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“Snow Will Fall Too Fast for Plows,” ICE STORM APOCALYPSE, and Another Big Storm May Be Coming … were all headlines posted on YouTube this past weekend as the biggest snowstorm in years hit New York City. These videos, each with tens or hundreds of thousands of views, are part of an increasingly popular genre of weather influencers,” as Americans increasingly turn to social media for news and weather updates. People pay more attention to influencers on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok than to journalists or mainstream media, a study by the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford found in 2024. In the U.S., social media is how 20% of adults get their news or weather updates, according to the Pew Research Center. Its no surprise, then, that a number of online weather accounts have cropped up to cover the increasing number of extreme weather events in the U.S. While some of these influencers have no science background, many of the most popular ones are accredited meteorologists. One of the most viewed digital meteorologistsor weather influencersis Ryan Hall, who calls himself “The Internet’s Weather Man” on his social media platforms. His YouTube channel, Ryan Hall, Yall, has more than 3 million subscribers. Max Velocity is another. He’s a degreed meteorologist, according to his YouTube bio, who has 1.66 million followers. Reed Timmer, an extreme meteorologist and storm chaser, also posts to 1.46 million subscribers on YouTube. While most prefer to avoid the bad news that comes with bad weather, I charge towards it, Timmer writes in the description section on his channel. The rising popularity of weather influencers is stemming not just from a mistrust in mainstream mediawhich is lingering at an all-time lowbut also from an appetite for real-time updates delivered in an engaging way to the social-first generation. YouTube accounts like Halls will often livestream during extreme weather events, with his comments section hosting a flurry of activity. Theres even merch. Of course, influencers are not required to uphold the same reporting standards as network weathercasters. Theres also the incentive, in terms of likes and engagement, to sensationalize events with clickbait titles and exaggerated claims, or sometimes even misinformation, as witnessed during the L.A. wildfires last year. Still, as meteorologists navigate the new media landscape, the American Meteorological Society now offers a certification program in digital meteorology for those meteorologists who meet established criteria for scientific competence and effective communication skills in their weather presentations on all forms of digital media. While we wait to see whether another winter storm will hit the Northeast this weekend, rest assured, the weather influencers will be tracking the latest updates.
Category:
E-Commerce
You know the ancient proverb: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. For leaders, first-generation AI tools are like giving employees fish. Agentic AI, on the other hand, teaches them how to fishtruly empowering, and that empowerment lifts the entire organization. According to recent findings from McKinsey, nearly eight in ten companies report using gen AI, yet about the same number report no bottom-line impact. Agentic AI can help organizations achieve meaningful results. AI agents are highly capable assistants with the ability to execute tasks independently. Equipped with artificial intelligence that simulates human reasoning, they can recognize problems, remember past interactions, and proactively take steps to get things donewhether that means knocking out tedious manual tasks or helping to generate innovative solutions. For CEOs juggling numerous responsibilities, agentic AI can be a powerful ally in simplifying decision-making and scaling impact. Thats why I believe it belongs on every CEOs roadmap for 2026. As CEO of a SaaS company grounded in automation, Ive made it a priority to incorporate agentic AI into our everyday workflows. Here are three ways you can put it to work in your organization. 1. Take the effort out of scheduling Starting with one of the most basic functions of any organizationand one that can easily become a time and energy vacuumscheduling is perfect fodder for AI agents. And they go well beyond your typical AI-powered scheduling tool. For starters, theyre adaptable. AI agents can monitor incoming data and requests, proactively adjust schedules, and notify the relevant parties when issues arise. Lets say your team has a standing brainstorming session every Wednesday and a new client reaches out to request an intro meeting at the same time. Your agent can automatically respond with alternative time slots. On the other hand, if a client needs to connect on a time-sensitive issue, your agent can elevate the request to a human employee to decide whether rescheduling makes sense. You can also personalize AI agents based on your unique needs and priorities, including past interactions. If, for example, your agent learns that you religiously protect time for deep-focus work first thing in the morning, it wont keep proposing meetings then. By delegating scheduling tasks, organizationsfrom the CEO to internsfree up time for higher-level priorities and more meaningful work. You can build your own agent, or get started with a ready-to-use scheduling assistant that offers agentic capabilities, like Reclaim.ai. 2. Facilitate idea generation and innovation When we talk about AI and creativity, the conversation often stirs anxiety about artificial intelligence replacing human creativity. But agentic AI can help spark ideas for engagement, leadership development, and strategic initiatives. The goal is to cultivate the conditions in which these initiatives can thrive, not to replace the actual brainstorming or strategic thinking. For example, you can create an ideation-focused AI agent and train it on relevant organizational contextperformance data, KPIs, meeting notes, employee engagement data, culture touch points, and more. Your agent can continuously gather new information and update its internal knowledge. When the time comes for a brainstorming or strategy session (which the agent can also proactively prompt), it can draw on this working organizational memory plus any other resources it can access, and tap generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to generate themes, propose topics, and help guide the discussion. Meanwhile, leaders remain focused on evaluating ideas, decision-making, and execution. 3. Error-free progress updates and year-end recaps While generative AI can be incredibly powerful, the issue remains that it is largely reactive, not proactive. When it comes to tracking performance, team KPIs, and organizational progress, manual check-ins are still required. As Ive written before, manual tasks are subject to human error. Calendar alerts go unnoticed. Things slip through the cracks. Minor problems become big issues. One solution is to design an AI agent that can autonomously monitor your organizations performance. Continuous, real-time oversight helps ensure processes run smoothly and that issues are flagged as soon as they arise. For example, if your company sells workout gear and sees a postNew Year surge in fitness resolutionsand demand for a specific productan agent can track sales patterns and alert the team to inventory shortages. An AI agent can also independently generate reports, including year-end recaps that are critical for continued growth. Rather than waiting to be prompted by a human, they can do the work alone and elevate only the issues that require human judgment. Agents have the potential to create real value for organizations. Importantly, leaders have to rethink workflows so AI agents are meaningfully integrated, fully liberating employees from rote, manual tasks and freeing them to focus on more consequential, inspiring work like strategy and critical thinking. Ive found this leaves employees more energized, and the benefits continue to compound.
Category:
E-Commerce
When people complain about a lack of work-life balance, theyre typically feeling that they are spending too much time working. They may be spending a lot of combined time at the office and commuting, or just putting in a lot of hours both at work and at home. Fixing that problem cant be done abstractly, though. If youre going to address the balance of work and life activities, you have to start getting specific about where your time is going and where you really want it to go. Think about how you’re spending your time. At work, youre spending time in meetings, writing documents, engaging with clients, or doing particular technical tasks like coding. Similarly, your non-work life consists of other activities like going to the gym, spending time with family, going to concerts, or reading a novel for pleasure. Start by taking a look at where your time is going right now. If you keep a good work calendar, then flip through a few weeks and track the hours youre spending on different tasks. If you dont have a good record of the time youre spending at work, then start logging the time spent on different work tasks. How much of the time youre spending on work tasks is really necessary? Are there activities that are discretionary that you could replace with something else (potentially a non-work something else)? Are you wasting time shifting among tasks or doing other things inefficiently? Perhaps more importantly, you also need to think more clearly about what activities should go in your life bin. What are the activities or hobbies you wish you had more time for? Who are the people you want to spend more time with? You spend time on specific work tasks, because those end up on your calendar. You have to define life specifically enough that it ends up on your calendar as well. Then, create a calendar that includes both work events and life events. Dont just log your meetings, tasks (and commute time), but also time for working with your kids on their homework, going on a date with your partner, hanging out with friends, going to the gym, or reading a book. It may seem like micromanaging your life to start scheduling these personal events, but if you dont start doing things differently, the balance of the way you spend your time is not going to change. This approach also helps you to recognize when your work responsibilities have become overwhelming. If you truly dont have the time to do any of your life activities, then your job may be asking too much of you. Sit down with your supervisor or a mentor and talk through what youre currently doing at work. Ask for help prioritizing tasks so that you have more opportunities to do other things that are important to you. Your supervisor might even change some of your responsibilities to make the load more manageable in a reasonable amount of time. Ultimately, by scheduling the time for these life activities (and actually doing them), you are shifting your habits to include more regular life activities. You wont necessarily have to create a specific calendar for your life forever. As you start engaging in more non-work activities, that will shift the nature of your daily and weekly routine in ways that are likely to become self-sustaining.
Category:
E-Commerce
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