There’s a Paris politician who walks around with a live rat on his shoulder. I wish that sentence were a joke, but it’s not. His name’s Gregory Moreau, and this isn’t a Halloween stunt or a social experiment. It’s his actual campaign to “reconcile Parisians with rats.” I’ve seen some…
Human Stories
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Bread, Kindness, and the Simple Magic of Being Human
There’s something about the smell of bread coming out of the oven that hits deeper than logic. It’s memory, love, patience — all baked into something you can hold in your hands. And in Seattle, that smell is starting to mean something bigger again. The Ballard Food Bank just began…
Business
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Japan Faces Its Darkest Hour: Running Out of Asahi Super Dry
Forget recessions, inflation, or political scandals — Japan now faces a national crisis that truly cuts to the bone: the country could run out of Asahi Super Dry within days. That’s right, a cyberattack has crippled Asahi’s order and delivery systems, leaving its 30 factories in beer lockdown. For context,…
AI
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The Future of Your Feed- AI Slop Served Piping Hot
Your social feed’s future reality? A lot less… real. Instead of vacation photos or shaky football highlights, you might scroll into a clip of Bigfoot chasing two bewildered reporters through a WeWork kitchen. Or a suspiciously lifelike video of your buddy’s grandma rapping over a drill beat. That’s AI slop….
AOL
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AOL Dial-Up Curtain Call – Goodbye to the Screech Heard ‘Round the World
Thirty-two years ago, I logged onto AOL for the first time. I was in my twenties, excited about this thing called the “Information Superhighway,” and there it was: the scratchy, robotic modem sound that—let’s be honest—sounded like R2-D2 in a fistfight with a fax machine. That sound still cracks me…
United Airlines
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Paris to Paris Nonstop – United Jet Foiled by Flush Fail
United Airlines passengers thought they were heading for D.C. on Sunday night. Instead, they got a round-trip to nowhere thanks to one of the least glamorous problems in aviation: busted bathrooms. Flight 331, a Boeing 767 loaded with folks bound for Dulles, lifted off from Paris Charles de Gaulle around…
College Football
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The Oldest NIL Football Deal Yet – How Tom Cillo, 58 Just Rewrote the Playbook
The Oldest NIL Deal Yet: How Tom Cillo, 58, Just Rewrote the Playbook Tell someone they’re “too old” for the game, and watch them prove you wrong. That’s exactly what Tom Cillo did this week. At 58 years old, the Lycoming College offensive lineman signed a Name, Image, and Likeness…
Scarcity
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Scarcity From Sneakers to Sriracha – Why Consumers Love Being Denied
Tell someone they can’t have it—and watch them line up overnight. Scarcity isn’t marketing, it’s manipulation dressed up as exclusivity. And yet, it works every single time. There’s a reason people camp out for sneakers, hit refresh a thousand times for concert tickets, and trade hot sauce like it’s contraband….
Failure
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Wise Words of Failure
So failing sucks. That’s usually your first thought after something you have worked on crashes and burns. Whether it be trying to get a new client, run a marketing campaign or produce an event, failing sucks. However many lessons are learned (painfully and the hard way) that can help you…
MacLeod
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The Power of Storytelling
Each and every day as we are building our businesses, we all know the key to a successful presentation is a product being sold to the end-line consumer and/or sponsoring a new person. In an upcoming issue, I am going to write about the difference between making a sale and…