Weekly Digest of Must-Read Articles (30.08)

Every week we read tons of articles, browse through a variety of editorials and long reads to find the 10 most interesting pieces you can’t miss on any occasion. This week you’ll find out how not to get shadowbanned on Instagram and why your political views influence the healthiness of your food. You’ll get to know the history and meaning of the office and learn how the Chinese workers deal with stress. Has software eaten up the world? How to measure the sales employee turnover rate? Read all of this and more in our new weekly digest of 10 articles we’d like you to like.

What Is the Office Actually For? – Dropbox

“If we want to understand the role of the contemporary office, we need to understand where it comes from. And for that, we need to go back to the dawn of writing. For as long as humans have had written language, we have designated quiet areas to work in. Thousands of years ago, monks curtained off parts of their monastery to duplicate religious works and Romans cordoned off spaces to conduct official work. But the first purpose-built office arrived significantly later.

In the 1600s, under immense administrative burdens, the British government constructed huge and elaborate buildings, from which to run their enormous trading companies. As the rest of the world industrialized and economies concentrated into urban environments, other dedicated offices began popping up all across the world. But they didn’t stay the sole preserve of the rich and powerful for long.” Read the article.

Everything You Need to Know About Instagram's Secret Shadowban. – HubSpot

“When you're trying to grow a following on Instagram, you depend on hashtags and engagement to expand your audience and reach. So it can feel more than a little disheartening when it suddenly seems like your content isn't showing up anywhere.

If you feel like your posts are receiving fewer likes and comments, or aren't appearing for certain hashtags, you might be shadowbanned.” Read the article.

Ideology Can Skew Our Views on the Healthiness of Food. – Pacific Standard.

“It's been clear for a while now that our political views influence our consumer choices. A 2013 study found that liberals, who tend to look for new, exciting projects, tend to shop at Trader Joe's, while conservatives, who are more likely to prefer the tried and true, prefer stores like Walmart that offer trusted brand names. A 2018 study reported that conservatives prefer products that convey dominance, while liberals like those that signal distinctiveness.

The latest research, in the journal Social Science and Medicine, describes two studies. The first included 699 adult Americans recruited online, all of whom indicated their political ideology on a one ("very liberal") to seven ("very conservative") scale.” Read the article.

In a Workaholic China, the Stressed-Out Find a Refuge With Monks and Sanskrit. – The Wall Street Journal

“The students were lined up in rows, listening intently as their professor, Li Wei, explained the periphrastic future tense. Among them were monks with shaved heads, a yoga teacher sitting cross-legged at her desk and a man in a suit who had rushed in late. In the rat race that is modern China, it is not uncommon for ambitious types to study coding or business English in the hope of getting ahead socially, financially or, ideally, both. These students were different. At a temple here in Hangzhou, China’s e-commerce capital and a place some call the “city of entrepreneurs,” they were learning Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language in which most Hindu and some Buddhist texts are written. It’s a pursuit with no practical application — the Chinese equivalent of studying Latin after-hours in Silicon Valley.” Read the article.

Sales Employee Turnover Rate: How To Measure (and Lower) It. – HubSpot

“When you're employing an all-star salesperson who closes deal after deal, it's disheartening when that rep decides to leave. Not just because the departure impacts your bottom line, but because it contributes to a notorious and ongoing problem in sales departments across the country: a high sales employee turnover rate.” Read the article.

Podcast: Software Has Eaten the World…and Healthcare Is Next. – a16z

Back in 2011, a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen first made the bold claim that software would eat the world. In this episode (originally recorded as part of an event at a16z), Andreessen and a16z general partner on the bio fund Jorge Conde (@JorgeCondeBio) take a look back at that thesis, and think about where we are now, nearly a decade later—how software has delivered on that promise… and most of all, where it is yet to come. In the wide-ranging conversation, the two partners discuss everything from the translatable learnings of software’s transformation of the music and automotive industries, to how the software will now eat healthcare. Read the article.

Google Reveals Major iPhone Security Flaws That Let Websites Hack Phones. – The Verge

“Security researchers working in Google’s Project Zero team say they have discovered a number of hacked websites which used previously undisclosed security flaws to indiscriminately attack any iPhone that visited them. Motherboard reports that the attack could be one of the largest ever conducted against iPhone users. If a user visited one of the malicious websites using a vulnerable device, then their personal files, messages, and real time location data could be compromised. After reporting their findings to Apple, the iPhone manufacturer patched the vulnerabilities earlier this year.” Read the article.

The Disruptive Future of Programmatic Out of Home. – EMC Outdoor

“Disruption is a popular buzzword right now and is often thrown around in situations where it doesn’t really apply. This is not one of those situations. The changes that will take place in the Out of Home world as a result of programmatic will be nothing short of transformative. We are looking at a paradigm shift on par with the advent of computers.

Yet, while there is a lot of justified excitement around the topic, there is also a lot of misunderstanding. We want to help with some basic understanding on the topic on several fronts. But before we get into what programmatic DOOH is, it’s probably best to start with what it is not.” Read the article.

2019 Tech IPOs: Some Thoughts From the Public Company Roller Coaster. – TechCrunch

“2019 has already been an active year for U.S. tech IPOs. Some highly anticipated unicorns, such as Uber and Lyft, have disappointed investors with their IPO debuts and their first results as public companies. Others, such as Fiverr, Zoom and CrowdStrike, have soared. And food-tech brand Beyond Meat (two words you normally don’t see together) hit a high of $239 from their $25 IPO price.” Read the article.

8k Software Specialist Partners With Sharp at IBC. – AV Magazine

“Broadcast playout software specialist Cinegy is to showcase the full scope of its 8K recording, capture, archive, and encoding capabilities at IBC 2019. On its IBC stand, Cinegy will feature the Sharp 8M-B80AX1E 8K displays, the first 80-inch 8K professional display to be mass produced. The Sharp 8M-B80AX1E has 33 million pixels (7680 x 4320), four times that of 4K UHD and sixteen times the resolution of full HD.” Read the article.