Journal

Imagine a world with literally no borders. It’s a world where the economy is a lot stronger.

Forget, for a moment, about Donald Trump and his calls for a Mexico border wall and a ban on Muslims coming to this country. Imagine, instead, the opposite: We welcome any and all immigrants who want to come here, with no restrictions on visas and passports. Imagine, too, that all other nations do the same, that everyone can move wherever they like. There are no borders. Anyone can move, live, and work wherever they want.

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Marketing director Sadira Furlow on working with YouTubers directly, and what cutting out the content middleman does for the brand.

The rise of multichannel networks (MCN) such as Maker, AwesomenessTV, Machinima, and more—consolidating thousands of YouTube channels and creators under one roof to maximize ad revenue—over the past few years has been well documented. They became a one-stop shop for brands to reach the growing legion of digital entertainment stars, and the millions of young consumer eyeballs watching their every video. But now Mountain Dew has decided to take a chance, cut out the content middleman, and deal directly with YouTube content creators by setting up its very own brand MCN.

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Amazon Video Direct lets creators get paid to upload videos. That doesn’t mean the company is trying to be YouTube.

This week Amazon ratcheted up its attack on online video platforms, going squarely, it seems, after YouTube and Vimeo, and to a lesser extent Netflix and Facebook. Its new service, Amazon Video Direct, will let anyone upload video content to Amazon and its ad-free Prime Video service, and take home a share of revenues from rentals, sales, and streams.

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How an ambitious art project helps people look at their world—and its future—in a whole new way.

Throughout time, mapping the Earth hasn’t simply been an effort to accurately model the planet, but to define reality. Behind the great cartographers have stood monarchs, republics, emperors, sultanates, and even corporations like the Dutch East Indies Company. A range of entities have dictated maps’ purposes, edited their features, and created political boundaries.

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Managing creative teams effectively requires some additional skills. Here are six you need to know.

Managing teams is tough enough. But when you’re managing teams of people who need to be highly creative to fulfill their job functions, a new level of complexity is added, says Michael D. Mumford, PhD. He is a professor and director of the Center for Applied Social Research at the University of Oklahoma and author of Pathways to Outstanding Leadership: A Comparative Analysis of Charismatic, Ideological, and Pragmatic Leaders.

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The cofounder of Chatbooks grew up with 11 siblings on a petting zoo in Florida. It was great preparation for an entrepreneurial life.

To understand Vanessa Quigley (née Munns), the cofounder of Chatbooks, it helps to first know a bit about her father, Ranier Munns. She says he grew up in a “micromanaged, strict, and super-conservative” household. He went on to start a law practice with his brother. But he also married Quigley’s mother, April, whom she characterizes as “a wild and crazy artist” who “helped him tap into his wild side.” Quigley’s parents bought a five-acre piece of property surrounded by orange groves outside Orlando, and decided to start having kids. Vanessa was the first; 11 more would follow. Once, at a family outing to a restaurant, someone asked Ranier what orphanage they represented.

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Armed with diplomas and burdened with historic debt loads, recent college graduates are both optimistic and pragmatic.

By now you may have heard that the economic future of the Class of 2016 is looking relatively bright. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that their job prospects are better than any other class since 2009.

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Eating plant-based whole foods for a month affected my work in unexpected ways.

Food occupies so much of my mental space. Throughout the day, when I’m at meetings or writing stories, my mind often drifts to what I’ll be eating for lunch. On a good day, I’ll spend time plotting how to get myself a healthy, filling salad; on a bad day, I’ll eat the nearest thing I can get my hands on, then spend the afternoon regretting my decision while battling a food coma.

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The mid-Market area is full of Twitter employees and locals who could use a hand, technology-wise. At the NeighborNest, they meet.

If you’ve ever walked by Twitter’s headquarters in the mid-Market neighborhood of San Francisco, you know that the area—which is also home to Uber, Square, Dolby, Zendesk, and others—is a bustling tech corridor. But at the same time, mid-Market overlaps with the city’s notoriously down-at-the-heels Tenderloin district and is full of people who live far, far outside the bubble.

The interests of Twitter’s employees and those local residents intersect at the NeighborNest, a tech/community center located on the ground floor of an apartment complex on Market St. across from Twitter headquarters. On Tuesday, the center celebrated its first anniversary with a party that included appearances by Twitter COO Adam Bain and San Francisco mayor Ed Lee, a cake, and a hearty rendition of “Happy Birthday” led by neighborhood kids. (The 3,000 children who live in the Tenderloin are part of the constituency that the center was designed to serve.)

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