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By Mathew Heggem

“Why?”

When it comes to your business, this simple question isn’t so easy to answer. Some days, the answer might be “because I have to” or “because people are depending on me.” Other days, you remember why you embarked on this journey, and it fills you with happiness in pursuit of your greater purpose.

But keeping your “why” (a confluence of your purpose, vision, mission, values, and passion) at the heart of what you do is difficult. The day-to-day challenges of running a business and new developments within the industry can easily distract you, but doing so is vital to inspiring others and growing your company.

Every year, my firm produces a summit on various topics relevant to our clients and business community. Last year’s theme was “Quantifying Your Vision.” Attendees explored metrics they could use to measure success. After discussing employee productivity, profitability, and financial and sales metrics, the greatest metric of success for these entrepreneurs was happiness.

After having a panic attack that landed me in the hospital, I knew I had to rediscover my “why,” pull together the disparate parts of my life, and bring that meaning into my work. I came across the Feldenkrais Institute, watched Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” TED Talk, and learned about aligning others with my higher purpose, a tenet of conscious capitalism. When I rediscovered my vision, happiness followed, and my business has since grown more than 300 percent.

Here are some tips to help you find your “why.”

1. Look within to (re)discover your purpose.

Bringing the “why” back to your company is a process of self-discovery. You can’t communicate your vision to others unless you can articulate it for yourself. What words come to mind when you think about your company’s existence? What purpose do you serve, and why are you motivated to get up every day? Knowing what motivates you — your higher purpose — will give you the clarity to get back in touch with your “why.”

Keep a vision diary. Thinking and writing about your vision will keep you connected to your purpose. Plus, journaling produces a multitude of well-established benefits, from unpacking stress to recharging the creative sectors of your brain.

2. Share your findings.

When employees don’t feel like they’re a part of the company mission, they start to feel less loyal and even regretful. Disengaged employees also cost U.S. companies billions of dollars a year. That’s not an atmosphere you want to create. You want everybody on your team to strive in the same direction. Once you know your “why,” share it openly and passionately.

3. Wear your “why” banner.

Consider and communicate your vision every day. Some days, it will be difficult to find the time between emails and emergency situations, but if you forget your “why” for even one day, it’ll be easier to forget the next day. Live and breathe your vision in every interaction so you’re always connecting what you’re doing with why you’re doing it.

4. Recalibrate your vision regularly.

Once you’ve started the dialogue about the “why” of your company, invite feedback and tough love. Seek out critics, and find the wisdom in others’ reactions.

Remember: It’s your vision, so you don’t have to accept everyone’s feedback. But at least you’re doing your due diligence to support a well-constructed plan. And if you can find a way to remain responsive to your vision and let it evolve, you can blend new ideas into your conversations and guide your team in new directions.

5. Inspire your critical mass.

If you practice what you preach, you’ll have a core group within your business that understands your “why,” inside and out. But even these people have shifting desires and receive new data every day that could be counterintuitive to your mission. You may feel like they’ve got your back forever, but you risk losing them if you let a divide grow between the work and the “why.” Take time to motivate and listen to this critical mass, and keep sharing the “why” that you live by.

Your “why” isn’t static. It can change without you realizing it, and you can change it as you go. Living your vision is a commitment — not a single mission statement but a journey of self-discovery, expression, honesty, and happiness.

Image credit: Pixabay

Modern-day Renaissance man Mathew Heggem, known as the dancing CEO, is the co-founder of SUM Innovation. From #AccTech overhauls to full-time CFOs, this NYC-based accounting consulting firm helps fast-growth businesses and global entrepreneurs transform their businesses through the power of numbers!

Mathew also originated the #SUMTech initiative, an annual summit that explores the intersection between accounting, technology, and entrepreneurship as it relates to trends within the SUM ecosystem. In service to that very ecosystem, he’s currently acting as the interim executive director for the nonprofit brainchild of SUM — Mission Control Center — which helps small organizations collaborate through a PEO and shared back-office platform. And in true Renaissance fashion, Mathew is also a nationally recognized, award-winning dance artist choreographing for Left Side Labs.

By Sean Morris

Eliminating stress from your life is a task that requires both time and effort. However, that shouldn’t dissuade you from taking the first step in bettering your life. The effort you put into reducing stress will pay off in the end. Stress is a leading cause of illness in the modern world, causing physical and mental problems ranging from ulcers to depression. Here are a few tips that can help clear the stressors from your daily life.

1. Revamp your diet

More and more studies are showing the strong relationship between your dietary habits and how you feel. People who eat less processed food, more vegetables, and less sugar are both happier and healthier. This also translates to stress levels.

Stress on a bad diet has a greater impact than the same stress on a healthy diet. Cook as often as possible and avoid pre-prepared meals. Incorporate more vegetables and fewer refined sugars. If you’re on a busy schedule, slow cooker meals are a great option to have a healthy, home-cooked meal waiting for you after work.

2. Stay social

Human beings are social animals. Even with a demanding schedule, making time for friends and family is important. In the age of the Internet, there are hundreds of methods of communication at your disposal.

Video chats and Facebook are some great ways to keep in touch with close friends and family, especially when you’re far away or have a busy schedule. While these are a great advantage for keeping up with the lives of others, the importance of face-to-face interaction should not be forgotten. Physical interaction is just as necessary. A single hug can reduce a significant amount of stress – an important fact to keep in mind when you feel too busy to participate in activities with your friends.

3. Exercise regularly

Exercising has been proven to lower stress levels in a multitude of studies. While the modern American often cannot make time for the gym, exercise can actually take many forms. Even small things like office chair stretches can make a difference.

Ideally, you should make time for at least 30 minutes of physical activity. This can be anything from yoga in the comfort of your own home, a brisk walk in the morning, or a trip to the gym. Find a type of exercise that works best for you and feel the stress melt away.

4. Organize your schedule

Invest in a day planner and to-do notepad. If you’re tech-savvy, there are hundreds of productivity and task-planning apps to help you schedule and organize your personal and professional lives. Schedule your weeks out in advance and eliminate the stress of missing a meeting or forgetting to call a friend. For the smaller, day-to-day activities like washing dishes and dusting, write a to-do list in the morning. Seeing all your appointments planned out can prevent overwhelming feelings.

The path to living a stress-free life is a long one, but taking the first steps toward reducing your stress don’t have to be monumental challenges. A few simple changes can improve your life by leaps and bounds. These changes don’t uproot your life or require an excess of effort, but they will make you feel better.

Image credit: Pixabay

Sean Morris is a former social worker turned stay-at-home dad. He knows what it’s like to juggle family and career. He did it for years until deciding to become a stay-at-home dad after the birth of his son. Though he loved his career in social work, he has found this additional time with his kids to be the most rewarding experience of his life. He began writing for LearnFit.org to share his experiences and to help guide anyone struggling to find the best path for their life, career, and/or family.

As conscious consumerism becomes more integrated into today’s economy, smart, ethical and forward-thinking companies are tasked with finding new ways to connect, educate and engage consumers. Consumers want to know where our products come from, and brands want to know how to communicate  effectively without turning off customers.

TriplePundit sat down with Sandra Stumbaugh, VP of communications for Fair Trade USA, and Justin Dillon, CEO of Made in A Free World, to discuss the ways their companies work with brands to inspire, educate and inform their audiences about ethical purchasing.

1. Find creative ways to connect consumers with the places their products come from.

“We connect consumers to where their food and products come from through stories that we feature on social media and through digital campaigns,” explained Stumbaugh of Fair Trade USA.

The company recently launched a campaign called Fair Her, which celebrates the women farmers, makers and consumer advocates who contribute to the fair trade movement. The platform is used to share their stories in an effort to connect women producers and consumers around the world.

Connecting consumers to the places their products come from -- and the people who make them -- is also the premise of Slavery Footprint, a digital tool that educates consumers about forced labor in the supply chains of everyday products. Since its launch in 2011, millions of people from over 200 countries have visited the website to discover their connection to modern-day slavery.

“Many of today’s consumers have no idea what they’re buying or who they’re buying from,” said Dillon of Made in a Free World, the group behind Slavery Footprint. “We want to show them that they can make smarter choices. We want to influence every consumer transaction so that the buyer has the knowledge that they need to make purchases which reflect their values.”

2. Help consumers understand how to fit your product, brand or service into their everyday lives.

When asked why he thinks Slavery Footprint went viral so quickly, Dillon said a major contributing factor was the fact that the tool didn’t ask for anything of people other than for them to describe their everyday lives.  “People like learning about themselves, how their lives connect to the bigger narrative. It gives them an invitation to be involved.”

The simple, interactive survey asks users questions about their location, lifestyle and everyday activities. From there, it calculates how many slaves "work" for users based on their responses. It’s meant to make consumers think more deeply about points of intervention throughout their daily lives. Now, the company works with brands to eradicated forced labor from their supply chains.

Fair Trade USA is constantly in search of new ways to help consumers understand how they can fit fair trade products into their everyday lives. From highlighting the Top 7 Fair Trade Drinks of the Summer to holiday gift guides, the company is all about finding fun, practical and meaningful ways consumers can embed fair trade products into the things they do everyday.

This October, the company will launch a new campaign called Fair Moments, which shows how consumers can live their values through fair trade products by presenting a series of everyday vignettes. The stories will then be shared throughout its social media channels.

3. Get verified.

Today’s consumers are looking more toward third-party verification, like B Corp certification and Fair Trade labeling, to determine how sustainable or ethical a product is. A recent survey conducted by Fair Trade USA showed that 59 percent of Americans are aware of Fair Trade Certified products.

This is a number that has almost doubled in the last three years, Stumbaugh explained. “The increase of awareness about Fair Trade products grows with consumer awareness of sustainability and ethical purchasing," she told us. "It’s becoming more a part of mainstream consciousness."

This growth is supported by new insights into consumer spending habits, particularly around the role of millennials in driving ethical purchases and an abundance of new fair trade products hitting store shelves: “They have a heightened curiosity about where products are coming from and strong desire to see third-party verification," Stumbaugh said. "More than 65 percent of millennials say they’re more likely to trust the brand when Fair Trade Certified.”

4. Be fun and easy to understand.

When it comes to interacting with consumers, Fair Trade USA generally takes a light, gentle approach, Stumbaugh told 3p. “We try to be uplifting and easy to understand. We talk about all the wonderful benefits. We don’t go too deep. We want them to feel good about buying our products.”

This is a tactic also used by many of the brands Fair Trade USA works with. For example, sustainable fashion brand PACT apparel recently unveiled a cheeky underwear ad promoting fair trade. It shows a risqué photo of a man wearing a pair of briefs and reads, “We’re taking fair trade to places it’s never been.”

And although it’s not always appropriate to be funny when talking about big and important issues like sustainability and ethical purchasing, it is always possible to be easy to understand. The question becomes, how can you communicate your values in the clearest most succinct way?

Patagonia does a great job at this. The company released a short video about the importance of fair trade products to educate its customers.

At the end of the day, it’s all about inspiring the customers to make better decisions. “As a company/organization, we don’t believe that we’re the heroes,” Dillon concluded. “With every video, website or product we develop, we’re here to serve the heroes -- which are the brands and the consumers.”

Image courtesy of Fair Trade USA (used with permission)

We do not hear much about climate change from the real estate industry, but this month Zillow spoke out about the risk to coastal properties nationwide. The online property database company issued a report this week that suggested sea-level rise could cause almost $1 trillion in property losses by the end of this century.

Zillow’s estimates are based on a March 2016 article in the journal Nature. In the peer-reviewed article, authors Robert DeConto and David Pollard challenged previous assumptions about climate change risks and their impacts on sea levels worldwide. DeConto and Pollard posit that the melting of Antarctica’s ice sheet will contribute even more to sea-level rise than previously estimated. The hydrofracturing of the continent’s ice shelves, along with the structural collapse of ice cliffs at its shore’s edge, is hastening sea-level rise -- and unabated emissions are not helping.

In layperson’s terms, Antarctica’s ice shelves are breaking down faster than previously thought, and this process will accelerate if the world’s countries cannot agree on a plan to stall climate change. The result could be an additional 1 meter (3.3 feet) of additional sea-level rise from Antarctica alone by 2100. DeConto and Pollard’s study concludes that the world’s oceans could rise at a rate double that of what most scientists concluded in recent years.

If these trends hold true, coastal states will suffer massive infrastructure and financial losses. According to Zillow’s Krishna Rao, 36 coastal cities would be wiped off the map, and another 300 cities would lose their homes. The result is what Zillow estimates as a total value of $882 billion in homes at risk.

And that figure should be even higher considering the heated real estate market in much of the coastal U.S. The continued shift to the sunbelt and desire to be on the coast are trends that will not subside any time soon.

States with the reputation for year-round sun will suffer the most. Almost half of the total value of losses could occur in Florida, with over $400 billion in current housing value gone, according to Zillow’s projections. Florida could lose 1 in 8 homes; in Hawaii, 1 in 10 homes could be at risk. Rao suggests that, in total, almost 1.9 million homes could be lost -- and almost half of those are in Florida alone.

And any cities should become laboratories for smart cities’ technology and design, then Miami and Honolulu are the prime places to start. Cities that are booming due to their economic might -- such as Seattle, Boston, San Diego and, of course, New York -- are highly vulnerable. Cities that attract retirees, including Jacksonville and Virginia Beach, also face huge long-term risks.

When companies such as Zillow start a discussion about climate change risks, that should be a signal for insurance companies to evaluate how they are going to underwrite policies for commercial and residential real estate in the long run.

So far, however, most insurers have been silent or oblivious to this challenge. The business sustainability advocacy group Ceres has long implored insurers to become more proactive on how climate change risks factor into their businesses. Municipal governments also need to think about the impact on their annual and long-term budgets. Rising sea levels also could affect public health.

In sum, business needs to work with policymakers to plan for this scenario now. Infrastructure built today, along with approaches such as a carbon tax that can reduce emissions, will make cities more livable now while preventing anything close to the doomsday landscape that Zillow predicts for the future.

Image credit: Gary Bembridge/Flickr

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has just "blundered through the worst three days of any presidential candidate in living memory," CNN reporter Stephen Collinson wrote on Tuesday. Trump's missteps this past week were so bad that he even elicited disapproval from his party's favorite people, U.S. military veterans.

A number of high-profile Republicans leaped to his defense, but prominent Trump supporter Peter Thiel is not among them. Perhaps Thiel has other matters to attend to this week, such as damage control related to a new article outlining his interest in the vampirish practice of parabiosis.

'Worst three days' for Donald Trump

In his article for CNN, Collinson toted up two disasters for the Trump campaign.

The first was Trump's days-long, over-the-top response to a speech last week at the Democratic National Convention by Khizr Khan, the father of U.S. Army Captain Humayn Khan. In 2004, Captain Khan was killed by a suicide car bomber in Iraq. He ran toward the speeding car after ordering his troops to protect themselves.

The loss of a family member in action is recognized with a Gold Star by the Army. And Trump's extended criticism of Khan's parents earned him the wrath of the influential organization Veterans of Foreign Wars (cited here by Raw Story):

“Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression,” said VFW commander-in-chief, Brian Duffy. “There are certain sacrosanct subjects that no amount of wordsmithing can repair once crossed. Giving one’s life to nation is the greatest sacrifice, followed closely by Gold Star families, who have a right to make their voices heard.”

Prominent Republicans with military backgrounds were also quick to condemn Trump. That included Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown.

Brown in particular is noteworthy because he is known as one of Trump's earliest and most prominent supporters. However, in an interview with the New York Daily News, he defended the Khan family while making no excuses for Trump:

“... [Khan's] son gave his service and sacrifice to our country, and to me that supersedes everything. All he needed to do is thank them for their service and move on."

[snip]

“If it were me, the easiest thing to do is say, ‘I apologize,’” he said. “Their son’s service is beyond reproach.”

The second, overlapping episode cited by Collinson occurred on Sunday, when Trump argle-bargled an important point on foreign affairs during an interview on the ABC show "The Week." In answering a question put to him by George Stephanopoulos, Trump seemed completely unaware that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014:

TRUMP: "Well, look, you know, I have my own ideas. He's not going into Ukraine, okay?

"Just so you understand. He's not going to go into Ukraine, all right?"

When Stephanopoulos set the record straight, stating "Well, he's already there, isn't he?"

Trump backpedals, strangely, with "Okay— well, he's there in a certain way. But I'm not there." And goes on to toss blame on Obama and NATO for Russia's presence in the Crimean Peninsula.

More bad news for Trump

The damage doesn't stop there. Some observers are adding Trump's remarks at an August 1 rally in Pennsylvania to bump Collinson's numbers up to three blunders. Referring to the campaign of Democratic contender Bernie Sanders, Trump identified Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as a disciple of Satan:

"He would’ve been a hero," Trump said. "But he made a deal with the devil. She’s the devil. He made a deal with the devil."

Comments like that hardly promote the image of a man who would be responsible for the nation's nuclear arsenal.

Piling on yet a fourth blunder on Monday, in an interview with USA Today Trump suggested that women who experience sexual harassment at work could simply find another job.

In a normal presidential election cycle, any one of these episodes would mark a candidate as unserious. Put them all together within a three-day span, and you can see why Trump's mental state has become a matter of public discussion.

Adding more fuel to the fire was the in-depth explainer of Trump's business acumen -- or conspicuous lack thereof -- published by Newsweek on August 2. That same day, billionaire Democrat Warren Buffet joined Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail with his own blistering critique of Trump's investment record.

Rounding out the three-day period (August 2 seems like a particularly bad one), Hewlitt-Packard CEO Meg Whitman, a high-profile Republican fundraiser, skewered Trump in a phone interview with the New York Times and pledged to vote for Clinton:

"... she argued that the election of Mr. Trump, whom she called 'a dishonest demagogue,' could lead the country 'on a very dangerous journey,'” wrote Jonathan Martin of the Times. "She noted that democracies had seldom lasted longer than a few hundred years and warned that those who say that 'it can’t happen here' are being naïve.

"Ms. Whitman also said she 'absolutely' stood by her comments at a private gathering of Republican donors this year comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler and Mussolini, explaining that dictators often come to office through democratic means."

Cricket chirps from Peter Thiel

The Trump campaign could certainly use a little extra support right now, and Peter Thiel has positioned himself to provide it. He is a rarity among high-profile Trump backers, being a bona fide Silicon Valley billionaire with a track record that includes co-founding PayPal.

Thiel is also a sitting board member of Facebook, and he co-founded the data mining company Palantir, which appears to be the model for Project Insight in the Marvel comics universe.

Thiel's support for the Republican candidate runs deep, despite the Republican party's antipathy to LGBT rights. (Thiel is an out gay man.) He took on a role as a California delegate for the Trump campaign last May without any public fanfare, but he soon burst into the spotlight by nailing down a prime speaking role at last month's Republican National Convention. He took his turn on the climactic final night, preceding Donald Trump himself by only two other speakers.

However, Thiel's careful planning has been undermined by one curiously-timed article that landed smack in the middle of Trump's three-day debacle.

The article appeared on August 1 in the magazine Inc. under the byline of the publication's San Francisco bureau chief, Jeff Bercovici, which gave it added weight.

The piece was entitled, "Peter Thiel Is Very, Very Interested in Young People's Blood," and yes the article cast Thiel in the role of a high-tech vampire -- a literal vampire, not a figurative one.

The piece was about parabiosis, an almost forgotten line in the life-extension field that burst forth in the 1950s and eventually withered away. Thiel is among the relatively few to revive interest in the practice, which consists of transfusing the blood of young people into old people.

I know, right? The timing of the article was curious because Bercovici's material on Thiel is old news. He includes extensive material from an interview that he conducted with Thiel on the topic of parabiosis about a year ago.

This is far from breaking news, but the media world has quickly piled on to the vampire thread. Among much other speculation, a tongue-in-cheek op/ed has appeared in The Week under the title, "In defense of Peter Thiel's vampirism."

The vampire buzz extended beyond conventional online publishing and into social media. Forbes contributor Bruce Y. Lee steers readers to Twitter, where they'll find a flood of vampire-themed tweets at #Thiel.

Lee also reminded his readers that Thiel has taken hormones as a life-extension therapy. And Gawker (yes, this Gawker) added to the lore with the title, "Thiel is interested in harvesting the blood of the young:"

"... The logical endpoint of Thiel’s dystopian world vision could feature an economy in which the wealthy, who wished to live forever, subsist on the blood of the poor, who would die at a normal age."

If Bercovici meant to portray Thiel as a creepy laughingstock at the height of a critical period in the Trump campaign, he has certainly succeeded.

And, if Thiel entertained any ideas about lending a hand to the Trump campaign during this tumultuous week, he should probably reconsider.

Photo (cropped) by wonderferret via flickr.com, creative commons license.

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Ed Note: Care about this issue? Check out our new series: Black Lives Matter and Beyond - Corporate Leaders Respond

For the first time since the activism started three years ago, organizations tied to the Black Lives Matter movement have released a list of demands calling to “end the war on black people.”

The demands issued by the more than 60 organizations affiliated with Black Lives Matters outlined concerns for equality, empowerment and reparations for the African-American community.

The groups offers detailed reasons for including each of the six demands, as well as recommendations for how to satisfy the needs on federal, state and local levels. Black Lives Matter is targeting legislative action on both federal and state levels to reverse what it says is the racial injustice bestowed upon the black community.

The list comes days before August 9, the two-year anniversary of the police shooting of Michael Brown, whose death created a firestorm and effectively mobilized the Black Lives Matter movement under its new “hands up, don’t shoot” slogan. Brown’s death triggered months-long, sometimes violent protests in his hometown of Ferguson, Missouri, but also sparked a national conversation about criminal justice reform and white police abuse against black civilians.

The agenda was also, not coincidentally, released following the conclusions of both major political parties’ national conventions. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both touched on violence against African-Americans but noted the importance of protecting police officers.

“Black Lives Matter!” chants echoed throughout the Wells Fargo Center as the “Mothers of the Movement” — mothers of unarmed African-Americans who were killed in altercations with police — endorsed Clinton on stage during the second night of the Democratic National Convention.

On the other side, Trump and Black Lives Matter don’t have the most pleasant relationship. Trump has called the movement “trouble,” saying that “in certain instances they are” responsible for instigating the recent police officer killings.

Following Trump’s record-breaking speech on the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Black Lives Matter officials didn’t have the kindest words for the presidential nominee.

“The terrorist on our televisions tonight was Donald Trump,” Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors told The Washington Times. “He pledged to fight for Americans, while threatening the vast majority of this country with imprisonment, deportation and a culture of abject fear.”

The Black Lives Matter website says the platform of demands was created “to articulate and support the ambitions and work of Black people.” They are looking to the government to make reparations, they say, and to fix the systems and institutions that criminalize and target African-Americans.

Here are the basic six demands:

• End the War on Black People


• Reparations


• Invest-Divest


• Economic Justice


• Community Control


• Political Power

Photo by Gerry Lauzon/Flickr

Facebook co-founder and chairman Mark Zuckerberg is inching closer to his goal of connecting the world to the Internet after signing up 22 African countries to its free Internet service.

The countries with a combined population of 635 million — led by Nigeria’s 182 million — will be granted free access to the social media site through Zuckerberg’s Free Basics initiative.

Free Basics operates in 44 countries, but its most recent target is to connect Africa to the 1.7 billion monthly active users Facebook attracts. Africa has, by far, the lowest percentage of its population using the Internet.

Percentage of population using the Internet by region (Internet World Stats):

1. North America: 89 percent


2. Europe: 73.9 percent


3. Oceania: 73.3 percent


4. Latin America: 61.5 percent


5. Middle East: 53.7 percent


6. Asia: 44.2 percent


7. Africa: 28.6 percent

While stirring enthusiasm among African leaders in countries benefiting from the free initiative, Facebook is still trying to escape the failures it experienced in India. In an attempt to make Indians the “next billion online,” Zuckerberg’s efforts were awash after just one year of operations.

Zuckerberg introduced Free Basics in Barcelona in February 2014 under a different name — Internet.org — but with the same goal of globalizing the Internet. Internet.org allowed access to 36 bookmarked sites — one weather app, three sites for women’s issues, Bing — and unsurprisingly Facebook, the only social media site. Facebook had full control of what sites to allow on the platform, creating anger over net neutrality.

People started to voice their concerns that this seemingly philanthropic endeavor was motivated by brand awareness. Osama Manza of the Digital Empowerment Foundation said instead of allowing free access, Facebook was acting as a gatekeeper in limiting the Internet for the millions of people who had little knowledge of what the Internet was capable of.

“What Zuckerberg means by 'Internet for all' is essentially 'Facebook for all,' with a few nonprofit services thrown in,” journalist Nikhil Pahwa noted.

Internet.org featured the employment site Babajob, which created complaints because it allowed certain firms featured on the website to see an unprecedented growth while the competitors that weren’t featured remained stagnant.

Facebook, faced with the sincere possibility of failure in India, employed a $40 million campaign to advertise the newly branded Free Basics. Billboards obnoxiously lined crowded roads, and Facebook created pop-up advertisements urging everyone using the social media site and to fight to keep Facebook in India.

In February 2016, a year after its launch, Free Basics was deemed illegal in India because of net neutrality.

And the concerns that sent Free Basics in India into extinction could still remain in Africa. Critics have called Zuckerberg a digital colonialist, saying Facebook is attempting to connect the world but in a way that limits their access to the Internet.

Most recently, Nigeria — Africa’s most populated country — launched 80 pre-selected websites through Free Basics. Of the 182 million people living in Nigeria, just under 93 million of them have Internet access. While this opens up the opportunity for tens of millions of Nigerians to access the Internet, the use will be limited to sites Facebook approves.

Attempting to save the dying initiative in India, Zuckerberg wrote an opinion piece in the India Times stating that Facebook’s commercial interests were not top of mind.

Even though Internet.org was banned in India, it doesn’t mean African countries will follow suit. Tanzania’s Communications Regulatory Authority said having Internet access is more important than concerns over net neutrality because of the wealth it can create for the country.

“An initiative that spurs adoption of data services for Tanzania for now is more beneficial to the market,” Innocent Mungy, a spokesman representing the country where just 5 percent of the population uses the internet, told Quartz.

Whether there is more uproar over Facebook’s limitations and so-called “walled garden” of Internet usage in developing countries remains to be seen, but Africa and Facebook are at least committing to give it a try.

Here's the current percentage of people using the Internet in the African countries where Free Basic has launched (Quartz):

• Seychelles: 54 percent


• South Africa: 49 percent


• Kenya: 43 percent


• Cape Verde: 40 percent


• Angola: 21 percent


• Ghana: 19 percent


• Senegal: 18 percent


• Zambia: 17 percent


• Mauritania: 11 percent


• Rwanda: 11 percent


• Gabon: 10 percent


• Malawi: 6 percent


• Mozambique: 6 percent


• Benin: 5 percent


• Liberia: 5 percent


• Tanzania: 5 percent


• Democratic Republic of Congo: 3 percent


• Guinea-Bissau: 3 percent


• Guinea: 2 percent


• Niger: 2 percent

Photo by Silverisdead/Flickr

We are past talking about plus sizes. We are past talking about “weight gain.” The most recent study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documents how much weight we have gained since 1994. On average, white, non-Hispanic women have added almost 18 pounds while, African American women have added 22 pounds. White, non-Hispanic men have added approximately 16 pounds, and African American men have added 18 pounds. An 11-year-old boy is over 13 pounds heavier than in 1994, and an 11-year-old girl is more than 7 pounds heavier.

This latest CDC study further documents that we are in a national weight crisis, most especially among the boomer generation: 72 percent of this generation’s men and 67 percent of its women are overweight or obese. The health care costs tied to our weight is crushing us, and our nation, with a financial burden we cannot afford.

How our food and beverage industry made us fat

Twenty grams of saturated fat is the recommended daily intake based on a recommended 2,000 calories per day diet. Here are some of the best-selling food items offered by our favorite restaurants in terms of their fat content:

• The Big Mac has 29 grams of fat and 550 calories


• Burger King's Double Whopper with cheese has 65 grams of fat and almost a thousand calories


• Pizza Hut Meat Lover’s Personal 6-inch Pan Pizza has 46 grams of fat and 830 calories


• Hardee’s 1/3-pound Original Thickburger has 52 grams of fat and 810 calories


• Wendy’s Banconator has 63 grams of fat, 970 calories and a stunning 2,020 milligrams of sodium.

The food industry helped us wash down all that fat with promotionally-sized sodas. In 1955 the largest serving of Coca-Cola offered by McDonald's was 7 ounces. Today, the fast-food chain offers a serving of Coke that's six times larger! This was Coca-Cola’s plan all along. In 1955, the company first introduced king-sized sodas up to 26 ounces. Forty years later, McDonald’s had made “super sized” portions a permanent feature on their menus.

We were sold on these foods through ever-increasing numbers of TV commercials. In 1952 only four minutes of commercials were allowed per hour! Today, about a third of our time in front of the TV is spent watching commercials. Commercial after commercial, day after day, decade after decade, has convinced us that “having it our way” or “supersize me” was good eating.

Our court system, which should be protecting us from promotional practices that are harmful to human health, have turned a blind eye to the food industry’s promotion of fattening food. The legal system has ruled that, if we are fat, then it is our fault for eating the fattening food. At last report, about 20 states have laws banning customers from suing restaurants that purposefully promote the sale of food tied to obesity and diabetes.

Three keys to losing weight, having fun and living more+

I was fat. I was so fat that I had to have a handicap parking sticker because it hurt to walk. I tried all the name diets, and none worked for me. That pushed me to look outside the nutrition and diet box for why I was fat. It pushed me to find proven solutions for achieving a healthy weight. Here are three key research findings that enabled me to lose more than 30 pounds and feel great:

1. Listen to the millennial-generation influence leaders. They have a clear and simple message. No McDonalds. No Coca-Cola, including diet sodas. None of those sugar-, salt- and fat-filled packages of chips, cookies, "fruit" juices and cereals that line our grocery stores' interior aisles. Millennial influencers eat great-tasting food at fun restaurants. But the difference is that the food they eat is also good-for-you food.


2. Reduce your stress by learning to play. I gained weight from pushing myself in my career and from raising teenagers. The good news is that I had a great career and my kids turned out fantastic. The bad news is all that stress caused significant weight gain. Research is conclusive that stress adds weight. The solution is to learn how to reduce stress by relearning how to play. Play is a natural stress reducer. It is not exercise. Exercise that we measure, and feel guilty about if we skip, creates stress. Ride a mountain bike or join a dance class, because this feels like fun, reduces stress and helps shed weight.


3. Use best practices to defeat impulse purchases. What we buy in too many ways ties to our stress. We shop today not because we need something. We shop because it feels great. We are stimulated with an endless stream of discounted price promotions. We shop to be able to engage socially. We shop because we are bombarded with continuous commercials on our all our screens. I dedicate an entire chapter in my "Boomer Generation Diet" book on shopping best practices that promote weight loss. It also saves money! And you feel great about shopping in a new way. You feel great knowing you truly beat the food industry’s promotional system that has made us fat.

If we all did these types of best practices, then the next CDC report may find that we weigh less and have solved America's weight crisis.

McDonald’s menu makeover continues, and its Chicken McNuggets are now free of preservatives, the fast food giant announced this week. The more healthful McNugget, promised earlier this year, comes with several other changes to McDonald's menu items that helped make the company the world’s largest restaurant chain. But those same products are spurned by many younger consumers, who prefer what they see as more healthful options at chains such as the bakery cafe Panera Bread, fresh-Mex Chipotle and salad purveyor Sweetgreen.

McDonald’s responded to these trends by trying to pitch more healthful alternatives. The company piloted a kale salad in Canada, which looked fine until nutritionists noted that, with the dressing, it had more calories than a Big Mac. An organic hamburger had a test-marketing run in Germany, but it never left that country’s borders. McDonald’s touched upon issues that are increasingly important to consumers, such as a living wage and the impact its supply chain has on deforestation, yet those efforts have largely fallen on deaf ears.

Meanwhile a bevy of smaller chains, from cult favorites such as Five Guys and In-N-Out to upstarts like Shake Shack and Habit Burger Grill, continue to expand. And now local joints, in cities from Chicago to Santa Cruz, keep opening and peeling off more customers from the likes of McDonald’s and Burger King.

And now these huge menus at fast-food chains, which include chicken options, have caused these companies and their suppliers more headaches. McDonald’s and its competitors started to add chicken to their menu options 30 years ago in order to offer a “healthy” alternative to beef. But the debate over the nutrition of these options has shifted. Consumers, for the most part, frankly do not care when they bite into such an indulgence. But they do want to make sure their burger and sides have been sourced responsibly and that their workers are making a decent wage.

Reinventing the burger is key to McDonald’s relevance if it hopes to hang onto its current customers while enticing skeptics. After years of sluggish sales figures, and even restaurant closures, the company made a comeback this past year. That recovery in both sales and stock price is largely due to its new all-day breakfast menu. But as Bloomberg noted, the enthusiasm over that 6 p.m. Egg McMuffin has cooled as same-store sales the past quarter increased less than 2 percent.

McDonald’s is betting a menu that “continues to evolve” can help the company course-correct. As far as the eggs and meat products on its breakfast menu, the company says they are also now free of artificial preservatives. The buns used on its iconic sandwiches, from Big Macs to Filet-O-Fish, will no longer contain high fructose corn syrup. And speaking of chicken, McDonald’s claims its pledge to rid all chicken products of antibiotics has been accomplished a year ahead of schedule.

This creates a difficult balance for McDonald’s, as it asks its franchisees to take on more costs while it seeks those coveted millennial consumers who, so far, are not “lovin’ it.”

Image credit: Greg Glidden

by Brian Collett — Businesses would have to include statements on their slavery policies in their Companies House returns under legislation now before the UK Parliament.

This measure would be accompanied by a central listing of all businesses bound by the rule that they must be transparent about modern slavery in their activities and in their supply chains.

A credible repository of modern slavery statements has often been called for, reports the Ethical Trading Initiative, commonly known as the ETI, a London-based alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs promoting workers’ rights in the manufacturing sector worldwide.

These records, says the ETI, would be easy to view and would highlight responsible companies’ efforts to map their supply chains, examine corporate systems and structures within them, and conduct due diligence inquiries.

They would have to be “independent, credible, transparent, freely accessible and robust”, insists the ETI.

The legislation being considered is the Modern Slavery (Transparency in Supply Chains) Bill. It would impose the same demands on government bodies as on private enterprise businesses and would require contracting authorities to conduct similar due diligence and to deny work to companies that had not produced a slavery and human trafficking statement.

It represents an update on the existing Modern Slavery Act and would bring it into line with legislation already established in the US.

The Bill has been put forward in the House of Lords by Baroness Young of Hornsey, the former actress Lola Young, who sits as a cross-bench peer.

The progress of the legislation could be slow, however. The Bill has received its second reading in the Lords and is now in the committee stage, during which amendments can be inserted.

The Lords can then decide whether to accept the Bill in its new form and a third reading would follow.

Next, the Bill would go to the House of Commons, which would conduct the same procedure. After this, it would need the Royal Assent before becoming law.

Widespread concerns about slavery in 21st-century Britain have brought about the Modern Slavery Act and the present Bill.

Several incidents of slave labour have been uncovered in recent years. In a civil case in June, four Lithuanian men trafficked to the UK, forced to work in degrading conditions and said to have been subjected to violence by their supervisors, won a compensation claim against DJ Houghton Catching Services, of Maidstone, Kent. The compensation amount is still to be decided.