The horrific death of a man who was ejected from a Six Flags roller coaster in Georgia is drawing attention to the safety of amusement park rides that have become increasingly faster and steeper in their quest for the biggest thrill.Even so, deaths on roller coasters are still extremely rare, and Georgia officials have said little about what happened Monday when Hassan Jihad Ibn Kariem, 42, was thrown from his seat while riding the Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia before striking other patrons and then landing below the ride.Goliath uses a sheer drop from 200 feet (61 meters) to reach top speeds of 70 mph (112 kph) and focuses on velocity and downhill plunges rather than turning riders upside down through loops or corkscrews. It has operated at the park for two decades.Six Flags temporarily closed nine similar coasters across North America following the death, saying it was doing so out of an abundance of caution.Ride manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard said it is “actively investigating the incident and will not comment further until we have a better understanding of what happened.”
The US has a patchwork of rules regarding rides
In the U.S., roller coasters and other rides at major amusement parks such as Six Flags are not regulated by the federal government. That responsibility falls to states.Some say this has led to an inconsistent patchwork of rules where some states have strict regulations and others have little to no oversight.U.S. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts has repeatedly introduced legislation to close what he calls a “loophole” in federal law that allows U.S. safety officials to regulate mobile rides but prevents the Consumer Product Safety Commission from overseeing stationary rides like those at major amusement parks.Brian Avery, a University of Florida professor and amusement ride safety expert, agrees that more federal regulations are needed.“Who’s watching those in these organizations to ensure that they are adequately trained, that they are compliant, that they are monitoring these rides to the level in which the standards have established?” Avery said.Georgia’s Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, which oversees annual ride inspections in the state, is “conducting an indepth and comprehensive review” of what happened Monday at Six Flags, said Garrison Bennett, a spokesperson.
Amusement park industry has set its own safety standards
Amusement park operators worldwide generally adhere to what are known as ASTM standards set by industry experts, which cover everything from ride design and construction to how much acceleration and force each rider is allowed to experience.The industry has multiple layers of inspection, said Dennis Speigel, a theme park consultant and past president of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, a trade group. Park operators are under pressure from insurance carriers that could face a hefty payout if something goes wrong.“With the checks and balances that are put in place, theme parks are really one of the safest places to be on the planet,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday.The trade group said the chance of being seriously injured on a U.S. amusement park ride is 1 in 15.5 million rides taken.Martin Lewinson, a roller coaster expert and a professor at Farmingdale State College, said it was difficult to imagine there being a mechanical malfunction on a roller coaster such as Goliath because of its design.The ride features a pull-down lap restraint, called a “clamshell,” that works with a ratchet mechanism that makes clicking sounds as you press it down over your hips. These have multiple disks to ensure redundancy if one fails, Lewinson said.“They’re dependable. They’re not so technically advanced that theme parks have difficulty with operations,” Lewinson said.The operator then has a safety system that displays a green “go” light for every seat on the train before it can be dispatched. The train should theoretically not be allowed to proceed unless all restraints are locked, Lewinson said.But few things are 100% safe.In 2022, a 14-year-old Missouri boy fell to his death from an Orlando amusement park ride when the harness didn’t lock properly due to his size. In 2013, a 52-year-old Dallas woman was killed when she slipped out of her seat on the Texas Giant ride at Six Flags Over Texas. Six Flags has since added redesigned restraint-bar pads, seat belts and a coaster seat at the ride’s entrance so guests can check before they get on whether they fit safely into the cars.Nick Mendenhall, who has been on the Goliath more than a dozen times in recent weeks, said he saw Six Flags staff check the restraints each time he rode it.“There are two employees, one on either side of the train, and with their hands they push down and they make sure it locks every time. I’ve never seen them not do it,” Mendenhall said.
States handle oversight in different ways
In California, the state Department of Industrial Relations approves new rides and rides that have been modified. State officials either directly inspect them and how they are being operated each year or rely on an annual inspection by the owner, according to the department’s website.Florida’s largest theme parks, on the other hand, are exempt from state safety inspections, unlike smaller venues and fairs. Instead, the largest theme parks like Walt Disney World and Universal conduct their own inspections and have their own protocols, but they must report to the state any injury or death. Texas, similarly, relies on inspections carried out by private inspectors hired by park operators or their insurance companies.Arizona, where Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Phoenix is located, does not have a state-level agency that regulates amusement park rides or conducts safety inspections at all. The law requires an annual private inspection, with enforcement largely by local government.
Jaimie Ding, Dylan Lovan and Sudhin Thanawala, Associated Press
The school calls in the middle of the workday. Your child is sick. That means you have to leave the meeting, cancel the rest of your afternoon, and rearrange appointments for tomorrow. Research shows that when this happens to a father, he has a childcare problem. But when it happens to a mother, she can become the childcare problem.
That distinction explains something we dont talk about enough when we discuss working parents. The inequality isnt just about who spends more hours doing laundry, cooking dinner, or making appointments for the family. Its also about which parent gets uninterrupted time to work and what happens when family life (inevitably) disrupts it.
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Its about more than hours
We usually assess the unfairness that occurs with working parents by looking at hours. How many hours is one parent spending over the other. Who makes dinner most nights? Who helps with homework? Who drives the kids to their orthodontist appointments? But another important aspect that gets overlooked is how much time you can devote to work without being interrupted.
Three hours of work is different than three hours of focus. Most default parents tell me there is often some family matter that requires attention during the day. Schedule the parent-teacher conference. Order larger cleats. Get a birthday gift. Fill out that permission slip. Wonder if your childs rash is no big deal or will you be at the pediatricians office half the day tomorrow. Ok, now back to that quarterly report you are working on.
The problem isnt really the number of minutes taken away from work. Its the projects they interrupt. The tough assignment that gets broken up into smaller chunks. The good idea you have to abandon part way through. The project that is supposed to be done by morning that you now have to take home and finish after the kids go to bed. Yes, you can still get everything done on time and excel at your job. But youve had to work around interruptions that someone else may never have to consider.
A cumulative effect
None of these items seem too burdensome on their own. Which is the point. Nevertheless, cumulatively they can take up a chunk of your day. This is why I loved the book Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. Her argument wasnt simply that women perform more household labor. It was that so much of family life involves noticing, anticipating, planning, and remembering.
In one study, researchers looked at 322 mothers with small children and asked them about common household responsibilities. They wanted to understand who did the task but also who did the invisible work of making sure it got done. Mothers did about 73 percent of the planning and organizing and 64 percent of the actual execution. So, your partner might take your son to the dentist, but you found a dentist that takes your insurance, made the appointment, added it to the family calendar, and reminded your husband to leave on time.
Uneven penalties
However, the consequences go beyond workday disruptions. A study published in Gender Work & Organization gave 975 managers in the United States hypothetical situations about mothers and fathers losing productivity because of childcare situations. They were both held accountable. But when asked if they would raise the pay of that person or promote them, mothers were penalized more than the fathers even when the scenarios were identical. Male managers gave dads the benefit of the doubt and still viewed them as capable, committed, and wanting to move up in his career. His issue was seen more as an unfortunate circumstance, but hers was more likely to become evidence of her inability to perform as expected.
What to do
Naturally I wondered, how do we fix this? Women (and surely all default parents) know how to manage the mental load. Probably too well. The better question is why do we expect one person to constantly handle everything that needs to be done?
At home couples should start sharing these tasks and be explicitly clear about who does what. If your domain is dental appointments, that means taking care of appointments, follow ups, phone calls, ordering that lost retainer for the third time. And not waiting for someone else to remind me. The Fair Play system is a great guide for divying things up equitably.
Employers should play a role too. They need to recognize thatfamily responsibilities dont change someones ambition or ability. Employees should be judged on consistent performance standards and not assumptions about which parent is supposedly more dedicated.
And for couples, it means recognizing that uninterrupted time is something both parents need and deserve. And I am not talking about catching up on work after everyone goes to bed. You should have real time to think, create, and concentrate. The real privilege isnt just having fewer things to do. Its having the freedom to devote your full attention to things that matter to you. And that freedom shouldnt be a luxury given to just one parent.
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A sweet treat can turn a bad day around and make a good one great.
Since today (Wednesday, October 14, 2026) is National Dessert Day, it’s the perfect time to celebrate cakes, ice cream, donuts, cookies, and more.
Before looking at the sugar rush of deals that you can score today, lets take a look at the history of a classic dessert, the chocolate chip cookie:
A brief history of the chocolate chip cookie
In the grand scheme of desserts, chocolate chip cookies are fairly modern inventions.
Many sources attribute the invention of the chocolate chip cookie to Ruth Wakefield. According to the Gastropod podcast hosted by Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley, this is inaccurate.
One of the expert guests on the podcast, pastry chef and author Stella Parks, told the hosts that she found a 1928 newspaper article with a chocolate chip recipe that predated Wakefields version. The yummy cookies were also found in supermarkets before Wakefield got involved.
Despite probably not inventing the classic dessert, per se, Wakefield did help popularize it for the masses.
She and her husband opened the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, in 1930. Partly because of its location between Boston and Cape Cod, many celebrities such as Cole Porter, Joe DiMaggio, and Eleanor Roosevelt began frequenting its restaurant.
At that time, modern chocolate chips as we know them now did not exist.
Chocolate bars were broken into small pieces or chipped to make the necessary ingredient.
Nestlé took notice of the increase in chocolate bar sales and approached Wakefield about her recipe. She allowed the company to print the instructions, and it became known as Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Not too long after that, Nestlé created the chocolate chips we know and love today, specifically for chocolate chip cookies.
As chocolate chip cookies got more popular, the lore around their origin took on a life of its own.
National Dessert Day deals
Now that we know how the cookie really crumbles, lets take a look at some freebies, deals, and limited-time offerings.
MilkShake FactoryMilkShake Factorys National Dessert Day deals will bring all the boys and the girls to the metaphysical yardor, more accurately, its locations.
Grab a friend and take advantage of its BOGO deal. This is good not only for milkshakes, but also sundaes, floats, and molten cups.
7-Eleven, Speedway, and Stripes
Participating 7-Eleven, Speedway, and Stripes stores are leaning into cozy fall vibes this National Dessert Day.
For a limited time only, stop in to enjoy 7-Select Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Bites, 7-Select Pumpkin Cheesecake Snack Pies, 7-Select Pumpkin Cheese Danish, or 7-Select Pumpkin Donut Holes.
White CastleWhite Castle’s National Dessert Day offering is good until October 19 and comes on a stick.
All you have to do is join the White Castle Craver Nation Rewards program, purchase a combo, and enter promo code DESSERT when you check out online. The reward of a free Dessert-on-a-Stick is worth all the effort.
Kroger
Kroger wants to help you stock up on supplies to make an at-home dessert bar.
All you have to do is log in to your Kroger account online or in the Kroger app. Add items like Private Selection Gourmet Extreme Chocolate Decadent Brownies, Sea Salt Caramel Truffle Ice Cream, and Simple Truth Protein Soft Baked Espresso Mini Cookies to your cart.
You will find a coupon to clip and redeem for $30 off your first online order of $75 or more. This is valid now until October 20 at select Kroger locations for your first pickup or delivery order only.
Portillo’s
Do you love Oreos? Then head to Portillos. There you will find an Oreo shake, Oreo cake, and Oreo cake shake.
If you happen to be a perk member, from October 12 through the 18, you can even score a $1 Oreo cake slice with a purchase of $5 or more.
Wherever you plan to celebrate National Dessert Day, we hope the occasion is sweet.
Artificial intelligence has finally given B2B marketers what they’ve always wanted more of: capacity. More content, personalization, audience segments, campaign variations, and ways to push an idea across more channels.
As AI becomes increasingly capable, marketers should be questioning how much they can trust it to assist them.
Trust is now harder to ignore as AI moves from generating outputs to taking actions. Recent security incidents involving autonomous AI agents, plus AI leaders publicly debating oversight and control, show that capability and judgment are different things.
For B2B marketers, that distinction is important. The first wave of marketing AI made existing tasks faster. The next wave can influence the decisions that shape a go-to-market strategy, which is a bigger opportunity that demands more from the technology and the humans using it.
THE REAL AI OPPORTUNITY BEGINS BEFORE EXECUTION
Much of the conversation around AI in marketing still starts with a prompt. Write this. Create that. Personalize this.
Those applications save time, but they place AI at the end of the decision-making process. The bigger opportunity is moving it closer to the beginning. A campaign should start with an understanding of whats happening in the market, which accounts show signs of demand, and which topics are gaining momentum. Those questions need intelligence before they need content.
B2B marketers have access to more data, but data alone doesnt create a strategy. The challenge has always been turning disparate signals into a clear understanding of opportunity. This is where AI shines.
The best multi-channel ABM platforms combine proprietary engagement signals, intent data, account insights, and historical performance to show where opportunity is building. They surface which accounts are active, what theyre researching, whos in the buying group, and where the gaps are.
The shift is moving from asking AI to produce something to asking it to help marketers understand something. That’s where AI becomes a strategic capability, not just a shortcut.
COMPRESS THE DISTANCE BETWEEN INSIGHT AND ACTION
The biggest inefficiency in B2B marketing has always been the distance between having information and acting on it. A marketer can have intent data, CRM data, and competitive intelligence, and still spend weeks turning those inputs into a campaign brief while the market moves in real time.
AI can shorten that gap by processing more signals than a person can reasonably evaluate manually. It can identify patterns, surface audiences, compare historical performance, and recommend a mix of channels and investments. Marketers move from a static view of the market to a more dynamic one.
The significance goes beyond speed. When AI can turn current market intelligence into an actionable strategy in minutes, marketers can respond to whats happening now, instead of chasing assumptions made when the planning process began.
A NEW PROBLEM: MORE ACTIVITY
AI makes marketing dramatically easier to scale, but as the volume of activity increases, individual activities become weaker performance indicators. More content doesnt necessarily create more influence. More impressions do not necessarily indicate more intent. At the same time, marketing is getting harder to measure, and thats not a coincidence.
That gap is most important in B2B, where the buyer is rarely one person. A deal moves only once a group of stakeholders, each with their own concerns and timelines, reaches enough shared confidence to act. No single click, download, or AI citation tells you where that group stands, only that something happened.
Marketers need to become more selective about what content deserves to be produced. AI can help, but only when it’s connected to real market intelligence, shifting its value from producing another asset to determining whether that asset is needed at all.
The more AI increases our ability to manufacture activity, the more valuable intelligent prioritization becomes.
THE CASE FOR HUMAN OVERSIGHT
There’s caution emerging alongside the excitement around agentic AI. As systems become more autonomous, the consequences of a bad decision grow, and recent security incidents have shown that highly capable systems can behave unpredictably once given unmitigated access to tools. Technology leaders are still debating how fast capabilities are outpacing the safeguards meant to control them.
Marketing may seem far removed from those scenarios, but the lesson applies. The more authority we give AI, the more important it becomes to define where human judgment belongs. A marketer should be able to look at a recommendation, understand why it was made, and challenge it when business context tells a different story. That call, whether it’s the right audience, channel, or budget, still belongs to someone who understands the brand and the buyer, not the model.
That counts even more in B2B, where decisions involve complex products and large buying committees. AI is good at leveraging data to spot patterns or proposing a channel mix, but it can’t tell you whether that approach is appropriate. That call still belongs to the marketer.
None of this works without transparency built in from the start. A marketer should be able to see what signals drove a channel recommendation, and that visibility gives them a basis for pushing back before the asset ships.
The strongest model for AI in marketing looks less like a human replacement and more like a partnership. AI handles the scale and pattern recognition, while humans provide context, judgment, accountability, and strategic direction.
SMARTER AI SHOULD CREATE BETTER MARKETERS
Marketing organizations are investing in technology built to increase capacity when many teams already have too much activity, too many channels, and too many disconnected decisions.
The real payoff is freeing marketers to spend their time differently. They can develop ideas and understand customers. They can shape brand strategy and make the judgment calls that require context, while AI handles the analysis.
The teams that succeed will use AI aggressively where it creates leverage, cautiously where it creates risk,and intelligently everywhere in between. When everyone can produce more, the real advantage comes from providing the insights to know what is important, and the judgment to act on it.
Keith Turco is CEO at Madison Logic.
Away’s aluminum carry-on sells for $625, but right now you can snag one for $436. A medium suitcase in navy usually goes for $345, but you can get it for $293. There’s a catch, though: Some of these bags may have a little scuff here or a dent there.
The suitcases are available on Away Reclaimed, a new site where the luggage brand sells its own products that cannot be sold as new. Its inventory comes from customer returns, which Away accepts within 100 days of purchase, as well as from the last few units of a limited-edition color or collab that the company didn’t manage to sell.
And theres more. The site also sells Away’s backpacks, totes, and duffles. Later this month, the company plans to add an “Employee Archive,” which will include luggage that staffers have gently tested, along with one-of-a-kind production samples.
[Image: Away]
Because it no longer has to waste perfectly usable inventory, the company can be more sustainable. The platform also provides a new revenue stream.
Jessica Schinazi, Away’s CEO, says Reclaimed could effectively introduce the brand to new consumers who are looking for products that are slightly more affordable, perhaps turning them into loyal customers down the road.
A sustainability problem
Before Reclaimed, much of Away’s returned merchandise didn’t have an obvious place to go. That’s a problem across retail, where returns are among the biggest sources of waste. U.S retailers expected 15.8% of their annual sales would be returned in 2025, or $849.9 billion worth of merchandise, according to a study by the National Retail Federation and the return platform Happy Returns.
Brands generally treat wasted returns as a cost of doing business. Many returned products never make it back onto shelves. Some items are liquidated to off-price retailers like T.J. Maxx; others are donated. A lot ends up in landfills: 9.6 billion pounds annually, according to the reverse logistics company Optoro.
[Photo: Away]
But today, shoppers are much more comfortable acquiring things that aren’t brand-new. For instance, 59% of consumers shopped secondhand apparel in 2025, up 7% in three years, according to ThredUps most recent report. Schinazi says Aways own customers have been asking for a resale option for years.
But resale is complicatedit takes a reverse logistics system to collect old products, inspect them, and list them online. That’s why Away is starting with its own returned and unsold inventory. To build Reclaimed, the company partnered with Trove, which powers the resale programs for many brands, including Carhartt, Cotopaxi, and Eileen Fisher.
Away opened a dedicated reverse logistics warehouse, where every product is inspected, cleaned, refurbished, and graded on a three-point scale from excellent, meaning its essentially new, to good, which means theres some noticeable wear. Away replaces wheels, trolley handles, linings, or anything else that affects the functionality of the suitcase.
If the item is not performing the way that it should be, we will not sell it through Reclaimed at all, Schinazi says. If theres a sticky zipper, we will never sell a product like that.
Customers have been snapping these bags up. Away soft-launched Reclaimed in August with no marketing and sold 80% of its initial inventory within the first two weeks. The company says return rates on Reclaimed purchases have been low, and some customers have already come back to buy a second piece.
Its an interesting testament to how important those kind of programs are for the American consumer today, Schinazi says, pointing both to interest in sustainability and to shoppers who are watching their wallets.
[Photo: Away]
For now, the biggest thing holding Reclaimed back is supply. Since inventory largely comes from returns, Away cannot control how many pieces come in.
“We’re learning as we go in these early months,” Schinazi says, noting that the company is exploring a buyback program that would take back suitcases customers have owned for years.
For now, though, it’s running a test through its Trade In, Trade Up event this month. Customers can bring in a wheeled suitcase from any brand in any condition to a participating Away store October 16 through 18 and October 23 through 25 (by appontment) and receive $100 toward a new suitcase from Aways newly redesigned Series 3 line. The company will use the event to learn how trade-in programs might eventually feed into Reclaimed.
Selling discounted versions of its own products could, in theory, cannibalize Aways full-price sales. But Schinazi isn’t particularly worried. She believes Reclaimed will be an entry point, especially for younger shoppers who aren’t willing to spend full price on a carry-on.
“We know that Away Reclaimed might be their first purchase,” she says. “But we’re going to be able to have them experience our bags.” As they travel more, she hopes they will buy new pieces for themselves, their family, or as gifts.
When team members disengage, most leaders instinctively tighten the reins. It’s an understandable response, but rarely an effective one. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report found that 70% of the variance in team engagement stems directly from the manager.
How we respond to disengagement doesn’t affect just one person; it shapes the engagement of everyone around them. Research on Threat Rigidity Theory helps explain the instinct to assert control. When we perceive a threat, whether that’s pressure to deliver, resistance to change, or risk of failure, we naturally narrow our focus and become more directive.
The problem is that greater control creates compliance, not commitment.
What controlling disengaged employees looks like in practice
Sam was head of retail operations, with six area managers reporting to her. The business was in deep transformation: new systems, new targets, and new ways of working rolling out almost every month. Most of her team were finding their footing in it, except for one member. In team meetings, he’d challenged nearly every change, not by asking questions like some of her more engaged leaders did, but by undercutting it before it had a chance. Sam noticed the eye-rolling and the cutting remarks about head office. Hed respond to a new initiative announcement with heavy silence, and speak about the company’s direction with a kind of weary sarcasm.
He hit his targets. But he’d stopped doing anything beyond them. He used to flag problems before they became problems, push back on Sam directly when something didn’t make sense, and put his hand up for the harder rollouts. Now he did exactly what he was asked to do and no more.
Sam had already addressed the behavior with him in a one-on-one conversation. She made it clear that the negative comments, public resistance, and lack of support for the changes were not what she expected from one of her senior leaders. He acknowledged the feedback, but his behavior didn’t change. By the time she brought it to a coaching session, she’d decided what came next. She was going to put him on a formal performance plan, document every instance, and tell him plainly that his attitude was no longer compatible with his role. If it didn’t change, she’d start looking at whether he should still be on her leadership team at all.
What Sam was doing is what many leaders are tempted to do when our team members aren’t as engaged as we’d like them to be.
Control creates compliance, not commitment
Team members might comply because they have to, but compliance isn’t the same as commitment. They’re less likely to be genuinely invested in the change, take ownership, or contribute beyond what their role requires. Research also tells us that autonomy is one of our three basic psychological needs. According to Self-Determination Theory, when team members feel controlled rather than involved, their intrinsic motivation, sense of ownership, and willingness to contribute decline.
Perhaps most importantly, a controlling approach focuses on the behavior rather than what’s driving it. Disengagement is often a symptom of something deeper: uncertainty, a loss of confidence, feeling unheard, disagreement with the direction, or simply not understanding the “why.” Asserting control can suppress the behavior for a while, but it rarely resolves the underlying issue.
Seek understanding before taking action
Now, the answer isn’t to lower your expectations or avoid holding your team members accountable. After all, accountability still matters. But before deciding what action to take, effective leaders pause long enough to understand what’s really happening. One of the most powerful shifts you can make is to become compassionately curious. That means being willing to seek to understand before seeking to solve. It’s choosing empathy over assumption and recognizing that there is usually more to someone’s behavior than you can see on the surface. Instead of assuming a team member is simply resistant, difficult, or no longer committed, get curious about what may have changed. What are they experiencing? What concerns do they have? What might they be seeing that you’re not?
Create ownership together
Once you understand what’s really happening, you can shift from trying to control the outcome to creating it together. Rather than prescribing the solution, involve your team member in finding it. Ask questions like:
What do you think needs to happen from here?
What support would help?
What are we both willing to commit to?
When team members help shape the solution, they’re far more likely to take ownership of it. That doesn’t mean every conversation ends with the outcome you’d hoped for. Sometimes behavior doesn’t change, and you still need to introduce accountability measures. But when you’ve first taken the time to understand what’s driving the behavior, you can make decisions that are better informed and more respectful. This is also far more likely to preserve trust.
The next time one of your team members appears to have checked out, resist the temptation to manage harder. Get curious first. Work on solving the problem together.
Because the behavior you’re trying to change is rarely the real problem.
Your old Barbies could be turned into speakers, power banks, and more.Gomi, a sustainable U.K. design studio, put out a call for old Barbie dolls for its Childhood Memories Collection, a new collaboration with the Mattel-owned brand to give old plastic dolls a second life as tech products.The collection includes $371 speakers, $95 power banks, $61 wireless chargers, and $45 tracker tags that are compatible with Apple devices and have a built-in alarm. Each is made from recycled plastic that comes in a one-of-one design, a marbled pattern of melted-down Barbie dolls, accessories, and other recovered plastics that make for a bright, playful palette of swirled pink, purple, turquoise, and Barbie blonde yellow. The batteries for the speakers and power banks are also recycled, using lithium from damaged and retired e-bike batteries.[Photo: Gomi]Gomi was founded in 2017 with the goal of creating sustainable technology products. It focuses on flexible plastic waste, which isn’t recycled in much of the U.K. The company created its first product, a speaker, in 2023, and each one is made from the equivalent of about 44 plastic bags. The swirl effect on the products is created after plastic is melted at the lowest possible temperature. Once molten, color layers are stacked, twisted by hand, and cut.Working with different waste streams is a challenge because plastics vary in quality and shrink rates. To allow for these inconsistencies, Gomi uses a textured mold to ensure every piece looks and feels desirable.[Photo: Gomi]Gomi made speakers out of Barbies after the 2023 movie came out. Cofounder Tom Meades tells Fast Company that months later, he got in touch with Mattel, which was “keen to partner on a collaboration.” The official collab brings major brand recognition to Gomi’s product line, not to mention a more playful color palette than some of its others products. There’s also a deep emotional attachment.[Photo: Gomi]“I’m not sure anyone has ever made electronics from recycled materials that have so much sentimentality attached to them,” Meades says.[Photos: Gomi]Toy manufacturers have increasingly offered consumers a way to return toys after they’ve outlived their use. For example, Hasbros toy recycling program launched in 2018, and Legos Replay program began cleaning and repackaging old Legos in 2019 to be reused and donated to educators and community groups.[Photo: Gomi]Mattel launched its own PlayBack program in 2021 to accept old Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Fisher-Price toys, which it recycles and repurposes into new items like playground equipment.Gomi shows there’s still a commercial life for old Barbie dolls and accessories. By giving a childhood memory a new life and form, the studio turns nostalgia into something functional.
On Patagonias website, starting today, you can shop for new and used clothing at the same time.
The company first launched its resale platform, Worn Wear, nine years ago, making it a pioneer in the brand-owned secondhand clothing space. The platform lets customers send back used clothing in exchange for a gift card; the clothing is then cleaned, repaired, and sold at a deep discount to someone else.
But until now, you had to open a different website to actually buy refurbished Patagonia clothing. Now its in the same place, and you can add new and used clothing to the same shopping cart.
[Photo: Courtesy Patagonia]
The shift is a way to bring resale to the center of our brand and the forefront of our customer experience, says Sam Brown, Patagonias head of resale, noting that in the past, many customers havent been aware that Worn Wear exists.
Resale has become ubiquitous across fashion brands, but it typically happens separately from new sales. Patagonia’s integration is the next step in making secondhand shopping the new norm.
The brands website includes a used section that customers can browse. If you look up a new item, you’ll see links to buy a used version when its available. (Previously, new-product pages linked to the separate Worn Wear site.)
[Photo: Tim Davis/Courtesy Patagonia]
Bringing everything to the main site also helps give the resale platform a sense of more legitimacy. There’s still a gap of customers who are willing to buy used or trade in, Brown says. And I think we can close that gap by helping to normalize the shopping experience.
The project took four years to fully build. Putting used [products] on a typical main e-comm platform is definitely fitting a round peg into a square hole, Brown notes. Nothing about this has been easy.
[Photo: Tim Davis/Courtesy Patagonia]
First, since its not common for brands to sell new and used products in the same place, the companys UX design team had to find ways to make the differentiation clear for consumers, such as different colored backgrounds for used products.
The team also had to deal with new complexity. Rather than selling a particular new sweater, for example, suddenly it had to work with multiple sweaters with different levels of wear, sometimes in colors that are no longer in production.
We were figuring out how to come up with a solution where we can manage single-SKU logistics on the back end in the warehouse, and then present something to customers where theyre not choosing across 10 different individual items, Brown says. Thats a really hard technical hurdle, and something well probably have to iterate on.
[Photo: Tim Davis/Courtesy Patagonia]
The company now has to manage tens of thousands of products from its 20-year history, with a constantly changing assortment based on what customers decide to sell back, rather than a single season’s worth of styles and colors.
[Photo: Tim Davis/Courtesy Patagonia]
Making it easier to buy used products means more competition with sales of the brand’s new products. But that’s the point, Brown says: The copany wants to sell more used items so it can reduce the environmental impact that went into making them in the first place.
Right now, it’s also still relatively limited in scale, because the company can sell only the items that customers happen to send back; this year, the brand has sold nearly 160,000 used items.
Patagonia sees room to do more. “We have our work cut out for us in that so much apparel ends up in a landfill or it sits in people’s closets,” Brown says. “There’s definitely more utility we can get out of the stuff we’re making. It’s just a matter of building the infrastructure and the awareness of these programs.”
Sony sparked a backlash among gamers with its decision to phase out physical game discs. Now Nintendo is reassuring its customers that it has no plans to follow suit anytime soon.
We go off what the consumer prefers, and take that into account very heavily, Bill van Zyll, VP and general manager for Nintendo in Latin America, said in a recent interview. We also have a platform that was just launched. Were barely just over a year into [Nintendo Switch 2]. Its got both digital and physicalthat capability. Theres no plans to ditch physical.”
Van Zyll’s comments are more of a reaffirmation than a new policy announcement. But in the current gaming environment, they’re giving Nintendo loyalists reason to breathe a sigh of relief.
Physical game sales have been a hot topic since Sony’s announcement earlier this year. The company plans to stop producing physical discs for all new PlayStation games starting in January 2028. From an economic standpoint, it’s hard to fault the decision. Just 15% of the PlayStation games sold in the fourth quarter of last year were physical copies. And as Sony develops its next-generation hardware, it’s undoubtedly trying to keep costs as low as possible, especially given recent spikes in the prices of memory and processor chips. Jettisoning a physical disc drive could help achieve that goal.
Still, for a company that once championed physical mediaeven mocking Microsoft’s restrictive game-sharing policiesthe move was bound to cause controversy. And Sony made things worse for itself in September, arguing in a legal filing that players who purchase digital games are buying licenses rather than ownership of the games themselves.
Nintendo is hoping to sidestep that controversy, and it’s easy to see why. While Sony gets only a fraction of its software sales from discs, physical games accounted for 38.5% of Nintendo’s total software revenue in the quarter ending June 30.
Van Zyll said Nintendo takes an “agnostic” approach to how games are distributed. Whatever consumers want is fine with the company.
Whether Nintendo will maintain that position in the years to come is less certain. Van Zyll made no long-term commitments. Given how secretive Nintendo is about future hardware plansoften keeping its non-Japanese divisions in the dark during the early stages of developmentthat’s a promise he likely couldn’t make anyway.
It’s also worth noting Van Zyll’s role. He oversees Latin America, where physical game sales remain particularly strong. In many ways, he was preaching to the choir rather than speaking directly to players in North America and Europe.
And while the Switch 2 accepts game cartridges, those cartridges don’t always contain the games themselves. Many Switch 2 titles, particularly those from third-party publishers, use game-key cards that simply allow players to download the game from Nintendo’s servers. Nintendo’s own major releases generally contain the full game on the cartridge. For game-key cards, though, the preservation risk remains: If the game becomes unavailable to download, the cartridge alone won’t be enough to recover it.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has taken a more middle-of-the-road approach. While it has made no announcements about the future of physical media, the company recently launched a program letting players claim digital access to eligible games they own on disc.
Make no mistake: Digital is the future of game distribution, despite the valid concerns of preservationists and collectors. But after Sony’s PR bungle, other game makers are likely to tread more cautiously with future moves away from discs and cartridges. Companies like Nintendo will also pay close attention to regional demand. As long as that remains strong in important markets, some form of physical media is likely to stick around.
I’ve been having a lot of conversations with industry leaders lately about the prevalence of so-called shadow AI. Theyre worried about the risks of unapproved AI tools at work, and most come to me wanting to know how to rein in their employees. But thats looking at the problem backwards.
Their concern is well founded. Among organizations surveyed in IBMs Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 that had experienced a data breach, 43% reported security incidents involving shadow AI, up from 20% the previous year. And the problem isnt going away. In our own recent survey, we found that roughly one in three respondents reported shadow AI use at their companies.
The problem is, leaders are missing what shadow AI is actually telling them about their businesses. Most chalk it up to an employee problem, when its really a leadership one.
The prevalence of shadow AI means your company is trying to innovate faster than youre letting it. Thats a significant risk in and of itself.
Shadow AI is a signal
Picture an HR professional who, frustrated with a repetitive task like assembling personalized onboarding materials, automates this process with an unauthorized tool.
Some might say they put the companys security at risk to avoid doing the job theyre paid to do. But another way of looking at it is this: Your employee just revealed a way to create better onboarding materials, save time and money, and free up an entire team for deeper work. In other words, theyre showing you how to trim the fat on your business so everyone can focus on new opportunities to grow the company.
Shadow AI is often the result of an organization’s standardizing its AI approach too early. It may seem like strong leadership, but by committing too soon to one set of tools, youre closing the door to new opportunities. If you force people to use tools that arent the best ones for the job, theyre likely to use the right tool anyway, creating unnecessary risks.
How leaders should respond to shadow AI
Shadow AI is a green sprout of innovation, so dont treat it like a weed. If, in the example above, the company simply fired or penalized that HR professional, they would be sending a message to employees that innovation is not welcome. Your main priority as a leader right now should be getting AI experimentation out of the shadows so everyone can benefit.
One company we work with did this by hosting an AI amnesty month. Employees were encouraged to share the tools theyd been using without fear of reprisal. The company found that those using shadow AI were some of their best performers and were frustrated by having to keep their innovations in the dark. The initiative allowed the company to evaluate all the tools at its disposaltools that were already road testedand decide which to implement widely and which to formally reject. They celebrated the innovation and found a path for employees to operate them securely.
Doing so mitigates another crucial risk. If your employees have found a more efficient way to do their jobs, your competitors will discover the same. You are ceding the advantage to them if you ignore what your team has found.
How to build a culture of AI experimentation
To be clear, shadow AI carries significant risk and should be discouraged. But how you discourage it will have an impact on how your company relates to AI in general, so be intentional in your messaging and reactions.
Create a culture of responsible innovation by:
encouraging employees to seek out new tools while establishing clear rules around what data they can use and what systems those tools can access
coordinating with IT to create approved pathways for testing new tools rather than simply blocking them
creating a sandbox system with synthetic data so employees can experiment without exposing company or customer information
supplying employees with time, resources, and training so they have the space and ability to use these tools responsibly, and
creating forums for employees to share whats working so that everyone can learn from each other.
What leaders should communicate about AI
The best way to fight shadow AI is to create a culture where no one feels the need to hide their usage in the first place. That comes down to the message youre sending to your employees: We will not tolerate shadow AI, but we will do everything we can to empower you to use AI. Let them know that because they are closest to the work, they know how to make the work better, and youre giving them the chance to do that.
The way things have always been done is not the path to the future. If your employees arent stuck doing drudgery work, theyll have time to find ways of doing things you previously never thought possible. Leaders should follow the motto: Find a way; dont get in the way.
