Google Maps’ Newest Feature: Helping You Find Waldo

Starting Saturday, Google Maps will include a revolutionary new feature. Using what we’re sure is cutting-edge proprietary technology, it will allow users to answer one of life’s most persistent questions: Where’s Waldo?

Yes, it’s the latest in Google’s long-running tradition of April Fools’ Day pranks. But it’s actually going live in Maps – and for some, it’ll be a welcome dose of nostalgia. The “Where’s Waldo” books, which were wildly popular in the 1990s, were known as “Where’s Wally?” in their original British incarnation. Creator Martin Handford’s incredibly detailed, colorful drawings, full of goofy visual gags, were tailor-made for drawing in young fans.

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The Google Maps minigame reproduces original drawings from the series, but tags them as real locations including a beach in Australia and a ski slope in Chile. Players must scroll around the images to find Waldo and his friends. You’ll have to find Waldo in each map before advancing to the next one. The Google version arguably adds some fun to the exercise, including by tracking which characters you’ve found in each illustration.

The minigame is already active in the desktop version of Maps, where it can be accessed through a pop-up image of Waldo on the edge of the app. According to The Verge, it should also be available on Android and iOS versions starting some time Saturday, and will be active for a week.

The Top Books You Need to Read to Make Your Marketing Timeless

In terms of marketing, being overwhelmed by the amount of content online can become as common as driving past a McDonald"s. The sheer volume of online courses, e-books, YouTube tutorials and more can cause one to nearly go numb trying to keep up and retain all of the information.

Yet, many people forget there are some principles of marketing that almost certainly won"t change in our lifetimes or in the centuries ahead. Why? Well, because marketing is driven by psychology, and the human brain doesn"t evolve overnight.

Here are four timeless books that changed my life, business and marketing for the better, and, if read and absorbed, can do the same for you.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout

When talking about having a long-lasting impact with your marketing, it"s only right we kick off this list with The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. The amount of simple yet brilliant principles Ries and Trout lay out in this book are game-changing and have stood the test of time.

When it comes to marketing, this book started it all for me. I was working as an intern at a startup and aimlessly trying to decide on my career path. I tried project management, computer science, sales and more, but none felt like the right fit.

I had always been a storyteller, and after reading this book, it hit me that all of marketing can be boiled down to stories and principles of human behavior. That began my love affair with the industry, and we"ve been going strong ever since.

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook should be required reading for any and all marketing professionals. The main reason being that many people approach online interactions and in-person interactions differently when they should be treated exactly the same way.

You wouldn"t ask a potential girlfriend or boyfriend to go on vacation with you after the first date (at least, I hope not). Yet, for whatever reason, across social media and beyond we see people asking for a prospect"s time or money without giving an adequate amount of value to earn those things.

This was the book that led to me writing my first viral, breakthrough article, which then led to me launching my business, landing my Inc.com column, securing speaking gigs and more. The epiphany I had was simple: play the "long game" by adding value to my readers, month after month, year after year. Only after I build that trust up should I ask them for anything in exchange.

Hooked by Nir Eyal

Hooked by Nir Eyal is another book overflowing with priceless information on consumer psychology. Eyal takes an approach focused on modern-day companies like Twitter and Instagram. If you"re interested in learning how tech giants reel in and retain their users using psychology, Nir"s bestseller will be a book for you.

Most of the examples Eyal uses in Hooked are based on products, not outgoing marketing materials. I began to recognize that marketing was a facet of every piece of the business from the product to the elevator pitch, so I could add value to all parts of my client"s businesses.

Influence by Robert Cialdini

Robert Cialdini"s book has remained a favorite amongst entrepreneurs, sales and marketing professionals and more since it was published in 1984. After reading just a few pages, you"ll realize why. The enduring principles Cialdini delivers in Influence are aspects of the human psyche that are hard-wired into us, and aren"t going away any time soon.

This book was gifted to me by a former manager who I consider the closest thing to a mentor I"ve ever had, and it couldn"t have come at a better time. I was working a fast-growing startup in San Francisco while building my startup, Arctiphi, on the side. I wanted things to move faster so I could go full-time into my business, but sales was never my forte. I lacked the confidence, the body language, damn near everything I thought made a great salesperson great.

After reading the book, I realized the way I was thinking of sales was all wrong. The packaging didn"t matter nearly as much as the product. Marketing and sales were brother and sister, not distant cousins, and the same tactics I was using in my copywriting could be applied to in-person sales, public speaking and more.

It worked. Within a few months of reading Influence, monthly revenue increased sixfold and I was able to go full-time into Arctiphi.

There are many marketing principles that"ll remain true for centuries to come. By equipping yourself with these timeless principles instead of "keeping up with the marketing Joneses" daily, you"ll position your brand to stay relevant no matter what the world throws at it.

The Top Books You Need to Read to Make Your Marketing Timeless

In terms of marketing, being overwhelmed by the amount of content online can become as common as driving past a McDonald"s. The sheer volume of online courses, e-books, YouTube tutorials and more can cause one to nearly go numb trying to keep up and retain all of the information.

Yet, many people forget there are some principles of marketing that almost certainly won"t change in our lifetimes or in the centuries ahead. Why? Well, because marketing is driven by psychology, and the human brain doesn"t evolve overnight.

Here are four timeless books that changed my life, business and marketing for the better, and, if read and absorbed, can do the same for you.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout

When talking about having a long-lasting impact with your marketing, it"s only right we kick off this list with The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. The amount of simple yet brilliant principles Ries and Trout lay out in this book are game-changing and have stood the test of time.

When it comes to marketing, this book started it all for me. I was working as an intern at a startup and aimlessly trying to decide on my career path. I tried project management, computer science, sales and more, but none felt like the right fit.

I had always been a storyteller, and after reading this book, it hit me that all of marketing can be boiled down to stories and principles of human behavior. That began my love affair with the industry, and we"ve been going strong ever since.

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook should be required reading for any and all marketing professionals. The main reason being that many people approach online interactions and in-person interactions differently when they should be treated exactly the same way.

You wouldn"t ask a potential girlfriend or boyfriend to go on vacation with you after the first date (at least, I hope not). Yet, for whatever reason, across social media and beyond we see people asking for a prospect"s time or money without giving an adequate amount of value to earn those things.

This was the book that led to me writing my first viral, breakthrough article, which then led to me launching my business, landing my Inc.com column, securing speaking gigs and more. The epiphany I had was simple: play the "long game" by adding value to my readers, month after month, year after year. Only after I build that trust up should I ask them for anything in exchange.

Hooked by Nir Eyal

Hooked by Nir Eyal is another book overflowing with priceless information on consumer psychology. Eyal takes an approach focused on modern-day companies like Twitter and Instagram. If you"re interested in learning how tech giants reel in and retain their users using psychology, Nir"s bestseller will be a book for you.

Most of the examples Eyal uses in Hooked are based on products, not outgoing marketing materials. I began to recognize that marketing was a facet of every piece of the business from the product to the elevator pitch, so I could add value to all parts of my client"s businesses.

Influence by Robert Cialdini

Robert Cialdini"s book has remained a favorite amongst entrepreneurs, sales and marketing professionals and more since it was published in 1984. After reading just a few pages, you"ll realize why. The enduring principles Cialdini delivers in Influence are aspects of the human psyche that are hard-wired into us, and aren"t going away any time soon.

This book was gifted to me by a former manager who I consider the closest thing to a mentor I"ve ever had, and it couldn"t have come at a better time. I was working a fast-growing startup in San Francisco while building my startup, Arctiphi, on the side. I wanted things to move faster so I could go full-time into my business, but sales was never my forte. I lacked the confidence, the body language, damn near everything I thought made a great salesperson great.

After reading the book, I realized the way I was thinking of sales was all wrong. The packaging didn"t matter nearly as much as the product. Marketing and sales were brother and sister, not distant cousins, and the same tactics I was using in my copywriting could be applied to in-person sales, public speaking and more.

It worked. Within a few months of reading Influence, monthly revenue increased sixfold and I was able to go full-time into Arctiphi.

There are many marketing principles that"ll remain true for centuries to come. By equipping yourself with these timeless principles instead of "keeping up with the marketing Joneses" daily, you"ll position your brand to stay relevant no matter what the world throws at it.

How to Address Gender Bias in the Workplace? Look at Your Slack Messages

Gender bias can lurk in unexpected corners of the workplace. One place you might be overlooking it? Your company"s Slack account--and Slack wants to to help you with that. 

Quartz reported Wednesday that at the Wharton People Analytics Conference Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield revealed his company may be building tools that will analyze gendered communication trends on its platform.

Studies show that women and men communicate differently. For example, men tend to interrupt women more often, and women have a tendency to apologize in conversation when expressing their opinion. These same tendencies can occur even when people communicate online.

Although Butterfield said that bias isn"t a big problem on Slack, it"s enough of a concern that he wants to give users a way to analyze their own messages for potential bias, something he referred to as "personal analytics."

"There are analytics that no one else has access to you except for you," he told the audience. "And they don"t present you with any real moral value either way, but [they answer questions like], do you talk to men differently than you talk to women? Do you speak to support groups differently than you speak to superiors? Do you speak in public differently than you speak in private?" 

If and when Slack does develop such a tool, it could have the opportunity to make a big impact. Founded in 2013, the internal messaging tool is used by over six million daily active users and more than 50,000 teams, which includes 43 percent of the largest 100 companies in the U.S. by revenue. The company reportedly brings in an annual revenue of $200 million.

In a statement to Inc., however, Slack downplayed the idea that it"s actively working on such tools. 

"Our Search, Learning and Intelligence team in New York is focused on improving search and making Slack more useful for our users. That work includes developing analytics tools, including potentially the "personal analytics" that Stewart mentioned, but these initiatives are in the early stages and will continue to develop over the next couple of years."

Butterfield"s comments highlight what could be a shift in how tech companies might think about eliminating bias in their products. Instead of trying to build algorithms and tools that are supposed to automatically predict and identify bias--a problematic task because they"re designed by human beings with bias--Butterfield suggests instead that tech companies can help users by simply showing them their own behavior. 

Textio is another startup thinking hard about bias in online communication. The company analyzes job postings and applicant data for enterprise companies like Slack, Atlassian, Johnson & Johnson, and Expedia and helps suggest gender-neutral language for less biased job ads. Co-founder Kieran Snyder says Slack could be on to something if it develops tools to help you understand your own patterns of behavior.

"It"s wonderful if I get personal insight [into] how I"m relating to colleagues differently based on factors I have not been aware of. But the actual thing that is interesting to me as a person or a company is, does it change the behavior?," says Snyder, who also has a PhD in linguistics.

For Textio"s purposes, collecting voluntary, aggregated data on gender and ethnicity is crucial to its work. The company uses this information--which you elect (or not) to provide on job applications--to try to predict how different groups of people apply for a job. "If you have really solid data where everyone has voluntarily indicated their gender identity, you can have relatively low bias," she says.

It"s not clear whether Slack would collect voluntary data on users" personal information such as gender and ethnicity. But what is clear is that this type of data collection is complicated. Women often turn to digital messaging tools for the sense of anonymity, which can allow them to participate more equally in conversations with men than when speaking face-to-face, according to Susan C. Herring, a professor at Indiana University, Bloomingdale in her study "Gender and Power in Online Communication." So collecting this information brings up privacy concerns. (Snyder mentions that people are less likely to give information on their ethnicity than gender possibly due to even greater discrimination for not being white.)

Without those data points, however, companies can only infer someone"s identity, which can help perpetuate deeper bias when trying to build tools to fix that very issue.

"If you have data where you"re guessing people"s gender identity--let"s say from their name or other patterns of communication--then you have really high bias," she says.

How to Address Gender Bias in the Workplace? Look at Your Slack Messages

Gender bias can lurk in unexpected corners of the workplace. One place you might be overlooking it? Your company"s Slack account--and Slack wants to to help you with that. 

Quartz reported Wednesday that at the Wharton People Analytics Conference Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield revealed his company may be building tools that will analyze gendered communication trends on its platform.

Studies show that women and men communicate differently. For example, men tend to interrupt women more often, and women have a tendency to apologize in conversation when expressing their opinion. These same tendencies can occur even when people communicate online.

Although Butterfield said that bias isn"t a big problem on Slack, it"s enough of a concern that he wants to give users a way to analyze their own messages for potential bias, something he referred to as "personal analytics."

"There are analytics that no one else has access to you except for you," he told the audience. "And they don"t present you with any real moral value either way, but [they answer questions like], do you talk to men differently than you talk to women? Do you speak to support groups differently than you speak to superiors? Do you speak in public differently than you speak in private?" 

If and when Slack does develop such a tool, it could have the opportunity to make a big impact. Founded in 2013, the internal messaging tool is used by over six million daily active users and more than 50,000 teams, which includes 43 percent of the largest 100 companies in the U.S. by revenue. The company reportedly brings in an annual revenue of $200 million.

In a statement to Inc., however, Slack downplayed the idea that it"s actively working on such tools. 

"Our Search, Learning and Intelligence team in New York is focused on improving search and making Slack more useful for our users. That work includes developing analytics tools, including potentially the "personal analytics" that Stewart mentioned, but these initiatives are in the early stages and will continue to develop over the next couple of years."

Butterfield"s comments highlight what could be a shift in how tech companies might think about eliminating bias in their products. Instead of trying to build algorithms and tools that are supposed to automatically predict and identify bias--a problematic task because they"re designed by human beings with bias--Butterfield suggests instead that tech companies can help users by simply showing them their own behavior. 

Textio is another startup thinking hard about bias in online communication. The company analyzes job postings and applicant data for enterprise companies like Slack, Atlassian, Johnson & Johnson, and Expedia and helps suggest gender-neutral language for less biased job ads. Co-founder Kieran Snyder says Slack could be on to something if it develops tools to help you understand your own patterns of behavior.

"It"s wonderful if I get personal insight [into] how I"m relating to colleagues differently based on factors I have not been aware of. But the actual thing that is interesting to me as a person or a company is, does it change the behavior?," says Snyder, who also has a PhD in linguistics.

For Textio"s purposes, collecting voluntary, aggregated data on gender and ethnicity is crucial to its work. The company uses this information--which you elect (or not) to provide on job applications--to try to predict how different groups of people apply for a job. "If you have really solid data where everyone has voluntarily indicated their gender identity, you can have relatively low bias," she says.

It"s not clear whether Slack would collect voluntary data on users" personal information such as gender and ethnicity. But what is clear is that this type of data collection is complicated. Women often turn to digital messaging tools for the sense of anonymity, which can allow them to participate more equally in conversations with men than when speaking face-to-face, according to Susan C. Herring, a professor at Indiana University, Bloomingdale in her study "Gender and Power in Online Communication." So collecting this information brings up privacy concerns. (Snyder mentions that people are less likely to give information on their ethnicity than gender possibly due to even greater discrimination for not being white.)

Without those data points, however, companies can only infer someone"s identity, which can help perpetuate deeper bias when trying to build tools to fix that very issue.

"If you have data where you"re guessing people"s gender identity--let"s say from their name or other patterns of communication--then you have really high bias," she says.

Facebook hires prominent artificial-intelligence expert to open Montreal lab

TORONTO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc plans to open an artificial-intelligence laboratory in Montreal, which will be run by prominent AI researcher Joelle Pineau, two people familiar with the plan said on Friday.
Tech

4 Things You Need to Accept About Millennials in the Workplace

If I had a dollar every time an older person said something disparaging about a Millennial, I"d be talking to you from my own private island. What I have found, is that working with them (or managing them) can be rewarding as long as you treat them accordingly.

For example, I understand that in managing Millennials I have to offer a flexible work schedule to accommodate their juggling act of responsibilities, such as continuing their education and pursuing entrepreneurial side projects. All employees have different skill sets to offer and work at differing paces, so if in 2018 you"re blanketing how you expect your coworkers to perform, you may be setting yourself up for failure.

A study of nearly 10,000 adults aged 18-67 by Ernest & Young Global Limited, shows that Millennials are having a harder time balancing work and life than their predecessors. It proves that Millennials are as almost twice as likely to have a spouse working at least full-time compared to Boomers. Baby Boomers and Generation Xers don"t actually work harder than Millennials, and studies are showing that younger generations really do face a more difficult time of balancing it all.

Here are three things that might surprise you about Millennials and their older colleagues. 

1. Baby Boomers are finally winding down.

Baby Boomers have the reputation for going at their work hard and fast, but there"s a season for everything and everyone. With Boomers born in the late 1940s to 1950s, they are retiring now. Even if they aren"t retiring, they are slowing down their careers to enjoy the beginning of their twilight years. In the meantime, Millennials are the ones that are hired to take their place. 

2. Millennials are great with technology.

You know that computer program or new app or gadget that"s been giving you trouble? The newer, the more high-tech, and the more out there something is, the better. They"ve grown up with this kind of technology, so they learn fast, and working these kinds of gadgets is just intuitive to them.

3. Millennials are energetic, and want to carve a place for themselves in the world.

Some people say that Millennials are entitled and don"t know the value of a dollar. Not so! The ones I have met are often go-getters who are ambitious, have dreams to pursue, and want to really make a difference. The way they see it, everything has already been said, written and done, so they want to do something different with their lives, even if that means working long hours for it.

Growing up with major FOMO (fear of missing out) has lit a proverbial fire under their butts to be successful enough to live their dreams. In true Millennial fashion, that"s the reason I decided to start my own company four years ago--to be able to afford a lifestyle that would allow me to travel the world and have free time.

4. Gen-Xers and Millennials are better adapted to problem solving.

Everyone has their strengths. While Baby Boomers are known for being independent, goal-oriented and competitive, Millennials are known for their skills in problem solving, technology use and management, and teamwork.

These may be all skills that their predecessors have too, but the reason why Gen X-ers are so great at them is because that was the focus of their education. They were taught to work in teams and they grew up with the technology that they now excel at.

I recall a time in my freshmen year of college when a professor didn"t take too kindly to me problem solving in my own way. One of the tasks on a test called for me to locate a folder on and save a file to it. Having grown up using computers I found a much quicker way to get the task done than by using his detailed instructions, which I patted myself on the back for.

However, the professor didn"t take too kindly to my doing things my own way, and actually deducted points from my final score for doing so. I was blown away, and explained to him that if anything I should earn bonus points for being more efficient and finding a better way to complete the work, which only made the situation worse. 

What this has led to, is my appreciation of employees who are able to think critically on their own and rewarding them for it. As a manager I know that I don"t have the answer to everything, and I look to my team to ensure that collectively we"re doing our best. Do not forget to consider the valuable traits of other employees as well as your team should be well rounded. Don"t get stuck with too many Chiefs and not enough Indians.