Why The Brazilian National Museum Fire Matters

brazil fire

The story of the devastating fire this week at the National Museum of Brazil made me unexplainably sad. Yet on three different trips to Brazil, I never went there. So why am I so upset about it? Experts estimate nearly 20 million artifacts may have been lost. Even though many museums have ways to protect their

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How Digital Teachers Can Make Education Better

Vector

Earlier this month my family and I made a memorable journey to a fishing village in Cambodia. While there we were lucky to spend some time at a local school with a group of sixth grade children who had taken a rowboat to get to class. Unfortunately, their teacher was missing that day – because

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The Loneliness Industry and the World’s Saddest Produc ...

holographic wife

About a year and a half ago, a Japanese company called Gatebox released a depressing preview video of a new AI powered “Holographic Wife” that would offer lonely young Japanese salarymen companionship at home. The character is based on anime and stand about 8 inches tall inside a glass box. This week the company finally released their actual

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Why More Millennials Are Uncovering Their Tattoos At Work

Employees-with-Tattoos

For the past several years the debate about tattoos at work has gone back and forth between those who think a tattoo is taboo in the office and those who feel it is a modern expression of individuality and may even help connect with certain people. The view of this article is that more millennials are uncovering their

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Why Does The Internet Make Stupidity So Viral?

Drakes-Music-by-Climbing-out-of-Cars

Earlier this week the US government had to officially ask people to stop jumping out of moving cars to dance in the streets in response to a viral dance challenge for one of Drake’s songs. About the same time I first read this story, for some reason another story and video about how you can

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Why Netflix Uses Taste Communities Instead of Demographics

netflix

Last week Netflix announced that they would be stopping their long standing policy of asking customers to vote on early pilots for programs to see if they have enough critical mass and audience to continue. In the same week, at a television industry event a Netflix executive shared that Netflix finds demographics to be useless

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The Big Question Facing The Future Of Media and Publishing O ...

library

Recently a contributor to Forbes named Panos Mourdoukoutas wrote an opinion piece suggesting that local taxpayers would be better off if libraries were replaced with Amazon. The article created an instant controversy and media reporting of the outrage led Forbes to quickly take it down. For years the expansion of contributors to the Forbes network

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What British Grocery Chains Can Teach Us About Delivering Re ...

morrisons grocery

British supermarkets are quickly becoming the unexpected pioneers in adding more empathy into retail. In January, Tesco introduced a “slow checkout line” for customers who have dementia or otherwise need more time to check out. This week, Morrisons, another British supermarket chain, announced it would have “quiet hours” to help autistic shoppers to have a

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Binge Rooms: The Ultimate Immersive TV Experience

binge-room-contest

Back when I worked at a marketing agency I remember those times when I would see a campaign so inspired it would immediately make me wish I had thought of it. This new effort from FCB New York is one of those envy-inducing efforts. The goal is to position LG TVs as the ones that

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Why The Joy Of Missing Out (JOMO) Is So Hot Right Now

jomo

Facebook recently added a feature to help you track how much time you spend on the platform. Instagram will now show a checkmark when you are done scrolling through your friends’ updates from the past two days. A recent NY Times feature even proposed that this might be the summer of “JOMO” (the joy of

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