Hey, Friends 👋!

Greetings from a sinus hindering London 🇬🇧.

This weeks newsletter has 10 must-read stories for you to enjoy and share with friends and colleagues.

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Must Read Articles Of The Week

1. Learn From The Shake Shack Leader 🍔 Why is this important? Danny Meyer is a legend in the food industry, he has 6 qualities he looks for when hiring and they are brilliant even if you are the best chef you have to pass the other test, the 6 rules test. - Read the full lessons

2. What Do You Buy When You Buy Merch 👕 Why is this important? Merch is the original form of supporting creators (apart from buying tickets and music), we have seen a huge influx of offerings and tools that allow creators to sell their merch, particularly YouTubers. In 2021 and beyond its skins (NFT’s), custom avatars etc, we are going to see more offerings and sales through more platforms, it’s on the fan to show how much we love the artist or how many offering is too many - Read the full story 

3. The Future Of Online Identity? Emoji’s 😱 Why is this important? Yat is a new example of how emoji’s combo’s and URL’s are going to be blend together to represent you. FWIW emoji domains aren’t new just hard for browsers & search engines to work them out.I have mentioned before why online identity is a choice (image above), and it’s worth considering how you will be thinking about your profile and identity past social media profiles. File under an emerging theme - Read the full story

4. The World’s Most Innovative Companies 🚀  Why is this important? Innovation is surprisingly hard for mid to large-sized companies, 2020-2021 was the year that was obviously challenging but didn’t stop these 50 companies. You won’t be surprised by the healthcare and tech companies, however, many are software firms becoming media-focused and media companies turning into d2c businesses. - See the full-sized graphic

5. Pay By Palm - Here’s $10 Credit ✋ Why is this important? When this was first announced many experts thought this was PR, well it’s not and it’s happening. Futurists love this innovative move, normal people maybe not so much, but….in a leap of faith (and easy growth tactic know you CAC) Amazon is offering $10 credit to have access to your palm so you can pay by your palm…we will see more and more attempts at pay by body part or unique gesture and often the best way for adoption is to place a price for our biometrics. If Amazon crack this, Google will be close behind - Read the full report 

6. Death To Stupid Endless Job Interviews 😡 Why is this important? The number of job interviews people are going through is increasing and importantly this process is not helping the company or candidates match better, it’s just wasting more time. Yes to detailed interviews and introducing the right colleagues but no to more than 3 interviews, they are wasting everyone’s time - Read the full story 

7. Hotels The New Marketing Tool 🏨 Why is this important? Hotels are the new Marketing channel (2021’s buy a product & they’ll plant a tree), almost every brand (see hotels x kfc) trying to be cool (or relevant) is opening up a pop-up hotel (or motel) or building a hotel to experience the brand and then for you to share across social. Star Wars (aka Disney) is the most relevant especially with their fanatical fans and the experiences Disney designs. The question for marketers and company leads is: Will this enhance the brand or will this hinder your brand? Maybe this Star Wars on isn’t for everyone…with reported $6k per stay price tags.

8. Can’t Get 💩 Done? It’s Likely The Tool 🤷‍♂️ Why is this important? I am a big productivity person, I have frameworks and systems to help improve flow and deep work alongside prioritising workloads, there is a movement against long lists and this is a helpful dive into why tools aren’t actually helping and why most people jump between notepad and app. - Read the full article Here is a great podcast on why you shouldn’t have a huge list of tasks but should make it a list of time

9. Gamblers Bet More In The Dark 🤐 Why is this important? It is important to know why specific things are engineered the way they are. For example, Las Vegas has oxygen pumped into casino’s and bright lights switch up high to make you alert and keep time from being a ‘factor’, social apps prime you with nudges, pushes and gamification (like slot machines) & 24/7 betting is engineered to make it accessible constantly and engineered with data to ensure the maximum is gambled and keep you playing - Read the full insights

10. Of Olympic Importance 🏃‍♂️ Why is this important? I mentioned the flop that is the Olympic games last week’s newsletter “flop” but here is one must-read article on why it is so important athletes speak out on their mental health and one must watch TikTok in which Olympic athlete shows off the swag they are given.

Something To Keep In Mind This Week

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"Quote Of The Week”

“Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling." — Bill Belichick

Thanks for reading again this week Must Readers, please go & have a great end to your week!

Danny Denhard Must Reads Editor & Focus Founder.

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