Dutch designer Dave Hakkens has updated his series of Precious Plastic machines, which anyone can build and use to make products by recycling the material (+ movie).
Blueprints for the new machines, which the designer described as “a solution to plastic pollution”, are now available online for anyone to download and build.
The devices are made using everyday materials and basic tools that Hakkens said are available all over the world.
On Aug. 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo., a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown. Several witnesses described the shooting—which wasn’t captured on video—as unprovoked. In the national furor over police violence that followed, one remedy found common support across much of the political spectrum: outfitting more cops with body-mounted cameras to deter misconduct and create a record of tragic encounters. When a grand jury decided that November not to charge the officer in Ferguson, the victim’s family pushed “to ensure that every police officer working the streets in this country wears a body camera.” The White House proposed $75 million in matching funds for state and local police to buy the devices.
A few months later, in January 2015, employees of Taser International, the maker of stun guns, gathered for a sales meeting at the company’s futuristic headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz. They filled the ground floor and lined the catwalks that crisscross the three-story atrium, a space where a lightsaber duel wouldn’t seem out of place. Shades blocked out the desert sun, and in the darkness, low, long trumpet sounds blared—the famous Richard Strauss theme used in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Studies show that 93 percent of small businesses believe employee health is good for their bottom line. And they’re right. A strategic focus on employee health can help businesses grow.
So why do only 22 percent of small businesses actually have wellness programs? Maybe these programs (and the buzz about crazy-expensive wellness perks) seem like they’re just for big companies with lots of people on the payroll.
Even for the smallest of companies, though, employee wellness programs can improve productivity, help with talent acquisition and retention and increase brand recognition – all of which support business growth and can help small businesses get ahead without sinking too much money into a new initiative.
We live in the digital age, where we can access huge swathes of information with the single click of a button. Given the fact that access to these data-sets is unrestricted, however, we are often exposed to an information overload whenever we research a specific subject or search query online. This can not only be mentally exhausting, but it also confuses and fragments our thinking over time.
To negate this, you will need to digital age an overload of information and adopt skills that will enable you to think with greater purpose and clarity.
Anyone who’s ever spent an age agonizing over the perfect witty comment in a greeting card will know that being creative is not easy. But what about those whose job it is to be creative all the time? How do you prime yourself for Eureka moments day after day after day? To help find an answer we asked Danny Schuman, someone in this exact predicament. Danny, who founded Twist, a Chicago-based brand marketing consultancy which has helped brands like PepsiCo, Allstate and MillerCoors, has spent his life generating great ideas that meet difficult challenges. Here’s a glimpse into how he primes himself to stay creative.
If you run a small business, the ability to evaluate commercial or business financing options is essential. At some point your business will probably reach a critical juncture when it will need a cash infusion–whether it’s to help cover operations during a lean period or to fund a growth initiative to take your business to the next level. When borrowing money is the only choice, startups and fledgling businesses, unfortunately, have historically been left with few options.
Thanks to the advent of online lending, small businesses today have an alternative for borrowing money that is convenient and quick. However, before doing business with an online lender, it’s important to ascertain whether the lender is legitimate and if your business’s identity will be in safe hands.
FBI officials have scanned the irises of nearly 460,000 people in a pilot program that may soon replace fingerprints. While iris-scanning technology has been around for more than 25 years, it’s just now getting to where it’s fast, easy and relatively bug-free.
“It’s a powerful biometric,” said Patrick Grother, a computer scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., who has been developing algorithms and software for iris scanning. “It’s fast to process, it has discriminative power — my iris doesn’t look like your iris, and it has reasonable permanence.”
Many business owners have begun to realize the importance of social media, especially when they’re trying to market their next trade show event. Social media is a powerful tool that can reach the business masses. It’s also integral at driving traffic to your trade show booth and breaking through the convention hall distractions.
One of the more interesting side effects from the explosion of new mobile AR game Pokémon Go is physical movement: a lot of people are finding themselves walking miles and miles (and miles) more than they normally would as they search for PokéStops, load up on PokéBalls, and (of course) track down more Pokémon. Now the game itself — which originally launched in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. — is doing a bit of travelling of its own: as of this morning, Pokémon Go is now live in the UK both on iOS and Android.
When you’re thinking about your business expenses, one of the easiest items to overlook is your own salary.
According to the 2016 American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor, just over half (51 percent) of business owners pay themselves a salary. But Alice Bredin, a B2B marketing entrepreneur and small business adviser for OPEN, emphasized the importance of including your own pay in the budget as soon as you can afford to do so.
Dispatches From The Front 