The Middle East Institute explores "Pathways to a Sustainable US-Pakistan Relationship" in discussion with Ali Jehangir Siddiqui

An introduction to the DBSCAN algorithm and its Implementation in Python.

The book Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing by Ron Kohavi (Microsoft, Airbnb), Diane Tang (Google) and Ya Xu (LinkedIn) is available for purchase, with the authors proceeds from the book being donated to charity.

This post will unravel a practical example to illustrate and motivate the intuition behind each step of the spectral clustering algorithm.

This online course is available – for free – to anyone interested in building practical skills in using data to solve problems better.

Marketers seem to be favoring performance marketing even as brand may be gaining in consumer importance.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

All our underlying assumptions about what makes consumers tick need to be pressure-tested.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

For many sophisticated marketing technology platforms, it is nearly impossible to be a technology-only company.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Pankaj Ghemawat, Harvard Business School professor.

Cathleen Benko, vice chairman and chief talent officer for Deloitte LLP and coauthor of "Mass Career Customization."

Cheryl Perkins, founder and president of Innovationedge.

Dr. Robert Rosen, founder and CEO of Healthy Companies International and author of "Just Enough Anxiety: The Hidden Driver of Business Success."

Adam Werbach, global CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S and author of "Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto."

Philip Lay and Todd Hewlin, managing directors at TCG Advisors and coauthors of the HBR article "In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers."

Roberto Verganti, professor of management of innovation at Politecnico di Milano and author of "Design Driven Innovation."

Anna Bernasek, financial journalist and author of "The Economics of Integrity."

Morten Hansen, professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information and author of "Collaboration."

Matthew Dixon, managing director of the Corporate Executive Board's Sales and Service Practice.

Fred Reichheld and Rob Markey, authors of "The Ultimate Question 2.0."

Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, authors of "Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business."

Michael Schrage, research fellow at MIT Sloan School's Center for Digital Business and author of the HBR Single "Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?"

Mark Blyth, professor at Brown University and author of "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea."

Walter Friedman, director of the Business History Initiative at Harvard Business School, on the pioneers of market prediction.

Robert Simons, Harvard Business School professor, says companies still struggle to choose the right customer.

Amy Bernstein, editor of HBR, offers executive summaries of the major features.

Amy Bernstein, editor of HBR, offers executive summaries of the major features.

David Burkus, author of "Under New Management", explains why some companies are taking extreme measures to limit electronic communication. Burkus is also a professor at Oral Roberts University and host of the podcast Radio Free Leader.

Tanya Menon, associate professor at Fisher College of Management, Ohio State University, explains how to recognize if your management style is too hands off. She's the co-author of "Stop Spending, Start Managing: Strategies to Transform Wasteful Habits."

Cathy O'Neil, author of "Weapons of Math Destruction" on how data can lead us astray–from HR to Wall Street.

Rachel Botsman, the author of “Who Can You Trust?", talks about how trust works, whether in relation to robots, companies, or other people. Technology, she says, speeds up the development of trust and can help us decide who to trust. But when it comes to making those decisions, we shouldn’t leave our devices to their own devices.

Jagdip Singh, a professor of marketing at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, explains his research team’s new findings about customer satisfaction. He says apologizing is often counterproductive and that offering customers different possible solutions is usually more effective. He discusses what companies can do to help service representatives lead interactions that leave a customer satisfied—whether or not the problem has been solved. Singh’s research is featured in the article "‘Sorry’ Is Not Enough" in the January–February 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Dominic Barton, the global managing partner of McKinsey&Company, discusses the firm’s sustainability efforts. He talks about the wake-up call he got about sustainability and how he tries to convince CEOs hesitant to make it part of their business model that doing so will improve company performance. He says he sees companies thinking about the environment. “But the speed and scale of what we need to do — I don’t think it’s sufficient.”

Kristie Rogers, an assistant professor of management at Marquette University, has identified a free and abundant resource most leaders aren’t giving employees enough of: respect. She explains the two types of workplace respect, how to communicate them, and what happens when you don't foster both. Rogers is the author of the article “Do Your Employees Feel Respected?” in the July–August 2018 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Bill Kerr, a professor at Harvard Business School, studies the increasing importance of talent clusters in our age of rapid technological advances. He argues that while talent and industries have always had a tendency to cluster, today's trend towards San Francisco, Boston, London and a handful of other cities is different. Companies need to react and tap into those talent pools, but moving the company to one isn't always an option. Kerr talks about the three main ways companies can access talent. He's the author of the HBR article "Navigating Talent Hot Spots," as well as the book "The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy & Society."

Ryan Buell, associate professor at Harvard Business School, says the never-ending quest for operational efficiency is having unintended consequences. When customers don’t see the work that’s being done in back offices, offshore factories, and algorithms, they’re less satisfied with their purchases. Buell believes organizations should deliberately design windows into and out of operations. He says increasing operational transparency helps customers and employees alike appreciate the value being created. Buell is the author of the HBR article "Operational Transparency."

Thales Teixeira, associate professor at Harvard Business School, believes many startups fail precisely because they try to emulate successful disruptive businesses. He says by focusing too early on technology and scale, entrepreneurs lose out on the learning that comes from serving initial customers with an imperfect product. He shares how Airbnb, Uber, Etsy, and Netflix approached their first 1,000 customers very differently, helping to explain why they have millions of customers today. Teixeira is the author of the book "Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption."

Pauline Brown, former chairman of North America for the luxury goods company LVMH, argues that in additional to traditional and emotional intelligence, great leaders also need to develop what she calls aesthetic intelligence. This means knowing what good taste is and thinking about how your services and products stimulate all five senses to create delight. Brown argues that in today's crowded marketplace, this kind of AI is what will set companies apart -- and not just in the consumer products and luxury sectors. B2B or B2C, small or large, digital or bricks-and-mortar, all organizations need to hire and train people to think this way. Brown is the author of the book "Aesthetic Intelligence: How to Boost It and Use It in Business and Beyond."

Horst Schulze, cofounder of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, started out cleaning ashtrays as a busboy before working his way up through some of the world's best hotels and becoming COO of Ritz-Carlton and later CEO of Capella Hotel Group. He shares the principles of stellar customer service to which he credits his success — and explains how they apply to every business. Schulze is the author of the book "Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise.”

Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, says that there are simple ways leaders can help their employees stay productive, focused, and psychologically healthy as they work from home during the current global pandemic. The right technology tools and clear and constant communication are more important than ever. She recommends that managers do an official remote-work launch, carefully plan and facilitate virtual meetings, and pay extra attention to workers' behavior. For individual contributors, it's critical to maintain a routine but also embrace flexibility, especially if you're in the house with family.

GiftWorksPlus urges a New Year's resolution to capture treasured memories in personalized custom picture frames.

Be A Doll, known for their personalized action figures, has developed a new product "Be A Bust". Submit 2 photos of your loved ones and get a 4 inch likeness of their head and shoulders, mounted on a stained wood base of your choice.

GiftWorksPlus is proud to introduce a new product line of custom picture frames: the chrome collection.