You may enjoy drinking beer, but how about wearing it? London-based Arda Biomaterials aims to turn breweries’ barley grain waste into a leather alternative used in fashion and home goods. Arda just got a ~$1.42m investment round, which ought to buy enough rounds to make a jacket or two.
In today’s email:
Business class: Gen Z gets schooled on office essentials.
Seizing the day: Is it time to put the 40-hour workweek to rest?
Big cheese: Domino’s turns pizza delivery on its head — again.
Around the Web: Dubious doughnut lore, cool art, a popular rock, and more internet finds.
👇 Listen: Domino’s delivers another innovation — pizza anywhere.
Work Study
Gen Zers need corporate America 101
This can be a hard era to work in. Imagine trying to enter the workforce during it.
2023-06-22T00:00:00Z
Sara Friedman
Did your first-ever day of work entail being severely overdressed, underprepared, and sweaty?
Just us on that last one? Cool. Anyway: Recent classes of undergraduates have entered corporate America in a very different fashion than previous generations.
Rather than heating up a Tupperware of leftovers in an office kitchen while making small talk with Kathy from accounting, many Gen Zers are logging in to work from the comfort of their homes.
Post-pandemic grads may struggle with workplace etiquette.
Young employees have missed out on working alongside mentors and senior leadership.
Presenting or networking in person can be challenging after years of speaking only on Zoom.
Class is in session
To solve Gen Z’s workplace woes, some companies and universities have rolled out classes to help young professionals navigate the quirks of corporate America.
Companies like KPMG, Deloitte, Protiviti, and PwC are providing training to new hires on topics such as conducting in-person conversations and maintaining eye contact.
Michigan State University has started offering courses to its business majors on practical workplace skills, from introducing yourself and networking to reading body language.
Companies are also learning where their digital-native but office-naive employees might need extra hand-holding, like with office dress codes: e.g., providing updated documentation for ambiguous terms like “business casual”.
Now, repeat after us: “Can you all see my screen?”
Uh, what? California’s Taqueria Garibaldi must pay $140k to employees after hiring a bogus priest to hear their confessions — specifically asking if they’d been tardy to work, stolen money, or otherwise “sinned” against the restaurant’s two locations.
SNIPPETS
TodAI in AI: ChatGPT-maker OpenAI reportedly plans to launch a marketplace where developers can sell AI models built with its tech.
Update: With USDA approval, Upside Foods and Eat Just-owned Good Meat are now cleared to sell lab-grown meat in the US.
Amazonannounced its upcoming Prime Day event — July 11-12 — will feature invite-only deals for Prime members. In 2022, the annual sale raked in $11.9B.
Meanwhile, the FTC is suing Amazon, alleging it tricked customers into recurring, hard-to-cancel Prime subscriptions, and Sen. Bernie Sanders launched an investigation into its warehouse safety conditions.
Nintendoannounced several upcoming games during its Nintendo Direct event yesterday, including “Detective Pikachu Returns,” “Pikmin 4,” and a whole lot of Mario.
RIP: Good Humor’s Toasted Almond bar is hangin’ with Choco Taco in ice cream heaven. The company said it was forced to discontinue the treat to “reflect consumer preferences.”
This but for all phones, please: WhatsApp released a new setting that silences incoming calls from unknown numbers by default. The calls will still appear in notifications, but spam calls just got a lot quieter — thank goodness.
Jump shot: Early 2000s novelty SlamBall — basically basketball, with elements of hockey and football, but on trampolines — will return to the national stage after inking a two-year broadcast deal with ESPN.
Want to make a killer first impression? Then you probably need to work on your personal branding. We made it easy with 10 examples of personal brand statements.
Video
Watch: Should we change the 40-hour workweek?
On one end of the spectrum, there’s Elon Musk. On the other end, there’s Iceland.
Musk, like many celebrity CEOs, works a lot of hours. He once bragged about spending 120 hours a week in the factory to supercharge Tesla’s production. After that made him “bonkers,” he toned it down to ~80 hours.
In 2021, Iceland shared the results of its workforce switching from 40-hour workweeks to 35-36 hours, finding workers were just as productive.
Throughout PowerPoint’s 36-year history… not much has changed.
Because what works superbly should stay that way. Use this pack of 10 striking PowerPoint templates to posterize your speeches, pitch decks, and presentations.
Keep your address between you and your post office — coincidentally, one of the many places Domino’s will deliver you a pizza.
2023-06-22T00:00:00Z
Juliet Bennett Ryla
There’s a “Seinfeld” episode in which Elaine, dismayed that a restaurant won’t deliver to her apartment, pretends to live in a janitor’s closet across the street.
But Domino’s? It doesn’t even need an address.
Pizza anywhere?
Domino’s new “Pinpoint Delivery” lets customers order pretty much anywhere, as long as they’re within a Domino’s delivery zone and have a spot for a car to pull over.
So maybe not the middle of the Appalachian Trail, but definitely your birthday party in a park.
How it works
Hungry customers:
Drop a pin on Google Maps within the Domino’s app to show their location
Track orders via text and GPS
Meet the driver at the pickup spot within four minutes
Customers must also enter a visual description of themselves (e.g., “I’m wearing red jorts”); additionally, they can activate a “signal” that displays a Domino’s logo on their phone.
Domino’s…
… is kind of a delivery innovator.
It launched online and mobile ordering in 2007, adding its “Domino’s Tracker” in 2008. It tested robot delivery, powered by Nuro’s autonomous cars, in 2021, and drone delivery in the UK in 2013, perCNN.
But delivery demand isn’t as high as it was during pandemic lockdowns; it’s also spread across numerous restaurants using myriad apps.
Domino’s CFO Sandeep Reddy said delivery dipped 2.1% in the last quarter, and that what customers crave is convenience, perInsider.
And what could be more convenient than Domino’s rolling up to your campground, huh?
BTW: Some have claimed the Tracker is bogus; Domino’s maintains it’s based on real-time info. Believe whatever makes you happiest.
AROUND THE WEB
🍩 On this day: In 1847, Capt. Hanson Crockett Gregory claimed to have invented the doughnut while working on a schooner. This is disputed, but his hometown of Glen Cove, Maine, still erected a plaque in his honor.
🎨 That’s cool: If you love roadside attractions, check out Detour Art. It catalogs folk and outsider art across the US.
🪨 That’s interesting: People have been photographing Mearns Rock, a boulder in Alaska, for 33 years in an effort to track the Exxon Valdez oil spill’s impact on nature.
👀 How to:Identify AI-generated content and deepfakes.
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