Great Ideas 💡

Why Pixar co-founder believes you cannot pitch anything great in 30 seconds ⏰

27 May

Hey, Friends!

This week I have 14 must-read stories for you to enjoy and share copy and paste https://mustreads.substack.com/p/great-ideas with your teams in email over on slack or Microsoft teams.

FYI: Last week’s most popular must read was how to make deepwork work

Must Read Articles Of The Week

  1. Has Your Career Lost Its Focus? 🧘‍♀️ This week’s anonymous career advice I answer how to regain your focus. - Read the full tips

  2. How To Fix Your Company Culture 🚑 One of the most common questions I am asked with my consultancy is how to fix our company culture, here are the steps to take - Read the full tips 

  3. Starbucks A Tech Company ☕️ On the surface, Starbucks seems a coffee company, but with 55k different drink combinations and thousands of global stores, they are a tech ops business - Read the full story What are Starbucks? ☕️ or 💻 company? 

  4. Logging Off Social Media For Good 😳 Yes, we all think it, some of us talk about it, but, many people have had enough of seeing and feeling like they have to document their every step and every bite, it is probably time we all considered the influence of social media on our lives. - Read why 

  5. Influencing Up Tips 💯 Here is my favourite author David Marquet breaking down how to speak to leadership and influencing their behaviour. His 7 steps are very smart and rings true in almost all businesses. - Watch the video 

  6. Hiring On Discord? 🌯 It’s one of the smarter ways to cut through a noisy and challenging market, put on a recruitment fair on Discord. I love this thinking out of the box and making yourself relevant in 2021. Well played Chipotle.- Read the full story

  7. The Future of Web Browsers - “Browser” 🌎 Web browsers haven’t really changed since Chrome was released in 2008, so the latest attempt is reimaging the browser as an open web operating system, improving our experience & making it quicker and smarter in the process. - Read about the new mighty browser

  8. How Candles Became A Status Symbol 🕯 How candles randomly became a status symbol in lockdowns and why they have become such a talking point (cough suggested affordable art 👀). Aren’t humans fascinating! - Read the full story

  9. Why Superheroes Used Phone Boxes 🦸‍♀️ A different story this week, for those who love stories and superheroes and a little history. - Read the full article

  10. The Colour Psychology Behind Sneaker Design 👟 Have you ever wondered about the grey New Balance vs the neon green Nike airs trainers? Colour psychology is used to draw you in like a peacock showing its feathers… - Read how

  11. Are You A Caffeine Fan When You Aren’t Sleeping? 🛌 Think again, coffee and caffeine are likely are not helping you are struggling with sleep and keeping you alert. - Read the full story

  12. Are You Called Gordon Or Karen 👩 "Because a name is used to identify an individual and communicate with the individual on a daily basis, it serves as the very basis of one's self-conception, especially in relation to others," - Read the full names story

  13. Stress: Compliance, Aggression, Withdrawl 😫 These words are unlikely the best ways we cope with stress, this article is a good way of looking at & thinking about coping with stress - Read the full story

  14. Virgin’s First Spaceflight 🚀 Virgin’s had a turbulent time since taking on “space” and looking at space travel. It’s positive to see (i’ll leave you to judge if you believe in space)

🎧 The Future State Podcast 🎧

This week we pushed live two future state podcasts:

The first covers the future state of VR. Yes virtual reality, blended with augmented reality (think of filters on your favourite social media app). ℹ️ Nick (is a CEO of a XR company so is the best person to speak about the future of realities) and I discuss the future of VR, AR and MR, basically how we might work, play and rest in the very near future and why it is more than just Facebook and why it might just be Apple vs Facebook vs Microsoft vs Google vs Snap vs others.

The second is the future state of the high street. 💭 Why the high street looks different, why it needs to feel different and why hyper local might be the best place for brands to actually connect (o2o2o) with their customer. 🎧 Listen Here 🎧

Both are excellent listens!

Subscribe To Listen On Your Podcast App:

Quote Of The Week:

“The best ideas can’t be squeezed into a 30-second pitch” - Ed Catmull (Pixar Cofounder) Read the 🔐 medium article

Thanks for reading again this week Must Readers, have a great weekend!

Danny Denhard - Must Reads Editor & Focus Founder Let’s connect on Twitter Or LinkedIn

PS. Here is the best article from Focus this week - How to take over from a bad boss