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The highlight reel of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics was defined by extreme trickscorkscrews, twists, and flips performed by snowboarders and freestyle skiers. These aerial feats are complex, but in many cases, they can be traced back to a simple tool: hours spent spinning and flopping into oversize plastic bags. Over the last 20 years, a handful of manufacturerssuch as Bagjump, Progression Airbags, and BigAirBaghave perfected the art of making massive plastic landing pads, ideal for aspiring extreme sports athletes to push the boundaries of their skills and test out new tricks year-round. Beginning with the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, athletes like Shaun White, Kevin Pearce, Danny Davis, and Sage Kotsenburg began making extensive use of this kind of training, similar to the way gymnasts would use foam pits. [Photo: Bagjump] The extreme levels the sports are being performed at are much safer due to Bagjump training, says Martin Rasinger, a former pro snowboarder and the inventor of the device. Sites that have these systems, relatively few and far between, have become destinations for advanced training. WyEast Mountain Academy, an extreme sports-focused secondary school in Sandy, Oregon, installed a $4 million bag on its slopes last year thats open year-round. The 80-by-200-foot airbag, contoured to the curve of the mountain and installed using snowcat vehicles, is the largest in North America, and something that is relatively rare in the U.S. Smaller versions can be found at the U.S. Ski & Snowboard headquarters in Park City, Utah, and temporarily on Californias Mammoth Mountain. Mt. Hood, Oregon. [Photo: Bagjump] Troy Podmilsak, a U.S. freestyle ski jump competitor who landed a “Triple 18” in Milan during competitionthree off-axis flips combined with five full rotationstrained on the WyEast bag before the Games. Bagjump says there are around 20 locations around the world decked out with their landing pads, including their own Banger Park facility in Scharnitz, Austria. As soon as those bags come out, youre working on doing doubles, says Elijah Teter, athletic director at WyEast and a former Olympic coach and professional snowboarder. Now youre seeing triples and even quads. Mt. Hood, Oregon. [Photo: Bagjump] Designing a stronger airbag The history of these bags is a Venn diagram of entrepreneurship, extreme sports and, in some cases, stunt crews. Before they became a key part of training, learning advanced tricks either meant experimenting during the relatively rare days with extensive fresh powderwhich acted as a natural shock absorber for adventurous athletesor putting up with the pain of repeated hard landings. And after a few jumps into the powder, the impressions left by skiers and snowboarders meant that trainees needed to find a new spot. Rasinger tells Fast Company he got the idea for an oversize training bag after watching the airbag stunt fall during the ending of the 1997 movie The Game, starring Michael Douglas, too many times. He was so inspired, in fact, that he flew to Los Angeles, tracked down the stunt crew, and performed some 30-foot drop tests with a snowboard. He realized that to work for extreme athletes, such a bag would need to be larger, softer, and much stronger to hold up to metal snowboard edges. Rasinger went home to Austria and built a test bag in Innsbruck in 2007; a clip of an early jump was posted to YouTube. Eventually, his company, Bagjump, would settle on a formula: a fiberglass structure with a specific PVC coating to withstand the force and cuts from boards and boarders. The company has since sold a few thousand such bags, mostly to trampoline parks or gymnastics facilities. [Photo: Bagjump] Users can get the bags in a variety of sizes, for sports including BMX biking and even climbing. Olympic training bags, specially designed for different snowboarding disciplines such as halfpipe and slopestyle, range from 50-by-50 feet to 120-by-230 feet. The stiffness of the bags can be adjusted to provide more give when learning a trick, and also to feel more like snow to mimic a real landing. It’s softer and therefore also safer,because it is impact-absorbing and it does not bounce you away like netting or car tires or foam, Rasinger told ESPN in 2012. You still get a bounce from it. It’s better than hitting a concrete wallthat’s for sure. [Photo: Bagjump] These bags and ramp systems also have whats called a dry slope in-run, which simulates the feelingand gripof snow, giving those attempting a trick a much more realistic feeling during a practice session. That ability to train safely and consistently has made them a fixture of elite training, and one of many things pushing performances forward at events such as the Olympics. Bagjump has had a significant impact on not just the safety aspect, but also the way the sports have progressed over the years, Rasinger says.
Category:
E-Commerce
I called Burger King president Tom Curtis a few times this week, but it went straight to voicemail. You can try too, his number is (305) 874-0520. Okay, so maybe its not his personal cell number, but Curtis is still taking calls and texts from anyone and everyone. On February 17, Burger King announced he would be spending at least four hours a day over the next two weeksincluding nights and weekendstaking unfiltered calls and texts from customers, hoping to hear their input about all things Burger King. Want a new Whopper variation? Call him. Have a complaint about your local BK? Call him. Come up with a fun marketing idea? Call him. Want to propose marriage? Maybe think twice. Ive had a couple of those, but Im married, Curtis tells me after I eventually tracked him down. View this post on Instagram It all feels like an elaborate bit, doesnt it? This is the same brand that offered free Whoppers to clowns, hacked Google Home devices, offeed a free hamburger to anyone who deleted 10 Facebook friends, and tried to usurp the Belgian monarchy. What corporate executive speaks outside carefully curated remarks, PR photo ops, and earnings calls, let alone mix with the hoi polloi? The biggest challenge here for Curtis isnt answering all those phone calls, but convincing everyone that its a genuine effort to permanently embed customer opinions into the companys culture and operations, and not just another stunt for the marketing hype cycle. People need to see action, says Curtis. These first two weeks of Curtis taking calls is the latest move in the companys broader Reclaim the Flame project, a $400 million multi-year turnaround plan launched in 2022 for the then-struggling brand. That year was marked with restaurant closures and declining market share as Wendys overtook it as Americas no. 2 burger chain. Now, its heading in the right direction. Fourth quarter revenues were up 2.1% to $383 million. (Meanwhile, Wendy’s? Don’t ask.) This is a compelling example of what too few brandsand company executivestake to heart. Despite all the technology, social media, and always-on mentality, so many companies still find themselves out of touch with what their brand is in culture and to the people they are serving. Witness the seven circles of Super Bowl hell Ring found itself in after what it saw as an ode to lost dogs, turned into public fury around mass surveillance. On the other hand, Lays is hyping a recent price drop across PepsiCo Foods brands on social and giving credit to customer feedback. View this post on Instagram Have it your way In 1974, Burger Kings slogan was Have it your way, putting a focus on customer menu customization. So the idea of rooting the brand in customer feedback isnt completely out of left field. This idea of Curtis, and the brand more broadly, taking direct calls from customers started small. When he first joined Burger King in 2021, Curtis got the ball rolling by asking everyone on the leadership team to wear a brand logo of some kind as much as possible whenever theyre traveling, or even at the grocery store. The idea was that the logo would be a magnet for real people to talk about the brand unfiltered. Sure enough, at every weekly leadership meeting, stories began piling up. About four months ago, we said, Hey, what if we took this to a whole new place and just wide open, let everybody in as much as we could, just to get as much feedback as possible? says Curtis. That was the spirit behind this. Utilizing customer feedback is something Curtis has some experience with. He was at Dominos when that chain launched its Pizza Turnaround that used direct customer comments to spark that brands resurgence. Curtis also points to Dominos famed Pizza Tracker, launched in 2008, as a result of listening to customer feedback. It was an answer to an insight, he says (that insight being customers wondering, Hey, where’s my pizza?). And I think what we’re doing here is similar. We’re going to get a variety of insights from this process, but I want to emphasize it won’t be a two-week process. This is a kickoff to a permanent process. Burger King has spent the better part of a decade building a cheeky challenger brand image, through irreverent work of varying success. The creepy King mascot that began popping up in 2004, was permanently retired in 2015. The brand phased him out because, frankly, even if he was making the stoners giggle, he was scaring the kids. Whopper Detour in 2019, which used geo-fencing and its app to offer anyone within 600 feet of a McDonald’s a one-cent Whopper, was a legitimate hit, driving app downloads and enthusiasm. But Moldy Whopper (2020), which was a very artful, 34-day time-lapse video of their signature burger rotting and becoming covered in mold to make the case for its fresh ingredients, was more a marketers darling than a wide success. Curtis says the goal now is to make sure the brand image is genuine and likeable, which can still include fun campaigns, but must be rooted in that customer connection. He credits CMO Joel Yashinsky and the brands agency partners like BarkleyOKPR for its new positioning. Let’s be a brand by consumers, and let them define where it goes, he says. That really is empowering people to feel like the architect of this brand. Real humans?! One of the first areas of AI implementation for many organizations is in customer service, where chatbots are used to process mass amounts of customer feedback into digestible reports quicker than ever. Research firm Gartner has predicted that AI will autonomously solve 80% of common customer service issues by 2029. But Curtis says that there is a risk of losing touch amid the waves of data. There’s just a magic in human interaction that I think we’re in danger of losing if we allow those processes to completely take over how we understand the consumer, he says. So by institutionalizing and operationalizing human interaction, real human interaction, I think we can unlock a powerful force of understanding of the consumer, because they’re legitimately and genuinely being heard and reacted to. Its a surprisingly rare approach, but not wholly unique. E.l.f. Beauty, for example, has largely built its brand around how it engages with and implements ideas from its community. CMO Kory Marchisotto has often talked about how the brands participation on platforms like TikTok, Twitch, and beyond is all about what its customers are saying about the brand and the places theyre saying it, and those signals become a guide that shapes everything that follows. The starting point is cultivating community, Marchisotto told The Drum in December. Were able to catalyze community data into insights and once we have that we co-create. We co-create content experiences, platforms, products that are for them, by them. Burger King has already begun that process with its Whopper By You work launched last summer, which solicits ideas for new Whopper variations from customers and then releases them as limited edition drops like the BBQ Brisket Whopper and Crispy Onion Whopper. According to the company, its received more than 600,000 submissions, and considers the releases so far among its most successful limited edition products. This approach is in line with other chains looking to make personalization more fun and community-oriented by featuring fan suggestions as limited menu items. Starbucks, for example, launched its “secret menu” last summer and asked customers to submit and vote on their favorite customized beverages. Burger King isnt abandoning utilizing complex data analysis to make sound decisions, though. After finding that its apple pie dessert was the most requested discontinued menu item at its drive-thrus, the brand brought it back in January for the first time since 2020. Suspicion economy Ad agency BarkleyOKRP has been Burger Kings lead ad agency since 2022, and worked closely with the brand on not only this overall idea, but how to tap into it for brand marketing campaigns. The challenge is walking the tightrope between hyping the idea that Curtis and his team want to hear from you, without making it feel disingenuous. View this post on Instagram The age of AI slop, media manipulation, and waves of brand BS has helped forge (or accelerate) a suspicion economy, where no one really thinks anything is sincere. BarkleyOKPR executive creative director Matt McNulty says what got Curtis and his team excited was how listening to peoplehearing the good, bad, and uglywas vulnerable. People often think vulnerability can appear as weakness, at least in the cultural lexicon of brands, says McNulty. But this is sincerely vulnerable. It’s asking someone, how can I be better? And it’s honest. This all sounds rather obvious for brands who are constantly talking about how they want to resonate with culture. So why isnt this approach more common? McNultys fellow executive ceative director Ben Pfutzenreuter says it comes down to risk. If you look across corporate America, I think you see a position of hedging and risk mitigation, says Pfutzenreuter. But I think the answer to a culture of anxiety and risk mitigation is actual conviction. Not a stunt man Ultimately, the only real way to combat suspicion is with consistent action. As Curtis says, this is only the beginning. So far there have been largely two types of feedback: The kind about peoples local restaurant, and then that about the broader brand, like menu items and marketing. The good news on the feedback about their local experiences is we’ve got those channels set up, says Curtis. We’re calling the owners of those restaurants back. Many of those restaurants we own ourselves. So they’re going to see that type of change instantly. Brand actions will take longer. If I’m going to change the french fries, I’ve got to do the right research, testing, and set up suppliers to be able to support that. Unfortunately for Curtis, until a major product or innovation of some kind that customers can really see, touch or taste emerges, were forced to take his word for it. Thats not lost on him, either. In fact one of his biggest challenges is making sure the focus remains on the feedback and not talking about the feedback. The agency is trying to do its job and capture amazing content, he says. But I’m trying to make sure that everybody feels heard and knows that this isnt a marketing stunt. For now, the only way to do that is to keep putting Curtis on the phone and let him cook.
Category:
E-Commerce
How are you feeling about the stock market these days? Depending on who you talk to, the American economy is either poised to soar into the stratosphere or fall off a cliff. As the current administration has been delighted to point out, the Dow Jones Industrial Average recently closed above 50,000 for the very first time. However, that does not reassure the 72% of American consumers who, according to Pew Research, feel pessimistic about the economyciting concerns about the cost of healthcare, food and consumer goods, and housing. If the pessimists are correct, those high consumer costs will negatively affect the stock market sooner or later. Even with the current good news about the market, theres a reason why it feels like were all waiting for the other shoe to drop. We are all facing a great deal of uncertainty as investors and consumers, between recent (albeit temporary) market volatility in response to political and economic news and the way AI is disrupting the market and the economy. Its enough to make you want to cash out all your investments and bury the moolah in your backyard. But just because it feels like were ripe for a market crash doesnt mean theres one on the horizon. And if there is a correction coming, there is plenty you can do to prepare for it. Heres what you need to know about positioning yourself and your money for a potential market crash so youre not left picking up the pieces. Know what you have Answer honestly: do you know where all your 401(k)s are? If youre not sure, youre not alone. Unclaimed retirement accounts are a serious problem that the Department of Labor is working to rectify. As of 2025, there were approximately 31.9 million retirement accounts, totaling about $2.1 trillion, left behind or forgotten by employees leaving the sponsoring workplace. The stress of watching the economic roller coaster while feeling completely powerless is bad enough. Adding the sense that you dont even know what you have, where it is, or if theres anything you can do to protect yourself is just gilding the anxiety lily. Thats why the first step in preparing for a potential market correction is to make sure you know where (and what) all your investments are. Start by identifying all of your accounts and reclaiming any that you have lost track of. In addition to the DOL, you can also check the National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits for any missing accounts. But you can also contact the human resources department of previous employers for help. Even if you dont have any misplaced retirement benefits, now is also a good time to review all of your accounts and investments. Do you know what you are invested in? Do you know why? Knowing what you currently have can help you make informed decisions going forward, whether you assume a future of economic sunshine or storm clouds. Figure out how to stay the course Market crashes are terrifyingbut unless you cash out your investments, they can be temporary. When you see your portfolio lose a huge percentage of its value, its human nature to want to stop the bleeding. But you need to stay the course until the market bounces back, because selling your investments right after a crash means locking in the loss. This is much easier said than done, of course. Even the most risk-loving, ice-in-their-veins investors will feel their stomachs drop when their portfolios suddenly have a lot fewer zeroes than they did the day before. Thats why its a good idea to figure out ahead of time what will keep you from panic-selling if there is a sudden market downturn. Some strategies for staying the course include: Invest in quality companies/stocks/indexes that are likely to survive a recession. Now is a good time to make certain you understand your investments. Make sure you have enough liquidity. If you treat any of your investments as a potential emergency fund, set up another fund or source. If youre unable to transfer any of your investments into a more liquid asset, consider opening a HELOC as an alternative. Look for opportunities to invest. Market downturns can be a good time to purchase under-priced assets. (Just dont be one of those jerks who crows about getting stocks on sale all over social media. Read the room, dude.) Go on a news diet. You dont need to know every dip and drop in the market. Youll feel better when you put your phone down and youll save money on all the antacids you dont have to buy. Rebalance your portfolio Part of a well-balanced money diet is making sure you dont have too many eggs in one basket. You probably already diversify your portfolio by splitting your investments into long-term, higher-risk/higher-reward investments, medium-term, lower-risk investments, and short-term, low-risk investments. While most investors think about how they want to diversify their portfolio when they start investing, it can be easy to forget to rebalance that bad boy when the ratios get out of whack. Thats why regularly rebalancing your portfolio should be part of your semi-annual or quarterly money management plan. This financial task is when you check on where your investments are compared to your investment strategy and goals. Then you buy or sell investments to bring your portfolio back into balance. For example, anyone currently invested in the Dow is probably over-invested compared to their investment strategy or goals. Selling off some of that investment and investing the money elsewhere will not only allow you to capture the growth that the Dow is currently enjoying, but it will also help protect you from potential future volatility in the Dow index. Getting into the habit o rebalancing your portfolio will help ensure that you keep market growth when it occurs, which can help you keep your cool and stay invested through downturnsbecause you know you kept the gains and can wait out the losses. Make like a hitchhiker and DONT PANIC No politician, economist, or MBA has a crystal ball, so theres no telling what the stock market will do in the future. But if your spidey senses have been tingling about the possibility of a market downturn, there are some practical steps you can take to protect yourself and your portfolio if were headed for a fall. Start by making sure you know what you have. If youve lost track of any of your retirement or investment accounts, take the time to hunt them down so you feel in control of your funds. Now is also the time to double check that you know what youre invested in and why. From there, figure out what youll need to stay the course in case there is a crashsince a loss in value is temporary until you cash out. Some good strategies for staying the course include ensuring that youre invested in quality assets that you understand, providing yourself with enough liquidity to handle an emergency during a downturn, planning on purchasing underpriced assets, and putting yourself on a news diet. Finally, regularly rebalancing your portfolio is good investment hygiene, but it will also help you feel more confident when staring down a potential market correction, since youll know youve captured the growth of the market when it went gangbusters. Market crashes arent inevitable, even if stomach-churning fluctuations probably are. But panicking is always optional and you can opt out.
Category:
E-Commerce
Biometric authenticationthe ability to unlock your devices by using just your face or fingerprintis one of the few smartphone features that, even today, leave me feeling like were living in the future. When I was a kid, technology like facial recognition was limited to science fiction. But as cool and useful as biometric authentication is, the technology can also leave us vulnerable. Heres whyand how to protect yourself. Its not just journalists and activists who can have their biometrics used against them Last month, journalists got a stark reminder that their biometrics might not keep the data they have on their devices safe from law enforcement searches. While the Fourth Amendment usually protects an individual from having to turn over a PIN code or password for a device, courts have generally ruled that the same protection doesnt apply to biometrics. This means that in some cases, authorities can compel you to unlock your phone with your fingerprint or facial scan. Its why many press freedom and civil liberty organizations have long advised journalists and activists to disable biometric authentication like facial recognition on their devices and return to requiring a passcode to unlock them. But its not only journalists and activists who have to worry about their phones’ biometrics making themand their datavulnerable. A phones most convenient identity verification feature can leave any one of us exposed. There have been reports of people unlocking their partners’ phones using their biometrics while they were sleeping, as well as reports of criminal gangs forcing victims to unlock their phones with their biometrics to steal cryptocurrencies. Of course, sometimes forced biometric unlocks are less nefarious. Ive heard parents complain that their children have unlocked their phones by holding the device up to their face, or with a touch of their fingerprint, while they were sleeping, in order to disable software that restricts the internet in their house after certain hours. If someone wants to gain access to your phone, and you happen to be physically available (unknowingly or not), all the person needs is access to your face or finger to do so. Giving up convenience for more security While biometric authentication is one of the most convenient features of todays smartphones, the scenarios above exemplify how the technology can leave us at risk. However, if you are in a situation where you believe that your biometrics may leave you vulnerable, there are, thankfully, some easy steps you can take to mitigate this risk. The first is to permanently disable biometric authentication on your smartphone. Doing so means youll need to enter your passcode every time you unlock your phone. Yes, it will take a couple of seconds longer to get to your home screenbut it also means that no one can steal your face or finger and unlock your phone while youre sleeping. To disable your iPhones biometrics (called Face ID or Touch ID, depending on your iPhone model), open the Settings app, tap Face/Touch ID and Passcode, and then toggle the iPhone Unlock switch to “off.” For Android users, disabling the facial or fingerprint biometric feature may differ slightly, depending on your phone model. On a Pixel phone, you can disable fingerprint unlocking by going to the Settings app, tapping Security and privacy and then Device unlock, and then deleting your registered fingerprints. When in doubt, restart Of course, biometric authentication like facial recognition is one of the great conveniences of modern lifeone that many of us would have a hard time giving up for good. If you fall into this camp but still want the extra security that disabling biometric authentication provides, you can quickly deactivate the biometric unlock feature on your iPhone or Android device by restarting it. When your phone shuts down and restarts, your biometrics will not unlock the device until after you enter your passcode. Many activists use this trick when crossing borders or attending politically contentious events. And its not a bad one to remember right before you turn off the nightstand light, if you think your kids might be waiting until you fall asleep to snatch your phone.
Category:
E-Commerce
Olympians arent just physically exceptionaltheyre masters at managing where their attention and energy go. Cognitive research finds a key link between working memory and performance: elite athletes are better able to regulate their memory and attention than their less-trained peers, and this ability predicts better performance under pressure. What separates peak performers isnt just effort, but also the discipline to balance their mental load. In other words: their thoughtload. Consider thoughtload the invisible tax on your ability to perform. It consists of three problems that erode your effectiveness: The cognitive demands of competing priorities The emotional burdens of uncertain times The depleted energy reserves that make everything feel more difficult When thoughtload is high, even talented, motivated people underperform. But Olympians succeed because they refuse to carry unnecessary thoughtload. So how do you begin to reduce your own load? Four strategies can help. 1. Flip your focus Olympians know that keeping their attention focused on performance is critical to achievement. Take the U.S. figure skating team, who had more than a few members skip this years opening ceremonies to stay locked in. At work, we tend to do the opposite. Instead of starting the day with our eyes on the prize, we let our inbox and calendar dictate our priorities, hoping that enough activity will lead to success. Lowering your thoughtload means flipping that logic. Begin with the outcome youre being rewarded for: more paid users, lower churn, a better accounts receivable balance. Then identify the few outputs that will move the needle and the activities that will get you there. 2. Budget your attention Elite athletes also dedicate consistent hours to training, no matter how assured their place is as a champion: practice is always on the calendar. But at work, we frequently allow ourselves to switch priorities or allocate our time in the wrong places. Think of your time as a finite resource to spend. Pick one critical outcome and decide how much of your attention it deserves; only after that, allocate your remaining time for other important outputs and even a few side pursuits. Defer, decline, or delegate everything else that doesnt fit in your attention budget. 3. Use an emotion track Even with your gaze locked in, emotional distractions can come from within. For an athlete, it might be a fall in practice or a menacing new competitor. For you, its a missed target, a tense exchange, or an unwelcome piece of feedback. Emotions are unavoidable, but unprocessed emotions slow you down. Olympians understand that emotional baggage from yesterdays disappointment can sabotage todays performance; take the many that use sports psychologists to work through poor performances and devastating crashes. You can reduce the hold of your feelings with an emotion track, which helps pinpoint and reroute distracting emotions. It consists of four simple steps: place, name, question, act. Notice the place youre experiencing the feeling, like sweaty palms or a racing heart. Name the feeling youre experiencing precisely, like frustration or anxiety. Question the story youre telling yourself about why youre feeling that way, and if its rational. Choose one action that helps you move forward, whether it addresses the issue directly or just helps you get in a better headspace. 4. Hold an energy audit Energy management isnt about indulgence or self-care. Its about making the right investments, so you have the physical, mental, and emotional energy when you need it most. Olympians plan exertion and recovery with rigor. But at work, we often treat energy as unlimited until it suddenly runs out. There are back-to-back meetings, deadlines strung one after the next, new change initiatives starting before youve had the chance to embed the previous ones. All that adds up to fatigue that leads to poor decisions. Instead, try an energy audit. List three activities that reliably energize you and three that inevitably drain you. Then make small shifts to increase your investment in the first group and reduce your exposure to the second. Even minor changes can make your thoughtload feel much lighter over time. Elite performance isnt reserved for elite athletes. Its available to anyone willing to carry less so they can accomplish more.
Category:
E-Commerce