Black Business Month just passed and if Im being honest, it feels much different from previous yearsand not in a good way. I noticed fewer in-person celebrations, fewer marketing campaigns and social media posts championing the impact that Black businesses have had on America, and utter silence from those who once rallied unrelenting support behind BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and underrepresented founders.
These changes felt like they happened almost overnight when President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), claiming that it fosters illegal preferences and discrimination. Once this happened, DEI officially became a slur and weaponized, which caused thousands of companies to walk back on the commitments that were made.
Rolling back DEI
So how have Black-owned businesses fared in 2025 because of these swift policy changes? Not great. One of the main issues that we just cant seem to shake is that when most people think of DEI, they automatically associate it with being Black or having to do solely with race. They may not even recognize that theyre doing this, but they are. This limited viewpoint and lack of understanding around what DEI is and isnt, caused many companies to react in fear and pull back investments and other resources that Black businesses relied on to operate and scale. From Google to Target weve seen brands publicly declare that they are rolling back any and all DEI initiatives. As this is all going on, much (if not all) of the Black community has been devastated by whats happening. There have been prominent Black-owned businesses shutting down that we never saw coming, and Black founders sharing their challenges amidst DEI rollbacks. Not to mention its recently been reported from last months dismal jobs report that unemployment amongst Black Americans is at an all-time high.
Multiple challenges
The many challenges that prevent Black-owned businesses from reaching their full potential are no secret. As Black founders, we are often left out of the equation. We face unfair roadblocks in landing new clients, we are overlooked and hardly celebrated for our achievements, and the process for securing VC funding to help make our dreams a reality is atrocious. According to Crunchbase data, venture capital for Black entrepreneurs dropped a staggering 71% compared to last year, amounting to less than 1% of the overall dollars invested.
Black entrepreneurs were already on the chopping block, and now with the current climate, its becoming even more difficult to scale or make a lasting impact. Many of us and other groups of people feel under attack as those in the federal government are trying their hardest to erase our legacies. This has made my work more crucial than ever before. Since I started my PR agency, my mission has always been to get Black and BIPOC founders the awareness, press, and attention they deserve. In 2025 it has only intensified.
Keeping a Legacy Alive
As a descendant of Carter G. Woodson, the founder of Black History Month who gave Black voices a platform when no one else did, my business continues to keep that legacy alive. Brennan Nevada to this day is the only New York-based Black, female-owned PR agency for tech companies, startups, and VCs. Over 90% of my clients are Black businesses, and despite DEI backlash, Ive experienced rapid growth and expansion representing some of the largest Black and minority-owned businesses and founders in the world. Ive had the privilege of speaking to, listening to, and working with dozens of Black founders this year throughout their hardship and one thing is clear: They are eager to tell their truths and leverage PR and earned media to do so.
The power of stories
Why this sudden surge in interest? Storytelling gives Black businesses the opportunity to be the author of their brand and control the narrative. Its empowering. Owning your voice is crucial for long-term success, and as a Black founder you can use storytelling to navigate and fight stereotypes or misinformation against you by sharing your unique viewpoints. Unleashing the power of storytelling gives others a chance to step into your shoes, while closing gaps and misunderstandings which many Black founders face in todays divisive culture.
Malcolm X once said, The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. I stand by this and am determined to use my decades of PR and medi relations experience to get Black businesses as much positive press coverage in as many news headlines as I possibly can.
In 2025, Black businesses are becoming incredibly aware that they need to tap into the power of storytelling and integrate it into their entire go-to-market strategies. Especially, if they want to build a business that will stand the test of timeno matter who is in the White House.
The cylinder reminds me of an internet router. And when I press the button on the back, a gentle whir of a fan begins, while a soft blue glow emits from the top. But its not sending out Wi-Fi waves. The Airea is launching microscopic drops into the air that should bind to and eliminate viruses, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and molds for up to 800 square feet. All without swapping a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter. In fact, Airea can run for two years straight, and all you need to do is change a light bulb.
Airea, which is on the market now for $350, was created and funded in-house by the design firm MNML. Developed by Scott Wilsonthe former global creative director at Nike, who has built everything from smart watches to Theraguns and CBD inhalershe was first inspired through his work with Marriott.
[Image: courtesy MNML]
The hotel chain was interested in pursuing a pillow chocolate that might help someone sleep, but along the way, someone on the team showed Wilson a giant machine that could sterilize roomseliminating cigar smoke and SARS alike. It pumped H202 molecules (also known as hydrogen peroxide) into the air, which trapped particles and also sterilized surfaces.
[Image: courtesy MNML]
I was like, why is this not in the consumer segment? recalls Wilson.
A month later, COVID-19 would reshape the world. And Wilson became obsessed with how H202 technology might be translated from expensive, large industrial machinery to a more practical domestic gadget.
Hydrogen peroxide is what many of us know as a strong bleaching agent, used in everything from sanitizers to teeth whitening strips. Pumping that into the air is an inherently unsettling idea. But as Wilson learned, our body naturally produces some H202 as part of our immune process, and given its ability to neutralize viruses, its been researched for use in the development in vaccines.
In significant amounts, H202 is unhealthy, but it’s still used today in places like food factories to sterilize machinery. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards regulate that air should not have more than 1 part per billion of H202. What Wilson developed over the following four years with Airea operates at levels 60 times lower than that, saturating the air with H202 levels at 15 parts per billion to 20 parts per billion. And while its not yet Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved, independent lab testing has demonstrated that Airea should eliminate more than 99% of viruses in the air.
[Image: courtesy MNML]
Building a quieter, no fuss air purifier
When Wilsons team began working on Airea, he put a significant restraint on the design. He wanted the product to be so simple that it could be manufactured in the U.S. rather than China. (And he got close. Aireas major components are molded in the U.S., with its final assembly in the Dominican Republic.)
He still cant say exactly what drove the impulse, which now seems prophetic given global supply chain issues and tariffs. Our job is to predict things. Part of it was, [the world] seemed unpredictable, says Wilson. And honestly, I didnt want it to get knocked off.
The ensuing architecture of Airea is quite simple. Its essentially an extruded aluminum base, a computer fan, and a light bulb. The real ingenuity behind the design is that the aluminum is treated with a special coating so that when the light hits it, the surface generates H202 molecules. (Wilson has patents on the geometries of these aluminum fins, which maximize the surface area for light to hit and generate H202.)
People might be able to reverse-engineer the coating, but there are only so many ways to create that much surface area in a small footprint, says Wilson.
[Image: courtesy MNML]
As for the design itselfwith its router-like aestheticits not exactly an object o extreme beauty, but its also relatively innocuous. With a footprint somewhere between a tallboy and a small table lamp, it can be stuck just about anywhere to make a rooms air that much safer to breathe, and its surfaces that much more sterile to touch.
For now, just 5,000 units have been produced in Aireas first run, as Wilson plans FDA testing and talks to partners who might expand their reach into various industries like healthcare.
In my own experience living with Airea, I did find the understated operation strange. At first, my mind oscillated between, Is this even working? and, What am I breathing? Its substantially quieter than my HEPA unit that sits nearby, and you dont really feel any breeze kicking out unless you hold your hand close. Aireas protection is almost completely imperceptible, and I found myself craving some sort of extra proof of function before allowing myself to appreciate its minimal operation.
In this quasi-post-COVID-19 world, its easy to forget the amount of comfort air filters provided just a few years agoand that clean air is something we should still be prioritizing in buildings today. When my wife walked into the kitchen one recent morning with a cough, it was an excellent reminder: I subtly turned the Airea back on and breathed a bit easier.
To run a successful business, we bring together a diverse group of people with different skill sets to cover all areas of the business. This results in people who might have very different values and beliefs spending a large amount of time in close proximity, which can create potentially stressful environments.
Add to the mix that were encouraging people to “have a voice,” “speak up and be heard,” “bring your whole self to work,” and “be vulnerable.” These are all incredible things and fantastic for growth in our workplaces. However, the more “voices” and “whole selves” we have present, the more differences in values, beliefs, and neural pathways, which leads to potential conflict.
Our IQ is the “what we know and what we can do.” Its the part of our brain where logic prevails. Our EQ and emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is the “how and why we do it,” and where emotions run the show.
Information and skills without emotion just exist. It has little bearing on whether two people get along. However, how we communicate, how we interact with people, why we believe in something, our opinions, and the values that are driving us tend to be the common factors in most workplace conflicts.
Its all about our wiring
Our emotions drive these factors, and every individual is different in how they respond to them, thanks to our unique brain wiring. Thats due to the experiences, values, habits, and memories that weve created and developed over our lives. We call this the neural pathways. These pathways drive how and why we do what we do.
We personally believe our pathways to be true and the best way to be, I mean, why else would we do things the way we do them? In our mind, theyre not only the best but, sometimes, the only way we think is right. When someone else questions or challenges it, our emotions respond with the “fight or flight” mechanism.
This is why many experts are saying that emotional intelligence is the top skill for workplaces: having the ability to own who we are, and how well we face and manage our emotions. Its about understanding how the people around us are feeling, how well we communicate with them, and the effectiveness of our personal drive.
Emotional intelligence isnt a personality type or something we are born with. Its a skill that we develop, and, in every situation, we have a choice to either respond with emotional intelligence or without. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we dont. Like any skill, when we focus on building and applying, we see the benefits.
3 tips to decrease workplace conflict
Own and face the reality that every human being is different with varying values, beliefs, and opinions. And that is okay. Note every situation needs to have a “winner and a loser” or “a right and a wrong.” Take a deep breath and count to three. And remember that the only thing in this world you can control is how you choose to respond.
Get out of your own head and understand how the other person is feeling. Ask questions and be curious. Perhaps we can learn something from them or maybe just appreciate our differences.
Work together to drive forward. Its unlikely that either of you will leave the workplace, so find a way to work together rather than against each other. How do we fix this, together? Work smarter, not harder, and focus on the end result rather than the differences that are triggering our emotions.
We dont have the power to change anyone but ourselves. We do, however, have the power to choose how we interact, the influence, and the impact that it has on the people around us.
Workplace conflict is the outcome of poor choices and a lack of emotional intelligence. And it becomes a conflict when there are two or more people involved. Remember, you can always choose how you respond. And often, this is the way that people notice and remember you, not the event that caused the emotional trigger in the first place.
Next time you find yourself in an emotionally charged situation, ask yourselfwhat role are you playing in workplace conflict, and how emotionally intelligent have you been today?
In the fragmented home renovation business, where small subcontractors handle many of the most common door fixes, window replacements, and bathroom facelifts, one company is using AI to scale its operations across the country to the tune of nearly $1 billion in annual revenue.
West Shore Home was founded in 2006 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and has grown from a single location to operating in 40 U.S. markets with more than 3,000 employees. Over the past few years, the company has tapped into artificial intelligence and a growing number of technological tools to greatly accelerate the process, scheduling, pricing, and even design of the most common home renovation projects. Its an example of how a workaday segment of the home design industry is being reinvented.
West Shore Home founder B.J. Werzyn says home renovation was ripe for disruption. The norm in the industry is to outsource the actual renovation work, using subcontractors who deal with the material sourcing and the labor. Technology has enabled Werzyn’s company to streamline project scoping, planning, design, and construction, and doing it all in-house.
Despite the seemingly bespoke nature of each customer’s home renovation quirk, the most common types of renovation jobs are actually pretty similar, Werzyn says, making them possible to systematize. “If you were comparing us to a restaurant, we’re more like a fast-casual restaurant. A Chick-fil-A or a Chipotle. Very consistent, very repeatable,” he says.
[Image: courtesy West Shore Home]
West Shore Home follows a project from beginning to end with its own employees, tracking every step and decision along the way. That means the company knows how long it took to do a given project, how many installers were involved, what skilled trades were required, what permits had to be pulled, what the job cost analysis was, and how the job actually turned out compared to what was originally planned.
For a project like a bathroom renovationof which West Shore Home has done more than 300,000experience creates the potential for systematization. “The data is invaluable,” Werzyn says.
The data from all those jobs has become the training material for AI systems the company has created. Since all West Shore Home technicians are employees, they do every job by the book, collecting data on each project using iPads and sending it all back to a big company database. They also have recently begun using a proprietary Lidar-based scanning tool to capture the minute details of every customer’s project space, even those who only have the company out for a consultation.
The company also has its own visualization software, allowing customers to design their project using the detailed scan, giving them a sense of what the future state of their project space can look like within minutes. Werzyn expects some of these tools to become consumer-accessible, taking away the need for a technician to physically visit a job site before the work begins.
AI tools are used to process all this information rapidly. Instead of a technician taking the scan and the customer’s wishes back to the office for pricing, sourcing, and scheduling, West Shore Home’s AI tools do it all on the spot.
“The moment that the customer decides exactly what they want, within 30 seconds we have processed all of that information. We know what the permitting requirements are, we know when we’re going to have inventory in hand, we know when we’re going to have the right installer with the right skill capability,” says Eppie Vojt, the company’s chief data and AI officer. “Artificial intelligence is doing all the heavy lifting to get us to the point of creating a vastly differentiated experience for that customer.”
Werzyn sees his company’s use of AI and the automation of the renovation process turning into an Amazon-like digital marketplace for home services, from bathroom renovations to countertop installations to cabinetry to roofing. “Instead of selling products, we will allow a consumer, if they want to on their own, to scan, design, schedule, and take a home remodeling project, put it in a shopping cart, and check out,” he says.
AI is enabling this new approach to renovation work that’s often handled by small operators. Werzyn says the key to his company’s success may connect back to one of the first things he did when starting to expand West Shore Home beyond its original location back in 2010.
Instead of relying on subcontractors in new markets, Werzyn insisted on making everyone an employee, making it possible, in the age of AI, to be collecting the data the company is using to inform its machine learning. “That decision was more around controlling the quality of the install, giving a better customer experience, Werzyn says. “But, thinking back on it now, that decision that I made 15 years ago was kind of the beginning of our AI strategy, to really own the process from end to end.”
There are 565 “best pizza” spots in NYC. Junior’s Cafe in Queens has the “best pizza in town.” As does Rosario’s in Lower Manhattan, and Big Daddy’s Pizza in Brooklyn. At least that’s the case, according to the establishments’ respective signs.
We know this because Brooklyn-based artist Yufeng Zhao has built a searchable database of all the words across the New York City streetscape. Think of it as a search engine for every visible word that’s appeared on streets, storefronts, buses, or construction fences in the city, since 2007, when Google Street View launched.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
The result is a linguistic map of the city that never sleeps, distilled from 17 years of Google Street Views, and more than eight million images. The database includes everything from business signs and street signs to flyers posted on windows, and even recognizable graffiti.
And the verdict is clear: New York City is a city of “bests.”
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
“A lot of restaurants claim they have the best pizza or the best restaurant,” Zhao says with a laugh.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
A time capsule of NYC
A city is a palimpsest. New flyers replace old flyers. Businesses die; shiny signs go up. VC-funded coffee shops erase self-made mom-and-pop shops.
All Text NYC, as the search engine is called, launched in December 2024, which means it hasn’t yet caught up with the Zohran Mamdani poster craze. Nor has it seen the billboard ads for this year’s Tony Award winning musical Maybe Happy Ending.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
But if the city remembers, so does its search engine. For Zhao, All Text NYC is a time capsule of the city between 2007 and 2024, and the data supports it. “Never forget” shows up 363 times while “Covid” appears close to 10,000 times.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
There is a lot to learn from the words that make up a city, especially when it is as verbose as the Big Apple. Zhao, who recently moved from Brooklyn to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to pursue a Masters of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT, identified a whopping 138 million snippets of text in the city. He thinks the number would be significantly lower in Cambridge, and likely higher in Shanghai, where he grew up.
A vast majority of the top 10 most frequently used words are related to parking: “stop,” “one way,” “no standing,” “no parking.” Traffic aside, the word “deli” is high up on the list, as is “ATM,” and “Fedex” and a certain A/C company called Fedders that appears almost 60,000 times.
The database lets you search individual words and word combinations (like “best pizza”). You can see the results through images where the words appear, as well as on a heat map of New York City. “Sabrett,” the hot dog brand, lights up most in Manhattan, especially in Times Square. While “preschool” is most prevalent in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
Sometimes, it’s more interesting to see where certain words do not appear. Take “NYPD,” for example. The word appears almost 80,000 times. It lights up a little everywhere, but wealthy, predominantly white neighborhoods of the citylike the Upper West Side, the Upper East Sideas well as the outer boroughs remain unmistakably dark. (Meanwhile, the map around Midtown and the World Trade Center is glowing in white.)
Google takes photos every year at the same location, so Zhao points out the map is not necessarily representative of where NYPD goes on any given day, but when you accumulate the data as he has over the past 17 years, you begin to notice patterns. “There are certain neighborhoods where NYPD is almost never captured,” he says.
[Screenshot: courtesy of the author]
A similar pattern shows up for businesses that accept food stamps. The word “EBT” (for Electronic Benefit Transfer) shows up more than 56,000 times, but the map highlights how big of a desert Manhattan is on that front. Parts of Brooklyn, including the now-gentrified-beyond-recognition neighborhood of Williamsburg, are also conspicuously dark. Of course, low-income people do live in Manhattan, which highlights just how far they might have to travel to reach a grocery store that serves their income level.
An underutilized resource
When Google Street View first launched, it allowed people to virtually explore any location, creating a 360-degree map of the world. Over the years, it has been used for navigation, real estate research, and virtual travel during COVID, but for Zhao, it remains an underutilized resource. “It’s such a vast dataset,” he says, “The images contain so much data.”
In 2018, the research collective Slab used Google Street View to create Culture Map, a cultural and ethnic map of Los Angeles. By mapping the city’s signs, posters, and flyers, they found 58 different culture hubs, which they noted was far more than those officially designated by the city.
Slab’s algorithm, which folded in data from eight years (from 2011 to 2018) could detect many languages. For technical reasons, Zhao could only use languages that use the Latin alphabet, which means that areas like Chinatown, Little India, or the Eastern European enclave at Brighton Beach might not be fully represented.
Still, the platform could become a goldmine for researchers, policymakers, urban planners, anthropologists, or anyone interested in the fabric of a city, and the patterns that only become visible when we listen to our streets and storefronts speak.
Zhao says he plans to update the database at the end of every year. What will the city tell us then?
All too often business leaders are making decisions based on unexamined fears, rather than really leaning into those worries and thinking them through. A 2023 survey of global business leaders suggests that a number of mistakes surface again and again. Three in particular top the list:
Avoidance, inaction or not making an important decision, due to fear of making mistakes
Overcontrolling, micromanaging or not empowering their teammates, due to a fear that they might make mistakes
Withholding feedback, not sharing their honest opinions or not pushing back on bad ideas, due a fear of conflict or political backlash
Sound familiar? And yet in order to change, grow, and navigate the endless obstacles facing businesses today, you have to take risks, you have to empower people, and you have to speak your mind honestly. Otherwise, youve got no chance.
Its no wonder that 70% of all business transformation initiatives fail, according to McKinsey, with fear playing the largest role in that failure rate.
But thats not to say that fear is the enemy. The truth is, fear is a teacherand learning to listen to it can help you beat the odds and succeed where others fail.
The power of fear
Fear is a wonderful evolutionary gift thats greatly misunderstood, an emotion meant to protect us. If a shark is chasing you, fear motivates you to swim faster or punch the shark hard on the nose. This is fear at its most useful, its most rational.
Irrational fear, however, is less helpful. For example, you might be worried about how to find the right product market fit, which is a very rational thing to be concerned about. But if that concern leads you subconsciously to shut down, withhold information, or not voice your concerns because of a fear of retribution, that makes no sense. Your company will fail if you dont speak up. In this context, fear can lead to unintentional decisions that actually make things worse. Irrational fears, left unexplored, can be detrimental to every aspect of our lives, personal and professional.
But when we look at how fear actually works, we see that its not about conquering fear. In fact, we cant conquer it. We have a fear centerour amygdalawired into our brains. Like it or not, it has an impact on our perceptions and decisions.
The key is to understand the impact that fear has on us, stay intentional with how we respond to it, and listen to what fear is trying to show us. When we learn to listen to it, we find that many times, fear is actually our greatest teacher.
Thats the key to not letting fear lead to paralysis, micromanaging, or not speaking up when its important.
Lets look at how three common fearswhich are increasingly prevalent in our modern work environmentmay actually be inviting us to take a closer look at our decisions and overcome the real cultural challenges that prevent businesses from adapting and thriving.
FOMO: Fear of missing out
Unexplored, FOMO leads to premature decisions without considering the consequences. Take AI, for example. In the race to adopt AI, too many companies moved too quickly without thinking things through. In fact, a recent global study of C-suite executives found that more than half regretted firing people prematurely due to unrealistic expectations around AI. These leaders focused too much on not wanting to lose out on AI, as opposed to staying focused on their purpose and their mission. All too often, FOMO creates a minefield of unintended consequences.
FOMO is an excellent reminder to make sure youre not missing out on what matters. Its a chance to reconnect to your core purpose, your true north, and your why. AI is a tool; its a how. Dont make your decisions based on anxiety levels. Make them based on what you really care about.
FOFU: Fear of F-ing up
On the other end of the spectrum, FOFU can lead to analysis paralysis, procrastination, and a catastrophic loss of early-mover advantage, if left unexplored. In fact, a 2023 survey of more than 14,000 employees and leaders across 17 countries reported that being inundated with too much data and information is leading to an epidemic of indecision. In that study:
74% said the number of decisions they make every day has increased tenfold over the last three years
86% said the volume of data is making decisions in their professional (and personal) lives much more complicated
59% admitted they faced analysis paralysis more than once every single day
And 85% said this inability to make decisions is having a negative impact on their quality of life. That causes spikes in anxiety (36%), missed opportunities (33%), and unnecessary spending (29%).
When you feel FOFU paralyzing you, and you feel that spike in anxiety, pause. Breathe. Get curious, and ask yourself what youre really afraid of. Explore the consequences of doing nothing. Challenge the nightmare scenarios and stories you may be telling yourself. And seek the help of others around you to think things through clearly.
FOBI: Fear of being inadequate
This is one of the most prevalent fears. Unexplored, FOBI leads to micromanaging, exaggerating and accidental narcissism, or focusing more on optics than outcomes. Maybe you have an important quarterly business review coming up, and there are unpleasant realities to talk about. Maybe youre feeling overwhelmed at work, but are afraid to ask for help. Or maybe youre just not sure about your companys overall strategy and vision, but are suffering from impostor syndrome and feel too scared to say anything.
The truth is, fear of inadequacy in the workplace is a lot more common than people realizeprobably because were so afraid to talk about it. In fact, one 2025 study found that 71% of North American workers reported suffering from impostor syndrome, with half stating it had caused them to miss or turn down opportunities.
When you notice your energy focused on yourself and feel like you might be shutting down, thats your cue to lean into the fear to see what its trying to get your attention about.
FOBI is asking you to make a conscious decision about what matters moreyour insecurity or your impact. Its giving you the opportunity to choose to rise to the occasion, because the moment matters more than the risk of looking stupid. Whenever I feel nervous about a big momentlike writing my first book, or giving an important speechI remind myself that my why is bigger than I. Its a powerful mantra, and an important reminder of the power of purpose.
Our fears are not designed to defeat us. Theyre actually asking for our attentionto orient us to what matters most. And the leaders who succeed are the ones who learn to listen to their fears, rather than run from them.
Adapted from Unmasking Fear: How Fears Are Our Gateways to Freedom (Health Communications Inc; August 2025).
Most new renewable energy projects take the form of massive wind or solar farms. Ann Arbor, Michigan, is trying something different: a new city-owned utility is building a local power network within city limits, made up of solar microgrids and geothermal energy installed at homes and businesses.
Theyre creating a whole new model of energy delivery for a city, says Mike Shriberg, a professor at University of Michigans School for Environment and Sustainability who lives in Ann Arbor.
The new utility wont replace the areas existing power company, DTE Energy. But it will help the city move much faster toward zero-carbon power.
When Ann Arbora city of 122,000, with a $550 million dollar annual budgetset a goal to become carbon neutral by 2030, it knew that the electric grid would be a challenge. DTE Energy doesnt plan to reach 100% clean power until 2050, and the companys definition of clean still includes some fossil gas.
As the city researched options to accelerate the grids transition to renewables, it recognized the value of a distributed network with more rooftop solar. But the existing power company wasnt interested in moving in that direction.
When we came up with a concept, we reached out to the utility and said, Would you be interested in doing that?, says Missy Stults, director of sustainability and innovations for the city. And the answer was no. And our response was, okay, well, then we will.
The advantage of a local, distributed system
The first advantage of building locally: if power comes from your own roof or your neighbor’s roof instead of traveling long distances, the system is more resilient.
“The most vulnerable part of our energy system is the distribution network poles and wires,” says Stults. “That’s what a tree falls on and takes out. It’s not generation. So instead of relying on generating our energy in a faraway place that has to move across vulnerable distribution networks, why not focus on generating it in our own community? That’s more resilient. That’s more reliable.”
Building large-scale solar and wind farms is also a long process. Getting permits can take years. The wait to get connected to the grid, called the interconnection queue, can also sometimes take five years or more. The Trump administration is also trying to slow down clean energy even more. And just finding the land can also be difficult.
“We have more and more challenge in finding places to do large-scale,” Stults says. “We need to start thinking about all of the assets we already have.”
Traditional investor-owned utilities don’t have much incentive to build distributed renewable energy. “They make more money when they build a bigger, centralized power plant,” says Shriberg. Regulated utilities make profits based on a rate of return on their capital investments. “The incentive structure for a city is completely different because you’re looking at sustainability and [consumer] costs and reliability as a driver,” he says.
Of course, trying to scale up solar on tens of thousands of rooftops is also challenging. But because there’s no cost to homeownersthe city will own the solar panels and other equipmentthe city already has a long list of residents who want to participate.
A new type of utility
Ann Arbor calls the new system a “sustainable energy utility” or SEU. A few other cities use the same name in different waysD.C., for example, has a sustainable energy utility that focuses on helping improve efficiency. Ann Arbor will also help residents and businesses become more efficient. But its approach to adding new power generation is new.
The city also considered the idea of a public utility that could fully replace the existing for-profit power company. But that approach would have been slower and more expensive. The city would have had to invest in the utility’s aging, unreliable distribution system.
With the old system, “we have frequent blackouts,” says Shriberg. “It’s a distribution system that’s not working very well. And Ann Arbor determined that they want to build the energy grid of the future. They do not want to acquire the energy grid of the past and then be responsible for maintaining it. So this allows a quick way to do thatto build a new grid and a new system without the responsibilities of maintaining the outdated one.”
Residents will still have access to the old utility, but can sign up to also be part of the sustainable energy utility. The city has calculated that the switch will save residents money on bills.
If someone already has solar panels, they can start selling the power to the new utility and will have the option to let the city add new equipment, like a battery or more panels. (The monthly electric bill for people with battery storage will be higher, but still less than investing in a generator.)
Others can sign up to get solar for the first time. The city will build microgrids in neighborhoods. As more local power is added, it will travel shorter distancesa wire could go from one house to the next. “You would be able to sell to the SEU and it would go literally to your neighbor,” says Stults.
The race to 2030
In November 2024, citizens voted to create the new sustainable energy utility, approving the measure with nearly 80% support. (Michigan law helped make the change easier: the state’s constitution allows cities to create their own utilities.) In April, the organization was formally established, and last week the city welcomed its first executive director to lead it.
Now, the new utility is raising financing to begin building its infrastructure. Right now, residents who want to participate can sign up for a waiting list. The city expects to begin installing new solar next year. A geothermal network is also in planning.
For those who don’t want to wait for solar, the city is exploring the idea of recommending specific equipment that property owners could buy now, with the expectation that they could sell it to the city next year when the full system rolls out.
Ann Arbor’s municipal buildings currently run on around 70% renewable electricity; the city as a whole runs on around 30% renewables. As the new utility races to add new renewable power, it’s unlikely to get all the way to 100% renewable electricity by the end of the decade. (The gap will be filled by buying offsets that are carefully selected to add new renewables in other areas that particularly need it.) But it’s a way to dramatically speed up the transition.
Current anti-climate federal policy isn’t helping. But renewable energy is still the cheapest option for new energy. And Stults says that the city has no choice than to move as quickly as possible.
“Humans are doing the largest experiment we’ve ever done, in terms of what we’re doing with our climate,” she says. “There simply is no other alternative than to move towards the clean energy future. We’re going to have to solve for this. It’s a bummer that we have another roadblock in our way but it’s never been easy from day one. So we’ll get it, and we’ll find a path for it, because I don’t think there’s alternatives.”
We all know that traditional mentorssenior professionals who take an interest in you and your futurecan help in the job search. They have extensive experience, know the terrain, and are likely far better connected than you are. But finding a mentor isnt easyand even if you do have one, it may not be enough to help you in the current job market. With nearly a quarter of recent college grads currently unemployed, its important to think creatively about how to get the support you need to meet the current momentand one overlooked resource is the support of peer mentors.
In our researchAlexis as a developmental psychologist focused on college to career transitions and Dorie as a corporate adviser and keynote speakerweve identified the importance of finding mirror mentors: peers who know you well and can offer personal guidance and insight as you look for your next job. By cultivating a small “mentor pod” of peers who are also looking for work, you can help each other think creatively about your goals and job options, polish your materials together, and provide emotional support along the wayindependent of whether you have access to a traditional mentor or not.
Indeed, in some aspects, mirror mentors may even be more useful to you. Traditional mentors are typically in demand senior professionals who are unlikely to have the time or bandwidth to provide emotional support or get to know you on as deep a level as your friends. Here are three ways weve found that peer mentors can be transformative in your job search journey.
1. Sourcing opportunities
Its common knowledge that most people rely on their social network to help them in their job search. But whats less appreciated is that friends and acquaintancesin addition to vouching for you when you apply for jobs where they have a connectioncan also surface job openings that were never on your radar in the first place. For instance, there might be an internal job board at their company, so theyre able to tip you off about new openings. Indeed, the “hidden job market“roles that never appear on public job boardscan account for up to 70% of open positions, so relying on your social network to help source open positions is key. Peer mentors can also be on the lookout for relevant public job postings; Alexis alerted one friend to a job posting on LinkedIn that was perfect for her. Somehow, the friend had never seen it, but she applied and ultimately landed the role.Your “mirror mentors” can also expand your sense of whats possible by introducing you to new connections in your desired field or company, or by suggesting roles in adjacent fields that may suit your skill set (you may have been intent on a career in journalism, but hadnt considered PR, wheredepending on the positionyou can be paid to create in-depth narrative works paid for by a company or organization). A shared Google Doc noting your nonnegotiables (e.g., I need to stay in New York) and your aspirations (e.g., Id like to hone my storytelling skills) offers an easy way to identify and share links with your posse of peer mentors and crowdsource information during the search process.
2. Providing tactical help
Peer mentors dont just offer support: they can also provide hands-on, tactical assistance that you might otherwise have to pay for. Trusted friends in your job search circle might review your résumé or LinkedIn profile to ensure its relevant for your desired field and conveys your professionalism and expertise. One of Alexiss students formed a WhatsApp group to check in with fellow job-seeking classmates and called it a game-changer for getting feedback when preparing cover letters and getting ready for interviews. And once youre offered a position, your mirror mentors can be invaluable when it comes to negotiating your package and closing the deal.
One recent graduate was torn after receiving a job offer with a salary far below what she expected. She was tempted to accept given the financial challenges she was facing, but her friends wouldnt let her undersell herself. They helped crowdsource comparison salaries to confirm that this offer was atypically low; one friend even helped her craft an email to turn the offer down and sat with her as she hit send. Saying no felt risky at the time, but with the support of her peer mentors, she soon landed another, more lucrative offer.
3. Offering encouragementand accountability
Mirror mentors are also key to helping you recognize your own potential. When self-doubt creeps in, they can remind you of your strengths and encourage you to think bigger. One of our colleagues found a job that aligned perfectly with her interests and experienceexcept she fell short of the exact number of years of experience they noted in the job description. Like many on the job marketespecially womenshe initially ruled herself out and decided not to apply. But when she shared her disappointment with a friend, the response was simple and powerful: Always put your name in. Rejection is hardbut dont reject yourself. That shift in mindset gave her the confidence to apply. Though the company ultimately did not hire anyone due to budget cuts, she felt empowered to apply for “reach” jobs moving forward.
Just as important as encouragement is the accountability that peer mentors can provide; when your job search starts to drag and it feels like nothing is working, together, you can remind each other to persevere and keep networking and applying until the right opportunity emerges for you both. Job searches are never easyespecially in these complex timesbut when you have a group of peers who are supporting you, it becomes easier to find and land your dream job. Surround yourself with mirror mentors who know your strengths, introduce you to new opportunities, and refuse to let you settle for less than you deserve. In a market this competitive, your best advantage might just be the people sitting beside you in the trenches.
When ChatGPT went viral, leadership teams rushed to understand it, but their employees had already beat them to the chase. Workers were already experimenting with AI tools behind the scenes, using them to summarize notes, automate tasks, and hit performance goals with limited resources. What started as a productivity shortcut has evolved into a new workplace norm.
According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, three in four employees are using AI at workand nearly 80% of AI users at small and medium-size companies are bringing their own tools into the workplace; that number is 78% for larger organizations. These tools range from text generators, such as ChatGPT, to automation platforms and AI-powered design software.
This bottom-up phenomenon is known as Bring Your Own AI, or BYOAI. It mirrors the early days of “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies , when employees began using their personal smartphones and laptops for work tasksoften before employers had protocols in place to manage them. Those policies eventually evolved to address security, data privacy, and access control concerns.
But with BYOAI, the stakes are even higher.
Instead of physical devices, employees are introducing algorithms into workflowsalgorithms that weren’t vetted by IT, compliance, or legal. And in today’s fast-moving regulatory climate, that can create serious risk: Almost half of employees using AI at work admitted they were doing so inappropriately, such as trusting all answers AI gives without checking them, or entrusting it with sensitive information.
The BYOAI trend is not a fringe behavior or a passing tech fad. Its a fast-growing reality in modern workplaces, driven by overworked employees, under-resourced teams, and the growing accessibility of powerful AI tools. Without policies or oversight, workers are taking matters into their own hands, often using tools their employers are unaware of. And while the intention may be productivity, this can expose companies to data leaks and other security problems.
The Compliance Gap Is Widening
Whether it’s a marketing team inputting customer data into a chatbot, or an operations lead automating workflows with plug-ins, these tools can quietly open the door to privacy violations, biased decisions, and operational breakdown.
Nearly six in ten employees say theyve made mistakes at work due to AI errors, and many are using it improperly (57% admit errors, 44% knowingly misuse it).
Yet, according to a 2024 report from Deloitte that surveyed organizations on the cutting edge of AI, only 23% of these organizations reported feeling highly prepared to manage AI-related risks. And only 6%, according to KPMG, had a dedicated team focused on evaluating AI risk and implementing guardrails.
“When employees use external AI services without the knowledge of their employers . . . we tend to think about risks like data loss, intellectual property leaks, copyright violations, [and] security breaches,” says Allison Spagnolo, chief privacy officer and senior managing director at Guidepost Solution, a company that specializes in investigations, regulatory compliance, and security consulting.
How forward-thinking companies are getting ahead
Some organizations are starting to respondnot by banning AI, but by working to empower employees to use AI.
According to the Deloitte report, 43% of organizations that use AI invest in internal AI audits, 37% train users to recognize and mitigate risks, and 33% keep a formal inventory of how gen AI is used, so managers can lead with clarity, not confusion.
Meanwhile, Salesforce provides employees with secure, approved AI tools, like Slack AI and Einstein that integrate with internal data systems, while maintaining strict boundaries on sensitive data use and offering regular training. The company also has a framework for advising other companies on how to develop their own AI internal use policy.
“The best strategy is actually to open up those lines of communication with employees,” says Reena Richtermeyer, partner at CM Law PLLC, a boutique firm that advises clients on emerging technology issues. She says employers shouldnt say no to AI, but instead provide employees with guardrails, parameters, and training. For example, maybe employers ask employees only to use public data and slice out data that is proprietary, trade secret, or customer-related.”
BYOAI isnt going away
BYOAI isn’t just a tech trend. It’s a leadership challenge.
Managers now find themselves overseeing both human and machine output, often without formal training on how to manage this combination effectively. They must decide when AI is appropriate, how to evaluate its use, and ensure that both ethical and performance standards are maintained.
Companies are best served by shifting from reactive policies to proactive cultures. Employees need clear communication about what is safe, what is off-limits, and where to go for guidance.
“I think having a dedicated AI acceptable use policy is really helpful . . . you can tell your employees exactly what the expectations are, what the risks are if they go outside of that policy, and what the consequences are,” says Spagnolo.
The companies that will gain the most from AI are the ones that understand how to empower their employees to use AI and innovate with it. That requires leaders to shift from asking employees: Are you using AI? to “How can we support you to use it well?”
For all the many features it’s been lobbing into the world lately, Trello hasn’t given its most dedicated fans the one thing many of them crave mostand that’s a ticket back in time to the app’s original vision.
In an era where most software is in a near-constant state of evolution, the very idea of turning back the clock may sound crazy. But plenty of folks think Trellothe multipurpose organization tool owned by Atlassian since 2014has lost its focus on the streamlined approachability that once made it worth using.
An engineer from England is hoping to fix that. He’s built a robust reimagining of the original Trello concept as a fully open-source service. His goal is to offer a way for any like-minded Trello enthusiastsor anyone who might appreciate what Trello used to representa simple, frills-free, productive experience more in line with the Trello of a decade ago.
If you’re reading this with wide eyes and an involuntary nodding of your head (or at least the sensation of such nodding, with or without the physical movement), his creation might be just the answer you’ve been coveting.
And even if you aren’t, you might be intrigued by the pure simplicity of a productivity tool that’s trying only to do one thingand do it exceptionally well.
Trello, reimaginedand reinvented
Let’s get one thing out of the way first: Henry Griffiths-Ball probably isn’t a name you’ve heard before. He isn’t one of the famed Silicon Valley startup kings who lives to launch a sizzling new company every few years, nor is he a former employee at Google, Apple, or any of the other places most of the flashier founders seem to come from.
He is, however, a soft-spoken, regular-seeming guy who really loves Trelloor at least really loved what Trello once represented. And he’s determined to re-create that old vision for other people who feel the same way, then see where it goes from there.
Griffiths-Ball has been using his spare time over the past several months to flesh out something he calls Kan.bnor just Kan for short. Using the service really does feel like stepping into a time capsule and getting back to what once made Trello so special, before it went through the kind of identity crisis that seems to plague so many services sooner or later. And you don’t necessarily have to be a Trello fanatic to appreciate it.
But the history of Trello’s evolution is a critical part of Kan’s story. Way back in the prehistoric era of 2011, you see, a developer named Joel Spolsky showed off a show-stealing app he’d built as part of a conference called TechCrunch Disrupt. At the time, it was unlike anything else out thereand it immediately won over throngs of devoted users as a result of its frills-free organizational philosophy.
That service, as you may have surmised, was none other than Trello. As TechCrunchs Leena Rao summed up at the time:
The web-based application is designed to be the centralized place where all collaborative team work can be assigned and tracked. The startup says that other project management systems are developer-focused, too complex, and dont appeal to a broader community. Trello has been built for any type of workflow, from being a business-focused tool to even acting as [a] personal list-management application.
Even in that earliest form, Trello’s calling card was its simplicity. The service revolved around a then-unusual board-based interfacewhat’s now commonly known as a kanban-style setupto make it easy to organize anything into lists of column-based cards.
Everyone from engineers to product managers and even lowly journalists eagerly embraced Trello and turned it into their all-purpose organizational epicenter for projects both professional and personal.
“it just had this kind of magic,” Griffiths-Ball remembers. “They did something that was so simple but so effective.”
In 2014, Trello was acquired by software behemoth Atlassian for a cool $425 million. And that moment, in the eyes of superfans like Griffiths-Ball, is when everything started to change.
Whether that’s a positive or a negative is of course in the eye of the beholder, but as someone who’s both used and written about Trello for years now, the app’s evolution is impossible to ignore. At times, it’s struck me as a positive, even exciting progressionsuch as when Trello added a powerful automation system into its software back in 2019, opening up the door to all sorts of interesting new possibilities. Other updates seemed notably less in line with the original vision, such as 2021’s move to add alternate views into the mix alongside the signature Trello boardswith the aim of turning Trello into a more versatile all-purpose productivity supertool like Airtable or Notion.
That movealong with the ability to embed things like Google Docs documents directly into Trello cardsfaded away over time, suggesting that it wasn’t exactly eagerly embraced. But the notion of transforming Trello into something more substantial continued, most recently with this year’s full-fledged repositioning of the service as a personal tasks app.
When I first wrote about that change back in February, I felt cautiously optimistic that it wouldn’t be overly disruptive for long-standing Trello fans like myself. Heck, the Atlassian executive I interviewed outright told me the service would continue to support “legacy” use cases, in spite of the newfound focus on task management. And, to his credit, it does.
The issue is with the final form that evolution adopted. Unlike the early version I saw while working on that article, it buried features that were once front and center and made them cumbersome to access. It was a relatively subtle shift on the surface, but all those extra clicks and all the extra hunting for formerly prominent options made an immediately noticeable difference in how the app felt to use. You can certainly still rely on Trello for any manner of project management, but it feels like you’re jumping hrough hoops to do so and using a service in a way it’s no longer designed to handle.
Plain and simple, it’s no longer plain and simple. And it’s hard not to wonder how long it’ll be until at least some of those now-legacy use cases fade even further from the foreground.
Trello in 2025 is filled with frills and pushes many of the app’s once-primary functions to the background. [Photo: Trello]
I’m far from the only one who’s noticed. A Reddit forum dedicated to Trello is filled with pages upon pages of discussions from frustrated Trello customers venting about the changes, begging for a way to undo them, and asking for recommendations about services to seek out as replacements.
It’s the feeling Griffiths-Ball has been struggling with for a while now. So he started looking around to see if anyone had built anything to address the lingering demand for the simple board-based organization concept Trello created and eventually abandoned as a primary focus.
“I always had in my head this idea of something like Trello but with a more modern twist and modern design practices,” he says. “I thought I’d take a stab at it and see if I can make something that fits my needsthen share it and see if anyone else is excited about the idea.”
And that’s precisely how Kan was born.
Back to square oneand beyond
The interesting thing about signing into Kan for the first time is that it feels new and electrifyingand yet simultaneously quite familiar, especially if you’ve spent any time in Trello over the years.
But it truly is an updated take on Trello’s original form, at least as a starting point. And especially as someone who connected more with Trello’s original vision and mostly just tolerated the more recent pivots and additions, it’s a bit of a revelation to use.
At its core, Kan gives you a super-minimalist and frills-free Trello-style Kanban boarda framework for creating any kind of cards and then dragging and dropping ’em across multiple lists in as many boards as you want. And the extent to which Griffiths-Ball has been able to build upon the original Trello vision is staggering.
Using Kan is like taking a trip back in time to a simpler, more focused, and even more minimalist Trello. [Photo: kan.bn]
For now, it feels like a trade-off of sorts: On the one hand, the experience isnot surprisinglynoticeably less polished and more barebones than what Atlassian presently offers. But on the other, it’s so delightfully refreshing to use a version of the core Trello concept without all the bloat and unfocused compromises that have built up over the years, particularly from those most recent Trello changes.
The critical context to keep in mind is that Kan is only a couple of months old and still the result of a single person’s primary effort. Although an interesting asterisk does exist: Griffiths-Ball is committed to building Kan as a completely open-source project, and already, he’s had about a dozen other people contributing on some level to the service.
“I’m getting messages from people every day,” he says. “That’s the beauty of open source: You put something out there, and you get immediate feedback from everybodynot just on the product but on the code, the features. That’s something you just don’t get with proprietary stuff.”
As part of that open source promise, anyone can view Kan’s underlying code on GitHub and, with the right level of technical prowess, see for themselves exactly what the service is and isn’t doing. And beyond that, anyone with the right knowledge can also take the code and host it entirely on their own cloud storageeven (at least in theory) forking and modifying the software to suit their own personal needs.
“Especially in the open-source community, people want products but also want the ability to own their data,” Griffiths-Ball says. “That, to me, is really exciting.”
That self-hosting option will always remain both free and freely available, Griffiths-Ball promisesas will the ability for individual users to rely on a fully featured hosted version of the service, without any limitations on core capabilities. Where Griffiths-Ball hopes to make money and make Kan sustainable is with the service’s team plans, where he’ll charge $8 per user per month for a managed setup starting this month.
But that’s all for down the road. For now, Griffiths-Ball’s main goal is to keep charging forward toward reaching full feature parity with the conventional Trello concept. High up on his road map (which, naturally, exists as a public Kan board) are items such as search, keyboard hotkeys, notifications, automations, and native desktop and mobile apps (though, as Griffiths-Ball notes, the website works quite well in all contexts for the time being, so there’s really no huge rush to move past tat).
The Kan road maporganized, naturally, within a Kan board. [Photo: kan.bn]
For many productivity app dwellersmyself includedit won’t be possible to trade Trello for Kan until at least some of those more ambitious elements are addressed. But the foundation is already enough to be promising. And, with Griffiths-Ball confident he’ll reach that all-important point of primary feature parity soon, it’s the next phase that’s truly alluring.
Griffiths-Ball, you see, isn’t content simply re-creating what was lost in Trello’s past. To him, that’s merely phase oneand what comes next is largely dependent on the people using his product, particularly with what he’s seen happen to Trello and so many other popular services from the perspective of their original users over time.
“I don’t want to make something that nobody asks for,” he says. “I want [the service’s road map] to be led by the usersto know how it’s being used and to make things that actually solve specific problems for those same people.”
One early idea is creating a Sunsama-like planner feature that’d bring more useful calendar functions into the Kan environment. But more than anything, the goal is about avoiding what Griffiths-Ball sees as Trello’s failureand that’s focusing on the business first and the vision second.
“What’s important to me is usability. I want to hear how people are using Kan and I want to know how we can make it better for people.”
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