Alexandra Feldberg and Tami Kim, assistant professors at Harvard Business School and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, respectively, say companies are overlooking an important place to root out bias: on the front lines with customers. While many firms are promoting a more equitable workforce through their HR functions, too few firms even realize how costly bias can be in everyday interactions between workers and customers. The researchers explain how organizations can identify and address this overlooked problem. Feldberg and Kim are the coauthors of the HBR article "Fighting Bias on the Front Lines."

Over the past few years in the United States, we’ve seen some horrific examples of racism seize the public consciousness. Amid all these tragedies – and the protests that followed – U.S. business leaders promised they would do their part to fight the problem, making workplaces more diverse, equitable and inclusive. But now it's time to go a step further, say James White and Krista White, father-and-daughter authors of the new book, “Anti-Racist Leadership: How to Transform Corporate Culture in a Race-Conscious World”. They share their own experiences as Black Americans in the workplace and lessons from James' time as CEO of Jamba Juice. And they offer advice on how corporate leaders can promote lasting change in their own organizations and society at large.

From Theranos to Enron, we can't get enough of corporate scandals. We also can't get enough of the intriguing people who perpetrate them. But instigators of fraud are not all Disneyesque villains chasing money and power at any cost, says DePaul University accounting professor Kelly Richmond Pope. She studies white-collar crime and finds that besides intentional perpetrators, there are also accidental and righteous ones. And she shares real stories of these long-overlooked employees and explains exactly which behaviors and incentives should raise red flags for managers and leaders. Pope is the author of the new book Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets from the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry.

Many leaders realize they need to change their organization’s culture to save the business. But employees usually resist change and stick to past norms. Jay Barney, professor at the University of Utah’s Eccles School of Business, studied leaders who successfully led culture change and found one thing in common: they created and spread stories. He says it's not about making up stories but taking action — in authentic, yet theatrical and memorable ways. The new stories then emanate throughout the workforce and rewrite the old narrative. Barney explains the six rules of this practice that leaders need to follow. He’s a coauthor, with Manoel Amorim and Carlos Júlio, of The Secret of Culture Change: How to Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your Organization and the HBR article “Create Stories That Change Your Company’s Culture.”

Coaching is a valuable tool that offers numerous benefits to agents and brokers, let alone teams. Working in real estate requires constant education and development to be at the top of your game, and coaching provides an easy way to pursue this. Hiring a coach can allow team members to grow and flourish within their…

The post Team Tactics: Taking Advantage of Team Coaching appeared first on RISMedia.

Dorel Juvenile is the world's leading juvenile products company. When they wanted to develop a new infant car seat, they turned to Pennsylvania-based ID firm DesignThink.

DesignThink as the Innovation Incubator for the Ultra Lightweight Maxi Cosi Coral XP

A Cold January Day in 2017

The team at DesignThink was asked to visit Dorel Juvenile Group USA to review a "Special Project". The development team at Dorel JG wasted no time introducing us to their latest infant car seat (ICS) project. They were experimenting with the idea of developing a seat that would reduce the struggles parents faced when trying to transition their baby from the car and carry their baby in the removable seat portion of the ICS. The team at DesignThink has designed several car seats over the years and we instantly recognized the unique opportunity, as well as the challenge that this project offered, and were eager and excited to get started.

Our Role as the Innovation Incubator

We partnered with Dorel to act as the innovation incubator to lead the project team through the fuzzy front-end and define the product's overall features and characteristics of use. Upon successful concept definition, the project would be positioned under the Maxi Cosi brand and ultimately transferred to the Maxi Cosi team in Europe and a European design group to carry the innovation to production.

The Problem at Hand

By removing the seat from the base that is installed in the car, parents can take the baby with them while running errands or visiting people and places. However, a problem associated with this system is that some removable seats can weigh up to 16 lbs. and the baby can weigh up to 35 lbs. for a combined arm-crushing weight of 50+lbs.!!

We established two primary goals: 1) reduce the overall weight of the seat to lighten the load, while maintaining structural integrity as to achieve a top crash test rating, and 2) develop new methods that enable parents to more easily lift the seat when moving in and out of the vehicle and when transporting the child in the seat.

Our Approach (Decades of Experience and User Understanding Put to Test)

DesignThink is one of the leading firms in car seat development having brought several seats to the market and has a long history of creating break-through innovation, but this project pushed our team in new ways. The structure for the project utilized DesignThink's simplified "DEEP" process;

Define that for which we will solve

Express possible solutions as quick thumbnail stories

Explain the "what – why – wow" related to user needs

Prototype to demonstrate the merits of the idea

How the Project Unfolded

A series of innovation workshops were hosted at our studio to enable the team to think and problem solve with product at hand. The objective was to think in the "ideal" (do not worry about cost and construction initially) and to "fail fast" (explore, evaluate, and evolve). The following provided the high-level framework for how the team identified and pursued their ideas.

Established Design Targets

Led by our usability team, along with team members from Dorel, we hosted a several day innovation workshop at our studio. We began with a collaborative defining of the design targets based on use, expectations, pain points, and opportunities, which we affinitized and moved directly into physical prototyping to address and evaluate how well the concepts improved the user experience during day-to-day interactions.

DEEP: Innovation Workshops to prototype your idea. You are encouraged to be chaotic and messy! Fail fast! Dorel made sure plenty of product was on hand to fuel the innovation.

Inutitive Carry

Enhanced Confidence

Improved Transitions

Development of Design Targets

Role-Play is the Best Way

To truly understand and empathize with users, we role-played, exploring typical use-case scenarios to inform our ideation. Placing ourselves in the same situations helps us quickly evaluate and improve our concepts.

Handle-Carry:

Evolution for improved ease when attaching the seat to the base and removing the child from the vehicle

Cradle-Carry:

Exploration to improve how parents can bond with the baby in a more natural holding position

Cross-Body Strap:

Exploration to provide alternate ways to carry the baby while reducing the effects of weight and fatigue on the parent

Iterative User Evaluation Cycle

Our early thoughts and ideas were evaluated by the team and with parents in our research lab. These ideas were then refined to strengthen the evolving direction. The learnings obtained through this method enabled the team to focus on the most meaningful directions and build their value. Listening, understanding, and empathizing allowed our team to develop new ideas in this category that were previously unexplored.

DesignThink presents the refined design direction.

A series of prototypes and user evaluations enabled us to reach a stage of concept definition for an ultra lightweight car seat that provides parents with improved ways to carry, hold, and secure their baby.

Our Results

User-Centered Insights lead to Market Defining Solutions

Having developed many juvenile products such as car seats, strollers, and highchairs, DesignThink understands the day-to-day challenges parents face, both physically and emotionally. We embarked on this project with Dorel to define a new car seat with features that take into account those challenges and offer relevant and meaningful solutions. Exploring innovation that is rooted in user insights enabled our team to quickly define those solutions and overcome technical hurdles to deliver new experiences to address real problems faced by parents when using an ICS.

Defining the Direction

As mentioned, DesignThink was hired as the innovation incubator in the fuzzy front-end to develop and define a new architecture for this seat. Our work was documented and handed off to the Maxi-Cosi team in Europe. The output of our innovation incubation became the driving framework used by the teams in Europe to create a truly meaningful and relevant solution for parents in this category.

The DesignThink team is very proud to have been selected by Dorel to play such an important "behind the scenes" role in setting the direction for, and contributing to the success of, the Maxi Cosi Coral XP.

It takes a Village to Design a Car Seat

Snapshot of the iterative concept development that led to the final product

You can see more of DesignThink's work here.

More than 1.8 million smokers attempted to quit smoking and an estimated 104,000 Americans quit smoking for good because of the nine-week-long 2014 Tips From Former Smokers ( Tips ) campaign.

Report on the latest smoke-free laws that are affecting public places.

The regulatory environment requires that organizations should not only provide supplier information, but also fully understand it

This innovative offering sets a new standard for secure digital storing, document preservation, and evidence archiving and management

New entity unlocks ROI for enterprise AI by delivering the most comprehensive and trusted industry solution in the field of knowledge graphs and semantic AI technologies

Qantm AI will incorporate SQream's offerings to streamline data analytics for complex insights across industries

Quadient delivers powerful, reliable, and transformative solutions to drive substantial business value for highly regulated industries

Atlantic.Net?empowers customers to advance offerings through market-leading AI cloud solutions, helping to speed up the adoption of AI compute for software developers and businesses

Rosen Hotels and Resorts celebrated a milestone today as it announced plans to build a new skybridge connecting Rosen Plaza, its 800-room convention hotel, with the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC).

Above, Anthony Hitt Engel & Völkers America announced today that longtime CEO Anthony Hitt will be stepping down from his position come Dec. 31, 2024. A release said that Hitt is resigning to focus on “personal interests.”  “Developing and guiding Engel & Völkers in the Americas has been a true privilege and one of my…

The post Anthony Hitt Stepping Down as Engel & Völkers America CEO at the End of 2024 appeared first on RISMedia.

I created this recipe to be a calorie booster for my toddler, free of all the additives found in most grocery store milks.  It’s full of Omega-3’s, vitamins, and minerals that can be hard to find elsewhere.   Ingredients: 1/2 cup blanched almonds 1/2 cup raw walnuts 1/4 cup rolled oats  1/4 cup shelled hemp […]

Job Description: Responsibilities include teaching, advising and working with undergraduate and graduate students. Candidate will: sustain an active record of scholarship in an area that intersects with digital art or video games; participate in the development of courses and curricula; and contribute to service activities such as outreach to high schools and serving the School, College, and University on committees. Initial responsibilities include engagement with the LSU Cain Center to aid in video games and esports curriculum development for the Digital Design & Emerging Media Pathway. Candidate will also maintain a commitment to ensuring an inclusive and collaborative environment that promotes diversity and creative freedom for those involved in the digital art and video games entangled communities.   Required Qualifications:● Master’s degree, doctorate, OR combination of bachelor’s and commensurateexperience/practice in a field relevant to digital art and video games.● An equivalent combination of education and experience in digital art and video games sufficient to successfully perform the essential duties of the job.   Additional Job Description: Special Instructions To receive full consideration, please provide the following: (1) a letter of application (cover memo) with a narrative description of your background, interests and qualifications for the position (3-page maximum). Describe courses you are qualified to teach and/or classes you have taught in the past, your research interests and scholarly activities, and relevant practice experience. Submissions must also include: (2) a curriculum vita; (3) the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses of three references; and (4) links to or examples of at least 3 scholarly/creative works. A copy of your transcript(s) may be attached to yourapplication; however, original transcripts can be provided prior to hire. Please attach ALL documents in a single PDF under the Resume/CV section of your application. Application review will begin immediately, and will continue until a candidate is selected. The position will remain open until filled.   More information about the College of Art & Design, School of Art, Digital Art concentration, and Digital Media Arts & Engineering program are available at http://design.lsu.edu, http://art.lsu.edu, http://digitalart.lsu.edu, and http://dmae.lsu.edu.     Special Instructions: The School of Art at Louisiana State University seeks a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor in the area of Video Games & Digital Art. The successful candidate will be an innovative and dedicated practitioner and educator, with demonstrable skills in video game and digital art related fields which fall within the broad academic scope and research/creative activities of the School of Art and Digital Media Arts and Engineering programs. Candidates withclear evidence of potential for excellence in teaching, research, and service are encouraged to apply.   Posting Date: August 9, 2022   Closing Date (Open Until Filled if No Date Specified):   Additional Position Information: Background Check - An offer of employment is contingent on a satisfactory pre-employment background check. Benefits - LSU offers outstanding benefits to eligible employees and their dependents including health, life, dental, and vision insurance; flexible spending accounts; retirement options; various leave options; paid holidays; wellness benefits; tuition exemption for qualified positions; training and development opportunities; employee discounts; and more!   Essential Position (Y/N):   LSU is an Equal Opportunity Employer: LSU believes diversity, equity, and inclusion enrich the educational experience of our students, faculty, and staff, and are necessary to prepare all people to thrive personally and professionally in a global society. We celebrate diversity and are committed to the principles of diversity and inclusion. We actively seek and encourage qualified applications from persons with diverse backgrounds, cultures and experiences. To learn more about how LSU is committed to diversity and inclusivity, please see LSU’s Diversity Statement and Roadmap. Persons needing accommodations or assistance with the accessibility of materials related to this search are encouraged to contact the Office of Human Resource Management (hr@lsu.edu).     HCM Contact Information: Questions or concerns can be directed to the LSU Human Resources Management Office at 225-578-8200 or emailed HR@lsu.edu

The Game Design department of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts seeks to fill a full-time faculty position starting in the 2023-2024 academic year.   Join the NYU Game Center—a passionate community of game creators, researchers, and educators who are committed to building the world’s greatest game design program, to teaching the next generation of game innovators, and to furthering games as a meaningful cultural form via game design as creative practice.   We are seeking applicants for an Assistant Arts Professor (non-tenure, continuing contract) position to start in September 2023 and serve as part of our faculty on an ongoing basis. Applicants must have professional experience in one or more of the following domains: game design, game development, and creative direction. Ideal candidates should have creatively led and released multiple game projects, whether in large-scale commercial games (AAA), indie games, and/or artistic projects centered on play. Hands-on familiarity with game engines such as Unity, GameMaker, and Unreal is preferred.   As part of Tisch School of the Arts, Game Center faculty are expected to combine teaching with an active, ongoing professional practice and/or research in the world of games. We are looking for candidates who are active participants in the field, doing original and innovative work as independent developers in solo/consulting practice or as part of larger teams. Ideal candidates would have experience speaking or writing about their own and/or other game creators’ work from a critical perspective and should be able to draw on their professional experience to create a compelling and effective learning environment. Previous teaching experience is not a requirement, but it is a strong plus. The NYU Game Center is a highly collaborative environment where decisions about the operations of the department are made collectively whenever possible; leadership and consensus-building skills are also highly valued.   We are actively seeking applicants that have a commitment to equity-forward teaching practices and who recognize and embrace the values of inclusivity and diversity, both in the classroom and in game development.   Whether you are an industry veteran with triple-A experience who wants a chance to share your knowledge of the complex craft of game development or an independent developer exploring the experimental edge of game aesthetics, we want to talk to you about joining the NYU Game Center. . Duties: Duties include teaching five courses a year, student advising, and participation in departmental and school-wide committees. On-going professional work while teaching is expected. Includes an excellent benefits package.   Applicants must provide a cover letter, full C.V., and three letters of recommendation with contact information for each recommender. All these materials must be submitted by November 1, 2022.   For more information, please visit: https://tisch.nyu.edu/faculty/faculty-positions.      Finalists will be asked to submit a portfolio of creative work, to provide selected course syllabi and teaching evaluations if applicable, and to give a short lecture on a topic of their choice to NYU Game Center students and faculty.   NYU is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to a policy of equal treatment and opportunity in every aspect of its recruitment and hiring process without regard to age, alienage, caregiver status, childbirth, citizenship status, color, creed, disability, domestic violence victim status, ethnicity, familial status, gender and/or gender identity or expression, marital status, military status, national origin, parental status, partnership status, predisposing genetic characteristics, pregnancy, race, religion, reproductive health decision making, sex, sexual orientation, unemployment status, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis. Women, racial and ethnic minorities, persons of minority sexual orientation or gender identity, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply for vacant positions at all levels.

A colleague who works in a field that uses a lot of survey research asks: Can you recommend papers about detecting bad survey responses? We have some such methods where I work, but I’m curious what the Census Bureau and … Continue reading →

As forwarded to us by Max Shepsi: I’m starting to see a pattern here!

In the 1930s and 1940s, there were many prominent communist sympathizers: leading scientists such as J. B. S. Haldane and J. Robert Oppenheimer, powerful labor leaders, influential intellectuals, and various popular-front politicians, including at one period the vice-president of the … Continue reading →

I hadn’t thought about bee dancing for a long time, when someone pointed me to this post by Laura Luebbert and Lior Pachter on a bit of data fraud in biology. Luebbert writes: Four years ago, during the first year … Continue reading →

This post is by Phil. A couple of months ago, this blog had a discussion that was prompted by the fact that 2 of the top 5 female American tennis players are the children of billionaires. One, that could be … Continue reading →

Atlante Calvino. Literature and Visualization is a web platform through which it is possible to visually explore the corpus of narrative writings of Italo Calvino and learn about a series of literary inquiries conducted on his production.

After years of watching clients struggle with clunky, one-size-fits-all designs, we’ve learned that a great website needs to fit perfectly into any screen it meets, no matter how great the design is. Many see responsive design as a technical maze, but in this post, we’ll try to guide you through some of the challenges (and […]

The post Responsive Design: What Is It & Why Is It Important? appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.

A New York appellate court ruled that a worker should have been denied permission to amend his complaint to add a new defendant to his Labor Law action. Case: Rowe v.

A New York appellate court ruled that some defendants in a Labor Law action were not entitled to summary judgment on their indemnification claims against an injured plaintiff’s employer. Case: Lamarr v.

A New York appellate court ruled that the defendants in a Labor Law action were entitled to a trial, but they could not have a jury’s determination on damages set…

A New York appellate court ruled that a worker should have been granted summary judgment on his Labor Law claim for falling from a scaffold. Case: Amaro v. New York City…

A New York appellate court ruled that a property owner should have been granted summary judgment dismissing an injured worker’s claims against it. Case: Miranda v. 1320 Entertainment Inc., No. 2022-09472,…

A New York appellate court upheld a grant of summary judgment for the defendants in a Labor Law case. Case: Acevedo-Espinosa v. RH 250 Sherman Avenue LLC, No. 2023-01248, 09/11/2024, published. Facts:…

A New York appellate court upheld a denial of summary judgment to a Labor Law defendant and ruled that the worker was entitled to amend his complaint to add more…

A New York appellate court upheld summary judgment for the defendants in a Labor Law case involving a worker’s fall from the roof of a home undergoing renovations. Case: Argueta v…

A New York appellate court ruled that the defendants in a Labor Law action should have been granted summary judgment on an additional aspect of the plaintiff’s claim, but part…

A New York appellate court ruled that a Labor Law defendant should have been granted summary judgment dismissing an injured worker’s claims against it and for its breach of contract cross-claim against…

A New York appellate court upheld the summary dismissal of a worker’s Labor Law claim and revived a defendant’s third-party indemnification claim. Case: Pitang v. Beacon Broadway Co. LLC, No. 27350/17, 10/01/2024,…

A New York appellate court ruled that none of the defendants in a Labor Law action was entitled to summary judgment dismissing the claims against them or on their claims…

A New York appellate court ruled that a worker was entitled to summary judgment on his Labor Law claim and that the defendant was entitled to summary judgment on its…

The New Mexico Workers’ Compensation Administration announced that an advisory committee seeks comments on two independent medical examiner applicants. The IME Provider Selection Committee is considering authorizing Drs. Alan Altman and…

The New Jersey Superior Court’s Appellate Division overturned a grant of summary judgment dismissing a hospital worker’s suit for damages from a fall in a parking garage. Case: Barrett v. Hackensack…

The Delaware Supreme Court upheld a denial of benefits to a poultry plant worker for his occupational disease claim based on a COVID-19 infection. Case: Fowler v. Perdue Inc., No. 412, 2023,…

Here’s a look at the $1-million math problem at the heart of computation

Researchers are racing to create codes so complex that even quantum computers can’t break them

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled that Amazon.com was not entitled to join an injured employee’s prior employer as a defendant in her claim and that she was entitled to…

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has granted review of disagreement over the proper prescription drug fee schedule for resolving workers’ compensation disputes. In January, the Commonwealth Court held that Red Book values…

The California Assembly Appropriations Committee passed bills that would create a presumption that heat injuries are compensable for agricultural workers and would expose employers to penalties for denying injured workers’…

Physician assistants and nurse practitioners would be authorized to treat injured federal workers under a bill being debated in the U.S. House of Representatives. HR 618, by Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., would add…

The U.S. Labor Department on Thursday announced that it awarded $12.7 million to 102 nonprofits throughout the country to pay for educational and training initiatives aimed at improving workplace safety. Funds…

The Virginia Court of Appeals upheld the denial of a poultry processing plant worker’s claim for injuries from an unexplained fall. Case: Gutierrez v. Perdue Farms Inc., No. 0176-23-2, 05/21/2024, unpublished. Facts:…