In the UK, there are two types of design rights: registered design rights and unregistered design rights and we have set out the key features and differences between the two below. Registered Design Right: What do we mean by “registered design right”? A registered design right is obtained by registering a design with the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO). It grants the owner exclusive rights to use the design and…
Yesterday, I came across research by Randstad and it really got me thinking about how much the workplace landscape is changing. This study included insights from 27,000 workers worldwide and what really caught my attention was that nearly half of the respondents—47%, to be exact—expressed a willingness to stick with a job they love, even if there’s no clear path for advancement. And 34% mentioned they have zero interest in…
As destinations and source markets have changed, tourism and hospitality companies have evolved too. Six key trends have shaped business models in this sector over the past decade. In accommodation, asset-light models like franchising and management have proliferated, though luxury and small-scale brands are opting out. Consolidation has driven economies of scale. Hotels are looking to reclaim their relationship with guests, and almost two decades in, home sharing is charting…
Tourism can help build a more connected, more vibrant world. But as tourism grows rapidly, the most visited destinations are experiencing more concentrated flows (Exhibit 1). Recent satellite data suggests that 80 percent of travelers visit just 10 percent of the world’s tourist destinations. The number of travelers and the frequency of their trips are only set to increase. A large flow of tourists, if not carefully channeled, can encumber…
Frontiers Research Highlight Using large language models to generate text can save time but often results in unpredictable errors. Prompting users to review outputs can improve their quality. Renée Richardson Gosline, Yunhao Zhang, Haiwen Li, Paul Daugherty, Arnab D. Chakraborty, Philippe Roussiere, and Patrick Connolly May 29, 2024 Reading Time: 7 min Topics Data, AI, & Machine Learning AI & Machine Learning Frontiers An MIT SMR initiative exploring how technology…
Business simulations are a powerful, yet often overlooked tool in the world of leadership development. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the framework behind business simulations and uncover their potential for shaping dynamic leaders. Business simulations: Powering excellence through practice Imagine a training method that combines the complexity of real-world business with the safety net of a virtual environment; such is the power of business simulations. Simulations provide an immersive…
What do I need to know? New criminal laws in the UK will make companies more vulnerable to criminal prosecution for the acts of their employees and agents than ever before. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (“ECCTA”) introduces two significant changes to the criminal law in the UK, making it easier for prosecution agencies to hold companies accountable for the actions of their employees. Those changes are…
Quick Hits The Maine Department of Labor issued proposed rules for the state’s Paid Family and Medical Leave Program, providing employers with initial clarification regarding covered employees, contribution amounts, substitution of private plans, and other facets of the law. The public comment period for the proposed rules is open through July 8, 2024. While the department’s proposed rules answer several critical questions, revisions to the proposal are expected following the…
Minecraft 15th anniversary - Source “I met my husband and amazing friends through Minecraft and everything that has happened from that point has been the most exciting adventure.” — Razzleberries “Minecraft gave me the opportunity to be featured in multiple official books through building, rendering and writing.” — Cookiie “The command blocks in the game allow anyone, even those with virtually no coding experience, to start changing the world around…
In his spring Budget on 6 March 2024, chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced that the government would consult on the possibility of creating a new “British ISA”. This new type of ISA would give investors an additional £5,000 allowance on top of their normal ISA allowance of £20,000 in the 2024/25 tax year. However, you’d only be allowed to invest this £5,000 in UK markets. The reception to the British ISA…
Corporate America has never been known for its gender diversity; in 2015, fewer women ran large U.S. companies than men named John. While the numbers are slowly improving at senior levels—women CEOs finally outnumbered Johns as of 2023—many of the country’s biggest firms have a workforce that is significantly less gender diverse than the overall population. New research suggests that these companies are leaving serious money on the table. A…
What sorts of journeys do today’s travelers dream about? Where would they like to go? What do they hope to do when they get there? How much are they willing to spend on it all? And what should industry stakeholders do to adapt to the traveler psychology of the moment? To gauge what’s on the minds of current-day travelers, we surveyed more than 5,000 of them in February and March…
In this episode of Nevermind the Pain Points, join host Tom Carpenter and guest expert Phil Boyden from Sojourn Solutions as they dive into the future of B2B marketing – navigating everything from the complex world of marketing automation and customer data platforms, to proving ROI, and adopting B2C strategies.Listen here or read on for an edited transcript. Tom Carpenter: Hello, everyone. It’s great to have you tune into the…
As the sun begins to peak its way through the clouds, dreamers begin to consider the potential of investing in a holiday home. Investing in a holiday home can be a rewarding venture, offering both personal enjoyment and potential financial gain. However, amidst the excitement of acquiring a second property, forward planning is crucial, especially when considering tax implications for future disposal of the asset. Inheritance Tax It is important…
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced on Thursday, May 23, that they are expanding their search for businesses using “roll up” strategies to consolidate competitors and reduce competition across the U.S. economy. Previously, the agencies had primarily focused their efforts on the healthcare industry, but this latest joint Request for Information invites members of the public to submit “examples” of…
School may be out for summer in many places across the northern hemisphere, but learning doesn’t have to end! Our free summer learning game for students, Leaps and Logs, is back again this year. We’ve updated the experience with new, innovative challenges, including some that feature creating with AI. Students can play a friend, neighbor, family member, or by themselves, completing fun learning tasks as they go.In this summer learning…
The McKinsey Global Institute aggregated a richly granular data set of micro-, small-, and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) and large companies across 12 broad sectors, 68 level-two subsectors, and more than 200 level-three subsectors for 16 countries that account for more than half of global GDP. In these countries, MSMEs on average have only half the productivity of large companies, and less than that in emerging economies. Raising MSMEs to top-quartile…
Ninety percent of the world’s data has been created in the last two years, and this huge influx is already growing exponentially in 2024. However, Google’s move to phase-out third-party cookies and prioritise user privacy will limit businesses’ access to customer data. Given today’s focus on the hyper-personalisation of customer experience, this barrier to user data poses a new challenge to businesses. Meanwhile, Google seeks to keep pace with advancements…
For all the financial, operational, and market challenges incumbent telecom operators have faced over the past decade-plus, they still retain real competitive advantages in their efforts to spur renewed growth. Global brand recognition, a large customer base, a rich data set, and a broad array of sales channels are all vital assets they can leverage for success. But telcos won’t likely be able to realize these advantages unless they are…
Our goal in Teams is to make hybrid work and communication easier and more inclusive than ever before. This pursuit is core to the effort we put into creating meaningful connections between people through our end-to-end events platforms, whether one-to-one meetings or large one-to-many hosted digital events. We introduced our new digital streaming event solution for large events, town hall, in September 2023. Town hall has continued to drive new,…
New graduates entering the job market will face a very different landscape from even a year ago, with a murky economy and potentially more limited career prospects. Though unemployment figures in the US remain near historically low levels, the pace of hiring in April slowed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. US employers added 175,000 jobs, seasonally adjusted, far fewer than the more than 300,000 in March and below…
Like a lot of people, Balázs Kovács has come to rely on Yelp reviews when it comes to choosing a new restaurant. “I don’t look at the numbers,” he says. “I read to connect with the experience. It’s more personable if someone writes about their experience. If they complain about having to wait 45 minutes for soup, I know what that means.” A professor of organizational behavior at Yale SOM…
This interview is part of the Leading Asia series, which features in-depth conversations with the region’s most influential leaders on what it takes to lead in Asia today.Asia–Pacific’s changing demographics, growing middle class, and insurance protection gaps are just a few trends shaping opportunities and challenges in the region's life and health insurance markets. There is clearly ample room for sustained growth in these markets. Lee Yuan Siong, AIA group…
A new study by a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University assessed cannabis use in the United States between 1979 and 2022, finding that a growing share of cannabis consumers report daily or near-daily use and that their numbers now exceed those of daily and near-daily alcohol drinkers. The study concludes that long-term trends in cannabis use parallel corresponding changes in policy over the same period. The study appears in Addiction.…
Both Tehran and Jerusalem, while performing political and diplomatic manoeuvres, and, if necessary, demonstrating military capabilities, still strive to refrain from direct confrontation. The regional balance is extremely unstable – and therefore not a single potential scenario should be completely ruled out. Iran-Israel relations have remained extremely tense for several decades. However, the parties have never engaged in a direct military confrontation, limiting themselves to attacks through their proxies and…
Tax planning sits at the heart of every successful wealth management strategy. Talking tax can be difficult. It doesn’t have the glamour of planning an investment portfolio or discussing a lucrative business exit, but tax planning is pivotal to your financial future. Everyone can benefit from understanding the fundamentals. Tax planning is embedded into every aspect of wealth management. Whether you are thinking about investing, estate planning, cashflow management, philanthropy,…
Announcing the new €15M Google.org Impact Challenge
There are many, ways to evaluate Africa’s expensiveness in the tech space and determine what drives African development. Conclusions may point to interests in robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and telecommunications. This paper attempts to add to the body of literary commentary on this issue a view of the nature of the African population demographics, the youth dividend, and the impact of geopolitics, geoeconomics, and current multilateralism on their potential and role…
On 14 May, United States President Joe Biden announced new tariffs on China under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (unfair trade) . The additional tariffs – on top of earlier tariffs, including those imposed by President Trump – cover imports from China in several sectors, including semiconductors (tariff rises from 25 percent to 50 percent), solar cells (from 25 percent to 50 percent), electric vehicle batteries (from 7.5…
It is January 2025 and two people are sitting at the departure gate at Heathrow waiting for their (inevitably) delayed flight to the Bahamas. They start a conversation and talk about why they are flying to this Caribbean island. Person A, Mrs Sunseeker, explains to Person B, that she had lived in the UK for a long time as a resident “non-dom,” but that expected changes to the tax rules…
[After the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Western pressure on the Republic of Serbia, the Republic of Srpska and all Serbian people on the territory of the former Yugoslavia increased. The fact that the Republic of Serbia has not imposed sanctions against the Russian Federation has contributed especially to renewed Western political violence against Serbia. Serbs have been put at risk because the Republic of Serbia and…
Goals, values and rules: securing the team’s missionGoals, values and rules are three distinct and complementary ways to bond team members. Together, these elements create the solidarity needed for group members to become a true team. Goals are the foundational element of teams. They provide a shared purpose and direction for the team's efforts. Once goals are established, values and rules then come into play and define how those goals will be achieved.Values are the…
The fascination with the sea is as old as man. The famous cry—thalatta, thalatta—of Xenophon’s beleaguered 10,000 Greek soldiers (or of what remained of them) upon seeing the familiar waters of the Black Sea after returning from war, showed a loving familiarity with the sea. The Romans embraced the Mediterranean as their own sea—Mare Nostrum—even if they faced it with some trepidation, preferring to have their legions firmly grounded on…
If Lerone A. Martin, the faculty director for Stanford’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, harbored any doubts about teaching his popular undergraduate course via the Internet to high schoolers in Los Angeles, they vanished when the results of a student survey arrived midway through the semester. When asked about the class, Between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Freedom, three…
As AI policy conversations expanded last year, they started to be punctuated by repeated references to unexpected abbreviations. Not the usual short names for new AI models or machine learning jargon, but acronyms for the different international institutions that today govern civil aviation, nuclear power, and global capital flows. This piqued our curiosity. We wanted to go deeper and learn more about how approaches to governing civil aviation might apply…
Quick Hits Maryland’s HB 1388 imposes greater restrictions on Maryland employers entering noncompete and conflict of interest agreements with both health care and veterinary professionals. HB 1388 prohibits restrictions for certain employees who are required to be licensed under the Health Occupations Article and certain employees who are licensed as a veterinary practitioner or veterinary technician under Title 2, Subtitle 3 of the Agriculture Article. HB 1388 takes effect on…
New ServiceNow Now Assist and Microsoft Copilot integration brings the power of two generative AI assistants into one seamless enterprise experience LAS VEGAS — May 8, 2024 — Knowledge 2024 — Today at ServiceNow’s annual customer and partner event, Knowledge 2024, ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced an expanded strategic alliance, combining their industry-leading generative AI capabilities to enhance employee choice and flexibility. The new ServiceNow Now…
Making great products is not enough in software these days. The “build it, and they will come” mindset will no longer lead to success in this ever-competitive space. As software products become more sophisticated and customers more discerning, the path to market acceptance has become much more complicated. Companies need different capabilities to navigate this more challenging environment, with sustainable success increasingly requiring a role devoted to understanding and priming…
What You Need to Know: On May 6, 2024, the Connecticut legislature passed a bill (HB No. 5005) amending a number of key aspects of the Connecticut statewide Paid Sick Leave Law. The bill was signed into law by Governor Ned Lamont on May 21, 2024. Some of the notable substantive amendments to Connecticut Paid Sick Leave include (a) expansions of which employers are subject to the law, which individuals…
The study encompassed more than two million participants psychological wellbeing from 2006-2021 across 168 countries, in relation to internet use and psychological well-being across 33,792 different statistical models and subsets of data, 84.9% of associations between internet connectivity and wellbeing were positive and statistically significant. The study analysed data from two million individuals aged 15 to 99 in 168 countries, including Latin America, Asia, and Africa and found internet access and…