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The New York offices of Mediaite and Law & Crime Network were robbed over the weekend, the outlets reported Wednesday. (The Hill)Read More

The promise of hope came through the endorphin-boosting rush of modern-day correspondence–Twitter direct messages, Facebook Messenger–with no hint of the pain and disappointment to come. (Poynter)Read More

For the past several years, The Washington Post sat out the deal fervor that swept through much of the media industry. New CEO Will Lewis appears interested in changing that. (NYT)Read More

The epiphany of the 2010s technological era was that people are streams of data. Likes, dislikes, families, friends, hobbies, jobs–everything that makes up a full life is just data awaiting capture, now amenable to all kinds of sophisticated techniques to maximize the likelihood of a desired action. In 2024, it’s rare that a corporation isn’t…Read More

Emma Grede wants to build brands that solve problems. Part of her business savviness comes from her ties with celebrity-based brands. She is the CEO of Good American, an inclusive fashion brand she co-founded with Khloe Kardashian. She is also a founding partner of Kim Kardashian-backed Skims and co-founder of Kris Kardashian’s Safely. The celebrity…Read More

Just as Ikea built a reputation for democratizing interior design and functional furniture, it is now on a mission to make energy-efficient products more accessible for households around the world. To that effect, the retailer has launched a global campaign to help people create energy-efficient homes. Created by Stockholm agency Akestam Holst NoA, the ads…Read More

The independent news publisher 1440 said that it surpassed four million free subscribers on Oct. 17 and unveiled its first web product, a series of evergreen landing pages called 1440 Topics. The newsletter curates news coverage from across a variety of topics like politics, business, and science and is on track to record its third…Read More

“Curation” has become a buzzword in programmatic advertising over the past year, but publishers question whether the hype is all it’s cracked up to be. Curation tech–from either buying and selling platforms like Index Exchange and The Trade Desk or third-party data-focused firms like Audigent and others–creates a package of publishers and data to execute…Read More

Why are we more likely to get tasks done than to take on new initiatives?

Checking something off a to-do list requires far less emotional energy than adding something to the list was in the first place.

As is often the case, “resistance” is the answer.

It’s easy to type a book, hard to write one. That’s because writing one involves making choices.

The effort to perform a task we’ve done before is known in advance. So are the risks. There’s social pressure to do what we promised, and little friction in the way. It’s work, but not challenging.

Initiatives, on the other hand, go the other way around. The effort and repercussions are unknown, and in many settings, the social pressure to accept the status quo is high.

The most important work we do is to make decisions. Decisions don’t seem effortful (turn left or right, say yes or no) but the apparent risk and emotional labor is real. Hard decisions are hard because of the story we tell ourselves about repercussions and responsibility.

Once we acknowledge that taking initiative (which is more accurately described as ‘offering initiative’) requires effort, we can allocate the time and resources to do it well.

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Publicis is increasing its guidance again for 2024, despite uncertainties around the economy, high inflation and the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The holding company now expects 5.5% growth this year. It had forecast 4% to 5% growth at the top of the year, and predicted a 5% increase in July. “There is a lack of…Read More