Companies have never had more tools to measure engagement, yet employees have never reported feeling more disconnected.
Its one of the defining paradoxes of modern work: Engagement scores are the obsession of many organizations, yet loneliness, turnover, and team friction are rising. People are completing their tasks but not always experiencing the relationships that make work sustainable, creative, or truly human. Engagement measures motivation, whereas connectedness assesses whether people can work effectively together over time.
Many researchers and thinkers have named the forces shaping the future of work. Jonathan Haidt, in The Anxious Generation, highlights how todays workforce arrives with higher baseline anxiety and weaker social muscles, shaped by smartphone-centered adolescence and a decline in face-to-face interaction. Sociologist Allison Pugh, in The Last Human Job, argues that the only irreplaceable work humans will do in the future is relational, involving empathy, attunement, and presence, the distinctively human capacities that AI cannot replicate.
Given all this, why are organizations still leaning so heavily on engagement surveys, tools that were built decades ago for a radically different world of work? Because engagement has historically been a useful signal. However, in todays context, it is insufficient. Engagement indicates whether people are motivated, whereas connectedness indicates whether people can thrive.
When Engagement Worked and Why It No Longer Does
Theres a reason engagement became the gold standard of workplace metrics. According to Kevin Kruse, a serial entrepreneur and best-selling author, engagement reflects the emotional commitment employees feel toward their organizationthe psychological spark behind discretionary effort. Engaged employees often deliver higher productivity, better customer service, and stronger alignment with the company’s purpose. For years, engagement surveys have helped leaders understand motivation at scale. In the industrial, colocated workplaces for which they were designed, engagement was a reasonable proxy for performance.
But motivation is no longer the primary bottleneck. The bottleneck is relational capacity: peoples ability to work together, navigate conflict, build trust, and collaborate across distance and difference. Today, an employee can be engaged with their tasks while feeling profoundly disconnected from their team. They can care about the mission yet feel invisible in meetings. They can exceed goals while having no one at work they can confide in.
High engagement can sit atop fragile relational foundations. In hybrid and distributed work, it often does. Engagement indicates whether people are enthusiastic, while connectedness indicates whether an organization is healthy.
Why Engagement No Longer Matches the Moment
The central challenge facing leaders is not effort, its isolation. The U.S. Surgeon Generals 2023 Advisory called loneliness a public health epidemic, noting that the workplace is one of the primary places where adults seek connection. Hybrid work has weakened casual social ties, while digital communication has reduced emotional nuance. Younger workers, raised in online ecosystems, often arrive less practiced in conflict resolution, spontaneous dialogue, and relational risk-taking, all core ingredients of high-functioning teams. Employees may be engaged but unable to speak candidly, trust teammates, navigate differences, ask for help, or integrate into a cohesive whole.
As Moe, a workplace culture expert and bestselling author, often says: People thrive when they feel seen, not just surveyed. Engagement surveys werent designed to measure visibility, they were designed to measure satisfaction, and satisfaction does not predict resilience.
What Connectedness Actually Measures
Connectedness is not a vibe, it is a measurable set of relational conditions that determine whether people can do complex, interdependent work together. We define connectedness as The degree to which people feel seen, supported, trusted, and in meaningful relationships with the humans they rely on to do their work.
Connectedness captures dimensions that engagement simply doesnt:
1. Relational Trust. Do people believe their colleagues have their backs? Trust is a well-established predictor of team performance and psychological bravery.
2. Belonging. A sense of belonging reduces turnover risk, buffers stress, and improves collaboration. Deloitte reports that 79% of employees surveyed said fostering belonging was important to organizational success, and 93% agreed belonging drives organizational performance.
3. Psychological Bravery. Can employees disagree productively? Tell the truth? Take interpersonal risks? Bravery is what fuels innovation and healthy conflict.
4. Purpose and Meaning. Clarity of purpose is not a strategic artifact, it is relational glue. It helps employees understand not only what they do but also why they matter.
5. Network Strength and Collaboration Flow. This reflects how well people work together across teams, not just how they feel about the organization in the abstract.
6. Feeling Seen. Employees do not require perfection, but they do require recognition of their humanity: their story, their needs, their contributions.
Allison Pughs research underscores this point: These relational dimensions are the very aspects of work that machines cannot automate. The irreplaceable human contribution, she writes, is connection itself.
Connectedness Predicts Performance Better Than Engagement Does
Why is connectedness more predictive than engagement? Research across organizational psychology, sociology, and network science consistently shows that connected teams:
Innovate more easily
Recover from setbacks faster
Handle conflict with less damage
Execute complex work with fewer delays
Experience lower burnout and turnover
Googles Project Aristotle famously found that psychological safetya relational variablewas the top predictor of team effectiveness, beating out individual talent and skill mix. In hybrid and in-person work, it is the strength of relationships, not individual sentiment scores, that determines the speed of collaboration, cross-functional problem-solving, and execution resilience. Engagement fuels effort while connectedness fuels performance.
How Leader Can Start Measuring Connectedness Today
This is where leaders typically ask: Okay, but how do we measure something as intangible as connectedness? Heres a practical playbook from our combined work:
1. Quarterly Connection Pulses. Short, frequent surveys with questions such as: Do you feel connected to the people you work closely with? Do you have someone at work you can be real with? Does cross-team collaboration feel trusting and safe?
2. Relationship Network Mapping. Organizational network analysis, a method of mapping networks in organizations, can identify bottlenecks, isolated individuals, and overloaded super-connectors.
3. Leader Relational Credibility Index. A relational 360: Do people feel seen, supported, safe, challenged, and understood by their leaders?
4. Collaboration Friction Score. Identify where function-to-function trust is breaking down, even when engagement is high.
5. Belonging Gaps. Identify individuals who are enthusiastic but invisible, the group most vulnerable to burnout and turnover.
6. Monthly Meet-Ups. Replace or refine annual performance reviews with regular, meaningful two-way dialogue between the people leader and the employee.
These tools shift leaders from watching scores to watching stories, the lived relational realities within their teams. To build connected organizations, leaders must shift from driving engagement to designing relational ecosystems and from motivating individuals to strengthening networks.
In Tonys work designing relational leadership experiences, we call this creating Campfires of Connection: intentional spaces where people can speak bravely, listen deeply, and reconnect with the purpose behind their work. In Moes research, this is the Heart Habit of leadership: showing up with curiosity, presence, and attunement so people feel truly seen. In a world where isolation is rising and trust is fraying, connectedness is a strategic capability, and its time leaders start measuring what matters most.
Since the Trump administration deployed 2,000 immigration officers to Minneapolis a few weeks ago, childcare workers have been on high alert. Immigration officers have shown up at childcare centers across Minnesota, leaving many childcare workers scared to show up for work. Childcare providers, who have long faced funding challenges and staffing shortages, are now being forced to figure out how to protect their workers while continuing to provide an essential service to families.
Today, many of these centersat least 50 providers, according to the childcare coalition Kids Count on Ushave shut their doors to participate in an economic blackout across the state that is being called the Day of Truth and Freedom. The collective action is intended to protest ICEs presence in the state, by halting all economic activity for the day.
For childcare workers, there is a lot on the line: A viral YouTube video that made the rounds in December put a target on their backs, alleging that Somali-run daycares were committing fraud and misusing public funding. The video has since been debunked, but the damage was done: The Trump administration issued a freeze on $10 billion in federal funding for childcare and social services in Minnesota, along with four other states. (A federal judge has temporarily blocked the freeze for the time being, and the states in question have brought a lawsuit against the Trump administration.)
From the beginning, childcare and the ICE operation were very closely tied, says Meredith Loomis Quinlan, the director of childcare at advocacy group Community Change. There’s threats of these frozen funds, and at the same time their colleagues are getting targeted by ICE. These childcare providers have really stood togetherand the childcare movement of parents and providers are a really core [part] of what’s happening right now in Minnesota.
Many of them feel it is essential that they fight back against both ICE and the looming threat of a funding freeze. Thats why Kayley Spencer and Megan Schmitz, directors at a childcare center in northern Michigan, decided to close their daycare for the day.
We have connections all around the state, [and] other providers and families are experiencing this very real heaviness around being scared to go to school, being scared to go to work, and being scared to leave their houses, Schmitz says. We needed to show solidarity, and that we won’t stand for our neighbors and families and other providers being targeted in that way.
While their staff has not been directly targeted thus far, they have fielded questions about how the center would navigate any encounters with ICE and introduced protocols accordingly. That is something as a childcare provider that I never thought I’d have to come across, Schmitz says. What if they do show up now? So having those protocols in place was really important for us, to make our staff feel secure in coming to work.
This day of action is also intended to call attention to the federal funding freeze, which could leave many childcare providers struggling to keep their doors open. We’re operating on razor thin margins, Spencer says, noting that their center has six families who rely on childcare assistance from the state. If you lose those six familieseven oneyou’re at risk of permanent closure.
Access to childcare allows countless parents to stay in the workforce, and closing for the day is not a decision that providers take lightly. Spencer and Schmitz were candid about why they felt it was important to participate and why collection action was critical at this moment.
Were very transparent with our families about how this is not just an isolated incident, Schmitz says. We are in the collapse of childcare if we do nothingand we’re already at severe risk of that every single day, and this is just another way to not give childcare [providers] the funding and the resources that they so badly deserve and need.
Spencer and Schmitz say they had the support and understanding of many families they serveand a number of them who are small business owners closed shop for the day in solidarity, as well. [As] providers, our only goal is to provide safe spaces for these childrenand now they’re being targeted, and it’s not okay, Schmitz says. This is such a small way of us showing support, but we knew we had to do it.
These actions have also extended beyond Minnesota, as childcare workers around the country are finding ways to show their support. Community Change works with grassroots organizations in many states that are hosting events or taking other actionsfrom protesting ICE facilities to closing their centers in solidarityto draw attention to what is happening in Minnesota. Meanwhile, childcare providers and advocates in Minnesota are continuing to put pressure on Republican lawmakers to preserve the federal funding that is so crucial for centers to keep serving families.
People might feel hopeless or afraid right now, but there are so many ways to show up for our neighbors and for each other, Loomis Quinlan says. So we’re just trying to encourage more people to join our movement.
For the first time in Dr Peppers 140-year history, the brand is the second-most-popular soda in America. And now, it has a shiny new jingle to match.
In late December, TikTok creator Romeo Bingham, 25, posted a little ditty she had made up for Dr Pepper. Dr Pepper, baby. Its good and nice. Doo. Doo. Doo, the tune went. In her caption, she tagged the company and noted: Please get back to me with a proposition. We can make thousands together.
The original post has garnered almost 54 million views, 6.4 million likes, and almost 500,000 bookmarks at the time of this writing. One month later, Binghams dreams were realized. Dr Pepper licensed the song and folded it into an NCAA football commercial.
TikTok creators capitalizing on viral moments is not unusual. Influencers have long been tagging brands in content in the hopes of landing freebies or a lucrative brand deal, as the booming influencer-marketing industry becomes ever-more saturated.
Here, the success of Binghams overt brand baiting may signal a subtle shift in power dynamics as creators compete for brands’ attention and marketing budgets.
Once the jingle became viral, Binghams comments section was inundated with requests from national brands. Me next bb i beg, wrote Dennys Diner. Yea imma need one of these theme songs right now, added Buffalo Wild Wings. GET HER ON THE PHONE NOW!! Popeyes chimed in. Not to be pick me, but US NEXT, commented Welchs Fruit Snacks. Bingham has since gone on to make jingles for Hyundai and Vita Coca, fully realizing the new American dream of overnight viral success.
Brands showing up in the comments sections on TikTok and Instagram, whether the post is about them or not, isnt new. The top comments on a trending TikTok video often garner hundreds of thousands of likes, gaining brands the type of attention they could only dream of on their own channels.
But overnight, a new batch of POV: Trying to make a jingle so I can quit my job type videos have been cropping up across social media platforms. Some of the most popular of these jingle videos show brands actually replying to the creators in their comments sectionspossibly as a shoot-for-the-moon attempt to replicate Dr Pepper’s hype.
With these public auditions in pursuit of 10 seconds of fame, brands might appear like the real winners, receiving massive amounts of unpaid creative laborsometimes even full commercialscomplete with engagement metrics and audience-testing in real time.
If brands reward the noisiest creators with paid partnerships, this could lead to creators shilling spec work ads as a new content pillar, Dayna Castillo, founder of the digital culture newsletter Silence, Brand!, told Fast Company. And yet, brand baiting is normalizing unpaid promotional labor from creators, and long term, this practice risks burning out both audiences, brands, and creators.
As she noted in a recent Substack post: We no longer skip the ads. We consume the ads our peers made in hopes The Capitalism will notice.
The warp speed with which the internet moves means that trying to re-create anothers recipe for viral success is unlikely to ever deliver the same results. As the saying goes: Lightning never strikes twice.
Instead, all thats left to gain is further muddying the shared waters of the internet with subpar unpaid spon-con. (Binghams jingle was at least catchy!)
This week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission rescinded its guidance on workplace harassment, in a move that could significantly undermine protections for all workers, but especially those who identify as LGBTQ+. The agency, which plays a crucial role as the federal watchdog that enforces anti-discrimination laws governing the workplace, voted on Thursday to strike down guidance that had been codified in 2024, during the Biden administration.
Across nearly 200 pages, the document offered an important update to the EEOCs language on harassmentwhich had not been updated in over two decadesand also incorporated a key Supreme Court ruling in 2020 that extended anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ+ workers. The guidance included over 70 examples of workplace discrimination that employees might encounter, with a section dedicated to sexual orientation and gender identity. Before releasing the final version back in 2024, there was a customary notice and comment process on the proposed document, during which the agency fielded over 38,000 comments from the public. All that guidance has now been scrapped, with no room for public comment on the decision. (The harassment document has since been taken down and is no longer accessible to the public.)
EEOC chair Andrea Lucas suggested that this would not change how the agency approached harassment claims. “Let me be perfectly clear: The EEOC will not tolerate unlawful harassment, as was the case before the guidance document was issued and will remain so even after the guidance document is rescinded,” she said during an open meeting on Thursday.
Still, this reversal is a big loss for workers, who remain protected by federal anti-discrimination laws but rely heavily on the agency when they encounter harassment in the workplace. People who experience workplace discrimination typically have to file a complaint with the agency before taking any kind of legal action. By rescinding this guidance, the EEOC has stripped away an important resource for workers (and employers) who are trying to understand what constitutes workplace harassmentand what they can do about it.
This decision also cements a seismic shift in the agencys priorities since Lucas took the helm. Under the Trump administration, the EEOC has undergone changes that experts believe have compromised its mission to protect workers rights. After assuming office, Trump immediately fired two EEOC commissionersJocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrowsbefore their term limits were up, breaking with precedent and eliminating the Democratic majority. (Commissioners of federal agencies are usually allowed to serve out their terms, regardless of political affiliation.) He later nominated Brittany Panuccio to join the commission; her confirmation in October secured a Republican majority and restored the three-person quorum required for the agency to revise guidance or pursue certain types of litigation.
Over the last year, the Trump administrations attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace have reshaped the agencys priorities. Lucas has explicitly stated that the agency would focus on rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination in accordance with Trumps executive orders targeting DEI programs. Back in December, Lucas even put out a call for white men to report workplace discrimination and potentially recover damages. (This took the form of a video on X, in which Lucas asked: “Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex?”)
Revoking the harassment guidance, however, seems to align with a broader agenda to curtail protections for LGBTQ+ and trans workers. A federal ruling last year struck down the section of the EEOCs harassment document that applied to transgender and gender-nonconforming workers, claiming the agency did not have the authority to impose those guidelines on employers; the section stated, for example, that misgendering employees or denying them access to bathrooms in line with their gender identity qualified as workplace harassment. Last year, the EEOC also dropped six cases that involved allegations of discrimination from trans or gender-nonconforming workers.
Even prior to the Trump administrations directives, however, Lucas was a dissenting voice on the commission. When the harassment guidance was finalized in 2024, Lucas had taken issue with the section that outlined protections for trans and gender-nonconforming workers and ultimately voted against it, under the guise of protecting womens rights in the workplace. Lucas echoed anti-trans sentiment by noting biological sex is real and binary, suggesting that women would be harmed by the updated guidance. Womens sex-based rights in the workplace are under attackand from the EEOC, the very federal agency charged with protecting women from sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination at work, she wrote in a statement at the time. Women in the workplace will pay the price for the Commissions egregious error.
By rescinding the harassment guidance outright, however, Lucas has effectively weakened anti-discrimination protections for all kinds of workerswomen included.
The U.S. is no longer part of the World Health Organization. After the Trump administration declared its intention to pull the country out of the global public health agency one year ago, on Thursday it formally followed through, ending its commitment to the organization after 78 years.
Withdrawing the U.S. from the WHO was one of President Donald Trumps day-one priorities. He signed an executive order on January 20, 2025, declaring that the U.S. would be departing due to its criticisms of the agencys response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, after the required one-year notice period, the deed is done.
Following its withdrawal from the WHO, the United States will continue to lead global health efforts independentlyengaging partners directly, deploying resources efficiently, and ensuring accountability to the American people outside of WHO structures, a fact sheet on the U.S. Health and Human Services website reads.
In an unusual joint statement issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. government aired a series of grievances about the agency, which it accused of working against American interests. From our days as its primary founder, primary financial backer, and primary champion until now, our final day, the insults to America continue, Kennedy and Rubio wrote.
On a practical level, the U.S. will no longer send any funding or staff for WHO initiatives. All federal employees working at its main Geneva location or in other global offices have been recalled. Next month, the WHO will meet to determine which strain of the flu virus to target in the next flu vaccinea consequential public health decision the U.S. looks ready to sit out.
Nearly all of the countries in the world are members of the WHO, but the U.S. has been one of the agencys most prominent members and its largest financial backer for decades. A board session scheduled for early February will be the organizations first without the U.S. since its founding.
Fear for the future of global health
The Trump administrations decision to walk away from the WHO has had a year to sink in, but its impact is still resonating.
When the decision to withdraw was first announced, the American Academy of Pediatrics called on Congress to intervene, warning that WHO membership provides the U.S. a vital perspective into the global health landscape.
For more than 70 years, the WHO has played a leading role in protecting, supporting, and promoting public health in the United States and around the world, the professional organization of pediatricians wrote. Withdrawing from the WHO will hamper our countrys ability to predict and respond to major public health emergencies and limit access, communication, and information sharing to a global network of health professionals.
Dr. Ronald G. Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, called the decision scientifically reckless and warned that the U.S. will be less equipped to fight illnesses like the flu moving forward.
The U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization is a shortsighted and misguided abandonment of our global health commitments, Nahass said. Global cooperation and communication are critical to keep our own citizens protected because germs do not respect borders.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who served under the Obama administration, issued his own dire warning about the U.S. withdrawal on X. Well look back on this as a grave error. Health threats do not respect borders, and weakening global cooperation makes Americans less safe, Frieden said. WHO isn’t perfect, but it is irreplaceable to detect outbreaks early and coordinate emergency responses before they become global crises.
Trump has openly expressed his contempt for long-standing alliances that have shaped the modern global orderand he hasnt been shy to end them. The president capped off a tense week, defined by global worries over his threat to invade Greenland, with one more insult for U.S. allies by claiming that NATO soldiers stayed “a little off the front lines during the war in Afghanistan. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the remarks frankly appalling.
Traveling soon? If you’re planning on flying domestically, starting February 1, which is next Sunday, you may have to pay an extra fee at airports across the U.S. if you haven’t yet gotten your TSA-approved Real ID yet, or don’t have another compliant from of ID (see list below).
The program, which the Department of Homeland Security launched in May, requires travelers to have an updated, Real ID-compliant driver’s license, or other approved form of ID, in order to pass through airport security checkpoints and board flights.
If you are one of the estimated 6% of U.S, travelers that still don’t have a Real ID, or another acceptable form of documentation, you may be charged a $45 fee starting next week. If that’s you, TSA recommends passengers verify their identity using the new ConfirmID process, and pay the $45 fee prior to going to the airport. However, you still run the risk that you “may not be allowed through security and may miss your flight.” TSA urges travelers who do not have a Real ID to schedule an appointment at their local DMV to update their ID as soon as possible.
What is the Real ID, again?
As Fast Company previously reported, the Real ID is state-issued drivers license, or learner’s permit, that has been enhanced so it’s federally compliant. It’s marked with a gold or black star in the upper right-hand corner to indicate that it meets the security standards of the REAL ID Act. Those stars vary from state to state. (A California Real ID is marked with a golden bear; while here in Massachusetts, you’ll find a simple gold star.)
I don’t have a Real ID, what else can I use to get through security?
Here are some other TSA-approved forms of ID:
U.S. passport
U.S. passport card
State-issued Enhanced Driver’s License (EDL) or Enhanced ID (EID)
DHS trusted traveler cards (Global Entry, NEXUS, SENTRI, FAST)
U.S. Department of Defense ID, including IDs issued to dependents
Permanent resident card
Border crossing card
An acceptable photo ID issued by a federally recognized Tribal Nation/Indian Tribe, including Enhanced Tribal Cards (ETCs)
HSPD-12 PIV card
Foreign government-issued passport
Canadian provincial driver’s license or Indian and Northern Affairs Canada card
Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC)
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Employment Authorization Card (I-766)
U.S. Merchant Mariner Credential
Veteran Health Identification Card (VHIC)
In the early 1980s, the National Basketball Association (NBA) faced a crisis. Television ratings were plummetingthe 1981 NBA finals were among the lowest of all time. Spurred by failing franchises, low game attendance, and declining corporate sponsorships, the leagues cultural relevance in the United States waned. Then in 1984, the league responded with a structural shift that would change the culture of sports for decades to come.
We came together with the collective bargaining agreement where the players and the owners would work together to grow the game and expand the game and the values that we established in the Players Association, says NBA legend and current NBA TV analyst Isiah Thomas. The sacrifice that you had to make was you had to extend yourself to the fan base. You have to extend yourself to the media. You have to give access.
This strategic move set off a basketball renaissance that reconfigured the leagues business for the modern era. Today the NBA, valued at over $160 billion, finds itself at another inflection point. More people are viewing programming on streaming platforms than on traditional television. Toward the end of 2024, the leagues ratings dipped by 19% in its early season. Coming into this current season, the NBA recalibrated its media strategy by entering new partnerships with NBCUniversal and streaming platform Amazon Prime. Within the first month of this season, the NBAs viewership rebounded, drawing more than 60 million viewers.
Now, the NBA is preparing to future-proof itself with its next strategic bet: intentionally designing its global fandom as it moves toward the launch of NBA Europe.
[Photo: NBAE]
Why Now?
As the NBA deepens its push into Europe, the league is testing how to design a global fan experience tailored to the continents growing audience. According to the league, basketball is the fastest-growing sport in Europe, with more than 270 million fans across the continent.
Despite Europeans not having the same level of access to NBA games and content via traditional media, last season was the NBAs most-viewed ever across its social and digital channels in Europe, generating more than one billion views across 11 localized accounts in seven languages. This season, European viewership of league games and content via NBA League Pass increased by over 37% year-over-year.
We see enormous opportunity for basketball in Europe, says Leah MacNab, NBA senior vice president, head of International Strategy & Operations. Despite that momentum, there is a significant gap between the level of interest in basketball and the sports untapped potential for fans, players, teams, cities, and overall commercial development across Europe. We believe a new league in Europeworking in partnership with FIBA [the International Basketball Federation]would benefit fans, players, and the broader basketball ecosystem.
While the NBA has focused on growing the game internationally for four decades, this moment is more deliberate. As the league explores establishing its own European league, it selected Berlin and London as host cities for this years regular season games. Basketball is the fastest-growing sport in these cities and the NBA is the continents most popular league. On January 15 and 18, the Orlando Magic took on the Memphis Grizzlies, matchups that marked the ninety-eighth and ninety-ninth NBA games played in Europe.
The last time the NBA brought a game to London was in 2019, and the leagues approach this year reflects a systems-level strategy aimed at testing experiences, engaging fans, and building a long-term U.K. and European audience.
[Photo: NBAE]
Inside NBA House London
Unlike the 2019 London Game, the NBA made significant investments in transforming Magazine London, a 215,214-square-foot event and cultural venue, into its NBA House experience. According to Laura Pinnell, NBA’s Europe & Middle East vice president, head of Consumer, the NBA House has evolved from a regional activation into a signature component of the leagues Global Games footprint and international fan engagement efforts.
Located just a short walk from the O2 arena, the site for the Orlando Magic versus Memphis Grizzlies matchup, the NBA House pop-up served as part fan zone, part prototype for the league to experiment with how fans experience the NBA beyond the game itself. Going into this three-day, immersive, 17,000 people registered with the league for the experience, with more than 50,000 fans registering for NBA House tickets across Berlin and London.
[Photo: NBAE]
We recognize that most fans globally wont have the opportunity to attend an NBA game in person, explains Pinnell. Free-to-attend activations like NBA House provide accessible ways for fans to immerse themselves in the NBA and feel connected to the league.
As visitors entered Londons NBA House, they were greeted by a lfe-size league logo where they could snap photos. Moving through the venue, they encountered activations split across two main areas: the Creator Studio and the Court. According to Pinnell, the Creator Studio is a new format that debuted at the NBA London Game.
[Photo: NBAE]
Creators have long been an important part of the NBA ecosystem, and their connection with our global fan base has only grown in recent years, says Pinnel. NBA House felt like the perfect setting to bring these worlds together and offer a unique, elevated experience for fans.
Sponsored by Experience Abu Dhabi, the Creator Studio featured several activations that allowed fans to step into the role of an NBA player. These included interactive basketball shooting games, a Foot Lockerbacked activation where fans could film their own tunnel walkstyle entrance, a pop-up NBA Store, and creator-led conversations featuring players from the Orlando Magic among other guests.
[Photo: NBAE]
As fans entered the Court section of the house, they encountered sponsors like Tissot and 23 other brands, plus a range of activations and competitions: a full basketball court hosting clinics led by legends Isiah Thomas and Tony Parker, a three-point contest, and a dunk contest featuring a special appearance by Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant.
The investment that has gone into this, the presence of partners that are in this space, the amount of freebies, competitions and coaching clinics were running, it is a huge investment, says James Sherwood-Smith, a U.K.-based freelance presenter and NBA House London host who works in fan engagement across other sports like football and F1. Its a complete expense whereas other sports have to balance the books, the NBA is looking to make their mark, and in a generation’s time, they can start to think about the monetization of it.
NBA London Game Day
By the third and final day, fans lined up early to access the NBA House hours before the games tipoff. Meanwhile, in the sold-out arena, the energy was palpable.
The NBA views its overseas games as an experiment for how a new fanbase might want to interact with the league. An international game looks like an NBA game in the U.S but feels different because its a novel experience for fans. The NBA team curated local celebrity talent like Premier League star Declan Rice and introduced NBA legends (a mix of American and European former players). In between gameplay, the league hosted fan competitions, crowd engagement activities, and prize giveaways to test how fans respond to various activities and environments. The goal is to create hyper-localized NBA experiences that will deepen fans connections to the league.
So far, it seems to be working. According to Prime, the NBA London Game 2026 viewership was up 90% in comparison to the 2019 London game.
[Photo: NBAE]
NBA Europe Expansion
The NBAs commitment to building its global fandom in the U.K. and Europe through in-person experiences feeds into its larger goal of building a European league.
Currently, the NBA operates as a closed league, meaning it comprises a fixed number of 30 teams each season unless the league approves entry of additional teams. In contrast, many international sports leagues, like professional soccer leagues, operate on an open model. This means teams within an open league can either be promoted to a higher league or relegated to a lower league based on performance.
In partnership with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the NBA envisions a semi-open league or a hybrid approach with its expansion. The NBA Europe League would be comprised of 14 to 16 teams with 10 to 12 permanent franchises and four to six open spots available for any FIBA-affiliated domestic league in Europe to qualify for annually based on merit.
The leagues position is that teams participating in the EuroLeague would not be eligible for participation in NBA Europe simultaneously. To create these teams, the league intends to explore three routes including: existing basketball teams, existing football clubs like those in the Premier League with an interest in expanding to basketball, and ownership groups keen on creating a new team from scratch.
Despite its intentions to complement the current European basketball ecosystem as well as maximize competitive and commercial potential of basketball in Europe, the NBA has drawn criticism from some European stakeholders and policymakers. These critics warn that the NBA could supplant local culture, benefit only commercially successful clubs, and ultimately stifle competition. While current and former NBA players largely support its expansion, some players have a more measured stance.
I think theres a lot of untapped potential, says Franz Wagner, Orlando Magic star and German native. As long as you keep the tradition of European basketball here and not change the structure of how it works and lean into making it a bigger sport, it can only be positive for the U.K. and, and Europe as a whole. Wagner says there are certain aspects of European basketball culture that are important to maintain as an NBA Europe league emerges.
The fan culture, the tradition of the clubs that have made up European basketball and shaped the landscape for a long time, Wagner says. Theyve developed these fan bases over a bunch of years and ave such great history, they should still be intact. That’s a big part of what drives viewership and also why we have great atmospheres and gyms over here. [And] making sure that teams invest in their youth development.
While Wagner emphasizes maintaining European tradition and fan culture, others are optimistic that the NBA will build a league that complements the existing ecosystem.
When there’s tradition, there’s always going to be people who[will] be critical to change, says former Chicago Bulls star and host of travel series NOMAD Joakim Noah. The NBA is great at marketing, great at branding, and I think it’s just a matter of time before it’s welcomed with open arms.
Recent reports indicate that the market may already be opening its arms to the NBA. Following the London matchup, the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver convened a meeting with about 250 people, including potential brand partners Nike and Amazon and funders like KKR, Rothschild, and Blackstone. Representatives from Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, two soccer clubs that also have basketball teams, alongside clubs from Italy, Greece, and Germany were also present, suggesting that these clubs are moving beyond signaling initial interest in potential NBA Europe.
[Photo: NBAE]
Looking Ahead
The league will continue building its global brand beyond Europe with the upcoming 2026 NBA All-Star game, its longstanding global showcase for fans, media, and partners. According to the NBA, this seasons opening-night rosters featured 71 European players, including the leagues top players like Greeces Giannis Antetokounmpo, Serbias Nikola Jokić, Slovenias Luka Dončić, and Frances Victor Wembanyama. These players are part of the starting five for this years All-Star Game, which the league revamped for the first time as a U.S. v. World format.
The new U.S. vs. World All-Star format highlights that the level of international talent in the NBA is at an alltime high, which is driving even greater interest and growth across Europe and around the world, says the NBAs MacNab. This record level of talent and engagement with basketball and the NBA is a key reason why we think a new league in Europe could be the next frontier for basketball on the continent.
As the NBA pushes its international strategy forward, viewership among American and global audiences will evolve alongside it.I do believe that what we are seeing and what the fans want to see, [its] not a coincidence, says NBA Hall of Famer and current NBC analyst Carmelo Anthony. This is NBCs first chance to introduce that side of things earlier than expected. This is the jumpstart to let people know this is what’s to come and get used to seeing this global basketball brand . . . It’s all part of the plan.
America is on the cusp of its first major winter storm of the new year. Dubbed Winter Storm Fern, the storm is expected to begin today and last until at least Monday.
As Fast Company previously reported, the noreaster is expected to affect as many as 230 million Americans as it moves from the Southwest to the Mid-Atlantic states, then continues eastward toward New England.
The storm’s progression over 72 hours is expected to dump snow and ice on significant portions of the country, with major cities including St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis, Nashville, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. expected to receive significant accumulation.
The severity of Winter Storm Fern has led many states to already declare emergencies before the bad weather has even hit. Residents across the country have been stocking up on food for days, as well as buying winter storm supplies like shovels and rock salt.
Airlines are also warning travelers to expect delays and cancellations. Given the potential impact, many U.S. carriers have already said they will waive change fees or fare differences if travelers want to change their travel plans ahead of time.
2 maps show Winter Storm Ferns expected path
The first major winter storm of 2026 wont hit most of America all at once. It is expected to begin in the Southwest on Friday and slowly move northeastward across the country over the following days. Exactly when it hits you depends on where you are along the storm’s projected path.
If you want to see when experts think the storm is most likely to hit your area, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has two excellent sets of maps that show the storm’s current projected path.
[Map: NOAA/NWS/NCEP]
The first map is the agencys National Forecast Chart. This map forecasts the countrys weather for the next three days. While the map will change as new data is aggregated, at the time of this writing, the map shows that today, freezing rain and mixed precipitation will begin in the Southwest, in states including Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Snowfall is expected from Wyoming to western Missouri.
But Saturday and Sunday are the days that most of America will be hit hard, according to the maps. On Saturday, snow, a wintry mix, or freezing rain is expected to occur in states ranging from Arizona to Philadelphia. On Sunday, the storm is expected to cover the remainder of the northeastern United States.
[Map: NOAA/NWS/NCEP]
But just how impactful the winter storm weather will be varies by location. And its predicted impact is shown in another NOAA map, called the Winter Weather Forecasts, which displays the Probabilistic Winter Storm Severity Index (WSSI-P). This index displays a range of winter weather impact probabilities over a geographic area, NOAA states. The impacts are shown via a color-coded system with darker colors signifying a greater chance of impact.
Currently, the Winter Weather Forecasts map shows that Saturday and Sunday will bring a 90% chance or greater of significant impact from the winter storm. On Saturday, the chance of impact is greatest in states including Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. On Sunday, the chance of impact is greatest in states including North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, and more.
In the world of earnings reports and pitch decks, the ultimate goal of our current AI boom is usually called something like artificial general intelligence (AGI), superintelligence, orif you’re really nerdyrecursive self-improving AI. But in the real world, we’re all just looking for the Enterprise computer: a digital assistant you can talk to that doesn’t just fully understand you, but can do things for you instantly.
The last couple of months have seen a lot of progress on this front. While I was at CES, I attended Lenovo’s keynote, which unveiled Qira, an always-on AI that will be built into its devices going forward. As I wrote about at The Media Copilot, the innovation with Qira is that the assistant is now an “orchestrator of agents,” seamlessly passing off the user to other services like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or others, depending on the user’s request.
The reason a device maker like Lenovo can do that is because it doesn’t compete with those servicesQira is a facilitator, not a do-everything AI service. It appears Apple has also finally woken up to that strategy now that it’s announced a multi-year deal to integrate Googles Gemini models into a revamped Siri later this year.
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Apple has colossally overpromised and underdelivered on AI over the past two years, partly because of its reluctance to rely on partners for parts of its AI experience. Now that there’s more clarity on the orchestrator visionand on how AIs talk to each otherit looks like we’re past concerns over empowering competitors.
Assistants evolve into agents
Into all this come agentic tools like Claude Code and Claude Coworker. The buzz around these tools in the AI world has been insane, and a big part of the reason is they can do much more than code and build websites. They are effectively agents, able to take instructions, turn them into plans, and then execute on them, often with minimal guidance from the user. Whether it lives in the OS (Qira/Siri) or in a desktop app (Cowork), the effect is the same: decision-making moves closer to the interface people actually use.
Several people on X say the experience using Coworker is closer to working with a colleague rather than prompting an AI. But there are new worries, too: Anthropic is warning users about safety riskslike unclear instructions leading to file deletionbecause thats what happens when the model can act, not just talk.
All this is pointing in the same direction. Sometime soon, it seems likely that a significant and growing amount of device interactions will be essentially telling agents what to do. No apps, no browserjust the answer, output, or outcome you were looking for. It’s the Enterprise computer, just not on the bridge of a starship but in millions of pockets worldwide.
There are huge implications for the media, brands, and other content providers. In my Qira piece, I talked about how the battle for context is going to play out in the information space in the coming year, but agent-based work will also have an effect on information-based work itself, especially journalism. Embedding an agentessentially a decision-making computerinto your workspace is potentially a huge accelerant, but it poses difficult questions around attribution, access, and how it treats sensitive data.
Auditability in the agent era
Sounds serious, and there’s a simple solution to those concerns: don’t use it. But that’s not a strategy. Like any tool, those who learn it, use it, and master it will have an advantage over those who don’t. As agentic work grows in popularity, the workplaces that figure out how to implement it safely and securely will have the best chance of success.
The media is particularly challenged, though, since information is their business. We’ve already seen this play out with regard to hallucinations. The propensity of AI systems to make things up out of the blue continues to persist, and it keeps many newsrooms from adopting AI, at least in any way that touches content.
The danger of a workplace agent is more insidious. The AI isn’t creating content per se, but it is making decisions such as what information sources to use, what services to help with a task, and what company knowledge to apply to any specific request. But if an agent is going to make decisions in a newsroom, it cant be a black box.
Even without the AI making a mistake per se, the question of how the AI makes its decisions matters. Look at the corollary in search: When Google made a deal with Reddit, which led to Reddit appearing at the top of many more search results. That unquestionably had an influence on where people got their information, especially since Google is an effective monopoly on search.
Well, a device or workplace agent will have a similar monopoly. How an agent goes down a tree of decisions can’t be a black box. Certainly, steering workers toward sanctioned services and company software is an obvious first step. Following style guides and company policy in the actions it takes is another. But it’s in the parts of workflows that aren’t covered by that where things get strange. This isn’t just about getting informationit’s about the context it relies on when taing action.
The need for AI governance
While actions need to be seamless to the user, there needs to be an auditable paper trail for them. How the agent gets context from the web, and from which services, should be clear and traceable. When asked, in plain language, why it took a specific action, there should be a rabbit hole the user can go down if they wish, along with a method to correct any problems in its thinking (including bias). Disclaimers won’t cut it on agentstraining how to both use them and audit your own use, should be standard.
In other words, governance matters. Agents like Qira and Claude Coworker might deliver on the dream of true AI assistants. But the potential they promise to unlock requires an equal amount of deference. If AI has shown anything over the past few years, it’s that it can do incredible things, but it can’t be trusted to always get it right. For organizations to truly advance into the agent era, they’ll need to adopt an old adage: trust, but verify.
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The Trump administration just redesigned the official White House website. Its new aesthetic might best be described as a personal action hero reel for the president.
[Screen Capture: whitehouse.gov]
The updated website design rolled out on January 22 in the wake of a broader relaunch of government sites by the new National Design Studio. It replaces the old homepagewhich featured a banner image of Trump, the bolded phrase America is Back, and headshots of the first lady and vice presidentwith a decidedly more cinematic design.
Now, when people visit whitehouse.gov, theyre immediately greeted with a wall of videos, including shots of Trump sporting his own Make America Great Again merch, saluting military personnel, and taking off in a helicopter. Every shot is bathed in a warm, fuzzy filter, making the whole page feel like a retro-inspired movie trailer.
[Screenshot: whitehouse.gov]
This design direction is part of a familiar playbook thats come to define how the second Trump administration shows up online. On the surface, it touts a glossy, airbrushed version of the U.S., pulling from Americana aesthetics popularized in film and art. Underneath, though, is the ever-present subtext of Trumps ideal vision for America.
One big movie trailer
With the new whitehouse.gov design, the Trump administration has sidelined a previously held ethos of communicating specific administrative goals in favor of evoking an emotional response from the viewer.
[Screenshot: whitehouse.gov]
Historically, the official White House web page has maintained a consistent structure between presidencies. From Bush in 2008 to Obama in 2015, Biden in 2022, and even Trump himself in 2018, opening the web page would lead to a photo of the president, paired with a rundown of his current key objectives and a selection of top news stories.
[Screenshot: whitehouse.gov]
Today, the entire home screen fills with a looping, 30-second highlight reel of Trump. Beneath this reel is a short statement lauding the second Trump administrations successes, followed by five sections (each dedicated to an objective like Secure the Border and Make America Healthy Again).
To read more about the administrations current aims, users have to click on one of these subsections or navigate to a separate header bar at the top of the page, which links out to additional resources, like a news, gallery, and livestream page.
[Screenshot: whitehouse.gov]
The cumulative effect of these choices is that opening the whitehouse.gov page now feels less like getting a snapshot of the current administrations goals, and more like watching five different advertisements at once. And, like any advertisement, these video clips are clearly designed to make the viewer feel something. From close-up shots of a man in a cowboy hat to wide views of a billowing American flag and a grainy clip of farmers at a Trump rally, each compilation leans on recognizable Americana aesthetics to generate a sense of patriotism.
Interspersed between feel-good shots of the president signing bills and shaking hands with children, the site includes clips of border patrol agents handling lengths of barbed wire, military helicopters taking off, and ICE agents gearing up and climbing into armored vehicles. The redesign comes just weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed Minnesota resident Renee Nicole Good, leading to ongoing tension and protests across the state.
In terms of connecting with its intendd audience, this website design is undoubtedly effective. It plays into the ways that people are already consuming content onlinethrough short, enticing bursts of videoto tell a glamorized story about the current administration. The same can be said for most of the recently revamped government websites: they trade an emphasis on clearly communicating information for scaffolding Trump’s vision for America’s future.
Ultimately, the aesthetic strength of this design is also its biggest shortcoming. At a time when the president should be building solidarity with his citizens, he’s instead designing a website that serves as a reminder that his government isn’t meant for everyone.
