Loneliness and Social Connection, Brand Building Advice, Google Cleanup on Aisle 9, Ongoing AI Developments, and the Cannabis Ad Ban from The SUM
When life happens, you spit out things you've learned on the fly in airports and on trains, in the emergency room and surgeon's office after a backyard spill, and you break the schedule you'd committed to. The important part is to keep chugging away, despite the circumstances, and stick to your commitment.
Keeping this intro short because this newsletter is near 2,000 words. So, as Kendall Roy would say, "Let's get into it," but first, a shameless plug.
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In this newsletter, you'll find:
Leave a comment at the bottom if you learned something, hated
something, or just want to say what's up.
Thoughts on Loneliness from the U.S. Surgeon General: Social Connection
The U.S. Surgeon General released a 2023 study on social connection vis-à-vis loneliness and mental health. Interestingly, it provides workplaces (i.e. employers) with suggestions on how to combat this growing disconnect in the workplace.
Everyone knows what the elephant in the room is... it's automation and new technology dominating the workforce, in ways analysts have only begun to predict.
Here are 6 suggestions for workplaces from the U.S. Surgeon General to enhance social connection.
Employee sentiment is incredibly important. According to a Gallup poll from 2020, disengaged employees cost their company the equivalent of 18% of their annual salary.?
Similarly, in the "State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report" Gallup found disengaged employees cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity—or 11% of the global GDP. Those are staggering figures when you sit back and think about it. But it's not as surprising with 1.05 billion monthly active users on TikTok.
Companies have to do what is best for their bottom line, and sometimes what is best for the bottom line is keeping the workforce excited, engaged, connected, and socially interactive.
Addressing this culture of "loneliness" walks the line of the post-Covid hybridization of the workforce. No doubt, part of the increasing disconnect within American society was fueled by remote work. However, remote work also offers opportunities for individuals and families who, five years ago, would have had to uproot and relocate to accommodate an in-office leadership role.?
A full return to in-office, or even hybrid positions that require regular air travel commutes, lessen a company's ability to hire the best talent available. Relocation often removes individuals from family support systems, makes them more reliant on expensive childcare, and thereby heightens the probability of succumbing to the loneliness they're trying to prevent.
In the end, it's a double-edged sword for company culture and hiring practices. Employers will need to make the best decision for their bottom line while balancing the sentiment and happiness of their employees.
Technology Companies and How They Can Help Social Connection
Additionally, there are factors covering the impacts of "loneliness" on an individual's physical and mental health, resources, and shareable tools to help spread the word and be comfortable with the idea of "loneliness" in a culture largely built on individualist ideals in a capitalist state, and otherwise general information about how to cope with an increasingly disconnected society.
“In a U.S.-based study, participants who reported using social media for more than two hours a day had about double the odds of reporting increased perceptions of social isolation compared to those who used social media for less than 30 minutes per day.”
The surgeon general suggests technology companies:
So, to come full circle, those three suggestions are a call to arms for creating a culture of social connection by encouraging technology companies to build software and apps to influence human interaction, not discourage it.
Yet, the power of dollar signs attached to zombified eyeballs may be too much of a draw to begin a reformation of America's hungry, digital entertainment culture where advertising dollars amount to billions.
Google is Deleting Inactive Accounts This December and Dumping YouTube Stories
If you’ve always wanted a Gmail address that was taken, now’s your chance to snag it. Google is deleting inactive accounts but not until December 2023.
Why? ??
It’s still unclear if Google’s policy on deleted accounts will apply (i.e. Google has never recycled deleted usernames).
YouTube Stories are getting the axe tomorrow ?? but it’s an opportunity to continue focusing on YouTube Shorts.
Your Brand is the Foundation and Marketing and Advertising is the Vehicle to Drive Awareness. Don't Ignore It.
Build a foundation, then show people what you’ve built. The foundation is your brand, and marketing and advertising is your vehicle to drive interested traffic.
领英推荐
If you build it and tell no one, they won’t come. The average Joe wants to search for you on Google first, and if they find nothing, they’re moving on.
If you tell everyone but never invest in brand building, they will be confused when they show up, and they’ll never come back. There are too many options to market half-assed, and customers are much less forgiving than they were twenty years ago.
“If you build it, they will come” logic worked when people were driving the strip, going out on the town every weekend, and not distracted by backlit blue screens and hundreds of daily push notifications packing a dopamine punch.
Khan Explains How AI and Education are Allies, Not Enemies
TED talks carry a certain weight and validity from topic to topic. Their speakers are carefully selected, the topics are vetted, and they wrap it up in under 18 minutes.
Sal Khan, CEO of Khan Academy , shows you how his company is changing the game for education by leveraging AI, not restricting it.
AI Overreaction and Developing a Post-Apocalyptic Narrative
Is the modern world living in a live-action sci-fi flick? ?? Some of the biggest names in AI are endorsing this post-apocalyptic statement:
“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
2023 is shaping up to be a zero-to-sixty fearmongering scenario surrounding artificial intelligence, and it’s becoming hard to take some of the rhetoric seriously.
Should humans be aware of AI as an existential threat?
Yes. ?
Does AI have the capability and tools to wage war against humanity?
Hard no. ?
Unlike other AI-is-bad-for-humans awareness efforts—i.e., the open letter from the?Future of Life Institute (FLI)—this new threat comparison is slightly over its skis.
Meet Claude, a Constitutional AI Bot with a Conscious
By now, generative AI is a well-known term throughout the technology space, but “constitutional AI” is a new one.
This AI model helps “avoid toxic or discriminatory outputs, avoiding helping a human engage in illegal or unethical activities, and broadly creating an AI system that is helpful, honest, and harmless.”
Cannabis Advertising: Easing Up on Cannabis Ad Bans within Mainstream Brands and on Social Channels
Cannabis brands have largely been considered taboo for mainstream industry leaders to partner with—but not anymore.
Historically, marijuana companies had to create an agile digital ecosystem by necessity, especially as legalization efforts continue across the United States and the world. Those brands have been nimble from the get-go, employing guerilla marketing tactics and finding advertising workarounds, despite restrictions.
Recently, social media platforms began easing up on marijuana-related ad bans, which is a big win for normalization efforts.
With Elon Musk at the helm, Twitter wants advertising dollars, especially after brands halted advertising on its ad platform due to the erratic behavior of the ever-eccentric CEO. Even so, a move to support cannabis by being less restrictive—whether Twitter needs advertising capital or not—wouldn't come as a surprise from a guy who makes 4/20 the basis of major announcements, release dates, and earnings calls for Tesla and his other companies.
Google and Pinterest have both followed suit by relaxing restrictions and allowing a true e-commerce funnel to form. Can you imagine how prepared cannabis companies will be when they're no longer "toeing the line" of illegality state-by-state and at the federal level?
The Best Marketing in the Cannabis Industry
The Cronos Group has always had the best marketing material in the cannabis industry, in my opinion, despite being a smaller player than Canopy Growth Corporation or Tilray Brands, Inc. It uses neon green on dark backgrounds, giving it a high-contrast pop you'd expect from a tech company, not a boring medical cannabis player.
Similarly, in regards to good brand building, Canopy's acquisition of Wana Brands really ups its game in the space and enhances its image for a younger, vibrant U.S.-based audience. This will help market to recreational consumers and gets away from the stingy, big pharma appearance, which is the literal anathema of cannabis culture.
Tilray does it, too, but you can't blame them for the conservative lean until federal legalization arrives.
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