2nd October 2015
1) Denmark has a real problem with falling birth rates and a declining population. The solution – a public campaign to encourage procreation. Top tips? – a sunny vacation and exercising together…. This government promotional video is hilarious.
2) This seems like the internet distilled and also a heaven for trolls, but perhaps the most surprising thing about Peeple — essentially Yelp, but for humans, is the fact that (until now) no one has had the gall to launch something like it.
3) Something to Cheer You Up (and probably surprise you). Governments, Journalist’s and even Charities are not talking about this. From the NYT: ‘The number of extremely poor people (defined as those earning less than $1 or $1.25 a day, depending on who’s counting) rose inexorably until the middle of the 20th century, then roughly stabilized for a few decades. Since the 1990s, the number of poor has plummeted‘.
4) The success of the Apple Watch (and succeeding competitive wearables) is likely to be around the concept of ‘Natural Culture’ : ‘small gestural things, such as the watch face ‘waking up’ as you flick your wrist toward you (and off as your wrist turns away), to the haptic notifications and reminders that are elegantly and lightly rewarding in a deeply private way’.
5) Wonderful. Trolls aside, hasn’t this always been true for most of us? New data suggest social media brings out the best in us, after all.
6) Having just come back from Mumbai, I can heartily endorse the sentiment in this article: Humans are terrible drivers, so worth asking the question – how many lives could driverless cars save in ten years? Could the answer be as high as 300,000?
7) After being pipped by Nikkei for the purchase of The Financial Times, Axel Springer has instead bought Business Insider. Not as big a fish certainly, but a tasty morsel nonetheless. Here are some of the reasons why –Scale, Millennial focus and Social Optimisation.
8) From Clay Parker Jones: The Organisation is Broken – ’Even as the fat cats‘ wallets get fatter, their organisations do less with their assets today than they have in the last 40 years. Again, with companies like these, it’s better to invest in capital markets than on building a legendary organization.’
9) You‘ve got some important appointments coming up, but do you have your meeting tactics ready? You need – 9 Nodding Strategies for Your Next Meeting.
10) Oh Dear. This man was sitting along the third base line at a baseball match and got three chances to catch a ball. He fumbled all of them.Hey, at least he had a good seat.