Eighth grade

My curriculum teaches students how to find problems and how to solve them, including creating prototype products. Not only can schools and after-school programs use it (and have already), but students can go through it on their own time if they want to work independently. The course begins by giving the students a category, for example, beverages, sign postage, desk space, etc. From there, it teaches students how to conduct ethnographic research and asks them to go to a local establishment and figure out what challenges people face. After gathering data, students use problem-solving techniques and design sprints (a method used at design firms) to come up with potential solutions. After further research to see if people like their idea, a final prototype is crafted in the shop. … [Read more...] about I’m a high school sophomore. Here’s how schools can teach kids to solve real-world problems

Ohanian believes that the story behind the creation of the IAmA subreddit–where politicians like Obama, actors and musicians, or regular people with extraordinary jobs or fascinating stories answer readers’ questions–is the perfect example of the community-centric model that had makes Reddit so successful, particularly over the past year. The section was user created, and it grew out of Q&As that were occurring on the site organically. “Steve [Huffman, Reddit’s cofounder] and I knew from the very start that we couldn’t do this alone. We needed an active Reddit base to use their ingenuity and our hard work. We would have never come up with IAmA on our own,” Ohanian says. … [Read more...] about IAmA Community-Focused Innovator: The Secret To Reddit’s Success

Most years, Jeff would spend a week offline, devoted to deep thought on the business. These annual “brain-benders” gave him time to rethink first principles and write down these ideas, usually resulting in a series of one-page documents with new ideas he brings back to his leadership team. Rick recounts how in 2001, Jeff went on his retreat with the slowing pace of innovation on his mind. So he came back with a simple idea: if teams were organized into startup-like sizes, if they owned their road maps and they owned their code so they could move quickly, they could act like startups again, just like they had in the early days of Amazon, when Jeff remembered they could feed the whole team with two pizzas. But in order to work together, they’d need to build a bunch of APIs so they could interface with each other. This would enable them to move independently, with the relationship between teams formalized in technology. With this one pager, the “two-pizza … [Read more...] about The “dozen-bagel” secret to preserving startup spirit as your company grows

This year, employees’ concerns revolved around those issues as well as some new factors driven by the pandemic, the protests, and the political climate. Common themes showing up in their employer reviews included consistent communication, flexible working environments, work-life balance, good health benefits, and smart, collaborative colleagues. … [Read more...] about These are the best places to work in 2021, according to employees

The defining image of the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6 was undoubtedly that of a bare-chested man posing resplendent in a horned fur hat and face paint. Images of him in his weird costume have been shared across the globe—he seems to perfectly encapsulate the absurdity of the mob takeover of America’s sacred seat of power. … [Read more...] about Why far-right groups co-opt Norse symbols