The New Science of Customer Emotions

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The New Science of Customer Emotions   When a company connects with customers’ emotions, the payoff can be huge. Yet building such connections is often more guesswork than science. To remedy that problem, the authors have created a lexicon of nearly 300 “emotional motivators” and, using big data analytics, have linked them to specific profitable behaviors. They describe how firms can identify and leverage the particular motivators that will maximize their competitive advantage and growth. The process can be divided into three phases. First, companies should inventory their existing market research and customer insight data, looking for qualitative descriptions of what motivates their customers—desires for freedom, security, success, and so on. Further research can add to their understanding of those motivators. Second, companies should analyze their best customers to learn which of the motivators just identified are specific or more important to the high-value group. They should then find the two or three of these key motivators that have a strong association with their brand. This provides a guide to the emotions they need to connect with in order to grow their most valuable customer segment. Third, companies need to make the organization’s commitment to emotional connection a key lever for growth—not just in the marketing department but across every function in the firm. Continued here

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How America Can Avoid the Next Debt-Ceiling Showdown   As clocks across Washington, D.C., struck 1 on the morning of March 4, 1879, the Capitol bustled with activity. Sleepless tourists packed its halls; Cabinet secretaries stayed huddled in consultation with congressmen; diplomats and socialites remained shoulder-to-shoulder in the Senate viewing gallery, transfixed by the scene unfolding below them.They were all witnessing a grimly fascinating event—one that few Americans had, until that moment, thought possible: Their government was about to run out of money. More startling, the reason for its insolvency was not some economic crisis, nor war, but a deliberate act of sabotage. For the first time, one party had decided to withhold federal funding in an attempt to extort policy change from the other. Continued here

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The Pandemic Caused a Baby Boom in Red States and a Bust in Blue States   The COVID pandemic caused a U.S.-wide decline in fertility rates, but red states actually saw increasesAnna McCleary had her daughter in October 2019. McCleary, who works at a law firm in Chicago, had just returned from her maternity leave in early 2020 when the COVID pandemic hit. She and her husband found themselves working from home without access to day care or other help. “We were just thrown into the middle of this sort of nightmare scenario of [having] all of your responsibilities, with none of the safety net that you expect when you have a kid,” McCleary says. She and her husband had always planned on having two children, but as the pandemic dragged on, adding a second child to their family felt impossible. “We could afford it with our money,” she says, but “we couldn’t afford it with our time.” Now, at age 40, she worries she may have missed the window to have a second child. Continued here

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3 Fresh Perspectives to Help Your Company in Recruiting the Next Generation of Talent   How to unpack what's new with Gen-Z to make your business a top choice. Continued here

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Female electricians: a climate solution?   As a child, Cora Saxton liked to make things: forts, whittled wood carvings, a flying saucer even. So when she became an electrician at age 49, it felt like a perfect fit. "I like the puzzle-solving and being able to look back at the end of the day and see the physical result of your hard work," she says. Continued here

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AI Can Help You Ask Better Questions -- and Solve Bigger Problems   Most companies still view AI rather narrowly, as a tool that alleviates the costs and inefficiencies of repetitive human labor and increasing organizations’ capacity to produce, process, and analyze piles and piles of data. But when paired with “soft” inquiry-related skills it can help people ask better questions and be more innovative. Continued here

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'Yellowjackets,' How Could You?   Back when she was just a member of the championship high-school soccer team known as the Yellowjackets, Natalie (played by Sophie Thatcher) was a wide midfielder, according to fans who studied the few scenes of the girls in action. The position comes with little glory. Wide midfielders don’t normally score the goals themselves; they are tasked with attacking from the wings and providing assists. They’re quietly powerful, in other words—often overlooked, yet integral to a squad’s success.Off the pitch and throughout much of the Showtime drama Yellowjackets’ run, Natalie has performed a similarly underappreciated role. In 1996, after the team’s plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness, she becomes a hunter, only to disappoint her friends when the brutal winter leaves her empty-handed day after day. As an adult, Natalie (played by Juliette Lewis) attempts to unmask a blackmailer threatening her and her fellow survivors, only to be kidnapped by Lottie (Simone Kessell), another former Yellowjacket. Again and again, Natalie has been a crucial catalyst: In the past, she made clear to her teammates how tough the cold would be to endure, and in the present, her disappearance reunited the other women. Yet in the second-season finale, Yellowjackets killed her off. During a melodramatically staged, near-farcical scene, Misty (Christina Ricci) accidentally injects Natalie with a syringe full of poison after Natalie tries to stop her from hurting Lisa (Nicole Maines), a woman with whom Natalie had bonded at Lottie’s cultlike compound. As a way to cover up the circumstances of her passing, Natalie’s death is deemed an “accidental overdose”—a cruel punch line, given Natalie’s history of substance abuse. Continued here

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Groupthink is for mindless pawns, but group thinking will push humanity further   In the early 1990s, a group of women in Olympia, Washington started to make punk music that expressed rage at the patriarchy. This was the beginning of the Riot grrl movement.Riot grrls exemplified a shared approach to art and community, a shared set of (feminist, politically progressive) concerns, a shared (punk) aesthetic, and shared cultural practices (such as zine-making). These commonalities among group members, which are sometimes articulated in manifestos stating core beliefs and values, are characteristic of artistic movements in general. Impressionism, futurism, surrealism, Mexican muralism, hip-hop, and techno, among so many others, all unify their participants under shared sensibilities and practices. Continued here

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How Losing His Fortune Led Billionaire Robert Hale Toward Even Greater Success   When his first company went under, Robert Hale faced the biggest failure of his career, he told the graduates of the University of Massachusetts Boston. But he didn't let the defeat define him. Continued here

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How many "corporate psychopaths" are CEOs?   The term often evokes a mental image of a ruthless criminal or a serial killer. It’s a reasonable stereotype. Between one quarter and one third of convicted murderers are psychopaths, along with almost nine in ten serial killers. These heinous offenders earned that diagnosis because they lie and manipulate to get what they want. They are regularly reckless and impulsive, have an outsized ego, are quick to anger, and lack empathy for others. Despite all this, they can often be charming and even likable. But while most violent criminals are psychopaths, most psychopaths aren’t criminals. These successful psychopaths inhabit a variety of niches in civilized society, but one of the most common places they end up is in corporate management. In fact, psychopaths are so common among the upper echelons of companies that psychologists have concocted a name for them: “corporate psychopaths.” Continued here

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These Two Mistakes Cost Me Millions in Business   But I don't regret making them. Here's why. Continued here

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Role-Swapping in Business: A Founder's Perspective   Co-founders can gain greater appreciation for business challenges by switching responsibilities with each other. Continued here

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No A/C? No problem, if buildings copy networked tunnels of termite mounds   The mounds that certain species of termites build above their nests have long been considered to be a kind of built-in natural climate control—an approach that has intrigued architects and engineers keen to design greener, more energy-efficient buildings mimicking those principles. There have been decades of research devoted to modeling just how these nests function. A new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Materials offers new evidence favoring an integrated-system model in which the mound, the nest, and its tunnels function together much like a lung. Continued here

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The Power of Soft Skills: Our Favorite Reads   If you’re new to the workforce, you’ve probably read articles about the importance of building “soft skills”—empathy, resilience, compassion, adaptability, and others. The advice isn’t wrong. Research shows soft skills are foundational to great leadership and set high performers apart from their peers. They’re also increasingly sought by employers. Continued here

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The Hottest Trend in Investing Is Mostly a Sham   Republicans portray ESG as the epitome of “woke capital.” The truth is closer to the opposite.In March, 19 Republican governors issued a statement warning of “a direct threat to the American economy, individual economic freedom, and our way of life.” The threat in question was not one of the classic objects of conservative anxiety, like high taxes, government regulation, or socialized medicine. Instead, it was a bugbear of a more recent vintage: ESG investing. Continued here

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3 Tips for Ensuring Your Brand Stays Relevant With Young Consumers for Years to Come   People may age, but your brand doesn't have to. Continued here

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5 Ways to Improve Your Ability to Get Things Done   Think you're a productive person? Find out how to get things done with a simple change in perspective. Continued here

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North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum Weighs a Presidential Run   The North Dakota governor is eyeing June 7 to announce his candidacy for the Republican ticket. Continued here

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The high cost of an El Ni   Over the coming months, a vast body of warm water will slosh slowly across the tropical Pacific Ocean in the direction of South America. As it does so, it will trigger the start of a climate phenomenon that will bring dramatic shifts in weather patterns around the world.Climate scientists are now warning there is now a 90% chance of an El Niño weather pattern taking hold through the end of this year and the first months of 2024. And they are warning it could be a strong one. Continued here

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Why Tears of the Kingdom is worse without item duplication   For a few weeks now, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players have been able to use a surprising number of glitches to endlessly duplicate items, materials, weapons, and more to their heart's content. But the endless item party officially comes to an end today, with data miners reporting that the new ver. 1.1.2 game update fixes these unintended endless item glitches (you can still stock up your inventory before installing the update, by all accounts). Continued here

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Azeem on AI: What Can the Copernican Revolution Teach Us about the Future of AI?   In his brief commentary, Azeem Azhar discusses the increasing complexity and capabilities of large language models (LLMs) and the transformative potential they hold. Just as the Copernican Revolution forced us to reassess our understanding of the universe and led to numerous societal and scientific changes, Azeem proposes that rapid advancements in AI could lead to a similar paradigm shift that challenges established norms and systems. Continued here

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Photos From Turkey's Convulsive Decade   The photographer Emin Özmen has spent his career documenting life in Erdoğan’s shadow, watching his country transform from an aspiring democracy to a vision of the dystopian autocratic future.The Magnum photographer Emin Özmen remembers the day in 1993 when radical Islamists set fire to the Madımak Hotel in his hometown of Sivas, Turkey, killing 37 people. Intellectuals and artists had gathered there for a festival honoring a 16th-century Alevi poet. Continued here

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HP printers should have EPEAT ecolabels revoked, trade group demands   HP printers have received a lot of flak historically and recently for invasive firmware updates that end up preventing customers from using ink with their printers. HP also encourages printer customers to sign up for HP+, a program that includes a free ink-subscription trial and irremovable firmware that allows HP to brick the ink when it sees fit. Continued here

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How to Protect Your Company from Evolving Ransomware Threats   The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Security Agency have advice. Continued here

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Everyone Wants to Regulate AI. No One Can Agree How   As the artificial intelligence frenzy builds, a sudden consensus has formed. We should regulate it!While there’s a very real question whether this is like closing the barn door after the robotic horses have fled, not only government types but also people who build AI systems are suggesting that some new laws might be helpful in stopping the technology from going bad. The idea is to keep the algorithms in the loyal-partner-to-humanity lane, with no access to the I-am-your-overlord lane. Continued here

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How -- and When -- Should Companies Engage in the Political Process?   How should companies participate in politics? For all the discussion about the social responsibilities of the corporation, there’s been less discussion of how and whether companies should influence government. A new set of principles from the Erb Institute of the University of Michigan suggests some guidelines based around responsibility, legitimacy, accountability, and transparency. Continued here

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The languages that make maths easier   How quickly and confidently you can answer this question may depend on your age, education – and possibly, on your native language.*According to a growing body of research, the words that different languages use for numbers can affect how easily we learn to count and understand basic concepts such as fractions. Continued here

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How Bringing Video to Work Built a Billion-Dollar Business   Alongside the rise of video-forward platforms, Joe Thomas has scaled Loom to reach 21 million users Continued here

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Study narrows long COVID's 200+ symptoms to core list of 12   Tens of millions of people worldwide are thought to have developed long-term symptoms and conditions in the wake of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. But this sometimes-debilitating phenomenon, often called long COVID, remains a puzzle to researchers. What causes it? Who gets it? And, perhaps, the most maddening one: What is it? Continued here

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Ask Ethan: What is the Universe expanding into?   For nearly 60 years, the Big Bang has reigned supreme as our most successful theory for explaining our cosmic origins. Beginning from a hot, dense, matter-and-radiation-rich state, the Universe has expanded, cooled, and gravitated ever since. As it evolved, it formed protons and neutrons, the first light elements, stable atoms, and eventually, stars, galaxies, planets, and complex chemistry capable of giving rise to life. Some 13.8 billion years after it all began, here we are, observing the still-expanding Universe and working to figure out exactly where it all came from and how it came to be the way it is today.But if the Universe has been expanding for all this time, what is it that the Universe is expanding into? That’s a common question that people have, and this week, it was asked by James Nastelli, who simply wants to know: Continued here