Good Morning from a rainy London, Must Readers!

Thanks for opening and spending 3½ minutes of your valuable time on Must Reads this week.

I hope you have had a great week. Newsletter 235 is packed full of (1) interesting collaborations, (2) why fashion giants are struggling, (3) questions about why work sucks for most right now, (4) getting to know the hottest new app GAS and (5) wtf is lying flat - hint a lot of people are doing it right now.

Must Read Stories Of The Week

Work Must Reads

> Ask The Clarifying Question 🙋‍♀️ - I'm a huge believer in asking the clarifying question, especially when someone is looking to discuss an issue, ask: “Do you need advice right now or do you need me to just listen?” -- read why

> McDonald's Krispy Kreme Collab 🍩 - We will see more and more brands collaborate to drive demand and reach of their products. I think this is a great placed collab and really compliments each other, versus going with the more modern £/$/€4.50 doughnuts that you will see across Dublin, London and Sydney.

> Long-Term Retention Gone? 🤨- Worklife has had a number of interesting articles recently, this time with important questions like is there a job for life and is long-term retention a waste of time for employers? Right now developing job retention is your opportunity while many others are turning over staff and losing team members based on the forced return to the office and lack of flex with hybrid practices.

All I can think of is Monica in Friends ⬇️ (alongside how much Mackenzie Scott has donated to charities in the 🇺🇸)

> Quit Quitting Vs Lying Flat 🇨🇳- Recently I have been advising a couple of companies who operate in the Chinese market, one term that has surfaced is lying flat, a movement against the 996 culture (9am to 9pm 6 days a week) and wanting to take a slower approach to work. It's interesting comparing to quiet quitting (ridiculous branding btw)

> ASOS Struggles 👗 - ASOS alongside so many other brands is struggling, the once dominating online brand has really struggled in recent years. The lessons here are: understand your audience, when switching to a discount brand you train your audience to wait for a discount day and an important questionable internal practices will come back to bite. And now going ASOS are into retail (yes IRL) to sell discounted stock… URL x IRL is going to become the default for many online brands struggling to find their relevancy.

> This Kid Has It Right 👇

> Quick Future Theme Hits: The Guinness Book Of Records has recognised bitcoin for the first time, (right now I'm not sure you would rush for a record with bitcoin records). Restaurant's latest play, installing EV charging stations (FWIW that's a smart move) Amazon have a big 90-day employee problem "only one out of three new hires in 2021" stay with the company for 90 or more days" & it's costing them a fortune

> How Drugs Are Made 💊 - This is a great read on how startups develop drugs from an idea to delivering to doctors and patients

Life Must Reads

> Gas ⛽️- The hot new app is gas, an app you gas up your friends (anonymously). It was built by the team that brought teens TBH that Facebook brought and folded into their product. It's interesting to see another anonymous app tried again but become super popular. The TBH internal memo at facebook is an incredible read, reply if you'd like to read

> How To Improve Mental Health 🧠 - Here are 6 exercises to take to help with your mental health

Have a great weekend and if you want to chat about stories, being featured or sponsoring the newsletter just hit reply or message me on twitter!

Thanks, Danny D