3 Questions Sales Teams Should Ask After Losing (or Winning) a Deal   When salespeople lose a deal, most prefer to move on rather than linger over the specifics of the loss. Similarly, when they win a deal, most are quick to celebrate. But very few take the time to assess why they won the business. In the authors’ experience leading and coaching sales teams, they see evidence that a brief, well-pointed sales retrospective, where you unpack the reasons behind a win or a loss, can significantly improve a team’s future win rate. Beyond the obvious benefits for the sales team — for whom the process can help identify the best messaging and behaviors to use going forward — unpacking wins and losses also provides valuable insights for product, marketing, and finance teams. Teams should ask three questions: 1) How would the customer articulate the value of their choice? 2) Who was the most influential voice in and out of the room? 3) Beyond price, what were the key deciding factors in the client’s decision?
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 S2A Sports Analogy for Understanding Different Ways to Use AI  The potential impact of generative AI on the economy, society, and work is polarizing, swinging from the positive benefits of a technological revolution to doomsday scenarios. The authors have come to think about this issue as points on a spectrum and have created a sports analogy to help think about it: AI tools can range from steroids, to sneakers, to a coach, each representing a different relationship between human users and the technology. Steroids elevate short-term performance, but leave you worse off in the long term. AI-powered tools can instead be used to augment people’s skills and make them more productive — much like a good running sneaker. On the most desirable end of the spectrum, AI-powered tools can be used like a coach that improves people’s own capabilities. This framework can be used to help conceptualize how we might craft AI-based tools that enhance rather than diminish human capabilities.
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S6S7S8S9S10S11When an Active Pause Is the Best Strategic Choice  In the face of competitive threats, managers are tempted to do something, because being active feels better than being passive. In fact, an active pause can make the most sense. This is especially true in industries facing a big technological change, when going “all in” on a nascent technology may have larger long-term costs than benefits.
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S12Survey: GenAI Is Making Companies More Data Oriented  Although cultural change generally requires human intervention, it appears that new technology — especially a new technology like generative AI that captures human imaginations — can play a role in catalyzing a data-oriented culture. In an annual survey assessing attitudes about data, analytics, and AI, data and technology leaders in large companies reported significant improvement in their organizations’ data culture. Given that the 2023 survey was fielded just before ChatGPT was announced, generative AI seems the likely cause of the leap in positive responses around culture. To take advantage of this, companies need to invest in experimentation, production deployment, and education.
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S13Taupo: The super volcano under New Zealand's largest lake  Located in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, the town of Taupo sits sublimely in the shadow of the snow-capped peaks of Tongariro National Park. Fittingly, this 40,000-person lakeside town has recently become one of New Zealand's most popular tourist destinations, as hikers, trout fishers, water sports enthusiasts and adrenaline junkies have started descending upon it.The namesake of this tidy town is the Singapore-sized lake that kisses its western border. Stretching 623sq km wide and 160m deep with several magma chambers submerged at its base, Lake Taupo isn't only New Zealand's largest lake; it's also an incredibly active geothermal hotspot. Every summer, tourists flock to bathe in its bubbling hot springs and sail through its emerald-green waters. Yet, the lake is the crater of a giant super volcano, and within its depths lies the unsettling history of this picturesque marvel.
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S14Message sticks: Australia's ancient unwritten language  The continent of Australia is home to more than 250 spoken Indigenous languages and 800 dialects. Yet, one of its linguistic cornerstones wasn't spoken, but carved.Known as message sticks, these flat, rounded and oblong pieces of wood were etched with ornate images on both sides that conveyed important messages and held the stories of the continent's Aboriginal people – considered the world's oldest continuous living culture. Message sticks are believed to be thousands of years old and were typically carried by messengers over long distances to reinforce oral histories or deliver news between Aboriginal nations or language groups.
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S15Did Australia's boomerangs pave the way for flight?  The aircraft is one of the most significant developments of modern society, enabling people, goods and ideas to fly around the world far more efficiently than ever before. The first successful piloted flight took off in 1903 in North Carolina, but a 10,000-year-old hunting tool likely developed by Aboriginal Australians may have held the key to its lift-off. As early aviators discovered, the secret to flight is balancing the flow of air. Therefore, an aircraft's wings, tail or propeller blades are often shaped in a specially designed, curved manner called an aerofoil that lifts the plane up and allows it to drag or turn to the side as it moves through the air.
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S16Why the hovercraft's time might have finally arrived  The 12.30pm midweek hovercraft departure from Portsmouth is already respectably half-full when we step on board. Marketed as the world's only year-round scheduled passenger hovercraft service, the Union Jack-emblazoned machine flies for a thrilling 10 minutes, hovering just inches above the water’s surface. It is the fastest way to reach Ryde on the Isle of Wight, a Detroit-sized island off the south coast of England. A rival vehicle, the FastCat ferry, takes more than twice as long, around 22 minutes.The hovercraft's engines roar (no louder than an airliner on take-off) as its beefy cushion inflates, lifting the vehicle gently five feet (1.6m) into the air. Then, it turns and slides seamlessly into the sea on its dash to Ryde. The 78-seater craft's unique ability to fly over sand and mud without damaging the fragile ecosystems underneath means that passengers may board even at low tide.
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S17How Spotify helped turn Afrobeats into a global phenomenon  Aoi Narita was a marketing consultant for Japanese startups in Kenya in 2021 when she first heard the song “Love Nwantiti” by Nigerian Afrobeats artist CKay, and fell in love with the music genre almost immediately. “I had no idea what he was saying but just the melody was always in my head,” she told Rest of World over text. “Since then, I started listening to different Afrobeats artists, and I still listen to them all the time.”In November 2022, Narita moved to Nigeria as an investment manager at early-stage venture capital firm Kepple Africa Ventures. “One of the reasons I wanted to live in Nigeria instead of Kenya was because of the music,” she said. Five of the top songs and artists she streamed on Spotify in 2023 were related to Afrobeats. “I think 98% [of the music] I’m listening to [is] Afrobeats. [The] other 2% is K-pop or Japanese songs … But because I only listen to Afrobeats/Amapiano, Spotify doesn’t recommend other types of music,” Narita wrote over text.
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S18Space and Submarine Explorers Are Right to Take Risks  What lessons does the loss of the Titan submersible have for preventing spaceflight disasters?As we await the final investigation results from the loss of the Titan submersible, which killed five people last summer at a depth of over 12,000 feet in the Atlantic, the tragedy has drawn questions far above the ocean depths, asking whether similar hazards face the burgeoning private exploration of space.
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S19Preventing Child Abuse Should Not Be Controversial. My Own Hate Mail Reveals That It Is  A deep dive into one scholar’s correspondence shows society prefers blame and punishment over protecting children from sexual violenceIn my senior year of college, I began my first job as a social worker, counseling victims of sexual assault. I began every morning determined to help my clients, who had experienced major trauma. But in sessions, I felt powerless, like there was never enough I could do for them. And by the time I left each evening, all I could feel was rage for my clients who had been sexually abused—especially when they were children. I wondered why their abuse hadn’t been prevented; why we weren’t stopping it before it began.
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S20A Scandal Is Tearing the World of Record-Breaking Dogs Apart .jpg) When Bobi, the world’s oldest dog, died in October 2023, the outpouring of grief online was immediate. But it wasn’t long before that sadness turned to suspicion, as experts raised doubts about whether the Portuguese dog really did make it to 31 years and 163 days. In December, a (totally serious) WIRED investigation revealed that a government agency that was supposed to have verified Bobi’s age didn’t actually have evidence he was born in 1992.Now the doubts surrounding Bobi’s longevity are spiraling into an even bigger scandal that is rocking the world of record-breaking dogs. Guinness World Records, which verifies the longest-lived dogs in the world, says that it has temporarily paused the records for the oldest living dog and oldest dog ever while it reviews the evidence behind Bobi’s record. For now, the throne of the world’s oldest dog remains empty.
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S21S22S23Comedian Jay Pharoah on fear, forgiveness, and not fitting in  When Jay Pharoah started doing impressions at age 6, he viewed the hobby as a way to escape a difficult childhood. As he honed his skills, his talent turned into a tool to impress his peers – and ultimately, a springboard for a successful career in comedy. “I would say it was a comfort blanket when I was 16,” he tells us when we sit down for a chat with Big Think. “Because I wasn’t popular in school. And then all of a sudden, somebody told somebody that I did impressions. And then people would come and ask me to do it. So it was a way for me to make people like me because obviously the person that I was… I was just quiet. They didn’t like that, you know?”
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S24Want to build trust in your  One day Steve Jobs was asked to describe what he found most important in the development of a product. His response is worth reading in full: “You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was that after I left, John Scully got a very serious disease. And that disease, I’ve seen other people get it too: it’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work.
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S25Fertility problems linked to increased risk of autism  Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized primarily by problems with communication and social interactions. According to recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the disorder affects an estimated one in 36 children. The incidence of autism was believed to have increased dramatically since the 1990s, but this apparent increase is more likely due to greater awareness of the condition and changes in how it is diagnosed. Despite any increased awareness, the exact causes of autism remain unclear. However, growing evidence suggests that specific environmental and genetic factors play a role. A large population-based study recently published in the open-access journal JAMA Network Open shows that children born to parents with fertility problems have a slightly higher risk of autism.
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S26Are electric vehicles actually cheaper to own? Maybe not.  Electric vehicles (EVs) have undeniably entered the mainstream in the United States. According to estimates from Kelley Blue Book, more EVs were sold last year than were sold between 2011 and 2018. The roughly 1.2 million new EVs put into service in 2023 represented 7.6% of the total U.S. car market. Cox Automotive’s Economics and Industry Insights team boldly predicted that this share will climb to 10% in 2024.EVs’ impressive growth has played out even though they remain significantly more expensive to purchase than gasoline-powered cars, with only a handful of options priced below $40,000. EV proponents counter this drawback by claiming that EVs are actually cheaper to own over the long term, with lower fuel and maintenance costs making up for the higher sticker price. Studies examining cars’ total cost of ownership back their assertions.
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S27Einstein's 7 rules for a better life  When it comes to living your best life, Albert Einstein — notorious as the greatest physicist and genius of his time, and possibly of all-time — probably isn’t the first name you think of in terms of life advice. You most likely know of Einstein as a pioneer in revolutionizing how we perceive the Universe, having given us advances such as:But Einstein was more than just a famous physicist: he was a pacifist, a political activist, an active anti-racist, and one of the most iconic and celebrated figures in all of history.
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S28S29Meta verification proved useless--and my family is still locked out of Instagram  The trouble began three days before Christmas. When my sister-in-law Amy tried to log in to her Instagram account shortly before midnight, she was notified that an unauthorized user had tried to access her account. Instagram suggested that she change her password. Wanting to protect the security on her account—an important tool for her successful photography business—Amy did so.
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S30S31First streaming-only NFL Playoff game breaks records with 23 million viewers  The NFL playoffs started this past weekend, and with it came the first streaming-only playoff game. Usually, premium NFL games like the playoffs are on one of the major TV networks nationwide, but the Dolphin/Chiefs wildcard game was exclusively available on Comcast/NBC's Peacock streaming service outside. NFL fans weren't particularly happy about having to sign up for some random streaming service to watch a playoff game, but that didn't stop many people from actually signing up, with Nielsen logging 23 million average streaming viewers for the game.
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S32S33S34Scientists identify first known prehistoric person with Turner syndrome  Turner syndrome is a genetic condition in which a (female) person has only one X chromosome instead of two. Scientists have used a new computational method for precisely measuring sex chromosomes to identify the first prehistoric person with this syndrome dating back some 2,500 years ago, according to a recent paper published in the journal Communications Biology. The team identified four other individuals with sex chromosomes outside the usual XX or XY designations: an early medieval individual with Jacobs syndrome (XYY) and three people from various periods with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY). They also identified an Iron Age infant with Down syndrome.
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S35AI poisoning could turn open models into destructive "sleeper agents," says Anthropic  Imagine downloading an open source AI language model, and all seems well at first, but it later turns malicious. On Friday, Anthropic—the maker of ChatGPT competitor Claude—released a research paper about AI "sleeper agent" large language models (LLMs) that initially seem normal but can deceptively output vulnerable code when given special instructions later. "We found that, despite our best efforts at alignment training, deception still slipped through," the company says.
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S36S37S38You Should Go to a Trump Rally  For many Americans, the former president has become an abstraction. They should see for themselves what his campaign is really about.If Donald Trump has benefited from one underappreciated advantage this campaign season, it might be that no one seems to be listening to him very closely anymore.
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S39The Life and Times of Joseph Lelyveld  The former editor of The New York Times navigated tumultuous change by insisting on traditional standards.Joe Lelyveld, who died earlier this month at the age of 86, was the last great print editor of The New York Times, a steward and symbol of a passing era. He presided over the newsroom during a period when the Times, like almost all newspapers, defined its journalism by what rolled off the presses every night. And he was there for the beginning of momentous upheaval for the Times and for American journalism, with the rise of the internet.
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