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She last worked at Avelo Airlines as a communications specialist where she’s been since 2023.Read More

Fargen has been the news director of WSAW in Wausau, Wisconsin since 2020.Read More

The Swiss watchmaker is now facing a boycott in one of its largest markets.Read More

Ad schools are revamping their courses with AI training to prepare students for a changing workforce.Read More

US Open planners want concerts to take center court as the USTA sees crowds flock to Queens.Read More

“Who’s it for?” is not simply a question about your target customer.

Milton Friedman offered to let us off the hook–the only thing the work is for is to maximize shareholder value, he said. Nothing else is worth measuring.

I’ve never met anyone who consistently believed this. There are folks who find it easy to allow money to make their decisions for them, but at some point, all of us move away from this empty path.

Work is an expression of ourselves, and a chance to find meaning as we make a difference and earn a living.

When we choose to serve our customers, we find a more reliable compass instead of only following the money. The customers are right there in front of us, and we can see and feel the results of our work every day. This is the doctor who spends a few extra minutes with a patient in need, or the staff member with a boss who rewards a customer-centric approach, even (especially) if it’s more expensive in the short run.

But how about artists who choose to produce paintings they love instead of those that will easily sell? This is a different sort of success, one that’s not measured in how many customers one has, but in our pride and satisfaction with the work we create.

Some symphony orchestras wrestle with the journey of finding a unified definition of success. There are musicians who have paid their dues, twenty or thirty years of practice and dedication. Many of them want to play challenging work, with time to hone their craft. The purpose of the work is to allow them to follow their creative path, the audience is just a way to achieve that. Others are eager to play crowd-pleasing programs, discovering that audience success rewards them even more than their own definition of artistry.

The conflict, in any organization, is a challenge. We’d like our team members to use their best judgment, to find the satisfaction they seek in their work. But what happens when these definitions of success don’t align?

Too often, management simply conceals what they really seek, or lies about it. If “employees are our most important asset” then why not act that way?

Let’s be clear about who it’s for and what it’s for. It makes decision making more productive and communication and measurement far more effective.

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Where does hope come from?

It’s probably hard-wired, the result of an evolutionary process. A creature with hope is less likely to give up and more likely to raise offspring, thus passing down an ability to find resilience in the face of change.

Disenchanted has come to mean something different from its original usage.

Today, we’re “disenchanted” when we’ve fallen out of love with a person, product or situation. Marketers seek to create customer delight, and when they fail, customers become disenchanted and fade away.

But that’s not what Max Weber meant when he wrote about Descarte.

Until just recently almost everything that happened was enchanted. Magical spirits kept us alive, kept the sun rising and falling and gave rise to the voice in our head.

When we didn’t understand, hope drove us to imagine enchantment all around us. And that hard to measure spirit force responded by giving us hope.

As neuroscientists and philosophers began to explore the idea of consciousness and that voice in our head, they helped us understand that the brain, like everything else in our knowable world, is mechanical.

The refrigerator isn’t magic. Electricity, pumps and gasses keep things cold. And our brain runs on neurons, not magic.

We’ve disenchanted just about everything that’s worth taking a hard look at.

For many people, this has stripped away much needed hope.

Perhaps disenchantment (and the desire for hope) is primarily responsible for the rise in make-believe ideas about how the world works, nonsensical medical interventions and the diminished role of facts in decision making.

When we allow others to manipulate us with their magical stories, though, we’re often setting ourselves up for a collision with reality.

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CNN’s and MSNBC’s top shows aired at 5 and 10 p.m. ET, respectively.Read More

Fox News’ The Five was the No.1 program of the day in total viewers and the demo.Read More

The subscription model beloved of software is now creeping into cars.  Volkswagen has become the latest automaker to adopt the pricing structure. The German marque has introduced a monthly subscription fee to access the full performance of some of its ID.3 electric vehicles. Auto Express spotted that the Volkswagen ID.3 Pro and Pro S were listed in the UK as producing 201bhp, but could hit 228bhp — if customers paid extra. For that extra 27bhp, buyers can pay £16.50 per month, £165 annually, or £649 for a lifetime subscription that transfers with the car if it’s resold. Volkswagen described the…

This story continues at The Next WebRead More