For many people, the winter holiday period is their favorite time of the year. Its weeks full of family, friends, gifts, and cozy indoor get-togethers.
But those social gatherings are among the main reasons why the flu spreads so readily at this time of year. And this year, a so-called superflu variant known as subclade K is set to make things even worse.
Heres what you need to know.
When is flu season?
Flu season is officially in full swing. Its the time of year when flu viruses are most rampant, and infections tend to spike before finally decreasing and leveling off.
Most people know that flu season usually occurs in the winter months, but the period actually lasts for longer.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, in the northern hemisphere, the flu season starts in October. However, its worst period encompasses December to February, which is when the highest number of cases occur.
Cases usually begin to decline after February, and flu season is typically considered over by May.
But besides its conventional start date, theres another way to measure when flu season is underway.
As CNN reports, health professionals often use the epidemic threshold to measure when flu season is underway. When that threshold, which measures the percentage of visits to a healthcare provider for respiratory illness, rises above 3.1%, flu season is here.
And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States passed that threshold last week when it hit 3.2%. And that number is likely to rise in the coming weeks, thanks to a new flu variant circulating the globe called subclade K.
What is the subclade K influenza variant?
The common seasonal flu going around this year is part of the H3N2 family, a strain that has been circulating for decades, notes Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
However, a new H3N2 variant has arisen with enough mutations to make it materially different, from a genetic perspective, from the reference strains scientists chose earlier this year to make this years flu vaccine.
This variant is called subclade K.
Because it has enough genetic differences, the subclade K variant is more resistant to this years flu vaccine than other strains.
However, that doesnt mean this years flu vaccine cant help protect you against subclade K or other flu strains.
As CNN reports, despite this years flu vaccine failing to neutralize subclade K viruses as well as other flu strains, the flu vaccine still cuts hospital visits for H3N2 strains in children by 75%. For adults, the vaccine appears to be less effective, but data shows that it can still cut hospital visits by 30% to 40%.
Where in America is the flu most widespread?
According to CDC data for the week ending December 6, the flu virus, including subclade K, is present in most of the United States. The CDCs Influenza Divisions Weekly Influenza Surveillance report shows that the states with the highest level of flu activity include:
New York
Colorado
Louisana
New Jersy
Conneticut
Idaho
Screenshot via CDC.
What are the symptoms of the flu?
Common symptoms of the flu include the following, according to the CDC:
fever or feeling feverish/chills
cough
sore throat
runny or stuffy nose
muscle or body aches
headaches
fatigue (tiredness)
some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children than adults.
How can I protect myself against the flu over the holidays?
In winter, people tend to spend more time indoors with windows closed, which allows flu viruses to spread more easily between people. Holiday gatherings can accelerate this spread as many spend more time socializing during the period than they usually do.
But just because it’s flu season doesn’t mean you cant enjoy the holidays. The CDC offers several bits of advice on how to reduce your risk of seasonal flu, including:
Getting vaccinated
Avoiding contact with people who are sick
Cleaning your hands regularly
Avoiding touching your mouth, nose, and eyes
And if you think you are sick, you can help protect others by staying home and covering your nose and mouth when you sneeze.
President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump,” calling it “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.It accused the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021” in order to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court, seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.The broadcaster apologized last month to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejected claims it had defamed him, after Trump threatened legal action.BBC chairman Samir Shah had called it an “error of judgment,” which triggered the resignations of the BBC’s top executive and its head of news.The speech took place before some of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.The BBC had broadcast the hourlong documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.Trump said earlier Monday that he was suing the BBC “for putting words in my mouth.”“They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn’t say, and they’re beautiful words, that I said, right?” the president said unprompted during an appearance in the Oval Office. “They’re beautiful words, talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said. They didn’t say that, but they put terrible words.”The president’s lawsuit was filed in Florida. Deadlines to bring the case in British courts expired more than a year ago.Legal experts have brought up potential challenges to a case in the U.S. given that the documentary was not shown in the country.The lawsuit alleges that people in the U.S. can watch the BBC’s original content, including the “Panorama” series, which included the documentary, by using the subscription streaming platform BritBox or a virtual private network service.The 103-year-old BBC is a national institution funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds ($230) paid by every household that watches live TV or BBC content. Bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial, it typically faces especially intense scrutiny and criticism from both conservatives and liberals.
Associated Press
If you want to recycle an old electric toothbrush or pair of headphones with a lithium battery embedded inside, it can be hard to find a place to do itand many existing battery collection boxes are fire risks. Thats why Redwood Materials, the battery recycling and energy storage company founded by ex-Tesla engineer J. B. Straubel, just redesigned the collection bin.
The new bins, rolling out first in San Francisco stores in partnership with the citys environmental department, can accept any type of rechargeable device, from phones to electric razors, earbuds, and loose lithium batteries. When someone drops a battery or device into a slot, the bin automatically lowers it into a sealed 50-gallon drum and coats it in fire suppressant. The bin also uses sensors to monitor itself to prevent fires.
[Photo: Redwood Materials]
Consumer recycling has been incredibly challenging, says Alexis Georgeson, Redwoods vice president of external affairs and consumer recycling programs. I think some of the issues and lack of technology to enable frictionless, free, visible collection points for consumers have contributed to the abysmal collection rates that were at right now.
Only around 16% of electronics are recycled in the U.S. right now. Most batteries end up in junk drawers or landfills, because fundamentally consumers just dont understand how to get them recycled, Georgeson says.
[Photo: Redwood Materials]
Redwood launched to handle battery recycling for businesses in 2017, but people who heard about the startup almost immediately began dropping off their own batteries at the companys front door or shipping them in. The company started working with nonprofits and communities trying to make recycling easier, and previously placed standard collection bins at some locations. But those bins didnt solve the challenge of fire risk, so they had to be monitored by staff.
[Image: Redwood Materials]
The new bins manage fire risk without human intervention, so they can scale up much more easily. Theyre also secure, so someone could feel safe dropping in an old phone or laptop, unlike in the open cardboard boxes that exist in some other stores. When the drums are full, Redwood adds them to pallets that are shipped back to its Nevada facility for recycling. (The fire suppressant is also reused.)
EV batteries still make up a bigger volume of the companys recycling; a single Tesla Model 3 battery is equivalent to several thousand iPhone batteries. But as the number of battery-filled devices keeps proliferating, and consumers quickly get rid of them, the potential scale is large. Redwood plans to install the bins in other parts of the Bay Area, then Nevada, and then deploy them nationally.
Even before the official launch in San Franciscoand without any promotion or signagethe bins are already popular. We actually rolled the bins out very quietly a couple of weeks ago, and we’ve already filled several of them up, Georgeson says.
The Trump administration said in a court filing Monday that the president’s White House ballroom construction project must continue for unexplained national security reasons and because a preservationists’ organization that wants it stopped has no standing to sue.The filing was in response to a lawsuit filed last Friday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation asking a federal judge to halt President Donald Trump’s project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and a public comment period and wins approval from Congress.The administration’s 36-page filing included a declaration from Matthew C. Quinn, deputy director of the U.S. Secret Service, the agency responsible for the security of the president and other high-ranking officials, that said more work on the site of the former White House East Wing is still needed to meet the agency’s “safety and security requirements.” The filing did not explain the specific national security concerns; the administration has offered to share classified details with the judge in a private, in-person setting without the plaintiffs present.The East Wing had sat atop a emergency operations bunker for the president.Quinn said even a temporary halt to construction would “consequently hamper” the agency’s ability to fulfill its statutory obligations and its protective mission.A hearing in the case was scheduled for Tuesday in federal court in Washington.The government’s response offered the most comprehensive look yet at the ballroom construction project, including a window into how it was so swiftly approved by the Trump administration bureaucracy and its expanding scope.The filings assert that final plans for the ballroom have yet to be finalized despite the continuing demolition and other work to prepare the site for eventual construction. Below-ground work on the site continues, wrote John Stanwich, the National Park Service’s liaison to the White House, and work on the foundations is set to begin in January. Above-ground construction “is not anticipated to begin until April 2026, at the earliest,” he wrote.The National Trust for Historic Preservation did not respond to email messages seeking comment.The privately funded group last week asked the U.S. District Court to block Trump’s project.“No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever not President Trump, not President Biden, and not anyone else,” the lawsuit states. “And no president is legally allowed to construct a ballroom on public property without giving the public the opportunity to weigh in.”Trump had the East Wing torn down in October as part of his plan to build an estimated $300 million, 90,000-square-foot (27,432-square-meter) ballroom able to accommodate about 1,000 people before his term ends in January 2029. He says presidents before him long have wanted an event space larger than the rooms currently at the White House, and says the ballroom would end the practice of entertaining visiting foreign dignitaries in large, temporary pavilions on the south grounds.The Trust asserts that the plans should have been submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts and Congress before any action was taken. The lawsuit notes that the Trust wrote to those entities and the National Park Service on Oct. 21, after East Wing demolition began, urging a stop to the project and asking the administration to comply with federal law, but received no response.The lawsuit cites several federal statutes and rules detailing the role the planning and fine arts commission and lawmakers play in U.S. government construction projects.The administration argued in its response that the president has the authority to modify the White House and included the extensive history of changes and additions to the Executive Mansion since it was built more than 200 years ago. It also asserted that the president is not subject to the statutes cited by the plaintiffs.Department of Justice attorneys said in the filing that the plaintiff’s claims about the East Wing demolition are “moot” because the tear-down cannot be undone. The administration also argues that claims about future construction are “unripe” because the plans are not final.The administration also contends that the Trust cannot establish “irreparable harm” because above-ground construction is not expected until spring. It argues that the reviews sought in the lawsuit, consultation with the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, “will soon be underway without this Court’s involvement.”Trump’s ballroom project has prompted criticism in the historic preservation and architectural communities, and among his political adversaries, but the lawsuit is the most tangible effort thus far to alter or stop his plans for an addition that itself would be nearly twice the size of the White House before the East Wing was torn down.In 2000, the National Park Service’s Comprehensive Design Plan for the White House first identified the need for a larger event space to address an increase in visitors and to provide a venue suitable for major events, according to the administration’s filing.
Darlene Superville, Associated Press
Vega Farms, a California-based food producer, has voluntarily recalled Vega Farms-branded in-shell eggs due to a Salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 60 people and led to more than a dozen hospitalizations.
Heres what you need to know about the outbreak, impacted products and retailers, and what to do if you have the recalled eggs in your possession:
How many people got sick?
In a notice posted on Friday, December 12, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) warns businesses and consumers to avoid eating, serving, or selling recalled in-shell Vega Farms eggs.
According to the agency, 63 California residents have reported illnesses linked to the Salmonella outbreak, and 13 people have been hospitalized. Fortunately, no deaths have been reported.
During an inspection, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and CDPH collected egg and environmental samples from Vega Farms. Multiple samples tested positive for Salmonella. At least one sample matched the strain found in sick individuals.
Which products are impacted by the recall?
Here are more details about the recalled product:
Brand: Vega Farms
Product description: Brown eggs
Julian Date (3-digit number from 001 to 365 corresponding to the day of the year): 328 and prior
Sell-by dates: 12-22-25 and prior
Retail package sizes: 1-dozen cartons; 30-egg flats
Food service packaging: 15-dozen cases (contains 6 flats of 30 eggs each)
The CDPH has images of the product labels on its website.
Where were the recalled eggs sold?
According to the CDPH, the recalled Vega Farms eggs were distributed to restaurants, grocery stores, co-ops, and at farmers markets in the Sacramento and Davis areas of Northern California.
State health officials have published a retail distribution list with a handful of impacted retailers.
Cafe Bernado, 234 D St., Davis, CA 95616
Cafe Bernado, 2730 Capitol Ave., Sacramento, CA 95816
Cafe Bernado, 515 Pavilions Ln., Sacramento, CA 95825
Davis Foods Co-op, 620 G St, Davis, CA 95616
Paragarys, 1403 28th St., Sacramento, CA 95816
Ristorante Piatti, 571 Pavilions Ln.k Sacramento, CA 95825
Sacramento Foods Co-op, 2820 R St., Sacramento, CA 95816
Sage Market, 201 Sage St., Davis, CA 95616
Segundo Market, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616
Taylors Market, 2900 Freeport Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95818
Tercero DC, 237 Tercero Hall Circle, Davis, CA 95616
UC Davis Cuarto Market, 550 Oxford Circle #1ST, Davis, CA 95616
Dont consume the recalled product
Recalled products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase for a refund. Businesses shouldnt sell recalled products.
What’s more, any items or surfaces that have come in contact with the recalled product should be washed and sanitized.
If youve become sick after eating recalled eggs, contact a healthcare provider.
If you see the recalled product for sale, call the CDPH Complaint Hotline at 800-495-3232 or submit an online report through CDPHs Food and Drug Branch.
If you have any questions about the recall, you can call Ramsi Vega at (530) 400-9505 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
What is Salmonella infection?
Salmonella infection is a bacterial disease. Humans usually become infected through contaminated water or food, according to the Mayo Clinic.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Salmonella infection symptoms typically begin six hours to six days after infection. The most common symptoms are diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps.
Illness typically lasts four to seven days. Most people recover without medical treatment.
However, some people are more likely to get very sick and may require medical treatment. This includes children under 5, adults 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems.
Why does this sound familiar?
Salmonella-related egg recalls have been in the headlines a lot this year. Although this latest recall is limited to California, others have impacted nationally distributed products.
In October, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that more than six million eggs from an Arkansas-based food producer were recalled due to Salmonella concerns. And over the summer, nearly 100 people across 14 states were sickened by Salmonella linked to eggs.
On a recent December day, Mark Latino and a handful of his workers spun sheets of vinyl into tinsel for Christmas tree branches. They worked on a custom-made machine that’s nearly a century old, churning out strands of bright silver tinsel along its 35-foot (10-meter) length.Latino is the CEO of Lee Display, a Fairfield, California-based company that his great-grandfather founded in 1902. Back then, it specialized in handmade velvet and silk flowers for hats. Now, it’s one of the only companies in the United States that still makes artificial Christmas trees, producing around 10,000 each year.
Tariffs and trees
Tariffs shone a twinkling light this year on fake Christmas trees and the extent to which America depends on other countries for its plastic fir trees.Prices for fake trees rose 10% to 15% this year due to the new import taxes, according to the American Christmas Tree Association, a trade group. Tree sellers cut their orders and paid higher tariffs for the stock they brought in.Despite those issues, tree companies say they aren’t likely to shift large-scale production back to the U.S. after decades in Asia. Fake trees are labor-intensive and require holiday lights and other components the U.S. doesn’t make, said Chris Butler, CEO of the National Tree Co., which sells more than 1 million artificial trees each year.Americans are also very price-sensitive when it comes to holiday décor, Butler said.“Putting a ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ sticker on the box won’t do any good if it’s twice as expensive,” Butler said. “If it’s 20% more expensive, it won’t sell.”
Americans prefer fake trees
About 80% of the U.S. residents who put up a Christmas tree this year planned to use a fake one, according to the American Christmas Tree Association. That percentage has been unchanged for at least 15 years.Mac Harman, the founder and CEO of Balsam Brands, which sells hundreds of thousands of Balsam Hill trees each year, said Americans like to set up their trees on Thanksgiving and leave them up for weeks, which dries out fresh-cut trees. Others prefer fake trees because they’re allergic to the mold spores on real trees, he said.Americans also like convenience; 80% of the fake trees sold each year have the lights already strung on them, Butler said.That preference is one reason artificial tree production shifted away from the U.S., first to Thailand in the early 1990s and to China about a decade later. Winding lights around the branches is time-consuming and tedious, Harman said.“Where are we going to get 15,000 people in America who want to string lights on Christmas trees?” Harman said.
Labor-intensive work
It takes an hour or two to make an artificial Christmas tree, from molding and cutting the needles to tying branches together and attaching the lights, Butler said. Workers in China, where 90% of fake trees are made, are paid $1.50 to $2 per hour, he said.Harman said the workers who wrap the lights on Balsam Hill’s trees are so efficient “it’s like watching an Olympian.”One of Balsam Brands’ Chinese partners employs 15,000 to 20,000 people; another in Indonesia has up to 10,000, he said. Many are seasonal workers, since orders for Christmas décor slow down between October and February.Balsam Brands, which is based in Redwood City, California, studied whether it could make faux trees in Ohio during the first Trump administration, when President Donald Trump threatened but eventually delayed tariffs on imported Christmas décor, Harman said.The company hired consultants and considered automating some work. But it concluded a tree that currently sells for $800 would cost $3,000 if it was made in the U.S. Harman said Balsam couldn’t even find a U.S. company to make the pair of gloves it includes in each box for fluffing out branches.
American-made trees
Lee Display employs three or four people for most of the year, adding more during the holiday rush to help with installations and displays. About half its business is making custom displays for companies such as Macy’s, while the other half is selling directly to consumers.Latino said he likes that he can produce an order quickly instead of waiting for it to ship from overseas.“You have more control over it. I like to think that everything here is either my fault or my mistake or my careful planning and skill,” he said.The tariffs still affected Lee Display. Latino’s son James, who leads business development and marketing, said the company didn’t import lights or decorations from China this year and relied on items it already had in stock. It’s getting low on lights, so next year it will have to pay more to import them, he said.
Responding to tariffs
Some artificial tree companies are branching out so they’re less reliant on China. National Tree Co., which is based in Cranford, New Jersey, moved some manufacturing to Cambodia in 2024, and could source all its trees from outside China by next year if it wanted to, Butler said.But diversifying their suppliers didn’t make those companies immune from the impact of tariffs either. In April, the Trump administration threatened a 49% tariff against products from Cambodia. That rate was eventually reduced to 19%. Tariffs on artificial trees from China also bounced around but now average 20%, according to the American Christmas Tree Association.Butler said his company imported fewer trees this year and also raised prices by 10%. He said he used a lot of the money to offer customer discounts since demand was weak because of consumer worries about the economy.“It’s a discretionary item. People say, ‘I can wait one more year,'” Butler said.Balsam Brands cut its workforce by 10%, canceled travel, froze raises and even stopped serving lunch in the office once a week to absorb the impact of tariffs, Harman said. It also raised tree prices by 10%.Harman said his sales are down 5% to 10% this year in the U.S. but up 10% or more in Germany, Australia, Canada and France. That tells him tariffs have decreased U.S. demand.“If a merry Christmas is measured in how many decorations people put up, by that measure it’s going to be a slightly less merry Christmas,” he said.
AP Video Journalist Terry Chea contributed from Fairfield, California.
Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer
What’s up, type nerds? Fast Company’s latest print issue features some of the brightest minds in AI, and creative director Mike Schnaidt wanted to choose a typeface that looked futuristic. So go pick up a copy now.
The Powerball jackpot has grown to an estimated $1.25 billion for Wednesday night’s drawing after lottery officials said no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Monday night.The U.S. has seen more than a dozen lottery jackpot prizes exceed $1 billion since 2016. Here is a look at the largest U.S. jackpots won and the places where the winning tickets were sold:
$2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 7, 2022. The winning ticket was sold at a Los Angeles-area gas station.
$1.787 billion, Powerball, Sept. 6, 2025. The winning tickets were sold in Missouri and Texas.
$1.765 billion, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023. The winning ticket was sold at a liquor store in a tiny California mountain town.
$1.602 billion, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023. The winning ticket was sold at a supermarket in Neptune Beach, Florida.
$1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016. The winning tickets were sold at a Los Angeles-area convenience store, a Florida supermarket and a Tennessee grocery store.
$1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018. The winning ticket was sold at a South Carolina convenience store.
$1.348 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023. The winning ticket was sold at a Maine gas station.
$1.337 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022. The winning ticket was sold at a Chicago-area gas station.
$1.326 billion, Powerball, April 7, 2024. The winning ticket was sold at an Oregon convenience store.
$1.269 billion, Mega Millions, Dec. 27, 2024. The winning ticket was sold at a gas station in Northern California.
Associated Press
I have a confession to make.
For most of my career in creative leadership roles, I have contributed to collaboration overload. I believed that bringing everyone together to swap ideas was the surest path to stronger work. If the room was full and the conversation was flowing, I assumed we were headed in the right direction.
And I know Im not alone. Collaboration overload has crept into creative teams everywhereshaped by hybrid schedules, the pressure to stay visible when were apart, and a steady flow of digital tools like Slack and Teams that keep us connected but can slowly chip away at focus.
Creative teams have reached a point where we are spending so much time meeting, messaging, and circling each others work that nobody has the space or clarity to actually create.
Collaboration overload is not tenable. One reason is that the expectations of the next generation call for an urgent shift in how collaboration happens. Many emerging creatives want room to explore ideas independently, develop a point of view, and contribute something meaningfulnot spend their days in back-to-back meetings and endless threads. When collaboration becomes constant, it leaves no space for the kind of personal exploration that builds creative confidence.
And as AI takes on more of the administrative and production parts of creative work, the value of human creativity shifts toward originality, taste, and discernment. Those qualities need room. Creatives need autonomy to imagine what AI cannot.
Collaboration is nonnegotiable. But so is autonomy. Creative teams thrive when those two forces support each other rather than compete. We need to protect deep, independent thinking while using collaboration to enhance our work. What were really trying to restore is a sense of rhythm that alternates between solo thinking, ensemble critique, and restorative rest.
How We Reached Collaboration Overload
Collaboration overload didnt happen overnight. It gradually built up as our work patterns evolved and expectations around them shifted.
Hybrid work marked a major turning point. Many teams have done an impressive job recreating the natural touchpoints of in-person creative lifequick gut checks, spontaneous critiques, and the energy that comes from simply being around each others work. However, hybrid also makes it easy for the pendulum to swing too far.
Overcompensating with meetings existed long before virtual work, but now the ability to schedule, ping, or gather a group is almost effortless. In an active studio, always on is balanced by the ebb and flow of real human presence; theres a built-in rhythm that allows people to step away and actually make the work. In hybrid environments, that rhythm can be harder to sense and even more difficult to maintain.
Meanwhile, our collaboration tools multiplied. Slack, Teams, Figma, Notion, Miro, Mondayeach with real utility, but each adding another stream of communication. When organizations lack clear ways of working with these tools or fail to update those norms as teams evolve, the tools can lead to fragmentation and additional layers of coordination. Its common for a creative professional to switch between three or four platforms before noon, each buzzing with activity. The tools keep us connected, but without shared habits for using them, they often create more work than clarity.
This pressure is even more pronounced in service-driven work, where being responsive is part of the relationship. When clients depend on you, and you depend on each other, its easy for the expectation of availability to grow. While quick back-and-forth exchanges can spark a moment of insight, most ideas need a quieter runway to take shape.
Cross-disciplinary work added another layer of complexity. Modern creative teams bring together designers, strategists, writers, technologists, and producersoften across time zones. While diversity is a strength, without a clear structure, it can blur boundaries. When everyone can contribute to everything, eventually, everyone does. What begins as good-faith instinct can quickly lead to fatigue. Clear ownership becomes harder to define.
And underneath it all lies a cultural belief: Collaboration is inherently good. Its central to how we see ourselves as a creative organization. Its part of our culture, our language, our identity. But when something becomes a given, we rarely pause to intentionally shape it. Instead, the instinct becomes moremore conversations, more people, more touches. And when collaboration becomes the default mode, the work can lose the focus it needs to move forward.
Restoring Creative Rhythm
The answer is not less collaboration, but better rhythm. Creative rhythm is the intentional pattern that helps teams move fluidly between independence and interdependence. Its the cadence that supports both solo brilliance and ensemble performance. And it works because its shaped with care, not left to chance.
Creative rhythm has three core elements.
1. Protecting Deep, Independent Thinking
Every strong project begins with someone going deep. It might be a strategist absorbing context, a designer exploring visual possibilities, or a writer shaping the early throughline of a story. Depth takes time. It takes quiet. And it takes the freedom to try and fail without an audience.
Leaders can support this by giving teams dedicated focus timeand making it visibly protected. No meetings. No pings. No expectation of instant replies. Just as important is helping people understand how a project will operate before it begins. Newer hires, freelancers, and younger creatives often benefit from clarity around collaboration style, decision owners, and when to bring ideas into the room.
Not all questions need to happen in front of the entire group. Sometimes a quick one-on-one discussion moves the work forward more cleanly and avoids the swirl that happens when something still in progress is put in front of the whole team. Clear ownership models, such as Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed (RACI) or simple lead/support distinctions, also reduce the urge for everyone to hover. Ownership creates space.
2. Designing Purposeful Ensemble Moments
Not all collaboration is equal. The most meaningful collaboration occurs when the team comes together with purpose. These ensemble moments give the work dimension by exposing it to different perspectives and the healthy tension that fuels creativity.
Effective ensemble collaboration is focused, time-bound, and grounded in psychological safety. Teams should feel at ease challenging ideas without risking personal conflict. This kind of task-oriented disagreement increases creativity and results in better outcomes. The point is not harmony. The point is healthy friction that moves the work forward.
Leaders can also improve ensemble moments by reducing their frequency but increasing their quality: short, well-run critiques; workshops with a clear objective; sharing sessions that come after deep independent thinking, not before it. Creativity needs both divergence and convergence. Rhythm is what allows them to coexist.
3. Building Periods of Rest and Reset
Rest is often an overlooked part of creative rhythm. Creative teams need periods where nothing urgent is expectedmoments when minds can wander, connect dots, or simply breathe. Constant coordination drains curiosity. Rest restores it.
This is where leaders can model healthier norms blocking focus days, encouraging asynchronous progress over real-time responses, limiting the number of platforms teams are expected to monitor. Rest isnt a luxury. Its a requirement for sustained creative performance.
What Creative Rhythm Looks Like in Practice
Creative rhythm represents a shared understanding of how a team works together. In practice, it looks like:
Project phases that intentionally make room for independent development before bringing the group together to synthesize and refine
Designated owners who drive work forward without constant supervision
Clear checkpoints that prevent unnecessary consensus
Critiques that foster momentum rather than hinder it
Fewer meetings, conducted with greater purpose and clearer outcomes
A culture that values autonomy as much as alignment
When teams work in sync, they dont constantly switch mental modes. They have time to reflect and room to breathe. Ensemble moments feel invigorating because theyre not constant.
Guarding the Conditions for Creativity
Over the past few years, Ive learned that part of my role is to protect peoples creative focus with as much care as I guide the work itself.
I still believe in collaboration. I always will. However, Ive come to recognize the need for curated collaboration, the kind that brings the right people together at the right moment, not everyone at every moment. I believe in stepping back as much as stepping in. And I believe that helping people protect their alone time is one of the most important things a creative leader can do.
The U.S. job market is sluggish and confusing this fall.American companies are mostly holding onto the employees they have. But they’re reluctant to hire new ones as they struggle to assess how to use artificial intelligence and how to adjust to President Donald Trump’s unpredictable policies, especially his double-digit taxes on imports from around the world.The uncertainty leaves jobseekers struggling to find work or even land interviews. Federal Reserve policymakers are divided over whether the labor market needs more help from lower interest rates. Their deliberations are rendered more difficult because official reports on the economy’s health are coming in late and incomplete after a 43-day government shutdown.The Labor Department is expected to provide at least a little clarity when it releases November numbers on hiring and unemployment Tuesday, 11 days late.Forecasters surveyed by the data firm FactSet expect that employers added an unimpressive 40,000 jobs last month and that unemployment stayed at 4.4%, unchanged from the last rate published for September.Hiring has clearly lost momentum, hobbled by uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of the high interest rates the Fed engineered in 2022 and 2023 to rein in an outburst of inflation.Labor Department revisions in September showed that the economy created 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March. That meant that employers added an average of just 71,000 new jobs a month over that period, not the 147,000 first reported. Since March, job creation has fallen farther to an average 59,000 a month.During the 2021-2023 hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns, by contrast, the economy was creating an average of 400,000 jobs a month.The unemployment rate, though still modest by historical standards, has risen since bottoming out at a 54-year low of 3.4% in April 2023.Adding to the uncertainty is the growing use of artificial intelligence and other technologies that can reduce demand for workers.“We’ve seen a lot of the businesses that we support are stuck in that stagnant mode: ‘Are we going to hire or are we not? What can we automate? What do we need the human touch with?”’ said Matt Hobbie, vice president of the staffing firm HealthSkil in Allentown, Pennsylvania.“We’re in Lehigh Valley, which is a big transportation hub in eastern Pennsylvania. We’ve seen some cooling in the logistics and transportation markets, specifically because we’ve seen automation in those sectors, robotics.”Worries about the job market were enough to nudge the Fed into cutting its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point last week for the third time this year.But three Fed officials refused to go along with the move, the most dissents in six years. Some Fed officials are balking at further cuts while inflation remains above the central bank’s 2% target. Two voted to keep the rate unchanged. (Stephen Miran, appointed by Trump to the Fed’s governing board in September, voted for a bigger cut in line with what the president demands.)Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned after last week’s rate cut that the job market is even weaker than it appeared.Government data show that the economy has added less than 40,000 jobs a month since April. But even that overstates the pace of hiring, Powell said. He suspects that revisions could reduce payrolls by as much as 60,000 a month, which would mean employers haven’t been adding jobs at all; instead, they’ve been cutting 20,000 a month since the spring. “It’s a labor market that seems to have significant downside risks,” Powell told reporters.Because of the government shutdown, the Labor Department did not release its jobs reports for September, October and November on time.It finally put out the September jobs report on Nov. 20, seven weeks late. It will publish some of the October data including a count of the jobs created that month by businesses, nonprofits and government agencies along with the November report Tuesday. But it will not release an unemployment rate for October because it could not calculate the number during the shutdown.The October numbers are expected to show a big drop in U.S. government jobs, reflecting the delayed impact of billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of the federal workforce as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.Analysts at Evercore ISI, a research outfit, noted in a commentary last week that about 150,000 federal workers agreed to take a buyout under pressure from DOGE and that 100,000 likely left the government when the 2025 fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, pushing down October payrolls. The remaining 50,000 stayed on for the rest of the calendar year and their departures will likely show up in the January 2026 jobs report.
Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
