Business

No one cares. That happens rarely.

Someone cares. That happens all the time, and it’s at the heart of our work.

Everyone cares. Almost never.

Someone is enough. In fact, someone is the entire point.

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The long-running preschool children’s TV series Peppa Pig has become a cultural phenomenon within less than a decade since the first episode aired. The titular Peppa, along with her family and friends, go beyond the expected young audience however, even playing to parents and adults without children, as it aims to help its viewers understand…Read More

When Alexis McGill Johnson became acting president and CEO at Planned Parenthood in 2019, after serving as a board member for more than 11 years (including a 2013-2015 stint as board chair), there were some pressing items on her to-do list. One of them became increasingly critical after she permanently assumed the role in 2020,…Read More

Even in a nation that had grown accustomed to “challenging times,” few months in recent memory were as dire as November 2020. Some 4 million Americans contracted Covid-19 that month, more than most countries had reported for the entire year. Refusing to concede the November election, former President Donald Trump was instead filing lawsuits to…Read More

The last two years have seen political and social upheaval unlike any other, not to mention soaring inflation that has crowded out personal values in favor of price value. But consumers have spoken out about what they want, both online and in their shopping habits. They expect brands they choose to be both attuned to…Read More

Mixed in with our friends on social media feeds are influencers sharing bits of their lives for our entertainment: furniture rehabbers, makeup artists, cleaning wizards and more. We like watching their lives and work–but how do we feel about them recommending products and services? Turns out they have more than a little clout. In a…Read More

Veteran actor and New Jersey native Danny DeVito grew up mere miles from the original Jersey Mike’s sub shop on Point Pleasant Beach. While that certainly isn’t a requirement to star in one of the brand’s ads, it does make him uniquely suited to speak to its enduring draw, which is exactly what he’s doing…Read More

Who gets the benefit of the doubt?

Who is treated with dignity?

You would think that this shouldn’t be scarce. When the pool of respect is widened, no one is harmed.

And yet, cultural status roles have ingrained biases all around us.

We’re now seeing a long overdue evaluation of unexamined norms, which aren’t, and shouldn’t be treated as “normal.”

The most direct way forward is to default to more respect, simply because that’s what people deserve.

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You probably know that Bruce Wayne is actually Batman. That’s a secret identity that most of us are aware of.

And if you’re up on pop culture, you know that the best Batman was played by the late actor Adam West.

Visit the visual search engine Lexica, though, and you’ll see that it knows that Adam West was Batman. A search for “Adam West” (with no mention of roles, DC comics or secret identities), shows us this:

It’s important to note that none of these are pictures of Adam West, in or out of costume. It simply “knows” that Adam West is Bruce Wayne is Batman, and shows us some reconstructed images of Batman from the 1960s. It also knows that we might be looking for Batman, even though it’s a secret. The new algorithm it’s using is more than twice as good at figuring out what a picture is a picture of.

When a human does something mysterious like this sort of leap, we simply call them smart. It’s a simple way to describe something we don’t understand. Complexity and breadth mixing in mysterious ways.

And now computers are doing it all the time. (Except when they don’t–lots of the searches are not quite ready for the public.)

PS check out this story about West and the phone book.

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Like many major industry events, New York Fashion Week is not regularly considered as the forefront of accessibility and inclusive design. However, a new runway show featuring the spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) community is aiming to bring the fashion world–and its standards–into modernity. To highlight the need for adaptive fashion design and increase disability visibility,…Read More