November 21, 2022 - This Google-Backed Nonprofit Proves Games Can Teach and Be Fun

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This Google-Backed Nonprofit Proves Games Can Teach and Be Fun When my eight-year-old son told me he was making his friends happy and fighting bullies in a video game, I was curious. He told me about Kind Kingdom, a game his school librarian recommended. On his computer, my son walked his character toward a friend whose head was down and handed the other character a heart. The friend picked up his head and smiled. Then my son maneuvered the player along a path and came across a bully who was jumping up and down with his teeth clenched. One swift series of button presses, and the bully was behind bars. Kind Kingdom was made by Interland, a division of Google, and is part of a four-game series that teaches players about internet safety, like building strong passwords and only interacting with trusted friends online. I particularly liked that the lessons can be broadly applied to life, too. Continued here

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How to Answer "Why Do You Want to Work Here?" Of all the interview questions job applicants prepare for, the most obvious ones sometimes get the least attention. Yes, you came ready to share your biggest flaw, your greatest strength, a moment when you shined, and a concept you learned, but what do you do with a broad but direct question like “Why do you want to work here?” In this piece, the author offers three strategies for answering this common interview question and provides sample answers for you to use as a guide. Continued here

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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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How to Give Tough Feedback That Helps People Grow Over the years, I’ve asked hundreds of executive students what skills they believe are essential for leaders. “The ability to give tough feedback” comes up frequently. But what exactly is “tough feedback”? The phrase connotes bad news, like when you have to tell a team member that they’ve screwed up on something important. Tough also signifies the way we think we need to be when giving negative feedback: firm, resolute, and unyielding. Continued here

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A Simple Way to Introduce Yourself Many of us dread the self-introduction, be it in an online meeting or at the boardroom table. Here is a practical framework you can leverage to introduce yourself with confidence in any context, online or in-person: Present, past, and future. You can customize this framework both for yourself as an individual and for the specific context. Perhaps most importantly, when you use this framework, you will be able to focus on others’ introductions, instead of stewing about what you should say about yourself. Continued here

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Why short-sightedness is on the rise In the late 1980s and 1990s, parents in Singapore began noticing a worrying change in their children. On the whole, people's lives in the small, tropical nation were improving hugely at the time. Access to education, in particular, was transforming a generation and opening the gates to prosperity. But there was a less positive trend, too: more and more children were becoming short-sighted. Nobody was able to stop this national eyesight crisis. Rates of short-sightedness – also known as near-sightedness or myopia – continued to rise and rise. Today, Singapore has a myopia rate of around 80% in young adults, and has been called "the myopia capital of the world". Continued here

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"China's hottest woman": the driving force behind crunchy chilli sensation Lao Gan Ma Tao Huabi rose from humble origins in south-western China to create a beloved condiment that can now be found in fridges around the world There is a saying about the south-western Chinese province of Guizhou: "Not three feet of flat land, not three days without rain, not a family with three silver coins." But, with the help of a spicy condiment, Tao Huabi, also known as China's "hottest woman", has well and truly defied this rule. Continued here

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How to Declutter Your Home Screen You may remember when you first got your current phone and started it up, free from clutter and bloat, all fresh and new. That doesn’t last long, as we then load up app after app and start syncing all kinds of files and data to our phones, from video downloads to contact lists. The home screen of your Android phone or iPhone probably shows evidence of this growing clutter: apps you forgot about, widgets you barely use, and shortcuts you’re not 100 percent sure about the origin of. Mobile home screens aren’t unlike the desktop screens of Windows and macOS computers, with a tendency to attract all kinds of digital detritus that builds up over time. Continued here

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How to Give and Receive Compliments at Work Whether you’re a manager or a team member, giving and receiving compliments plays a major part in forming workplace relationships. Yet research shows that many people feel anxiety over the idea of exchanging compliments, worrying about coming off as a kiss-up or having their compliment misinterpreted. To be better at giving compliments, it’s also important to become better at receiving them. These scenarios and suggestions can help anyone practice the art of giving and receiving compliments. Continued here

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Understanding Leadership The would-be analyst of leadership usually studies popularity, power, showmanship, or wisdom in long-range planning. But none of these qualities is the essence of leadership. Leadership is the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants—a human and social achievement that stems from the leader’s understanding of his or her fellow workers and the relationship of their individual goals to the group’s aim. Continued here

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38 Smart Questions to Ask in a Job Interview The opportunity to ask questions at the end of a job interview is one you don’t want to waste. It’s both a chance to continue to prove yourself and to find out whether a position is the right fit for you. In this piece, the author lists sample questions recommended by two career experts and divides them up by category: from how to learn more about your potential boss to how to learn more about a company’s culture. Choose the ones that are more relevant to you, your interests, and the specific job ahead of time. Then write them down — either on a piece of paper or on your phone — and glance at them right before your interview so that they’re fresh in your mind. And, of course, be mindful of the interviewer’s time. If you were scheduled to talk for an hour and they turn to you with five minutes left, choose two or three questions that are most important to you. You will always have more time to ask questions once you have the job offer in hand. Continued here

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The biggest myths of the teenage brain Terri Apter, a psychologist, still remembers the time she explained to an 18-year-old how the teenage brain works: "So that's why I feel like my head's exploding!" the teen replied, with pleasure. Parents and teachers of teens may recognise that sensation of dealing with a highly combustible mind. The teenage years can feel like a shocking transformation – a turning inside out of the mind and soul that renders the person unrecognisable from the child they once were. There's the hard-to-control mood swings, identity crises and the hunger for social approval, a newfound taste for risk and adventure, and a seemingly complete inability to think about the future repercussions of their actions. Continued here

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A New Explanation for How Fireflies Flash in Sync In Japanese folk traditions, they symbolize departing souls or silent, ardent love. Some Indigenous cultures in the Peruvian Andes view them as the eyes of ghosts. And across various Western cultures, fireflies, glowworms, and other bioluminescent beetles have been linked to a dazzling and at times contradictory array of metaphoric associations: “childhood, crop, doom, elves, fear, habitat change, idyll, love, luck, mortality, prostitution, solstice, stars, and fleetingness of words and cognition,” as one 2016 review noted. Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research develop­ments and trends in mathe­matics and the physical and life sciences. Continued here

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5 Best Black Friday Sonos Deals on Soundbars and Speakers Your shopping carts may be full of fixings for stuffing and cranberry sauce, but Black Friday started early at Sonos, so make space for some of our favorite speakers, soundbars, and subwoofers. The sale runs through November 28, and with our favorite Sonos deals, it’s a great opportunity to build a surround sound setup. Be sure to check out our other Black Friday coverage, including Deals on Google Devices, Deals on Microsoft Hardware, REI’s ‘Get Up Get Out’ Sale, Early Black Friday Deals, Early Best Buy Deals, and our Black Friday Shopping Tips.   Continued here

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How mud boosts your immune system "Don't get dirty!" was once a constant family refrain, as parents despairingly watched their children spoil their best clothes. Whether they were running through farmers' fields, climbing trees or catching tadpoles, it was inevitable that children's whites would turn brown before the day was over. Today, many parents may secretly wish their children had the chance to pick up a bit of grime. With the rise of urbanism, and the allure of video games and social media, contact with nature is much rarer than in the past. For many, there is simply no opportunity to get muddy. Continued here

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What to Do After Being Laid Off If you’re laid off, the last thing you want to do is send your resume to dozens of companies and pray a recruiter will call you. That’s not a strategy for success. What will make you successful is taking a minimum of 24 hours to process this shocking change to your employment status. Then, do these five things before you update your resume or start looking for a job: 1) Reconfigure your mindset; 2) Write down your accomplishments; 3) Know what you want; 4) Create a job-hunting schedule; 5) Find jobs that look interesting — but don’t apply yet. Continued here

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How inflation is flipping the economic script, in seven charts Every morning a new headline underscores growing economic concerns: Highest inflation since the 1970s. Central banks aggressively raising rates. Consumer sentiment at record lows. Commodity prices near all-time highs. Clearly inflation has, at a minimum, altered the economic mood, and potentially reset the path of global and national economies worldwide for years to come. McKinsey’s experts have examined many of the strategic implications of inflation. Here, we use the best and most recent publicly available data to offer seven charts illustrating inflation’s insidious progress. Double trouble. In the past six months, inflation has far exceeded December 2021 expectations. In many countries, actual rates have doubled projections. European countries are particularly affected. For example, inflation in Lithuania is running at 15.5 percent annually, nearly five times the rate expected. Poland is at 11 percent and the United Kingdom at 9 percent, both well above projections. At 3 percent, Switzerland is an outlier. Asia is seeing a less severe change: Indian inflation is about 7 percent, only a bit above projections; and South Korea is at 5 percent. In China and Japan, inflation remains muted. Continued here

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15 Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer In some industries, a weak labor market has left candidates with fewer options and less leverage, and employers better positioned to dictate terms. Those who are unemployed, or whose current job seems shaky, have seen their bargaining power further reduced. But the complexity of the job market creates opportunities for people to negotiate the terms and conditions of employment. Negotiation matters most when there is a broad range of potential outcomes. Continued here

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What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It) Although most people believe that they are self-aware, true self-awareness is a rare quality. In this piece, the author describes a recent large-scale investigation that shed light on some of the biggest roadblocks, myths, and truths about what self-awareness really is — and what it takes to cultivate it. Specifically, the study found that there are actually two distinct types of self-awareness, that experience and power can hinder self-awareness, and that introspection doesn’t always make you more self-aware. Understanding these key points can help leaders learn to see themselves more clearly. Continued here

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Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time As the demands of the workplace keep rising, many people respond by putting in ever longer hours, which inevitably leads to burnout that costs both the organization and the employee. Meanwhile, people take for granted what fuels their capacity to work—their energy. Increasing that capacity is the best way to get more done faster and better. Continued here

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Frontline Work When Everyone Is Angry It probably won’t surprise you to learn that incivility on the front lines of business is on the rise. After all, as the pandemic wore on, we saw in real time how frontline workers went from being seen as “essential” to being seen as, essentially, punching bags. What might not be obvious is that incivility doesn’t affect only workers who experience it directly — it also affects those who witness it, with consequences for businesses and society. Christine Porath has studied incivility for more than 20 years, looking at the experiences at work of people around the world. Her research shows that business leaders have the power to improve things, both for workers and for society as a whole. Continued here

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This Portable Car Battery Booster Is a Roadside Lifesaver Few things can ruin your day as suddenly as trying to start your car and being met with the dead silence of a dead battery. If you’re unlucky, your best bet is to find someone else with a functional car and some jumper cables to help get yours running again. If you’re prepared, though, you can handle it in seconds. This is where one of my favorite gadgets comes in: a portable battery pack. I keep it in the back of my car and it’s already paid for itself in convenience alone. It’s a 1000-amp, 12-volt battery pack that’s able to jump most cars. The benefits are that simple, but it’s hard to overstate how much of a lifesaver that can be. Continued here

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How to Write a Resignation Letter Should you write a resignation letter? In most cases, quitting a job doesn’t require one. However, there are some situations in which you want to write one, the author explains in this piece. She outlines what those reasons are and offers advice for how to actually write one, including tips on what not to say. The article also includes a template you can use with sample language. Continued here

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Making Friends at Work: Our Favorite Reads I haven’t always been the best at making friends. New starts are incredibly intimidating for me, and as a self-confessed introvert, I often find it hard to strike up a conversation or share my personal life with unfamiliar faces. What do I even say when I approach someone? What if the conversation falls flat, and things get awkward? Continued here

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The Big Fight Over 403 Very Small Wasps the bottle held a thin broth, light brown, with some uncertain chunks of dark matter bobbing on top—a soup, maybe, but one that you’d never want to eat. Once it was poured into a white plastic tray, the chunks resolved into insects. Here were butterflies and moths, the delicate patterns of their wings dimmed after a week or two in ethanol. Here were beetles and bumblebees and lots of burly-looking flies, all heaped together, plus a bevy of large wasps, their stripes and stingers still bright. Michael Sharkey took out a pair of thin forceps and began examining his catch. It included anything small and winged that lived in the meadows and forests around his house, high in the Colorado Rockies, and that had suffered the misfortune, in the previous two weeks, of flying into the tent-shaped malaise trap he had erected in front of his home and we had emptied earlier that morning. Continued here

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How to Ask Great Questions Asking questions is a uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations: It spurs learning and the exchange of ideas, it fuels innovation and performance improvement, it builds rapport and trust among team members. And it can mitigate business risk by uncovering unforeseen pitfalls and hazards. But few executives think of questioning as a skill that can be honed—or consider how their own answers to questions could make conversations more productive. Continued here

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A defining moment: How Europe's CEOs can build resilience to grow in today's economic maelstrom A confluence of crises and disruptions has darkened European skies. The energy crisis is already dire and could get worse. The war in Ukraine continues, an unabated humanitarian tragedy. The cost of life’s essentials has gone through the roof—prices in some countries have risen eightfold. Business signs are weakening. In July and August, purchasing managers’ indexes indicated contraction for the first time since early 2021. China, a key supplier and customer, is wrestling with its own economic problems. The effects of climate change are pronounced across the continent, with drought and extreme heat curtailing hydropower and even putting industrial production at risk. The energy crisis threatens to derail the net-zero transition. Semiconductor shortages, technological shortfalls, and labor shortages remain. The latest McKinsey scenarios, undertaken in partnership with Oxford Economics, suggest that European GDP will most likely contract overall in 2023 (Exhibit 1). How will Europe’s business leaders respond? This is a defining moment for a generation of executives who have never been tested in quite this way. Yes, today’s leaders have faced down the global financial crisis, the euro crisis, Brexit, and the COVID-19 pandemic. All were challenging in their way; each crisis called for ingenuity, grit, and determination. Many business leaders met these challenges exceptionally well. But today they face a unique confluence of crises that is of another magnitude. The playbooks of the past will be only moderately helpful. Continued here

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Matthew Garcia: How global virtual communities can help kids achieve their dreams How do we make historically exclusive fields like classical music, fine arts or academic research more accessible to everyone? Education equalizer and violist Matthew Garcia thinks one way to remove barriers is to create free, virtual education programs that connect talented young minds to the resources they need to thrive in their future careers. Learn more about the power of virtual nonprofits to overcome geographic borders and deliver opportunity -- and how you can help every kid reach their dreams. Continued here

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From arguing well to feeling at home, how you know that you're with the right person “We are asking from one person what an entire village used to provide,” says psychotherapist Esther Perel, in an interview with the New Yorker. She is speaking of what we look for in a partner. That’s an immense burden of responsibility to place on any one person in our lives, yet for those seeking “the one”, the stakes are high. Continued here

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What's the right age to get a smartphone? It is a very modern dilemma. Should you hand your child a smartphone, or keep them away from the devices as long as possible? As a parent, you'd be forgiven for thinking of a smartphone as a sort of Pandora's box with the ability to unleash all the world's evils on your child's wholesome life. The bewildering array of headlines relating to the possible impact of children's phone and social media use are enough to make anyone want to opt out. Apparently, even celebrities are not immune to this modern parenting problem: Madonna has said that she regretted giving her older children phones at age 13, and wouldn't do it again. Continued here

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How to Give a Killer Presentation According to Anderson, presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker. It’s about substance—not style. In fact, it’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story—the presenter has to have the raw material. So if your thinking is not there yet, he advises, decline that invitation to speak. Instead, keep working until you have an idea that’s worth sharing. Continued here

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Did the Pandemic Change Your Personality? Possibly. Whether it was attending school lectures, making memorable first impressions at that first office job or packing the floor at a concert, many of the social rituals that had been rites of passage for young people were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. That has left people like Thuan Phung, a junior at the Parsons School of Design who lives in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan, feeling "weird" about real-life interactions. After two years of virtual instruction, he is back in the classroom. "On Zoom you can mute," Mr. Phung, 25, said. "It took me a while to know how to talk to people." Continued here S12 10 Common Job Interview Questions and How to Answer Them Interviews can be high stress, anxiety-driving situations, especially if it’s your first interview. A little practice and preparation always pays off. While we can’t know exactly what an employer will ask, here are 10 common interview questions along with advice on how to answer them. The questions include: Continued here S31 The 25-Minute Meeting This Nano Tool from Wharton Executive Education offers tips to halve the time and double the impact of your meetings. Nano Tools for Leaders® — a collaboration between Wharton Executive Education and Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management — are fast, effective tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes, with the potential to significantly impact your success. Continued here S2 Why Does Chronic Pain Hurt So Much? You never forget the first time a doctor gives up: when they tell you that they don’t know what to do—they have no further tests to run, no treatments to offer—and that you’re on your own. It happened to me at the age of 27, and it happens to many others with chronic pain. I don’t remember what film I’d gone to see, but I know I was at The Oaks Theater, an old arts cinema on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, when pain stabbed me in the side. This was followed by an urgent need to urinate; after bolting to the bathroom, I felt better, but a band of tension ran through my groin. As the hours went by, the pain resolved into a need to pee again, which woke me up at 1 or 2 a.m. I went to the bathroom—but, as if I was in some bad dream, urinating made no difference. The band of sensation remained, insusceptible to feedback from my body. I spent a night of hallucinatory sleeplessness sprawled on the bathroom floor, peeing from time to time in a vain attempt to snooze the somatic alarm. Continued here S14 What's Your Cultural Profile? Take this assessment to understand how well you understand cultural differences within the workplace. Continued here S32 Why Employee-owned Companies Are Better at Building Worker Wealth Wharton’s Katherine Klein talks to Corey Rosen, founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership, about how employee ownership plans are structured and why they yield great financial benefits for companies and workers alike. Wharton’s Katherine Klein speaks with Corey Rosen, founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership, about employee-owned companies. Continued here S34 The global opportunity to accelerate Africa's sustainable future Climate justice activist Vanessa Nakate sits down with former president of Ireland Mary Robinson for an enlightening, intergenerational conversation about the state of the climate crisis. Nakate paints a picture of life in her home country of Uganda -- which faces prolonged droughts, landslides and flooding stemming from climate change -- and clarifies the need for energy-rich, high-emitting nations to provide climate finance for Africa and accelerate the continent's sustainable future. "We cannot solve the problems that are happening right now with the very system that created them," Nakate says. "We need something new." Continued here S29 Scaling up: How founder CEOs and teams can go beyond aspiration to ascent The mystique surrounding public companies like Alphabet and Amazon and their evolution from innovative start-ups to brand icons has many executives believing that there is only one “right” path to growth. But behind these and other companies’ scale-up success stories is a distinctive set of organizational capabilities that other founder CEOs may be able to develop as they move their start-ups from aspiration to ascent to peak performance. Through our extensive research and years of experience working with founder CEOs, we’ve learned a lot about what the hyperscaling journey entails and how it differs from gradual growth. Here’s what we know about hyperscalers: they outperform industry peers, remain resilient during downturns, and maintain strong cash positions. They set the bar high for corporate performance, and they aren’t afraid to make bold moves. Continued here S29 Scaling up: How founder CEOs and teams can go beyond aspiration to ascent The mystique surrounding public companies like Alphabet and Amazon and their evolution from innovative start-ups to brand icons has many executives believing that there is only one “right” path to growth. But behind these and other companies’ scale-up success stories is a distinctive set of organizational capabilities that other founder CEOs may be able to develop as they move their start-ups from aspiration to ascent to peak performance. Through our extensive research and years of experience working with founder CEOs, we’ve learned a lot about what the hyperscaling journey entails and how it differs from gradual growth. Here’s what we know about hyperscalers: they outperform industry peers, remain resilient during downturns, and maintain strong cash positions. They set the bar high for corporate performance, and they aren’t afraid to make bold moves. Continued here S30 How inflation is flipping the economic script, in seven charts Every morning a new headline underscores growing economic concerns: Highest inflation since the 1970s. Central banks aggressively raising rates. Consumer sentiment at record lows. Commodity prices near all-time highs. Clearly inflation has, at a minimum, altered the economic mood, and potentially reset the path of global and national economies worldwide for years to come. McKinsey’s experts have examined many of the strategic implications of inflation. Here, we use the best and most recent publicly available data to offer seven charts illustrating inflation’s insidious progress. Double trouble. In the past six months, inflation has far exceeded December 2021 expectations. In many countries, actual rates have doubled projections. European countries are particularly affected. For example, inflation in Lithuania is running at 15.5 percent annually, nearly five times the rate expected. Poland is at 11 percent and the United Kingdom at 9 percent, both well above projections. At 3 percent, Switzerland is an outlier. Asia is seeing a less severe change: Indian inflation is about 7 percent, only a bit above projections; and South Korea is at 5 percent. In China and Japan, inflation remains muted. Continued here S31 The 25-Minute Meeting This Nano Tool from Wharton Executive Education offers tips to halve the time and double the impact of your meetings. Nano Tools for Leaders® — a collaboration between Wharton Executive Education and Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management — are fast, effective tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes, with the potential to significantly impact your success. Continued here S32 Why Employee-owned Companies Are Better at Building Worker Wealth Wharton’s Katherine Klein talks to Corey Rosen, founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership, about how employee ownership plans are structured and why they yield great financial benefits for companies and workers alike. Wharton’s Katherine Klein speaks with Corey Rosen, founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership, about employee-owned companies. Continued here S33 Matthew Garcia: How global virtual communities can help kids achieve their dreams How do we make historically exclusive fields like classical music, fine arts or academic research more accessible to everyone? Education equalizer and violist Matthew Garcia thinks one way to remove barriers is to create free, virtual education programs that connect talented young minds to the resources they need to thrive in their future careers. Learn more about the power of virtual nonprofits to overcome geographic borders and deliver opportunity -- and how you can help every kid reach their dreams. Continued here S34 The global opportunity to accelerate Africa's sustainable future Climate justice activist Vanessa Nakate sits down with former president of Ireland Mary Robinson for an enlightening, intergenerational conversation about the state of the climate crisis. Nakate paints a picture of life in her home country of Uganda -- which faces prolonged droughts, landslides and flooding stemming from climate change -- and clarifies the need for energy-rich, high-emitting nations to provide climate finance for Africa and accelerate the continent's sustainable future. "We cannot solve the problems that are happening right now with the very system that created them," Nakate says. "We need something new." Continued here S35 5 Best Black Friday Sonos Deals on Soundbars and Speakers Your shopping carts may be full of fixings for stuffing and cranberry sauce, but Black Friday started early at Sonos, so make space for some of our favorite speakers, soundbars, and subwoofers. The sale runs through November 28, and with our favorite Sonos deals, it’s a great opportunity to build a surround sound setup. Be sure to check out our other Black Friday coverage, including Deals on Google Devices, Deals on Microsoft Hardware, REI’s ‘Get Up Get Out’ Sale, Early Black Friday Deals, Early Best Buy Deals, and our Black Friday Shopping Tips.   Continued here S36 This Portable Car Battery Booster Is a Roadside Lifesaver Few things can ruin your day as suddenly as trying to start your car and being met with the dead silence of a dead battery. If you’re unlucky, your best bet is to find someone else with a functional car and some jumper cables to help get yours running again. If you’re prepared, though, you can handle it in seconds. This is where one of my favorite gadgets comes in: a portable battery pack. I keep it in the back of my car and it’s already paid for itself in convenience alone. It’s a 1000-amp, 12-volt battery pack that’s able to jump most cars. The benefits are that simple, but it’s hard to overstate how much of a lifesaver that can be. Continued here S37 A New Explanation for How Fireflies Flash in Sync In Japanese folk traditions, they symbolize departing souls or silent, ardent love. Some Indigenous cultures in the Peruvian Andes view them as the eyes of ghosts. And across various Western cultures, fireflies, glowworms, and other bioluminescent beetles have been linked to a dazzling and at times contradictory array of metaphoric associations: “childhood, crop, doom, elves, fear, habitat change, idyll, love, luck, mortality, prostitution, solstice, stars, and fleetingness of words and cognition,” as one 2016 review noted. Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research develop­ments and trends in mathe­matics and the physical and life sciences. Continued here S38 This Google-Backed Nonprofit Proves Games Can Teach and Be Fun When my eight-year-old son told me he was making his friends happy and fighting bullies in a video game, I was curious. He told me about Kind Kingdom, a game his school librarian recommended. On his computer, my son walked his character toward a friend whose head was down and handed the other character a heart. The friend picked up his head and smiled. Then my son maneuvered the player along a path and came across a bully who was jumping up and down with his teeth clenched. One swift series of button presses, and the bully was behind bars. Kind Kingdom was made by Interland, a division of Google, and is part of a four-game series that teaches players about internet safety, like building strong passwords and only interacting with trusted friends online. I particularly liked that the lessons can be broadly applied to life, too. Continued here Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Followers Blog Archive ►  2024 (51) ►  December (1) ►  October (2) ►  August (2) ►  July (4) ►  June (3) ►  May (5) ►  April (4) ►  March (2) ►  February (10) ►  January (18) ►  2023 (834) ►  December (20) ►  November (54) ►  October (44) ►  September (108) ►  August (91) ►  July (29) ►  June (68) ►  May (104) ►  April (33) ►  March (30) ►  February (99) ►  January (154) ▼  2022 (208) ►  December (117) ▼  November (6) November 28, 2022 - What Makes Us Vote the Way We ... November 21, 2022 - This Google-Backed Nonprofit P... November 18, 2022 - How to Make Your Matrix Orga... November 18, 2022 - Why Scientists Got the Fast Pa... 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