 |
|
|
|||||
For consumer packaged goods, the path from product idea to store shelves runs directly through the center of Unilever‘s new North American headquarters, and not just because the company makes market-saturating products like Hellmann’s mayonnaise and TRESemmé shampoo. This new headquarters space was designed specifically to put the entire process of product creation on display in its office, from ideation to development to marketing to retailing. Spread across 111,000 square feet in downtown Hoboken, New Jersey, Unilever’s newly opened headquarters is centered around an accessible spine of rooms and facilities that are optimized for bringing new products to market. There are “innovation labs” where ideas for new products come to life, workstations where ideas can take shape, a test kitchen and salon where products get sampled and refined, and a retail lab where the company and its retail partners can see the products as they’ll look on store shelves. “We want people to walk in and just immediately know what it is we stand for and what it is we do,” says Nathaniel Barney, Unilever’s global head of workplace services, travel, and fleet. “Not just to see it on the walls, because images come and go, but actually to feel it in the design.” [Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will] Unilever’s new headquarters is about a third of the size of the company’s previous suburban campus, 12 miles north in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The smaller size prioritizes the collaboration required to develop its wide range of consumer products across personal care, beauty and wellbeing, foods, and home care. In the post-pandemic context, it’s also a recognition that the company didn’t actually need its big suburban footprint, according to Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA. “When you’re like we are, now three days a week [in the office], actually those three days are all about connection, creativity, collaboration,” he says. “That’s why this design was built for the future.” Bringing Unilver’s products to life Unilever worked with the architecture firm Perkins & Will to design the space, centering its most collaborative product development functions in a spine that connects the entire office. Accessible by anyone passing by or taking a meeting in a nearby private room or sitting aside one of the picture windows with wide angle views across the Hudson River to Lower Manhattan, the product development spine is meant to draw in peopleand ideasfrom across the company. [Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will] One easy draw, especially for a company in the food business, is the flavor-wafting test kitchen. “It’s the first thing you see when you walk into the space,” says Mariana Giraldo, design principal at Perkins and Will’s New York studio. “Right behind reception, there are two windows into the kitchen, so there’s no way you can miss it.” Employees get a chance to see new foods and flavors being developed live, and also get a chance to taste products that may be coming to market years down the line. The test kitchen is also part of the product pipeline, where new ideas get piloted and refined. [Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will] Down the spine, “innovation labs” are intended to be blank spaces where those ideas can be born. Intentionally open and flexible in their furnishings and equipment, the labs leave themselves open to interpretation and reconfiguration. [Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will] For products farther along in the product development timeline, there are spaces with a higher gloss and purpose, including the test kitchen and a fully equipped salon. Both can be used for research and development as products take shape, but also for marketing purposes when products are heading to shelves. Each doubles as a stage set. [Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will] Beyond serving the product development process, these spaces are meant to attract employees and encourage more engagement with the creative side of the business. Giraldo says the design team approached these spaces as amenities within the workplace. “Here, the amenities didn’t have the purpose of just being amenities for the for the sake of it, but really being amenities that connected back to the product, and that connected back to exactly the work being developed here,” she says. Shrinking desk space Product development also relies on heads-down and desk-centric tasks, so there are regular workstations and meeting areas in Unilever’s headquarters. But even these are shaped by the company’s focus on collaboration. Barney says that the new office carved out much more space for one-on-one meetings and smaller group interactions, and ditched formal conference rooms for large spaces that could expand or contract to host larger groups and events. (The test kitchen, for one, opens out to a common area, making it easy to integrate into an all-hands meeting or a large-scale taste test.) [Photos: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will] “Today we need probably two times the number of small rooms to what we had five or six years ago,” Barney says. “What we see a huge need for is places where we can have groups of 35 to 50 people come together and then have another 20 to 30 people on screen, if not more . . . We had to create spaces that were designed around a very different set of criteria.” [Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will] While Unilever’s headquarters was designed to create products and, by extension, profits, there’s an emphasis on informality across the space. That’s tied to an ethos Patel says is integral to the company’s culture. “We wanted to create a space and a location where our organization would love wasting time with each other,” he says. “We believe wasting time together is when culture blossoms. That’s when you get to know the person, you get to know what’s going on in their lives. There’s so much more than just work.” [Photo: courtesy Unilever/Perkins & Will] If that time wasting among employees leads to an idea for a new body wash concept or mayo recipe, all the better. They won’t have to go far to start turning those ideas into the products of the future.
Category:
E-Commerce
Recently, I made myself a promise: I would not buy any more Lego for at least a year. That plan has quickly been foiled. Lego’s first-ever Peanuts set is just too good, too iconic, too beautiful (plus, my son loves Snoopy and Woodstock.) This perfect brick renditionwith the classic red doghouse and even the campfire and marshmallows to toastis too cool pass up. Lego’s addiction to licensed intellectual propertythe company now sells 25 IP-based themes out of 45 total, often burying the open-ended, creativity-first sets that built the brandis still a problem, but this Snoopy’s Doghouse set proves exactly why these licenses work so extraordinarily well to burn your credit card. [Photo: Lego] The magnetism of that simple beagle silhouette, combined with Lego’s three-dimensional engineering and the bricks’ intrinsic attractive power, is a perfect formula to trash all my financial constraints. Plus, Charles M. Schulz created something so visually strong, clear, and emotionally direct that translating it into 964 plastic bricks feels less like exploitation and more like homage. Snoopy debuted on October 4, 1950, just two days after Peanuts launched, and he spent decades evolving from a puppy shuffling on four legs into the anthropomorphic dreamer who sleeps on top of his doghouse and imagines himself as the Red Baron, a World War I flying ace. Schulz based him on Spike, his childhood black-and-white mixed breed who was unusually intelligent and could understand about 50 words. The name Snoopy came from Schulz’s mother, who once suggested it as a good name for a future family dog. (Fun note: Schulz had considered Sniffy before remembering her advice). Over 75 years, Snoopy became more than Charlie Brown’s pethe became a vehicle for fantasy, playing shortstop on Charlie Brown’s baseball team, typing novels as the World Famous Author, and strutting around as Joe Cool. He ascended the cultural ladder enough that even NASA adopted him as a mascot, naming the Apollo 10 lunar and command modules after him and creating the Silver Snoopy Award for astronaut achievement in 1968. [Photo: Lego] Woodstock, the small yellow bird who first appeared in 1966 but wasn’t named until June 22, 1970, cemented Snoopy’s status as a character who operated in his own emotional universe. Schulz named Snoopys avian pal after the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, whose logo featured a bird perched on a guitar. The origin story is pure Schulz sentiment: A mother bird built a nest on Snoopy’s belly, then abandoned it, leaving Snoopy to raise the hatchlingsone of whom became Woodstock. Schulz never specified Woodstock’s species (fans guess canary or goldfinch), and he once drew a strip where Snoopy gave up trying to identify him. Like many of us, Atlanta-based designer Robert Becker is a die-hard fan of the characters, so he spent about a year developing the concept before submitting it to Lego Ideas, the Danish companys program that accepts designs made by anyone who signs up for an account and submits a build. Submissions get considered for mass production after they receive 10,000 votes by other Ideas members. Thats when they may get approval by a company committee to be refined by Legos own designers in a long collaborative process. [Photo: Lego] “This set has so much character, Monica Pedersen, marketing director at the Lego Group, says in the sets press release. We were delighted that the Snoopy Campfire product idea received over 10,000 votes on the Lego Ideas platform. Im glad, too, Monica. At 964 pieces and a $90 price tag, the set also hits the Lego complexity-affordability-granularity sweet spot, unlike many of the huge sets the company has produced in the past few years. Snoopy legs and neck are adjustable, letting you pose him and Woodstock in multiple display positions. The red doghouse opens to reveal a typewriter inside, which you can move anywhere. And the campfire scenewhich can also be hidden inside Snoopys homeis set against a starry sky backdrop. The set is already available for preorder; it will be sold in stores starting June 1. And yes, my kid and I will be counting the days till it ships to us.
Category:
E-Commerce
What really holds people back from stepping up as allies in support of their marginalized colleagues? For example, why dont more men say something when they see a colleague or a customer make a sexist remark about a female co-worker? Our research, published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, suggests that people often hesitate to intervene when co-workers are mistreated because they themselves feel disempowered in their organizations and experience distrust and polarization. Our findings run counter to the common assumption that people dont step up to support marginalized colleagues because they dont care or are unmotivated. Not seeing much action against inequity and injustice can drive this cynical idea. Its built into many diversity, equity and inclusion training programs that rely on motivational tactics of persuasion, guilting and shaming to get people to act. We are psychology researchers interested in how people can use their strengths to effectively support others who are marginalized. We surveyed 778 employees in Michigan and 973 employees across all provinces of Canada, representative of urban and rural areas, working-class and professional jobs, and across all demographics, including gender, race, and sexual orientation. We asked them, What makes it hard for you to be an ally for underrepresented and marginalized people (e.g., people of color, women, persons with a disability) in your organization? Low motivation represented just 8% of the barriers people cited. And lack of awareness that marginalized groups face inequities accounted for only 10% of the barriers people mentioned. Most diversity training money tends to be devoted to teaching employees about these topicssuggesting why many diversity training programs fail. The most common barrier to allyship that our participants named was distrust and tension between people in their organization, which had them second-guessing themselves and self-censoring. People also reported feeling disempowered, like they didnt have the power, opportunity or resources to make a real difference for their colleagues. Why it matters Researchers, specialists and consultants alike approach issues of workplace inequity with the assumption that to drive action, they need to first unblock potential allies deep-seated resistance to change. For example, specialists assume that people need to become more motivated, more courageous, less biased or better informed about existing inequities in order to act as allies. In this study, we temporarily set aside all preexisting assumptions and directly asked people what made it hard for them to be an ally, in their own words. Our goal was to identify practical roadblocks at the top of peoples minds that stop them from taking the first step, or the next logical step. When popular messaging, like on social media, and organizational interventions misunderstand the causes of peoples inaction, they risk exacerbating frustration and tensions. Interventions need to account for their audiences true perspectives on what makes allyship difficult. Otherwise, theyll lack credibility, and people will likely be less receptive to program content. What still isnt known Wed like to further investigate the impacts of the specific barriers mentioned in our study. More insight could help workplaces focus interventions on addressing barriers that are the worst pressure points and avoid overspending on interventions that can move the needle only so much. More than a quarter of respondents said they experienced no barriers to standing up for colleagues. Wed like to investigate whether these respondents simply didnt want to engage with our question, are uncertain about the barriers, or are already engaging in some form of allyship. Our teams previous research has shown that even loud allies who publicly call out bias often also engage in quiet allyship actions, such as privately checking in on how a victim of bias is doing and assisting in strategizing next steps. Whats next Our research team is investigating whether programs designed with this studys findings in mindstarting with building trusting relationships and helping people feel empoweredcan increase allyship action. When diversity programs built on inaccurate assumptions dont show the desired results, they risk having funding withdrawn or being halted altogether. Instead, as organizations take stock and pivot, evidence from our study and others can help them more effectively plan their next move. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Meg A. Warren is a professor of management at Western Washington University. Michael T. Warren is an assistant professor of psychology at Western Washington University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
Rob Shaver is a 49-year-old retail worker who recently had a streak of running at least 1 mile every day for three years. Hes also been living with Stage 4 bone and lung cancer for more than 20 years. Shavers commitment to living in spite of illness is chronicled in the short film The Life We Have, which uses his life as a lens through which to examine questions at the heart of the human experience: What gives life meaning when time feels fragile? How do we keep moving forward when suffering feels endless? Though profoundly sad, the film, directed by Sam Price-Waldman, is also thoughtfully inspiring. We see Shaver on his good days, running and spending time with his brother and mom. We see him on his bad days, at the hospital for chemo, or pulling out his hair at home as a result of his treatments. Smiling on the road. Crying at the kitchen table. Its a quiet film, built on moments of happiness and hardship. Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of the project is that its produced by REI, and Shaver works at the outdoor retailers San Antonio store (as do his mother and brother). Up until now, The Life We Have has been screened only at film festivals, but on February 18 the brand is launching the film on its website and YouTube channel. Paolo Mottola, VP of brand marketing at REI, says Shaver and his store manager just cold-called him a few years ago. They liked what REI Studios, the brands content division, had been doing and thought they had a story to tell. While REI Studios has done more traditional outdoors action-based work, its also produced more narrative-based work like Frybread Face and Me. Executive produced by Taika Waititi, the comedy-drama is about a boy who spends a summer with his grandmother on a Navajo reservation. REI Studios also put out Canary, a documentary feature that follows adventurer and climate scientist Lonnie Thompson. We want to tell human stories that people can empathize with and resonate with, says Mottola. This story [The Life We Have] isn’t about achievement or accomplishment in the traditional outdoor sense. This is an achievement and an inspiration by someone doing something really, really hard in a hospital bed, or getting out of their own bed to just jog a mile. Its about that connection to each other and that connection to the outdoors and how we’re better people for that. [Photo: REI Studios] Life worth living Director Price-Waldman and producers at Wondercamp have been documenting Shavers story since mid-2023. Joe Crosby, REIs director of brand and content marketing, says that based on initial conversations REI Studios wanted to make the film, even if it would be viewed only by the brands roughly 15,000 employees. That was inspiration enough for us to tell the story, Crosby says. As Wonder Camp plugged in, they were embedded, and his health circumstance was changing while they were producing the film. It took on a different life through the production and execution of the film into what you’re seeing now, and it will now see a wider audience than our employee community. [Photo: REI Studios] Over the course of the 25-minute film, Shavers illness recedes from and steps into the spotlight, conveying the unpredictability of his everyday life. The role of running, even if its just a mile, in affirming his purpose and providing him with joy is clear. Everyday, be thankful for your body, be thankful for your mind, he says. Over the past year the film has received numerous awards, including Best Short at the AmDocs Film Festival, the Audience Choice Award at the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival, and Best of the Fest at the 5Point Film Festival. [Photo: REI Studios] REI challenges The film lands at a time when REI could use an inspirational story of its own. Its faced financial declines in the past few years, with sales down 2.4% in 2023 and 6.2% in 2024. In October 2025, the company announced it would be shutting down its Soho store in Manhattan, as well as locations in Boston and Paramus, New Jersey. CEO Mary Beth Laughton joined REI a year ago to help right the ship that has been rocked by employee unrest over the companys reported efforts to slow unionization, as well as a damning internal report on racial equity within the company. Mottola says the brands broader film work is not just a marketing effort, but also a way to advocate for the best parts of the companys internal culture. He sees work like The Life We Have building on REI Studios consistency oftelling employee stories like 2020s The Mighty Finn, about Cleveland store manager Ethan Sheets and his 7-year-old son Finn. Our role is to build the brand and keep people excited about it, and keep audiences and our members engaged in the brand, Mottola says. Evolving studio As hyped as brand entertainment is these days in marketing circles, REI was in relatively early on establishing an internal division devoted to content and entertainment. Originally launched in 2021, REI Co-Op Studios has projects on Netflix and Hulu, and produces everything from short films to weekly podcasts and an online newsletter. Mottola says the strategy has shifted based on those early experiences. The brand is being more selective in the long-form projects it chooses to invest in, and is focused on retaining distribution control. It’s been a huge learning curve for us the last few years, he says. But I think we found the partners we like to work with, understand the ecosystem we need to work in, and the time we need to take to get a story from concept to audience. This week, the brand is launching a nationwide Run for Rob screening tour with regional run clubs and raising funds for local nonprofits including Cancer Support Community. Screening events have already been hosted in New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle, and the tour continues in Denver on March 1 and additional cities in the coming weeks. Its not often (or ever) that brand content can be described as profound, but Shavers story and how hes able to articulate his journey certainly qualifies. Its a message any viewerand the brand itselfcan take to heart. Its about so much more than running, Shaver says in the film. Its about making a choice every day to live deeply and thoroughly. And with beautiful effort. Not for results. Not for money or fame or lifestyle. But for the richness of being alive.
Category:
E-Commerce
Do women board members make a company more innovative or risk-averse? The answer is both, according to our recent study. It all depends on how the company performs relative to its goals. Professors Ma³gorzata Smulowitz, Didier Cossin and I examined 524 S&P 1500 companies from 1999 to 2016, measuring innovation through patent activity. Patents reflect both creative output and risk-taking. They require significant investment in novel ideas that might fail, disclosure of proprietary information and substantial legal costs. In short, patents represent genuine bets on the future. Our findings revealed a striking pattern. When companies performed poorly in relation to their goals, they produced fewer patents after more women joined their boards. However, companies exceeding their performance targets saw increased patent output as their number of women directors grew. Similarly, when companies were financially flush, there were more patents generated when their boards had more women. The situation changed when we examined radical innovations, those patents in the top 10% of citations. For these high-risk, high-reward innovations, the risk-averse effect of women board members dominated. When a companys performance fell below aspirations, there were fewer radical innovations as its board gained female members. We found no corresponding increase in radical innovations when performance exceeded goals. One finding surprised us. We predicted that boards with more women would reduce innovation when companies approached bankruptcy. Instead, it was the opposite: Boards with more women actually increased patent output as bankruptcy loomed. This suggests that women directors may fight harder for a companys survival through innovation when facing existential threats. Why it matters Between 2000 and 2024, the number of women on S&P 500 boards increased from 27% to 34%. But previous research has painted conflicting pictures on the effect that women board members may have. Some studies showed that women reduce corporate risk-taking, while others demonstrated they increase innovation and creativity. Our work suggests both perspectives are correct under different circumstances. For companies and regulators pushing for greater board gender diversity, this research provides practical guidance. Companies performing well can expect increased innovation by adding women to their boards. These directors can bring diverse perspectives, improved decision-making and better resource allocation that translate into more patents. Conversely, poorly performing companies can expect boards with more women to focus on stability over risky innovation. This isnt necessarily negative. Research shows that banks led by women were less likely to fail during the financial crisis, and companies with more women directors experience less financial distress. Reduced innovation during tough times may reflect prudent risk management rather than risk aversion. Traditional theories predict that poor performance triggers risky searches for solutions. But boards with more women appear to prioritize organizational survival over uncertain innovation when performance suffers. They may assess that failed innovation attempts could worsen an already precarious situation. This research also speaks to the glass cliff phenomenon, where women often join boards during crisis periods. Our findings suggest these directors may bring exactly what struggling companies need: careful risk assessment and focus on survival rather than potentially wasteful innovation spending. What still isnt known We measured innovation through patents, but many innovations never become patents. How women directors affect other forms of innovationsuch as copyrights, trade secrets and first-mover advantageremains unclear. What are the mechanisms driving the differences? Do women directors actively advocate for different innovation strategies? Do they change board discussion dynamics? Do they influence CEO and management team decisions indirectly? Future research needs to open the black box of boardroom decision-making. Finally, the long-term consequences need examination. We measured patent output, but not whether the patents translated into commercial success or competitive advantage. Understanding whether the innovation patterns we documented ultimately benefit company performance would provide crucial insights for decision-makers. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Stephen J. Smulowitz is an assistant professor of strategic management at Wake Forest University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
Sites : [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] next »