Why You Should Let Kids Sleep In and How Facebook Intentionally Creates Division

Facebook Intentionally Set The World On Fire and Let It Burn

For years, Mark Zuckerburg has routinely painted himself as a champion of free speech. Facebook has used this as a defense for why they allow polarizing content and do not filter paid ads with blatant lies. According to a report from the WSJ, it seems they commissioned research to understand how divisive the platform was - and then ignored that research. Depending on your vantage point, the move may be pure cowardice or misguided righteousness. Either way, using algorithms to "exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness," as their own internal presentation says, is not the same as simply supporting free speech. It's one thing for people to have a right to say what they wish. Facebook takes fringe ideas and makes them mainstream, and manipulates us to be angry about it. In this case, it's working. I am angry. So angry, I'll probably go and share this article on Facebook.

Two Dramatic Ways the Coronavirus May Change Education

In the past few days, two beautifully logical education related op-eds from the NY Times captured my attention. The first was the big news that the University of California (and perhaps many other schools to follow) will no longer require standardized test scores like the SAT as part of their application process. The second story was about why we should start high school later and let teenagers sleep more. I love both of these ideas - and not just because I have a high schooler who will be taking the SAT (maybe) next year. Why don't we let our kids sleep in a bit more? And why do we over rely on tests that don't reflect the true intelligence of our kids? It's sad that we needed a global pandemic in order to ask these questions.

Professional Driver Hires Ringer To Compete In Virtual Race

To help fans starved for new sports content, many leagues from the NFL to FIFA are inviting players to compete with one another through video games. Some of these are televised live so fans can see their favorite athletes face off. It was, perhaps, only a matter of time before one of them found a way to hire someone to play on their behalf, but this story of how Formula E's Daniel Abt tried to do it was just comically bad. From the poorly placed mic obscuring his face to the not-so-convincing backstory that he meant it all as a prank, the story at least adds some much-needed drama to the virtual gaming experience. That's what the fans wanted anyway, right?

An Unusual Graduation Speech From Anand Giridharadas

In this recorded graduation speech for business grads, intellectual agitator and author of Winner Takes All Anand Giridharadas suggests that the best way for them to save the world is to forget the things they learned in business school. "Where this pandemic has spread, an equally infectious idea has followed: that the people most capable of fixing our societies are business-minded people." Instead, we need leaders who put people and not profits first. I agree.

Coca-Cola and Carlsberg To Switch To Plant-Based Bottles.

The Paper Bottle Project is a long-term collaboration between several companies that has a mission to replace plastic bottles with plant-based bottles that breakdown within a year. The project aims to be working by 2023 and uses "sustainably-sourced wood fibers that are both 100% bio-based and fully recyclable." What is really interesting to me, though, is how the storytelling around these bottles when they do eventually come out may be the real reason why their adoption takes off or stalls. World changing innovation, in other words, often needs great marketing for it to survive.

Brands Continue to Ignore Asian Americans

I remember thinking as a kid that there seemed to be two categories of people in America, black and white. We were brown and invisible. While representation in media and entertainment has changed quite a bit, marketing spending and campaigns still lag far behind. As this Adweek article points out, "a surprising number of brands write off the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) consumer as a 5.6% niche and not a worthy investment." Even the category itself, which lumps Indians together with Chinese and Pacific Islanders, is a catch-all for the people who brands don't seem to understand. The solution to this problem, though, is simple yet elusive. We need more Asian Americans to choose to work in the field of marketing themselves and eventually be in decision making roles. The best way to make a change is to make it from the inside.

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