder and director, was horrified. She rushed to the guard and hissed, “She’s fine!” directly into his ear. She then took out her phone and typed a few numbers, and the alarm and lights stopped. A piano resumed playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in a classroom down the hall. Continued here

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A Better Way to Recognize Your Employees Although most great managers want to recognize their people, the challenge, which has only been made more difficult in the hybrid world, is finding meaningful things to recognize them for. The limitation to our typical approach to praise is that we can only recognize what we see, observe, or learn about from others and our recognition focuses on what we appreciate, which is not always what others want to be appreciated for. This is why it is important for leaders to add a new technique to their management repertoire: reflective recognition, an inquiry-based approach where an individual or group is invited to reflect on and share what they are proud of and why. Continued here

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Understanding Influential Older Americans Depends on Trustworthy Data and Insights - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM NORC It’s been especially trying for Americans 50 and older. Since 2021, older Americans have grown more concerned about their finances, according to a new report by NORC at the University of Chicago using Foresight 50+, the research panel it created with AARP. The findings in the report are sobering: Continued here

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Fixing the U.S. Semiconductor Supply Chain One of the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic is the global shortage of semiconductors. It has triggered governments and companies actions to prevent such shortages from occurring again. But research conducted by MIT and Denso revealed that expanding the number of semiconductor fabrication facilities in the United States will not alone suffice. Other steps that are needed to tide over users and prevent similar shortages in the future include: focus on resiliency, not just production capacity; don’t just focus on advanced chips; take steps to make the most of existing supplies; and establish common chip standards. Continued here

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What Leaders Need to Know About a Looming Recession - and Other Global Threats Nouriel Roubini, professor emeritus at NYU’s Stern School of Business, says that a confluence of trends – from skyrocketing public and private debt and bad monetary policies to demographic shifts and the rise of AI – are pushing the world toward catastrophe. He warns of those interconnected threats, but also has suggestions for how political and business leaders can prepare for and navigate through these challenges. He draws on decades of economic research as well as his experience accurately predicting, advising on, and observing responses to the 2008 global financial crisis, and he’s the author of Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends that Imperil our Future, and How to Survive Them. Continued here

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6 Factors That Determine Your Company's Valuation Investors consult detailed, quantitative models before making decisions. Shouldn’t corporate managers have a similar  understanding of how the market values their company, so they can make informed decisions to maximize shareholder value? An EY-Parthenon analysis of quarterly data from thousands of companies in hundreds of industries over a period of 20 years has identified six critical factors that account for most of the variability in market valuations. Management teams can use these to create a model that allows them to compare industries, companies across industries, and companies within the same industry. The model can also help leaders understand changes in how the market values any of these companies over time. Continued here

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Why Sharing Economic Growth with the Community Is Good Business Subsistence dairy ranchers in Central America struggle to stay afloat during the dry season when grass is scarce. Global life sciences company Bayer has launched a program to enable them to produce their own corn silage feed.  The results of this program are helping to pull the ranchers out of poverty because they are now able to sustain a consistent milk output through the year and can increase the number of cattle they keep. This in turn makes them more reliable (and cheaper) suppliers for large-scale milk processing companies. This innovation creates value for Bayer and its partners in the program as well as for the ranchers and their customers. Continued here

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4 Steps to Drive Effective Circular Strategies for Consumer Goods and Retail Businesses - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM EY-PARTHENON A thoughtful and integrated approach is crucial in moving from the traditional “take, make, waste” economy to a circular approach that prevents environmental harm that products and packaging may cause. Four imperatives are necessary for organizations to bring a circular economy to fruition. Continued here

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Emmanuel During: What causes sleepwalking? Mumbling fantastical gibberish; devouring blocks of cheese in the nude; peeing in places that aren't toilets; and jumping out of windows. These are all things people have reportedly done while sleepwalking, a behavior that can be dangerous in some cases. It's estimated that around 18% of people sleepwalk at least once in their lives. So, what exactly is sleepwalking? Emmanuel During investigates. [Directed by Laura Jayne Hodkin, narrated by Jack Cutmore-Scott, music by Salil Bhayani, cAMP Studio]. Continued here

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Shreya Joshi: What you can learn from people who disagree with you Youth leader Shreya Joshi diagnoses a key source of political polarization in the US and shows why having "uncomfortable conversations" with people you disagree with is crucial to bridging the divide. "When we are able to recognize what unites us, it becomes so much easier to have conversations about what divides us," she says. Continued here

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Is inequality inevitable? Income and wealth inequality are not new. In fact, economists and historians who have charted economic inequality throughout history haven't found a single society without it. Which raises a bleak question: is inequality ... inevitable? Explore how economic inequality can be measured and how it is impacted by different governmental policy choices. [Directed by Natália Azevedo Andrade, AIM Creative Studios, narrated by George Zaidan, music by André Aires]. Continued here

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Dan Harris: The benefits of not being a jerk to yourself After more than two decades as an anchor for ABC News, an on-air panic attack sent Dan Harris's life in a new direction: he became a dedicated meditator and, to some, even a guru. But then an anonymous survey of his family, friends and colleagues turned up some brutal feedback -- he was still kind of a jerk. In a wise, funny talk, he shares his years-long quest to improve his relationships with everyone (starting with himself) and explains the science behind loving-kindness meditation, and how it can boost your resiliency, quiet your inner critic and simply make you more pleasant to be around. Continued here

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The heat is on: How public-sector leaders could drive net-zero goals Another summer of record-breaking heat waves in Europe, Asia, and the Americas is yet another reminder of the climate crisis that imperils our planet and all who inhabit it. The good news is that we have reached a turning point in the global commitment to decarbonize. In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law on August 17, 2022, directs $369 billion in federal funding—the largest climate investment in US history—to lower the nation’s carbon emissions substantially by the end of this decade. The IRA builds on early and sustained leadership by the European Union, which in 2019 committed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, launched its Fit for 55 package in 2021 to reduce net emissions by 55 percent by the end of this decade, and most recently developed a plan for rapidly shaking its reliance on Russian fossil fuels and accel­erating the transition to green energy. Though China recently scaled back its near-term renewable-energy goals amid power shortages, the world’s second-largest economy is still working toward having renewables account for a third of national power consumption by 2025. 1 1. Denise Jia and Chen Xuewan, “China curbs renewable energy target through 2025,” Nikkei Asia, June 2, 2022. Momentum is building, and throughout the world, nations have set net-zero targets. Now comes the work of reaching them. On balance, tremendous progress has been made over the past decade to lay out feasible and affordable technological pathways for every global region and economic sector. These road maps reflect the widely held understanding among experts and policy makers that reaching net zero will require transforming energy and the use of land. Changing people’s habits is a big part of that. But public-sector leaders could play a pivotal role in the other part of the equation—namely, the development, adoption, and improvement of climate technologies. Continued here

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Author Talks: How to maintain a ‘Longpath’ mindset, even amid short-term crises In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Ramya D’Rozario chats with futurist Ari Wallach about his new book, Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs (HarperOne, August 2022). It can be easy to table long-term problems in the face of immediate crises, Wallach says, but in his years of experience, it’s been the leaders who think about the long term who are better positioned to mold their company’s future to their liking. Wallach shares how anyone—CEO, organizer, and beyond—can curb short-term thinking and help ensure a better world for future generations by developing the “Longpath” mindset. An edited version of the conversation follows.I remember one specific time when I was in a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, with the top leaders in the refugee response sector. I kept pushing them to think about how we are going to deal with hundreds of militaries of climate refugees over the next ten, 15, 20, or 30 years—as a worst-case scenario. What I kept hearing was, “Yes, we have to think about that. But right now we have an emergency right in front of us.” I said, “OK, but at the end of dealing with this emergency in this eight-hour meeting, can we step back and start planning for the long term?” While everyone in the room understood the ramifications of not dealing with the long term, there just wasn’t the space for it. Continued here

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The mysterious reappearance of China’s missing mega-influencer Until this June, Little Tiger, a 28-year-old school teacher in the eastern province of Anhui (she requested to use a pseudonym over privacy concerns), had watched Li’s livestreams almost every evening for three years. Often, she’d watch him while lying on her couch at the end of an exhausting day. The livestreams, which took place on the shopping platform Taobao, typically lasted hours at a time, during which Li made one sales pitch after another, selling discounted food, cosmetics, and homeware to his fans, whom he addressed as “all the girls.”For those outside China, it’s difficult to overstate Li’s level of fame and ubiquity in the country. With some 150 million followers across numerous platforms, he was the country’s most powerful salesman, hawking millions of dollars’ worth of products every night. His life story has been adapted into multiple documentaries; a reality TV series called All the Girls’ Offer shows how he bargains with global brands like LVMH and Shiseido on behalf of consumers; even his five bichon frisés — the oldest of whom is named Never — have their own brand, Never’s Family. A popular GPS app in China offers a navigation service featuring his voice. “All the girls, navigation starts now,” Li sings at the beginning of your journey. “This way, this way, this way!” Continued here

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The Indian startup helping companies sell ads more profitably Kavita Shenoy is the co-founder of Voiro, an ad-tech platform that’s used by media houses such as Disney+ Hotstar and Sony Liv, and e-commerce major Flipkart to accurately deliver ads and increase their ad revenue. Voiro’s technology has been used to drive large-scale digital advertising for live events such as the Indian Premier League, the Oscars, and the Walmart-owned Flipkart’s flagship “Big Billion Day” sales. In March, Voiro raised $1.8 million in venture investment.Voiro helps media businesses sell ads more profitably. We’ve built a product that significantly cuts down the manpower, time, and effort needed to run an ads business, saving our customers tremendous costs. We manage revenue data for these businesses, offering actionable and data-backed insights to ensure they can sell better, price better, and deliver on their commitments without leaving any revenue on the table. Finally, we understand that time is money, and we make it easy for our customers to cut their billing cycles from weeks or months to a matter of hours. Continued here

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Researchers Use Quantum ‘Telepathy’ to Win an ‘Impossible’ Game That’s correct. For decades, however, physicists have suspected that if bridge were played using cards governed by the rules of quantum mechanics, something that looks uncannily like telepathy should be possible. Now researchers in China have experimentally demonstrated this so-called quantum pseudotelepathy—not in quantum bridge but in a two-player quantum competition called the Mermin-Peres magic square (MPMS) game, where winning requires that the players coordinate their actions without exchanging information with each other. Used judiciously, quantum pseudotelepathy allows the players to win each and every round of the game—a flawless performance that would otherwise be impossible. The experiment, conducted using laser photons, probes the limits of what quantum mechanics permits in allowing information to be shared between particles.The work “is a beautiful and simple direct implementation of the Mermin-Peres magic square game,” says Arul Lakshminarayan of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, who was not involved in the experimental demonstration. Its beauty, he adds, comes in part from its elegance in confirming that a quantum system’s state is not well defined prior to actual measurement—something often considered to be quantum mechanics’ most perplexing trait. “These quantum games seriously undermine our common notion of objects having preexisting properties that are revealed by observations,” he says. Continued here

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Dazzling New JWST Image Shows Dusty Stellar Spirals Astronomers have long wondered if grains of cosmic dust can form in and escape from the harsh inner regions of violent stellar systems. These JWST observations of WR 140 reveal that the answer is yes. This entire structure is at least two light-years (or 20 trillion kilometers) in diameter—and probably even more, as there are likely fainter arms farther out that lie beyond the reach of these JWST observations. Just accounting for the visible arms, this structure surrounding WR 140 is the largest of its kind ever seen, four times the width of the next bigger known.The rippling spiral almost looks like a defect in the telescope itself, some strange optical phenomenon affecting the observations. But it’s very real, and its reality belies its gossamer appearance: As described in a paper just published in the journal Nature Astronomy, this eye-catching construct emerges from the clash of immense forces flinging vast amounts of matter into space at soul-crushing speeds, powered by stars that make our own sun look like a flashlight with dying batteries. Continued here

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Which COVID Studies Pose a Biohazard? At issue is whether—and when—researchers modifying SARS-CoV-2 or other deadly pathogens need to keep regulators and funding agencies such as the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) informed about their work, even if the agencies didn’t fund the experiments in question. Studies that make pathogens more transmissible or virulent are sometimes called ‘gain of function’ research.The brouhaha over the BU research started after a team led by Mohsan Saeed, a virologist at BU’s School of Medicine, posted a preprint on bioRxiv showing that the properties of Omicron’s spike protein—the part of the virus that allows it to infect human cells—might not explain the clinical mildness of the COVID-19 cases it causes. Saeed’s team had created a new strain of SARS-CoV-2 by putting the spike protein from the Omicron BA.1 lineage into the backbone of a viral strain isolated in the early days of the pandemic. Continued here

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Vertebrates May Have Used Vocal Communication More Than 100 Million Years Earlier Than We Thought Most people don’t think of turtles as being exceptionally chatty—or even making sounds at all. But research published today in Nature Communications reveals that at least 50 turtle species vocalize—and that several other types of cold-blooded vertebrates previously assumed to be silent do so, too. The finding has broader implications because of the evolutionary history of the species studied. The fact that these supposedly silent species all use sounds to communicate allowed researchers to trace vocalizations back to a common vertebrate ancestor that lived 407 million years ago.In 2020 scientists compared phylogenies of around 1,800 vocal and nonvocal species and estimated that acoustic communication arose roughly 100 million to 200 million years ago in association with nocturnal activity. The 2020 paper also indicated that this form of communication arose repeatedly and independently in most major vocalizing vertebrate groups, including birds, frogs and mammals—the opposite of the conclusion of Jorgewich Cohen and his colleagues’ new work, which suggests that this behavior did not emerge separately and instead traces back to a common ancestor. Turtles were not categorized as vocal in the earlier study—something that the new paper indicates was a misclassification and that appears to alter the conclusions made from the 2020 analysis. Continued here

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5 Things to Know about Climate Reparations Developing countries have bristled at the prospect of more talk shops and are re-upping their demands to negotiate financing arrangements this year. U.S. officials said that while they’re willing to talk about avenues for loss and damage funding, they won’t yet back a new mechanism and would prefer to look at existing ways of addressing the challenge, including through continued efforts to reduce emissions (Climatewire, Oct. 20).Climate experts and officials from vulnerable countries say that’s unrealistic because warming has advanced to the point that some climate impacts are already unstoppable (Climatewire, Aug. 9, 2021). And emissions are still rising, despite pledges to move in the other direction. On Monday, more than 140 U.S.-based climate and development organizations sent a letter to U.S. climate envoy John Kerry urging progress on the issue. Continued here

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Jeremy Siegel: Why Stocks Will Remain Strong in the Long Run At the 2022 Frontiers in Quantitative Finance Conference in September, hosted by Wharton’s Jacobs Levy Equity Management Center, Siegel shared insights from the latest edition with Jeremy Schwartz, global chief investment officer at WisdomTree Asset Management. “The long-term real rate of return from investing in stocks is remarkably durable,” he said. He also talked about how and why the real rate of return from bonds is declining, the Fed’s missteps regarding inflation, as well as the decline in value investing and the near disappearance of factor investing.Jeremy Siegel: It’s interesting because the first edition, which came out in May 1994, used data through the end of 1992. The long-term real return (net of inflation, from investing in stocks) 1802 onward was 6.7% in real terms. I updated it till June of this year and it’s 6.7% real — exactly the same as the last 30 years, despite the financial crisis, COVID, and so forth. It’s remarkably durable. We also know returns from investing in stocks are remarkably volatile in the short run. But the durability of the equity premium (or the excess return from stocks over a risk-free rate like a Treasury bond) is quite remarkable. Continued here

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How to Recover from a Toxic Job You made the brave decision to say goodbye to a toxic workplace. Now you deserve to reclaim your confidence and leave the baggage of a negative environment behind you. In this article, the author offers strategies to help you heal, forge ahead, and be successful in your new role: 1) find closure, 2) take control of what you can, 3) plan for triggers and, 4) savor the positive moments. With patience and self-compassion, you can rise above and become more resilient than ever before. Continued here

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Big Tech employees are TikToking on the job — and their bosses don’t always like it This is the “tech girlie” side of TikTok, where lifestyle vlogging has given rise to a cottage industry of creators who’ve made working in tech — and showing followers the ins and outs of their workday — a key part of their personal brand. The videos often follow a standard format: cheery, upbeat background music plays over quick shots of meeting slides, themed workrooms, and snack drawers. Viewer comments oscillate between contempt and yearning, with many mockingly pointing out how little work is shown in the videos. But invariably, dozens ask: are you hiring? Continued here

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The debate over whether aging is a disease rages on In its latest catalogue of health conditions, the World Health Organization almost equated old age with disease. Then it backed off.Last year, over Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, Kiran Rabheru eagerly joined a call with officials from the World Health Organization (WHO). Word had spread of a change coming to the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD), a catalogue used to standardize disease diagnosis worldwide.In an upcoming revision, the plan was to replace the diagnosis of “senility,” a term considered outdated, with something more expansive: “old age.” The new phrasing would be filed under a diagnostic category containing “symptoms, signs, or clinical findings.” Crucially, the code associated with the diagnosis—a designation that is needed to register new drugs and therapies—included the word “pathological,” which could have been interpreted as suggesting that old age is a disease in itself. Some researchers looked forward to the revision, seeing it as part of the path toward creating and distributing anti-­aging therapies. But Rabheru, a professor at the University of Ottawa and a geriatric psychiatrist at the Ottawa Hospital, feared that these changes would only further ageism. If age alone were presumed to be a disease, that could lead to inadequate care from physicians, he says. Rather than pinpoint exactly what’s troubling a patient, a problem could simply be dismissed as a consequence of advanced years.  Continued here

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Why did he suspect a COVID surge was coming? He followed the digital breadcrumbs After users began observing a trend in candle reviews, one researcher decided to find out if it held any significance. tommy/Getty Images hide caption After users began observing a trend in candle reviews, one researcher decided to find out if it held any significance.Over the course of the pandemic, social media sleuths, epidemiologists and health nerds alike began noticing an interesting trend in the review section for Yankee candles on Amazon.Whenever there was an influx of negative reviews citing no smell, there was usually a spike in COVID cases to go along with it. Continued here

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Lost something? Search through 91.7 million files from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s Discmaster is the work of a group of anonymous history-loving programmers who approached Scott to host it for them. Scott says that Discmaster is "99.999 percent" the work of that anonymous group, right down to the vintage gray theme that is compatible with web browsers for older machines. Scott says he slapped a name on it and volunteered to host it on his site. And while Scott is an employee of the Internet Archive, he says that Discmaster is "100 percent unaffiliated" with that organization. Continued here

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The GIF Is on Its Deathbed This was 2015, and GIFs had to be smaller than 1 megabyte before you could upload them to most social platforms. Fiddling with them was worthwhile, because GIFs were very important. You had to have them! They were the visual style that the audience craved. Not only did I make dozens a day for the website I worked for, but I often made extras for co-workers who requested them for their personal use. (I was eager to please!) Continued here

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The computer errors from outer space When computers go wrong, we tend to assume it's just some software hiccup, a bit of bad programming. But ionising radiation, including rays of protons blasted towards us by the sun, can also be the cause. These incidents, called single-event upsets, are rare and it can be impossible to be sure that cosmic rays were involved in a specific malfunction because they leave no trace behind them. Continued here

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Colonial America Is a Myth There is an old, deeply rooted story about America that goes something like this: Columbus stumbles upon a strange continent and brings back stories of untold riches. The European empires rush over, eager to stake out as much of this astonishing New World as possible. Even as they clash, they ignite an era of colonial expansion that lasts roughly four centuries, from the conquest of Hispaniola in 1492 to the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. Between those two moments, European empires and the nascent American empire amass souls, slaves, and territory, dispossessing and destroying hundreds of Indigenous societies. The Indians fight back but cannot stop the onslaught. Resourceful and defiant though they might be, they are no match for the newcomers and their raw ambition, superior technology, and lethal microbes that penetrate Native bodies with shocking ease. Indians are doomed; Europeans are destined to take over the continent; history moved irreversibly toward Indigenous destruction.Rather than a “colonial America,” we should speak of an Indigenous America that was only slowly and unevenly becoming colonial. By 1776, various European colonial powers together claimed nearly all of the continent for themselves, but Indigenous peoples and powers controlled it. The maps in modern textbooks that paint much of early North America with neat, color-​coded blocks confuse outlandish imperial claims for actual holdings. Continued here

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What Makes a Champagne Vintage Great? Ask a Deep Learning Model In early 2021, Bollinger’s winemakers were able to get their first taste of La Grande Année 2014, a prestige fizz that had been aging in the champagne house’s cellars since it was blended. La Grande Année, Bollinger’s flagship vintage champagne, is produced only in years when the broad quality is deemed sufficiently high, and enjoys seven years of aging under cork before it’s launched. But for Denis Bunner, Bollinger’s deputy head winemaker (or chef de cave), the answer was clear-cut even before the bottles were opened. Having spent two years combing through a mountain of historical data surrounding the interactions of terroir, vines, climate, and wine quality over the seasonal cycle, he was convinced the 2014 would be a home run, despite some of his colleagues’ hesitancy. “I told them, ‘No, it’s going to be a great vintage.’ I was trusting the data, and all the parameters were aligned,” he says. Continued here

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Hua Hsu Is True to the Game Hua Hsu entered the store with a box full of books. “I’ve reached an age where I realized I have more than I could possibly read,” he told me after dropping the titles with an appraiser at Unnameable Books in Prospect Heights, where we had agreed to meet this summer so he could make a quick sale before we began our interview in earnest. The proprietors clearly knew Hsu from previous visits, an unmistakable figure even in a KN95 mask, his hair shooting up in black needles from his high forehead like a stiff brush. He was told the haul would fetch him $70 in cash or $120 in store credit. “Store credit,” Hsu immediately responded, somehow failing to register that, in making this choice, he was just going to end up with more books.Hsu, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is an inveterate collector — of books, yes, but also of music and movies, relics and memories. His new book, Stay True, is a memoir with a tragedy at its center: the killing of his close friend, Ken, during a robbery in the late 1990s, when they were students at UC Berkeley. But it is also a coming-of-age story that proposes an identity can be created through the careful curation of the galaxy of cultural artifacts swirling around the average American teenager. For the adolescent Hsu, this curatorial instinct found its purest expression in the zine, those xeroxed, stapled-together DIY magazines that long ago went extinct. “Making my zine was a way of sketching the outlines of a new self, writing a new personality into being,” he writes. Continued here

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Lizzo Is Here to Talk About All of It—That Flute, That Lyric, Her Man, and More It had been a hectic week for Lizzo. She released her second major-label studio album, Special, with a five-song outdoor performance on the Today show summer concert series in over 85-degree July heat. There were back-to-back promotional appearances in New York City (where years ago, she tells me, she had her first anxiety attack, and adds that it’s always stressful when she goes to New York). Within days of the release, Special debuted at number two on the Billboard charts and the single “About Damn Time” went to number one. Now back home, somewhere in the hills of Los Angeles, she gestures to the pool and the trees and the grass outside the floor-to-ceiling glass walls and says, “I like nature.” She’s wearing a black strapless dress from her own Yitty shapewear line, long Chanel pearls, and Yitty platform slides, which she kicked off as we sat and talked. Her long acrylic nails were painted a pale pink, and her hair was dark and wavy. “It’s mine,” she said with her very distinctive, very ebullient laugh, “I bought it.”In the nearly four hours that we talked in late July in her sunny living room, Lizzo was animated, serious, passionate, and hilariously funny. The singer-songwriter-dancer-flautist-actor and reality competition show host had just moved into her new house that week, but her belongings weren’t there yet. The empty built-in shelves awaited books and numerous awards—including three Grammys, an NAACP award, a Soul Train award, and a BET award. The only visible personal touches amidst the custom wooden furniture were two bouquets of roses and an Hermès blanket on one of the sofas. Continued here

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Meet Nature’s Apex Regenerator: The Mighty Baobab Tree The oldest relationship between humans and ancient trees naturally occurs in Africa. The continent’s longest-lived tree is the largest, too. Amazingly wide for its height, a mature baobab appears otherworldly. Leafless for most the year—an energy conservation strategy—its branches resemble roots marooned in the sky. According to traditional stories, the original baobab was planted upside down as punishment by gods, heroes, or hyenas.The “upside-down tree” also goes by “elephant tree.” The connection between Africa’s greatest megaflora and megafauna goes beyond size. The calloused bark of a baobab is elephantine in color and texture. Botanists speak of pachycauls (thick-stemmed plants) as a cognate of pachyderms (thick-skinned mammals). Moreover, bush elephants consume the bark. In the dry season, tusked males gouge the trunks, peel away strips, and chew their fibrous trophies. Continued here

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Why Your Company Needs Data-Product Managers As companies have struggled to make use of datasets and AI, many have started to create data products — reusable datasets that can be analyzed in different ways by different users over time to solve a particular business problem. Data products can be a powerful tool, especially for large, legacy companies, but often require companies to create a new role that’s distinct from chief digital officer and product manager: the data product manager. Data product managers, like product managers of other types, don’t have all the technical or analytical expertise to create the model or engineer the data for it. They are unlikely to be gifted at redesigning business processes or retraining workers either. What they do need to have is the ability to manage a cross-functional product development and deployment process, and a team of people with diverse skills to perform the needed tasks.In response, many companies have adopted the concept of data products — an attempt to create reusable datasets that can be analyzed in different ways by different users over time to solve a particular business problem. While some incorporate AI and analytics, others don’t, and so some organizations use two terms: data products (which are datasets suitable for reuse) and analytics products (which incorporate analytics or AI methods to analyze the data). While our definition of data products includes both data and analytics/AI, all that really matters is that an organization is clear on its terminology; a product orientation is useful for both data and analytics/AI. Continued here