Emoji Drama

Hey, Must Readers 👋! It’s the 178th Must Reads. Thanks for being a part of the journey.

This week’s Must Reads Newsletter has 12 must-read stories & a hybrid vs 4 day work week microblog for you to enjoy and share with friends and colleagues.

Something to keep in mind this week, 📲 There has now been 2 billion iPhone’s sold since January 9th 2007! 🤯

Must Read Articles Of The Week

• A Week Away Solve Your Problems? 🌍 Bill Gates takes a week away from the office every year and removes all distractions for a week. Why? So he can master a topic, he famously has done this for years & one famous week he thought up internet explorer. - Here’s how you would build yours

• Struggling With Strategy? 🎂 Strategy is hard, many overcomplicate it and keep doing it the way they have always done it. Here is how to rethink strategy by comparing it to baking and becoming a better baker - How to be a better baker 

• Burnt Out? 💤 The secret cause of burnout…the lack of being lazy! We have forgotten how to be lazy and how to allow ourselves to be lazy. Maybe we need to be more sloth 🦥 - Read the full post

• Amazon Ads 🚀 Amazon is THE advertising brand on an absolute tear, Amazon has followed the Google ad model of adding in more sponsored results into their own search results, ramping their seller ad prices up (~75% of sellers use their ads platform) but user search relevancy down. Will this impact consumer experience? Or is Amazon that synonymous with us we won’t be bothered? Hints yes - Read the explainer

• Ikea & Gamers Ideal Match 👾 How Swedish powerhouses are going to change in-store to attract more gamers and why gamers are ideal customers for Ikea. Relevancy comes in all different methods, especially away from the marketing persona so many companies become obsessed by and often blindly led by. Nice out of the box thinking by Ikea - Read the full article

• Why Religion Has Led Social Science 🥼 Religion has been a guide for many people, religion helps many to make decisions to guide their everyday life, Scientists have often struggled to accept religion, social scientists have started to embrace lessons from religion and helped to improve collectiveness and togetherness - Read the full article 

• Pregnant Man Emoji 🙋‍♂️ A little truth, I always wanted to be on the emoji council, yes the group of people who approve emojis. This week I saw a fascinating debate happen across social media across the newly approved emojis, here is why we have a pregnant man emoji (hint more than just a “food baby”) - Read the article 

• How To Enjoy Coffee ☕️ You either love it or hate it, I love it for the kick, the taste isn’t my favourite thing but so many people just drink what they know or “their” coffee shop serves. For the non-coffee sommelier (like me), here is a good guide to understanding how to actually enjoy it. - Read the full article 

• The Misdirection Of Record Number Of Jobs 👀 There is a record number of open job roles in many large cities, but have you heard there is talent shortages, no one accepting roles and many people are not changing their roles despite the continued reporting of the great resignation. Here is a good explainer of what is happening & why it is a broken system - Read the full breakdown

• Are The Album Drops Good For Music 🎵 Music has changed, the way albums are now released is very different to five years ago and now, the album drop or surprise drop + mad stunts & staged beefs are commonplace…is this music growing up or is it dumbing the art down? Article Quote: ”One thing is broadly agreed on: in a world of diminishing attention spans where people remain thirsty for instant digital gratification, the strategy duly feeds it. And globalized or huge North American acts aren’t necessarily seeing lighter wallets as a result.” - Read the full article

• Friends Impact Our Food 😤 Yes, you read that right our friends impact our food, our food choices and what we order, how dare they, right?!? I am rarely the person with food envy but this is an important read about why our tastes change - Read the full explainer

• Chess - Queen Attack 👑 Queens Gambit has had a huge influence on one of the world’s most strategic games chess, it has led to a number of interesting developments including math wizards solving the famous n-queens problem.- Read the full article

Latest Posts From Me 

• Decrapyify Work 🏴‍☠️ Are you willing to make a change to improve work? Listen to Colin Newlyn discuss how to be a little more pirate and improve work - Listen to the tips 

• Managers Advice To Improved Team & Company Succes 👏Are you a manager and need some inspiration to improve as a manager? Or Want to improve work for others? Here are a load of actionable tips to help improve work! - Read the full tips

• Why Coaching Is A Tweaked Recipe Every Time Be Coached By Me

Micro Blog: Hybrid, 4 days per week & fully remote is not a one size fits all.

I have written and spoken a lot about how hybrid is the future of work, I also truly believe many jobs and companies could be 4 days a week with better operations and smarter planning and fewer meetings!

Remember the majority of us made working remotely work for the last 18 months. There are numerous companies who have made remote work and have always been remote, Automattic (WordPress) and Gitlabs (their handbook is brilliant) have been huge advocates of remote and making it work.

What has been missing from these conversations is how it is never going to be a set around one formation (like the 9-5), it is not one size fits all, it won’t be one size fits many. It will be the most customised and personalised way of work we have had to date and many companies are going to get this wrong.

However, it is important to know you have to start shaping this now and rethinking how you work currently and how you could get the best out of people by rethinking a Monday to Friday 9-5 (rethinking the 7 days in a week 24 hours in a day shift and schedule patterns (hear more here)) and being based in a big grey building.

😝 MEME WIN 😂

I’ll leave you with a must-read lesson in how to market yourself

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Until next week’s Must Reads,

Danny Denhard