Dubai, the go-to destination for influencers, is now doubling down on its biggest market with the launch of its very own influencer academy.
Jointly funded by the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism and a travel content creation agency, the Beautiful Destinations Academy offers three months of social media training for students, aimed at bolstering Dubais tourism industry. The academy is still accepting applications for four budding influencers, who will be paid to travel and live in the city starting next month.
A promotional video by Beautiful Destinations describes the program as an elite training environment where we invest in you to support Dubais unparalleled vision for the future of tourism. Successful applicants will typically train five days a week, with modules covering photography and cinematography, editing and color grading, sound effects, AI tools, industry regulations, and professional development as a travel content creator. At the end of the course, students will receive a certificate from Dubai College of Tourism, with the really special ones offered a full-time job at Beautiful Destinations.
All expenses, including flights and accommodation in a luxury serviced apartment, are covered, along with a livable income for the three-month program. Students will also have access to shoot at some of Dubais most stunning and exclusive locations, normally reserved for celebrities and royalty.
Jeremy Jauncey, CEO and founder of Beautiful Destinations, told The Independent: I want to share what Ive learned with the next generation and give others the chance to experience the coolest career in the world. And theres no better city than Dubaiwhich has inspired Beautiful Destinations creators since our earliest daysto do this in. You dont need to be an expert to applywere looking for raw, hidden talent.
He added: We want to equip young people with the skills to build a solid future in travel content creation, to take advantage of this fast-growing sector. You dont need expensive equipment or formal training just a desire to turn your social media hobby into a dream career.
Issam Kazim, chief executive of Visit Dubai, told The Times UK that the academys launch is a testament to our commitment to fostering creativity, innovation and excellence in the tourism sector. Dubai welcomed a record 18.72 million international visitors last year and recently introduced the “golden visa” (a new visa that allows influencers to live in the UAE sponsorship-free), along with a Dhs 150 million (about $40 million in USD) government support fund to aid influencers.
Given that over half of Gen Zers aspire to be influencers, where better to make that happen than the influencer hotspot of the world? Applicants must upload a 60-second video on travel culture or adventure on Instagram, tag @BeautifulDestinations @VisitDubai #BDacademy, and complete an online form before April 24 to be considered for the first cohort.
It has taken a little over five months and has been anticipated for several weeks, but it now appears increasingly likely that the bromance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump is nearing its end. Musk is reportedly planning to step down from his role overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
During Teslas latest earnings call this week, Musk said, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly next monththough he noted that he still intends to dedicate some time to government issues going forward.
The announcement came as Tesla reported surprisingly poor results, and Musks pivot appeared to serve as a parachute for a business in freefall. Following his remarks and amid expectations that he would now refocus on Tesla, the companys share price rose. This was an off-ramp for Musk out of the Trump White House, says Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities. The global brand damage, political firestorm, and perfect storm chaos over the past few months will now end this volatile political chapter for Musk.
What Musks departure means for the quasi-governmental agency hes leaving behind remains uncertain. Trump has heavily promoted the potential cost savings DOGE would deliver to U.S. taxpayersthough it’s unclear whether Musks actions have genuinely produced the savings touted by the administration. If Trump hasn’t got bored with DOGE, theres still a chance that he might send a check to voters with a nominal saving, says Bruce Daisley, a former Twitter executive. He’s never expressed much interest in the midterms, so its possible this won’t be of interest by then.
Cary Cooper, professor of organizational psychology at the University of Manchester, believes Trump will continue DOGEs work by appointing another entrepreneur or business titan to lead the agency. Hell appoint another business guy, no question about it, he says. Any new head of DOGE may not feel bound by Musks infamous five things email, which demanded government workers justify their roles by reporting five achievements from the past week. Still, Cooper believes the mission will carry on. It may have been Musk who led the way, but I think Trump wants that to happen as well, because he perceives the civil service to be left of center, Cooper says. DOGE remains Trumps tool for pushing that agenda.
As for the businesses Musk is returning to, opinions are divided. Teslas reputationand share pricehave suffered amid sweeping layoffs and controversial decisions that have impacted many American families. Ives and Wedbush Securities believe Musks stint in government and his perceived callousness will reduce long-term demand for Teslas electric vehicles by as much as 10%. (Musk did not respond to Fast Company‘s request for comment.)
Still, despite Tesla’s recent financial setbacksincluding a near-10% drop in revenueIves remains optimistic about the company’s future. This was the time to close one dark chapter and open a brighter one for the Tesla story, with autonomous and robotics front and center, he says.
Some view Musks exit from government and return to the private sector as a strategic move to salvage his personal brand. His brand is damaged, Cooper says. He is seen as an extreme right-wing person who cares nothing except about helping the wealthy like him to survive. While Musk may have held such views for years, it was his highly visible government role that solidified them in the public eye.
Because of that, the challenges facing the entrepreneur and worlds richest man are only growing. But Musk has faced crises beforeand is likely to try everything to turn things around. Musk is almost certain to try to pull a rabbit out of a hat of merging xAI with Tesla to position Tesla as an AI business, Daisley says. There’s a much bigger multiple [there], and his talk of robotics gives another horizon to chase rather than the EV one that he’s currently losing ground on.
Mel Robbinss best-selling book, The Let Them Theory, has captured the imagination of millions of people, earning critical acclaim and resonating deeply with those seeking peace in a chaotic world. The core premise is simple yet powerful: let people be who they are, let them make their own choices, and most importantly, dont waste your energy trying to change others. Its a philosophy of radical acceptancean invitation to stop being burdened by the expectations, behaviors, and opinions of those around us.At first glance, this mindset seems liberating. Who wouldnt want to shed the weight of trying to control the uncontrollable? In a time where burnout is rampant and people are constantly drained by personal and professional obligations, the Let Them philosophy offers a reprievea way to step back and prioritize emotional well-being.And yet, as compelling as this idea may be, it raises an important question: Is letting them always the right approach?
The Appeal of Letting Go
Theres undeniable wisdom in Robbinss message. Far too many people spend their lives tangled in the choices and behaviors of others, investing enormous emotional energy in situations they have no real power to change. Parents stress over grown childrens choices. Friends stay in draining relationships, hoping people will evolve. Professionals lose sleep over colleagues attitudes and behaviors.In these cases, Robbinss philosophy is a wake-up call: Stop trying to fix what isnt yours to fix. Let them.Let them be irresponsible. Let them be distant. Let them succeed, let them fail. Let them love you or walk away. Let them hold on to outdated beliefs. Let them go down a path you dont agree with. The argument is that by surrendering control over others, you reclaim control over yourselfyour happiness, your peace, your emotional freedom.Its an enticing philosophy, and for certain moments in life, its the exact right thing to do. But what happens when letting go becomes an excuse for disengagement? What happens when let them is applied too broadly?
When ‘Let Them’ Becomes an Excuse
If Let Them is about relinquishing control over what we cannot change, then where does that leave the things we can change? What about the injustices in our world? What about the relationships that are worth fighting for? What about the responsibilities we carry toward our families, our communities, our workplaces?There are times in life when letting them isnt the right answerwhen stepping back is an abdication of responsibility, not a path to freedom. If a colleague is sabotaging team morale, do you simply let them? If a friend is struggling with self-destruction, do you let them spiral? If a system is broken, do you let it stay that way?The truth is, some things are worth our time and effort. Some battles are worth fighting. Some people are worth engaging with, even if change isnt immediate or easy. To withdraw entirely under the banner of Let them is to risk apathy in moments that require action.
A Luxury Not Everyone Can Afford
Then theres another realityLet Them is a philosophy that, in some ways, is easier for those who have already secured success, influence, or financial stability.For a young professional trying to establish a career, the idea of simply letting things happen may not be practical. For parents raising children, letting them doesnt always workyou cant let a child make every decision unchecked. For leaders steering a company, a community, or a movement, stepping back at the wrong moment can mean failure, chaos, or even harm.The ability to disengage from unnecessary drama is a privilege, one that grows more accessible with financial independence, career success, and age. Its no coincidence that many of the most enthusiastic adopters of this philosophy are those who have already reached a place where they can afford to say, Time is precious. I wont waste it.In fact, this may be the true strength of Let Themnot as a universal directive, but as a philosophy particularly well-suited for those in the later stages of life. For those who have already built their careers, raised their children, fought their battles, and established their reputations, Let Them can be a tool for cutting away unnecessary distractions and spending their remaining years in peace.But for those still climbing, still building, still fighting? Let them might not always be the right answer.
Be Selective, Then Commit
So where does this leave us? If we reject a total embrace of Let Them, do we go back to exhausting ourselves in battles we cannot win? Do we spend our lives trying to fix people who dont want to be fixed?Of course not.The balance lies in discernmentin knowing when to let go and when to lean in. Not every battle is worth fighting, but some are. Not every relationship is worth saving, but some are. Not every system is worth engaging with, but some demand our full attention.The key isnt to detach from everything but to be highly selective about where you invest your energy. And once you decide something is worth your time, you dont go halfwayyou go all in.Ive never been one to do things halfway. I dont believe in a life of passive observation. I believe in engagement, in purpose, in fighting for what matters. And while I agree that some thingssome peopleare best left to their own devices, I also know that meaningful change requires effort. If everyone simply let them, where would progress come from?
Lead Them
Theres real value in Let Them, but like all philosophies, its not one-size-fits-all. It works best when applied strategicallywhen used to free ourselves from unnecessary burdens while still engaging with the things that truly matter.For those in the final chapters of life, those who have earned the right to be selective, it may be a mantra of peace. But for those still in the fightbuilding, growing, leading, advocatingthe call isnt to let go entirely. The call is to choose wisely, and when the moment demands it, to step in fully.Because sometimes, the answer isnt Let Them. Sometimes, the answer is Lead Them.
Leaders of todays workplace recognize coaching as a core leadership skill. More and more companies are expecting managers to actively develop their employees and support their growth through regular development conversations.
For leaders who embrace this responsibility, coaching can be incredibly rewarding. But its not always clear how to do it well. Most managers feel comfortable helping employees build technical skills or prepare them for their next role. But when it comes to coaching social and emotional skills, leadership qualities, or behavioral changes, many leaders get stuck. Because the path to success is less clear-cut, more complex, and requires sustained effort over time.
How to coach for behavioral change
As companies increasingly expect managers to step up as coaches, were seeing more and more resources that help leaders build their coaching skills. Doing that requires leaders to learn how to build trust, ask open-ended questions, actively listen, and provide constructive feedback. Frameworks like the GROW model provide a structured approach to coaching conversations.
But when it comes to coaching employees on behavioral changes and social-emotional skills, many managers hit a wall. Traditional coaching methods dont always work. Thats where an evidence-based frameworkoriginally used by executive coachescan help.
The Development Pipeline
The Development Pipeline, created by David Peterson and Mary Dee Hicks, breaks down the often complex process of personal growth into five essential conditions for lasting development. Its a game-changer for managers because it helps them diagnose and address where employees might be stuck in their development process.
This method relies on five key elements to facilitate behavioral development: Insight, Motivation, Capability, Practice, and Accountability. Think of them as interconnected pipelineseach one needs to stay open and balanced for growth to happen. If one element is blocked, progress can stall.
As a manager, keeping these five conditions in mind will help you guide your direct reports through meaningful conversations. Heres how you can help facilitate the presence of these conditions in your regular coaching chats as part of your one-on-ones
1. Insight: Do they understand what to develop and why it matters?
Development starts with awareness. Employees must recognize the gap between their current behaviors and desired outcomes.
Sabina, a Customer Success Director, wanted to help one of her team members exude more confidence in high-stakes meetings. In their one-on-one, Sabina highlighted specific moments where this happened and discussed the impact. This helped her direct report see why building confidence was crucialnot just for herself, but not to undermine her credibility and influence. They made it a specific development goal.
2. Motivation: Are they motivated and committed to making a change?
Even with insight, change wont happen without motivation. Employees need to see personal value in their development goals.
One way to gauge motivation is to ask, On a scale from 1 to 10, how motivated do you feel to work on this?. Pay attention to verbal and nonverbal responses to gain a greater understanding of how motivated your employee feels to put in the time and effort it takes to change. The key is ensuring the goal aligns with what matters most to them. That means their values, career aspirations, and measurement of success in their role.
3. Capability: Do they know how to improve?
Employees need clear, practical ways to develop a skill or shift a behavior. Without knowing how to improve, insight and motivation alone wont lead to progress.
Naomi, a Product VP, needed to coach an employee on receiving feedback without shutting down. The employee wanted to handle feedback more gracefully but didnt know where to start. Together, they broke down the goal into small actionable steps: proactively asking for feedback, deeply breathing while listening, taking notes, visualizing feedback landing in front of her, and looking at it more neutrally from a distance. Doing this allowed the employee to move from awareness to action.
4. Practice: Are they actively experimenting and refining?
New behaviors require practice and repetition. Employees need opportunities to test, tweak, and refine their skills in real situations.
Michael, an Engineering VP, wanted to support his direct report in being more positive and encouraging in team discussions. So they worked on being more positive in meetings. First, he focused on recognizing team contributions. Later, he practiced framing ideas more constructivelyacknowledging a colleagues perspective before sharing his own. Over time, this intentional practice made positivity more of a habit.
5. Accountability: Are they following through?
Progress stalls without follow-ups. You need to conduct regular check-ins to keep the momentum going. Simple questions like How is it going with [goal]? Whats getting easier? Whats still challenging? What do you want to focus on next? help reinforce commitment.
The importance of keeping development on track
At any given time, your employee may be stuck in different parts of their development. As their manager, your job is to identify the bottleneck and provide specific support. Are they lacking insight? Do they need a clearer action plan? Do they require more practice opportunities?
By focusing your coaching conversations on the specific condition that needs reinforcement, you can help them sustain progress. You dont need to know this ahead of your conversation, but you can explore this together by asking open-ended questions and fully listening to what emerges.
Remember, meaningful development doesnt happen overnight. It requires your support along the way. Regular, short coaching conversationsrooted in curiosity and attentive presencecan make a significant impact over time.
Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture.
This week Chipotle Mexican Grill announced plans to crack a market that already has plenty of Mexican-food options: Mexico. Specifically, the Colorado-founded, California-based burrito concern said it would work with Mexican firm Alseawhich operates Latin American and European locations of various chains, including Starbucks, Dominos Pizza, and Burger Kingto begin opening Chipotle restaurants in Mexico by early 2026.
Its a confident move at a time when many fast-casual chains are struggling, and businesses in general are scrambling to game the fallout from the Trump administrations ever-evolving tariff regime. On Wednesday Chipotle posted mixed results for the first quarter of 2025 that it attributed mostly to economic headwinds as consumers remain cautious about spending in the volatile trade atmosphere: Comparable-store sales are slightly down, and the revenue of $2.88 billion fell slightly short of analyst estimates.
Still, the chains quarterly revenue was up 6.4% over last year, thanks mostly to opening new locationsand expansion abroad is one way it says it will continue that strategy. Chipotle currently has more than 3,700 locations, and while most are in the U.S., it also has a presence in Canada, the U.K., Germany, France, and the Middle East. In short, the chain clearly seems focused on international growth.
[Photo: Chipotle]
Still, while plenty of U.S. restaurant brands have gone global, selling an Americanized version of local cuisines hasnt always played out well. Dominos Pizza spent several years trying to hook Italians on its speedily delivered pies before concluding that infiltrating one of the worlds proudest culinary cultures wasnt going to happen. And in a more direct comparison to Chipotles plans, Taco Bell has made two attempts to sell an American version of Mexican food to actual Mexicans. Both fizzled.
Taco Bells first venture into Mexico began in 1992, when it already had thousands of U.S. locations but relatively few abroad. The problems, according to a Vice timeline of the chains Mexican forays from 2017, included a mismatch between its menu offerings and the expectations of Mexican diners: Crisp-shelled tacos were an anomaly there, for instance, and had to be rebranded as tacostadas in an attempt to reference tostada crunch. The bigger problem may have been a lack of demandlike bringing ice to Antarctica as one Mexican cultural critic put it at the time. Within two years, the chain withdrew.
It tried again in 2007, this time opening in a higher-end shopping mall (next to a Dairy Queen) near Monterrey and making no particular attempt to be authentic, even keeping french fries on the menu. As one Taco Bell marketing executive put it, the chain would not pretend to be Mexican food. It would simply be Taco Bell food, with an emphasis on value and convenience. Foolish gringos, one Monterrey food writer commented dismissively at the time. Taco Bell withdrew again.
Chipotle hasnt addressed this comparison directly (and declined to comment to Fast Company), but its statement about the Mexico venture alludes to an emphasis on authenticity in its appeal to the Mexican palette, promising its offerings will resonate with guests in Mexico,” according to Nate Lawton, chief business development officer at Chipotle. “The country’s familiarity with our ingredients and affinity for fresh food make it an attractive growth market for our company.” Alsea CEO Armando Torrado added that his firm would leverage its vast knowledge of the Mexican consumer.
Chipotles menu doesnt seem to have tacostada-level issues, but some Mexican-food experts have questioned the chains authenticity in the past, complaining that its burritos are a mass-market take on the form, emphasizing heft over variety. And its current hit offering, a honey chicken burrito, sounds suspiciously tailored to American palettes.
Still, its worth acknowledging that, Mexico aside, Taco Bell today has more than 8,000 locations around the world, including hundreds in Central and South America. And U.S. chains have of course spread across the planet, sometimes adjusting their menus market by market (McDonalds famously tweaks its menu in different markets to add local flavor, like teriyaki chicken sandwiches in Japan and a dosa masala burger in India).
Chipotle has reportedly worked for years to diversify its ingredient and farming supply chain across the Caribbean and Latin America as well as the U.S., but still sources roughly half its avocados from Mexico, making them tariff vulnerable. Given how unpredictable global trade rules are becoming, and Chipotles stated growth goals and strategy, it makes sense that the chain would try to diversify its customer base beyond the United States. Whats less certain is whether Mexican diners are looking to add Chipotles burritos to their diet.
The AI revolution is redefining business and tech leadershipand no one is standing more squarely on the front lines than product leaders.
Once seen as a behind-the-scenes role, the CPO is now one of the most powerful voices in the executive suite. In 2020, only 4% of the Fortune 1000 had a CPO, a number that has since ballooned to almost 50%. In the next few years, we expect to see that figure grow to 70%.
At Products That Count, the nonprofit for product managers I chair, weve spent the past year talking to almost 1,000 CPOs at companies ranging from startup unicorns to Fortune 100 giants like Salesforce, Walmart, and Microsoft. What weve heard is clear: The organizations that are winning with AI arent just using it to move faster. Theyre rethinking how product is fundamentally built, who builds itand who leads the charge.
Heres what the top product leaders are doing differently to get and stay ahead in the AI era.
1. They see AI as acceleration, not just automation
While headlines focus on job replacement, leading CPOs are focused on capability expansion. Theyre not asking, How can we do the same work with fewer people? Theyre asking, How can we build something completely new and disruptive in a fraction of the time it used to take?
One CPO at a global retailer told us that PMs using their internal generative AI platform are almost doubling their efficiency. These AI-powered product managers are running competitive research, generating specs, mocking up interfaces, and even writing basic codewithout waiting for a 10-person engineering team to get looped in.
This shift is also reshaping org charts. The once-standard 10-to-1 engineer-to-PM ratio is giving way to a new reality where PMs are full-stack strategists. AI isnt replacing the workforceits supercharging it.
2. Theyre hiring business builders, not tech nerds
Todays most effective PMs arent former engineers. Theyre high-context thinkers who know how to ask the right questions, not necessarily write the code themselves. A computer science background was pretty important 20 years ago, one B2B SaaS CPO told us. Now? Only one of my PMs has one.
This new breed of generalist Super PM blends product instinct, customer obsession, and AI fluency. Theyre cross-functional by design and comfortable leading without a road map. And theyre rising fast because they can adapt fast and they deliver business value right off the bat.
3. M&A is central to their strategy
Product velocity has become the currency of innovationand most CPOs know they cant build everything in-house. More than 75% of the CPOs we surveyed say M&A will be a critical growth driver in the next one to three years. But unlike in the past, product leaders arent just involved after the deal closestheyre often the ones scouting, evaluating, and sponsoring acquisitions.
As one healthcare CPO put it, AI and data are fast becoming the central focus. M&A will be critical to assembling that solution suite. Another said, As CPO, Im the sponsor of acquisitions.
That shiftfrom M&A as a finance function to M&A as product accelerationmarks a massive evolution in how CPOs are expected to operate.
4. Theyre obsessively focused on success metrics
Revenue still matters. As Checkr CPO Ilan Frank told us, At the end of the day, most of us are working for a for-profit company. If that’s the case, then the metric is profit. That’s what we’re here to drive.
Particularly when assessing how to implement and leverage AI, product leaders are keenly aware of the bottom line. And they know that revenue and profit are not the only numbers that tell the story. Todays top CPOs are expanding their focus to include metrics like time-to-value, customer retention, and long-term engagement. Theyre not just looking at quarterly ARRtheyre looking at how quickly customers see value, and how long they stick around once they do.
That shift isnt just philosophical. Its structural. It encourages smaller, faster product experiments, tighter feedback loops, and stronger cross-functional alignment. As Frank put it, NPS wont tell me if we have the right pricing or packaging, but time-to-value will.
Defining the AI Era
All told, product leaders are winning the AI era by working smarter, not harder. Theyre moving fastbut not just by working more. Theyre reimagining what the product function can be: a strategic growth engine, a talent magnet, and a seat at the very top of the company. Theyre prioritizing adaptability over pedigree, collaboration over control, and outcomes over ownership. Rather than stripping down head counts, theyre doubling down by investing in more generalists and product professionals to keep their feet on the accelerators. Theyre blending human instinct with AI horsepowerand building teams that can ship smarter, not just faster.
The companies that empower this kind of leadership arent just navigating the AI era. Theyre defining it.
People are often under the false impression that making their language complex or using jargon enhances their credibility.
That might be true in certain circumstances. If youre an academic talking to other academics or a software engineer talking to other software engineers, using jargon makes sense. However, if youre talking to people outside of your field of expertise, it can alienate them.
And when you alienate someone, it can cause them to switch off. It also reduces the likelihood that they take away anything useful or do what youd like them to do.
Thats probably the last thing you want to happen when communicating with someone. So if youre prone to using jargon, you might want to consider taking the time to figure out how to communicate in simpler language.
Why people use complex language
Many people often use complex language because theyre insecure. When a person ties a big part of their identity to academic prowess, but they dont feel particularly successful, they can use complexity to serve as a security blanket that hides them.
Its a way of making people perceive them as clever, or even obfuscate the truth. After all, its a lot harder to question or challenge something that your conversation partner doesnt understand.
Secondly, many gifted executives simply lack social awareness. Unfortunately, many leaders dont give emotional intelligence the same weight they assign to developing technical expertise when climbing the corporate ladder. Quite simply, that means that theres a disconnect between what you find meaningful and important as the communicator, and what your audience finds meaningful. And when you choose to ignore the audiences perspective in your communication, issues arise.
If you want the audience to listen to what you have to say, you need to consider how your audience would prefer to consume the information. Once you have that information, you can present the information in a way that will engage them and make them more likely to listen to you.
The best communicators communicate simply
Ive heard the argument before that history, physics, software engineering, and so on, are too complex to explain in a nontechnical way. I disagree. It is always possible distill complex subject matter down to simple language for a nontechnical audience.
My argument is to look at Professor Brian Cox, who is a professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester. Few subjects are as complex as astrophysics. Yet Professor Cox explained it so well and so simply that he filled auditoriums on a Friday night with people wanting to learn about physics.
If he can do it, anyone can do it. It simply comes down to whether youre prepared to put in the effort to learn the art of simple communication.
The acid test for simple communication
I often use this question with my clients: Would a 10-year-old child understand what you just said?
If the answer to that question is no, then, I encourage my clients to go back to basics. In the same way that childrens stories often contain an underlying message, you can use analogies and stories to engage your audience, evoke emotion, and simplify complex topics.
Understanding what matters to your audience
If youre trying to convince people to take a specific course of action, it will benefit you to walk people through it in a clear, step-by-step way.
To do that well, you need to get into the mind of the audience and use the language that they use, not the language that you are comfortable with.
Whether you are talking to the board or trying to convince a customer to buyyou need to understand the factors that will convince them. Make sure to find out whats important to them and structure your communication around those key things.
Being a successful executive shouldnt be about being the smartest-sounding person in a room. Rather, its about being able to persuade and influence others to buy in and work towards your vision. No amount of jargon is going to do that, but distilling complex concepts down in a way that your employees understand can go a long way.
On Main Street in the village of Freeville, New York, on a 2.8-acre lot where a dilapidated single-family house once stood, there are now a dozen tiny storybook-like cottages surrounded by the property’s pine trees.
The development, completed last year, is helping bring new life to the village. Its one example of whats possible when towns dont have overly restrictive zoning. Its charming. The design encourages neighbors to know one other. And it offers housing for far more people on the same amount of land.
The project is the third tiny house village in the region from a local developer, Bruno Schickel. His career started as a typical general contractorhe built and renovated single-family homes. But in the late 1990s, while reading a childrens book to his daughters, he was inspired by an illustration of a Gothic cottage in Maine. I said, You know, I gotta design something that looks like this, he says. And so thats what I set out to do.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Boiceville Cottages (@boiceville_)/a>
140 fairy-tale cottages on 40 acres
Schickel owned a large property in a rural area nearby that had been part of a farm. One winter 29 years ago, when regular work slowed down, he asked his crew to build three rental cottages on the site, each with the same gingerbread design as the house in the childrens book. People loved them, so he built another three the next winter. The cottages range in size from 540 square feet to 1,100 square feet, but even the smallest units have a second-story loft for a bedroom and feel relatively spacious. There are now 140 of the homes, called Boiceville Cottages, on the 40-acre site.
“The more I built, the better people liked them,” he says. “It was an interesting dynamic, because originally people were drawn to the fairy-tale cottage. And then people started being drawn to the community that was created.”
[Photo: Bruno Schickel/courtesy Boiceville Cottages]
A sense of community
When I visited on a recent spring day, a group of neighbors was sitting at a picnic table next to the community’s meeting house while children played on a playground. While I was talking to a retired woman, teenagers playing basketball called out a greeting to her. Everyone seemed to know one another.
“I lived in a suburb of Chicago for 45 years,” one resident, Christine Uliassi, told me. “My husband and I raised our kids there. But I know my neighbors here much better than I knew my neighbors there.”
The cottages in the development are clustered in groups of three, each carefully angled so that when someone looks out their own window, there’s still a sense of privacy. But they’re so close together that people continually run into each other. At the meeting house, neighbors pick up their mail, use the on-site gym, and gather for book clubs and other events.
The road between the cottages winds around curves, so people drive slowly, and it feels safe to walk. Despite the rural location, there’s also a bus stop at the property, so it’s technically possible to live there without a car. The development doesn’t have the density of a large apartment complex. But the specific layoutand the bucolic country setting, which draws people outsidemakes it more likely that neighbors become close.
[Photo: Bruno Schickel/courtesy Boiceville Cottages]
‘Zoning chokes off innovation’
In many places, it would be impossible to build. “The one reason why I ended up building there was because there was no zoning in Caroline [the rural town where the site is located],” says Schickel. “I am a guy who thinks zoning, by design, just chokes off innovation, creativity. It creates uniformity. If you go to existing cities or towns or villages around the country and you say, ‘Oh, look at this, this is great,’ I can almost guarantee you their zoning would not allow that to be built today.”
It also wouldn’t be possible in Caroline now. Last year, after a bitter fight, the town passed a zoning law that required large lots for any new home. Longtime rural residents opposed the law; wealthier transplants to the area tended to support it. “People said, ‘We love Boiceville. We want to make sure Boiceville can be built.’ But the fact is that they don’t,” Schickel says. “The result will be that they’ve preserved it for large suburban housing.”
In Freeville, a zoning ordinance existed, but was flexible enough that it allowed for the conversion of the single-family lot. Neighbors were happy to see the former rundown house replaced, Schickel says, even if they were initially taken aback to learn that they’d suddenly be living next to 12 tiny houses. (The Freeville houses, in a departure from the original gingerbread design, are inspired by old railway stations and Freeville’s rail history.)
In a third location nearby, where Schickel built 60 tiny cottages on a hillside overlooking a lake, the community passed a zoning law after the project happened. “There’s a complete discrimination against rentals,” he says. “And there’s a discrimination against small [houses].”
[Photo: Bruno Schickel/courtesy Boiceville Cottages]
Tiny house villages can help struggling communitiesand the housing crisis
In the rural areas where Schickel built, the neighborhoods can help struggling economies. Caroline would have lost population without Boiceville Cottages; a popular local store, Brookton’s Market, probably couldn’t survive without it. And the approach can add more housing as rents continue to rise. (To be fair, the cuteness of the cottages means that Schickel can charge a premium for rent, but as in any housing market, adding supply helps moderate prices.)
It’s a model tha Schickel says others want to replicate in other parts of the country. He continually fields calls from potential developers and city officials. “I just heard from a senior planner on Long Island,” he says. “He called me up and said, How can we do something like that down here?’ I said, ‘I can tell you right now, your biggest problem is zoning.
Last week, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington shocked the internet by announcing they’ve discovered a new color that can be experienced only when firing a laser into your retinas.
Only five people have seen this color, a blue-green shade called olo. But over the weekend, artist-provocateur Stuart Semple decided to widen the pool by synthesizing olo into an acrylic paint color he named Yolo.
Ironically, Yolo is a color you cannot seeat least not accuratelyunless you buy a bottle of the acrylic paint and see it with your own eyes. A 150-milliliter bottle costs $10,000 ($35 if you’re an artist) and is decidedly more accessible than olo. But can it ever be the same?
[Photo: courtesy Culture Hustle]
Liberating color
This isn’t Semple’s first foray into the superlative world of colors. Over the past few years (fueled by various feuds with the artist Anish Kapoor) Semple has created the world’s pinkest pink, followed by the world’s blackest black. In 2021, he hacked Tiffany’s trademarked blue and made his own version, Tiff Blue, which everyone could buy.
[Photo: courtesy CultureHustle]
A self-described color nerd, Semple has been on a mission to liberate color, as he puts it. If olo really is a new colora claim that’s been contestedhe believes more than five people should be able to experience it. Can’t everyone have a go?
Apparently, theyd like to. Within minutes, my DMs were crazy, he says of the requests that poured in from artists and friends alike. Semple spent all night developing Yolo and put it up on his website on Saturday. My sister messaged me about it the following day, and I was like, already done it, he says with a laugh. Within 48 hours of launching Yolo, Semple had sold close to 500 bottles.
[Photo: courtesy Culture Hustle]
From lasers to pigments
The human eye can perceive about 10 million colors known as the visible light spectrum. We see these colors thanks to three kinds of cone cells in our retinas that respond to three specific bands of light: long (red), medium (green), and short (blue). But we dont just see the world in RGB. Our brains blend signals from these cones to fill in the gaps, conjuring colors like oranges, teals, and purples.
To re-create olo, Stuart pored over the recent study, which was published in the scientific journal Science Advances, and pulled the color’s chromatic coordinates. These told him where on the visible light spectrum his own color should sit. Then, he set out on a surprisingly low-tech journey of mixing bases and pigments until he landed on the right formula. It’s like baking a cake and tasting it, he says, except instead of his taste buds, he used a spectrometer to see how close each swatch came to olo’s coordinates.
But Semple didnt focus only on pigmentshe also looked at texture. In the world of paint, a glossy finish reflects more light than a matte finish, which scatters light in all directions. If you shine a light on a smooth snooker ball, it will bounce off a very small point; but if you shine that same light on a fuzzy tennis ball, the light will get diffused, flattened.
Semple’s Black 3.0 paintthe blackest, flattest acrylic paint available on the planetabsorbs 99% of all the visible spectrum. Yolo does the opposite. It reflects 96% of light, but only in the narrow green-blue slice of the spectrum. The other wavelengths are absorbed by the paint. Thats why it looks like its glowing, Semple says.
[Photo: courtesy Culture Hustle]
You have to see it to believe it
The color you see on this screen comes close, but you can’t fully experience it here, or even in a book, because neither can reproduce the exact wavelength the paint captures: Screens use red, green, and blue pixels; printers use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. To truly experience Yolo, you have to see it in person, which suits Semple just fine: I make things for people with eyes, not computers, he says.
Still, the artist claims Yolo is the closest we can get to olo without having a laser fired into our eyeballs. He acknowledges that the litmus test would be to show Yolo to one of those five people, but the scientists did not respond to our requests for comment.
If a screen cant fully capture Yolo, then what kind of color can we expect? Over the course of a 30-minute phone call, Semple used the word weird four times until, finally, he landed on a weird luminous teal.
To help a North Carolina community recovering from Tropical Storm Helene, a tulip farm in the Netherlands gave the gift of flowers.
Dutch Grown runs a tulip farm in Voorhout, South Holland, and a warehouse in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where it ships out its flower bulbs to customers across the U.S. After Helene devastated western North Carolina last September, Marco Rosenbruck, a Dutch immigrant who moved to the region, reached out to the company with photos of the devastation asking for a few boxes of bulbs. Dutch Grown ended up sending 31 boxes filled with 10,000 bulbs for tulips, daffodils, and peonies.
[Photo: ExploreAsheville.com]
“At Dutch Grown, our motto is: ‘To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.’ When tulips bloom in spring, they bring hope and joy to the entire community. Dutch Grown co-owner Ben Rotteveel tells Fast Company.
The company’s generosity has now helped Rosenbruck’s new home of Swannanoa, North Carolina, beautify a local park. Rozenbroek engaged the help of a local student for some landscape design to plant the bulbs, and they’re expected to bloom for the first time this spring.
“Flowers give hope,” Rozenbroek told Blue Ridge Public Radio.
[Photo: ExploreAsheville.com]
North Carolina officials estimate Helene did $59.6 billion worth of damage in the state, and Swannanoa, a community of more than 5,000 people about a hour north of the South Carolina border, was especially devastated. The storm took out a bridge and damaged homes, but in the aftermath of the storm, Grovemont Park, where the flowers were planted, became a hub for the community where meals were distributed.
[Photo: ExploreAsheville.com]
Gardening can have unexpected benefits for communities recovering from disasters. Research into community gardens in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and New York City after Hurricane Sandy found these spaces help build resilience because they empowered residents and helped connect them with each other, strengthening the social bonds needed to rebuild together. Grovemont Park has already done that for Swannanoa, and now the flowers will serve as a reminder.
Landscape design can make our public areas more welcoming. By beautifying and intentionally designing outdoor spaces that people are meant to spend time in and enjoy, landscape design gives a physical dimension to community. Through this massive planting endeavor in North Carolina, Rozenbroek created an inviting, functional, and visually harmonious space as the community continues to rebuild from Helene.
“After the storm, we figured out that community is the basics of everything,” says Rozenbroek. “People are willing to help each other and to make beauty. Isn’t that where humanity is meant to be?”
[Photo: ExploreAsheville.com]
Tulips don’t help build bridges or homes, but that doesn’t mean Dutch Grown’s gift won’t have an impact. The tulip garden shows the practical benefits of beautification; creating a relatively low-lift project that allows those recovering from disaster to grow closer and rebuild together; and allowing community members to rest their eyes on the perennial joys and habits of spring.
