31 2025 October
All Online Outrage Is Fake
Remember the “outrage” generated online by the revised logo for Cracker Barrel restaurant? According to a new piece this week from the WSJ, much of...
Read Now29 2025 October
The Villains on Pre-K TV Are Cuddly, Annoying and Onto Something Interesting
How does the evolution of the way we learn to see “bad guys” evolve as we grow older? That was the interesting question at the...
Read Now28 2025 October
The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Toxic Positivity by Whitney Goodman
If you’re an optimistic person, it’s possible that you’re part of the problem. We often feel like being positive and having the right mindset is...
Read Now20 2025 October
This Homework Motivation Pen Could Transform How We Learn
Every time I work out, my health app gives me a “Strive Score” that tells me how hard I worked and how much I pushed...
Read Now14 2025 August
The “Anna Karenina Principle” That Explains How Optimists Differ from Pessimists
The first line of Leo Tolstoy’s famous novel Anna Karenina offers this observation: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its...
Read Now30 2025 July
The Future Will Include AI For Dynamic Pricing … Here’s What Could Happen Next
Here are two stories from this week that don’t seem to be related to one another. The first is about Delta testing AI for dynamic...
Read Now28 2025 July
How AI Is Exposing the Idiocy of Influencer Marketing
Recently, an AI generated influencer went viral at Wimbledon. She wasn’t the first, but there was a firestorm of stories about how she is the...
Read Now24 2025 July
The Coming GLP-1 Buying Shift That’s Causing Brands to Panic
The big story of GLP-1 medications has routinely been about weight loss, obesity and expanded usages beyond its original classification as a way to manage...
Read Now14 2025 July
Why Taste May Be the Ultimate Irreplaceable Human Commodity
In a world where AI seemingly can make more and more decisions for us, is taste the real commodity that will survive? That’s the premise...
Read Now07 2025 July
Is “Sludge” a Real Customer Service Tactic to Avoid Irate Customers?
There is a term in Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler’s book Nudge, first published in 2008, that introduces the idea of sludge–“tortuous administrative demands,...
Read Now16 2025 June
How To See Through a Manipulated Headline (A Retailwire Case Study)
One thing I often talk about in this newsletter is honing our media literacy. This week I found a perfect case study to illustrate how...
Read Now26 2025 May
What Is Millennial Hobby Energy?
Doing things for fun is making a comeback. That may seem like an odd statement, but there is a time in many people’s lives when...
Read Now30 2025 April
Should You Be Polite to Chatbots? Research Says Yes. Sam Altman Says It Costs Millions in “Wasted” Computing Power
How polite are you when you ask ChatGPT a query? According to Sam Altman, the human propensity to be nice when asking technology for solutions...
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