August 5, 2016: Friday news roundup
Welcome to the first roundup of August. Here in SF, this time of year means wearing sweaters while the rest of the country swelters. Grab a cup of tea and warm up to this week’s interesting and eclectic tidbits from around the internet.
The hottest start-up market? Baby boomers
While food delivery startups falter and the app market contracts to favor only a few big players, some serial entrepreneurs are finding fertile terrain in new businesses catering to the needs and desires of aging baby boomers. Dubbed “the longevity economy” in this article, the demographic offers tremendous opportunity for startups targeting the country’s estimated 74.9 million baby boomers, who outnumber millennials and have more money to spend too.
How to increase your influence
Looking to play a bigger role in your workplace? You don’t have to be in the C-suite to do so. Wharton professor Jonah Berger has great suggestions for raising your professional profile and having greater sway over group decisions. Another way to have influence, he points out, is by being a motivator of others.
3 big myths about workplace learning
The #1 myth, according to this article, is that employees don’t have time for learning. What they really don’t have is motivation and incentive. If it’ll help their careers or enrich their lives, workers will gladly fit learning into their routines. The other two myths are ripe for debunking too!
If you’re not outside your comfort zone, you won’t learn anything
We’ve heard it before: fear holds people back from adopting a learning mindset. We fear doing things that are new and unfamiliar and may make us feel inept. But those same skills can be prerequisites to advancement, and avoidance is a career liability. Here’s some advice for biting the bullet and getting on with those “unpleasant, but professionally beneficial, tasks.”
An Olympic feat: Seeing pictures before they happen
Photography is one of the most popular course categories on Udemy, and sports photography is one of the most celebrated genres of the medium. It takes a discerning eye and quick reflexes to capture the split-second moments of action and drama at events like the Olympic Games. Rio will be the eighth Olympics for NY Times staffer Chang Lee, who talks about how he got into sports photography and shares stories from his career.