November!

👋 Hey, Must Readers! I trust you had a good week.

I’m back from my brilliant break away and this week’s Must Reads Newsletter returns to its usual format. I have 11 must-read stories for you to read & an exclusive microblog about why the metaverse is going to be a long battle no one wins quickly.

As a reminder: Each week Must Reads shares stories you have unlikely read, seen in your feeds or on your messenger of choice. Hit share to help Must Reads grow and help to make people more informed

Must Read Articles Of The Week

1. Better Resolutions 👏 Why December resolutions will be better for you than New Year’s resolutions - Read the full article 

2. Proactive > Reactive 💯 Organisational design is something so many people struggle to plan for and build effectively, find out how and why you need to step up - Read the full article 

3. How To Test & Make 4 Day Work Weeks Work 👩‍💼A few weeks ago I mentioned that Front is testing flexible Friday’s vs enforcing 4 day work week, here is the breakdown with insights from how well and positively it is being received from Frontiers - Read the full article

4. TikTok Internal Influencers? 💃 You might have seen a number of TikTok accounts that uses their staff in videos and create small personalities around their teams. Is this the next phase of influencers or just a trend before TikTok evolves (or some might challenge it by it growing up) - Read the full article » This is a great example of U.K. retailer M&S’ stores entertaining us via TikTok

5. Bumble MLM Problem 🐝MLM’s (Multi-level marketing) is surfacing again, this time on Bumble’s BFF platform. MLM’s aka pyramid scheme’s spring up everywhere, but rarely surface on social networks, moderation is hard but 101, we will likely see this with more social media especially professional social networks like LinkedIn being unbundled - Read the full article 

6. Disney’s NFT’s 🐭 Disney is entering NFT’s with Simpsons, Iron Man, C-3PO and Wall-E all leading the way for exclusive characters art to buy, this is important because of Disney’s reach and cultural influence. Will you buy a toy, go on an experience or own their digital art? You decide - Read more

7. Uber Profit 🤔 Uber Eats just became profitable on an adjusted basis - seven years after launching. Many people misunderstand that most of these businesses don’t actually make money because they use them and see them advertising constantly. It’s worth keeping in mind when you think of perceived large firms, especially when they heavily discount and ping you with push notifications.

8. The 7 Types Of Rest We Need 💤 I rarely share TED content, but this is a good read on the different types of rest we need and why it is important (hint sensory and mental rest are vital to us in a software-driven world of work) - Read the full article 

9. Theme: The 15 Minute City There has been a theme in Europe that any city becomes somewhere you can commute into within 15 minutes and everything is at your fingertips within that time, this is a long term theme being pushed by those who design cities. An example of this is what’s happening in the 🇺🇸 with suburbs becoming connecting cities and enabling quicker more direct commutes to large cities - Read the full article

10. Is It A Matter Of Time Before Starbucks Loses ☕️ Matter coffee is having a breakout moment in China 🇨🇳, cheaper and better coffee sounds a good strategy but how do you implement it? You have go after scale and that means more stores and being everywhere (store + order from dark stores/kitchen). So, could this happen in other parts of the world? Yes, however, it demands huge investment from outside capital and it’s a race to hit density and hundreds of stores in cities, towns and villages. There’s a big reason why Coca Cola brought Costa… - Read the full article

11. Struggling With Notifications & Distractions ⚡️ Here are 7 apps that will help you reduce distraction and drive more focus (FWIW I use focus mode and DND on my Apple products, plenty of ways without adding extensions and app downloads) - Read the full list

Easy & Key Way To Win: Personalisation and making people feel like heroes! 👇

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Microblog: The Long Metaverse Battle No-One Is Talking About The metaverse right now is VR headsets in a gaming or work environment or more AR filters enabling more entertaining/creative/immersive conversations. Read my no BS metaverse guide.

The metaverse is one of the biggest buzzwords in 2021. Facebook (aka Meta), Microsoft are two juggernauts fighting out to be the canonical choice for what we understand the metaverse platform to be. Expect Apple, Google and gaming brands (such as Epic, Niantic) to ramp up their mentions of the metaverse in coming weeks and months.

Something people are struggling to understand is: If we can’t agree on an app to become or be the super app in the west, it will be years until the metaverse is even started to be shaped like a platform let alone a dedicated digital world. The East’s closest metaverse is currently WeChat (a more integrated WhatsApp / iMessage) and the platform is going to take years to evolve into a fully integrated digital platform.

The metaverse narrative is about buzz and association alongside building reaction not about building something better yet. Yes, Teams is a good start but having to wear a VR headset or sit in teams with slightly better features isn’t anywhere near a metaverse. Be deliberate in understanding the next platform shift, the metaverse is likely years away and embracing the wrong platform blindly will likely have bigger long term repercussions. » Here are two supporting podcasts for you: NFT’s use case now and next & VR & AR’s future

Thanks for reading today.

Big thanks for those supporting must reads with sharing to your colleagues and friends and to those supporting through buying me a coffee.

Please remember: If you would like to discuss any articles, have questions or an article recommendation, I’m always free for Must Readers - just hit reply.

Until next week’s Must Reads, go well friends.

Danny Denhard