Melissa Valentine: “Any flash team with experts who are very good at agile methodology would be very successful. Agile is such a useful methodology. The flash team’s approach is very complementary to agile. It’s good at being iterative and adaptive, which is essential to flash teams. Where flash teams build on agile is that agile is more general. Flash teams incorporate new tools that agile hasn’t necessarily applied. There are millions of people in online labor markets who are registered, expert, and can join the team. There are all types of AI tools or other data tools that can help inform the assembly and management of the team and augment what’s possible with agile. There might be an opportunity to learn where AI can be helpful. Agile is a great framework. The agile framework was developed before AI tools became so much more accessible, so rethinking where AI can help in places it wasn’t noticed before could prove beneficial.”
Bloomberg: “Trader Joe’s has acquired something like cult status. Founded in 1967 by Joseph Coulomb, the store, with its friendly staff and quirky Hawaiian- style décor, is known for its unique and affordable products, such as Everything But the Bagel Sesame Seasoning Blend. The brand has only about 600 stores in the US, most of which are in or around cities, (compare that with the country’s roughly 4,600 Walmart Inc. locations). It doesn’t sell online and its notoriously long checkout lines often stretch throughout the store. For American shoppers, carrying a Trader Joe’s bag might signal a kind of urban sophistication — that you’re clued-in and discerning, with the time and taste to shop for your Speculoos Cookie Butter and fancy yet cheap cheeses in person.”
The Atlantic: “Generative AI…is an isolating technology for an isolated time…Chatbots promise a solution. They seem to listen. They respond. The mind wants desperately to connect with a person—and fools itself into seeing one in a machine.”
WSJ: “For American manufacturing, the postwar world was a golden age. Industry boomed from the 1940s up through the 1970s, fueling tremendous economic growth for the country, soaring profits for companies and bright prospects for workers. Plenty of Americans graduated high school, joined a union and landed factory jobs that paid enough to buy a house, raise a family and retire with dignity. Many Americans believe that the heyday of manufacturing was the natural order of things, and they have pinned their hopes for a vibrant new middle class on a manufacturing revival. Politicians of all stripes invoke this moment as something lost and easily restored via tariffs or buying American. It cannot. The mid-20th century model of American manufacturing wasn’t normal. It was a historical fluke. And we can’t bring it back.”
