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If we took everything at face value, todays media headlines, studies, and overall assumptions about the next generation currently entering the workforce could be considered true. Unreliable. Entitled. Difficult to work with. Zero work ethic. Screen-obsessed, except on Zoom calls because their cameras are always off. Unwilling to work in the office or collaborate with others. These are just a few of the stereotypes overshadowing Gen Z, the youngest generation in the workforce and, apparently, the bane of business leaders around the world. Personal Experience They also remind me of what I personally experienced when I started my professional career in the late 2000s. My first professional opportunities were often marked by generational biases and unintentional leaders who made it more difficult to grow my skills and gain the experiences necessary to mature as a leader. I was told I didnt look like a leader and that I looked more like a celebrity or influencer than a traditional businessperson, which is both inappropriate and unhelpful. Its also a bad reason to decline to provide the proper coaching or professional development opportunities that would have helped young professionals like me thrive. As a millennial and the leader of a New York City-based public relations agency, I also have my own unique experience breaking out as a young founder. I often navigated client meetings, partner negotiations, and overall business operations. I had to be the most strategically minded person in the room while simultaneously being the youngest person there. Collectively, these experiences prompted me to cultivate a different culture for the next generation. They shaped my approach to leadership and mentorship. More Than a Stereotype As a leader always looking for new PR talent, I often received comments about how mature and advanced my leadership abilities were for someone my age, especially as a young senior leader. People were surprised that someone from my generation could be at the advanced stage at which I found myself in my career. I have since taken that learning and applied it to the young professionals who I manage today. In other words, I infuse in them the expectationversus the surprise or doubtthat they can advance as quickly as they can put their mind in action to do so. No assumptions As Gen Z navigates the complicated professional world following the 2020 pandemic disruption to their educational and personal lives that no other generation since the early 1900s flu epidemic had to navigate, I take any and all assumptions about this generation with a grain of salt. Im placing a deep investment in helping them realize their dreams. I’m not surprised that leaders in todays business world, almost like incumbents, are raising red flags about the new arrivals, mistaking differences for deterrents. That’s been true of every new generation to enter the workforce. These leaders undermine not only their industries but also the broader business landscape and, ultimately, the very companies they claim to serve, forgetting that today’s entry-level employees are tomorrow’s breakthrough innovators, mid- or senior-level managers, and changemakers. An opportunity and obligation Amid all the negative buzz on the state of Gen Z workers, so many overlook that Gen Z brings real value to the table right now. As leaders, we have the opportunity and the obligation to seek out aspirational talent, treat them like who they could become, and meet them where they are as the ultimate support approach to help them get to where they ultimately could be. If leaders arent flexible enough to connect with and bridge differences in the workplace, collaborate more effectively, and help raise the next generation of talent to the highest level, they have lost the most important aspect of cutting-edge leadership: the ability to adapt to a continuously changing environment while continuing to lead effectively. That means inducting the next generation into America’s workforce with open arms, open hearts, and a teachable mindset. But How? Todays leaders must stop focusing on Gen Zs divisive stereotypes. They need to start focusing on the individuals they meetwho may be from any generation, but especially this generationto unlock their unmistakable talent and innovative potential. Heres how. 1. Start Early Focus on cultivating talent at the internship level. For burgeoning professionals, the word is out: Internships matter, and they are clamoring for hands-on learning opportunities. At my agency, we receive a deluge of applications every season, selecting just a handful for an interview. Only a few will receive an internship offer. This selectivity allows us to best invest our time and attention in every intern. We spend a lot of time ensuring each intern fully understands the task at hand, so they can work for us and with us, not just complete low-level tasks without guidance or growth-minded intention. We value our interns in the same way we value all our team members. While some will find that PR isnt their thing (and you will find that some of your interns are not the right fit for your company or industry), others will become rock stars who we want to cultivate into full-time team members. Ultimately, we want our interns to know exactly what its like to work at a PR agency so that whether we hire them or they move on to the next opportunity, they are in a position to succeed. Everyone benefits when we take this approach. 2. Mentor at Each Phase Mentorship is for everyone. Whether seasoned executives or fresh faces out of college, we all have room to grow. Even as the owner of the company, theres still work to do. This isnt diminutive. Its empowering. Mentoring gives the right guidance to the right people at the right time so they feel successful at work, value their position, and want to stay longer. Its a win-win-win. Practically, effective mentoring empowers executive decision-making by stepping back and being available but at the same time making Gen Z-age professionals accountable for making decisions. 3. Invest in Connection As a busy leader, connecting with people often feels like the last thing I can smash into my schedule. Its also the most important. With my team, daily personal engagement consists of team touch bases at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time (10:30 a.m. on Fridays) and 4 p.m. Eastern time Monday through Thursday, with an additional casual 12:15 p.m. meeting for water cooler discussions. The team operates virtually with set hours from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern time, balancing structured connection points that typically last 20 to 30 minutes, with flexibility for personal appointments and family needs. 4. Prioritize Recreation and Celebration Regardless of generation, people want to be seen. Thats why we prioritize recreation and celebration Notably, for every birthday and work anniversary, we send flowers to employees and make birthdays special with social media shout-outs and advance planning to ensure proper recognition. Our team also holds two major annual celebrationsa summer retreat and family partyand we invest our time and money to give employees time away from work to feel celebrated and acknowledged for their hard work throughout the year. All these celebrations are deliberately planned to make employees feel special and valued, with an emphasis on ensuring these are genuine breaks from work responsibilities. 5. Live by Example At the end of the day, teaching is only as effective as your practice. Even as Gen Zers develop their own opinions, perspectives, and preferences, they are looking at leaders and taking notes. For my staff, this means that on vacation time, we prioritize true disconnection, requiring employees to set up out-of-office documents and making it a team effort to avoid contacting vacationing colleagues unless the situation is urgent, which I demonstrate by being unavailable during my own vacations. Outside of business hours, I don’t contact employees unless it’s urgent, believing people need downtime to feel fresh for the next day, and we actively avoid blurring lines between personal and work life to prevent frustration. What we do is more valuable than what we say, so we should take care to practice what we preach. Ready or Not Gen Z workers arent on their way. They are here. Now. We can continue to accentuate their most sensational characteristics, or we can get to work, recognizing that every new generation brings unique values, perspectives, and competencies to the workforce. We can cultivate these through intentional mentorship, structured support, and genuine investment in their growth. As a business leader, Ive discovered that Gen Z brings fresh perspectives, digital fluency, and innovative thinking to our organization. Their approach to work-life integration, commitment to purpose-driven careers, and ability to adapt to rapid change aren’t weaknesses. As the older range of the Gen Z generation approaches their mid-twenties in 2025, they need to be recognized as assets that we should all embrace and integrate now because, ready or not, Gen Z is part of todays workforce, and only moving upward from here.
Category:
E-Commerce
On June 27, Lululemon filed a lawsuit alleging that Costco has infringed on its copyright with several knockoff athleisure products. Its just the latest chapter in a story of dupe design thats plagued Lululemon for years. According to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Lululemon takes issue with a number of Costco products that it says are intended to mimic its popular designs, including the $128 Define jacket, the $118 Scuba oversize half-zip hoodie, and the $128 ABC trouser. The documents lay out an in-depth explanation for Lululemon’s identification of these dupes, pointing to details like the ornamental lines on the front of the Define jacket and the construction of the ABC pants back seam as examples of intellectual property copied by Costco in its own line of jackets and pants. As details of the lawsuit emerge, the overwhelming majority of commenters on social media are landing firmly on Costcos side of this debate. It seems that dupe design culture is becoming so normalized that many consumers view it as standard practice. Lululemon and the rise of dupe culture In recent years, dupe design culture has been taking over the way we shop. From makeup brand copycats to luxury furniture look-alikes and fragrance knockoffs, its likely that if youve been in the market for a higher-end product recently youve stumbled across a cheaper version of said product that seems suspiciously familiar. For Lululemon, this cycle is turning into a tale as old as time. On TikTok, the hashtag #lululemondupe currently yields more than 11,000 videos; videos of affordable dupes of Lululemon products routinely garner hundreds of thousands of views. Lululemon points to this trend in its suit against Costco. There is even a hashtag LululemonDupes on social media platforms such as TikTok that social media influencers use when promoting these copycat products, the documents read. The Infringing Products create an improper association with [Lululemons] authentic products. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, copyright infringement occurs “when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner.” That can look different depending on the industry, but in the fashion world it generally protects patented clothing designs that are artistic rather than utilitarian in nature. For example, Lululemon argues in its lawsuit that the ornamental features of the Define jacket are “not essential to the function of the product,” meaning those features are not a “competitive necessity” for other companies’ apparel products, and therefore should belong to Lululemon alone. This isnt the first time Lululemon has stood up against alleged copycats. Back in 2021, the brand filed a lawsuit against Pelotona former collaboratorarguing that the fitness company had stolen its womens athleisure designs, a claim that was ultimately settled out of court in 2022. Lululemon then took a softer tack against dupes in 2023, when it hosted an event encouraging consumers with Lululemon dupes to trade them in for the real thing. Its a trend we dont see going away anytime soon. So we decided to actually lean in and embrace it, rather than pretend its not there, Nikki Neuburger, Lululemons chief brand officer, told Fast Company at the time. The internet sides with Costco Now Lululemon is once again objecting to what it sees as infringing designs, but in the court of public opinion, it appears the brand has already lost. On TikTok, one video from the user @thatssority explained Lululemons argument that Costcos alleged infringing products might cause customer confusion. Per the actual legal filing, Upon information and belief, some customers incorrectly believe these Infringing Products are authentic lululemon apparel while still other customers specifically purchase the Infringing Products because they are difficult to distinguish from authentic lululemon products. (Potential customer confusion is often the basis for trademark infringement litigation as well.) Several commenters took issue with Lululemons assertion that Costcos products might be confused for theirs: Not a single person has ever been confused about if theyre buying lulu or kirkland, one comment with more than 30,000 likes reads. Boycott lululemon because I dont play about Costco, another adds. Explanatory TikToks from news sources like ABC 7 LA and CBS Mornings have garnered an influx of similar responses, with commenters largely expressing their frustration at Lululemons prices, pledging their support for Costco, and echoing the idea that no one would ever mistake Costco apparel for Lululemon. While dupes have certainly been around for a while, it appears that the threshold for public acceptance of these products is getting lowerespecially when the dupes are targeting a major corporation like Lululemon rather than a small business.
Category:
E-Commerce
More than half of Americans now use a chatbot, with an increasing number of people replacing search engines with large language model (LLM)-powered chat queries to navigate the web and find answers. In general, the quality of these outputs is improving as the underlying models get better. However, the challenge of processing so much information means AI models sometimes misfire, hallucinating detailsincluding website URLs. One analysis of 18,000 landing page visits from ChatGPT found that the AI system included the wrong URL in roughly one out of every 33 links. Sometimes, the mistake is just a single letter off; other times, the URL is entirely fabricated. The result is that website hosts are beginning to adapt, trying to capture this traffic and redirect it to the intended target. From designing new 404 error pages that explain what may have gone wrong and offer contextual links, to creating on-the-fly contentoften with the help of AI tools themselvesvarious strategies are being deployed. These efforts arent quite AI engine optimization, the anticipated successor to traditional search engine optimization (SEO), but they reflect a growing urgency as users shift from Google searches to chatbot interactions. They’re an attempt to acknowledge and improve the experience of those who land on websites via AI hallucinations or errors. Jack Arturo, who runs WP Fusion, a WordPress plug-in, has noticed the impact of artificial intelligence on traffic to his site. Data shared with Fast Company shows that in September 2024, ChatGPT was responsible for less than 0.5% of his referral traffic. A year ago, it didnt really exist as a referrer, he explains. But if we go for the last 30 days, its number threewell, actually, really number two, after Google, because these are direct visits, he says. Most of the AI chatbot traffic Arturo receives is directed to live pages. But in line with broader trends, about three out of every 100 links are broken. Until recently, those users landed on WP Fusions standard 404 page, similar to many others that have existed on the web for decades. It informs visitors that something went wrong and the page cant be found, suggesting they use the on-site search tool to locate what theyre looking for. Still, it seemed like a missed opportunity to auto-redirect a chatbot-referred visitor to something more relevant than a generic Ooops message. To address that, Arturo built an AI-powered system that generates content for nonexistent pages that users were sent to. We know what they’re looking for based on the title, Arturo explains. Why not just generate something for them? The system took only about an hour to set up, but Arturo believes the time was well spent and expects future enhancements will be, too. We see the traffic increasing consistently from those sources, he says. I think it’s worth spending some time and getting it right, and then we’ve open-sourced it, so ideally, other people would contribute. SEO experts agree that website owners will need to adapt as AI chatbots become more embedded in everyday browsing. LLMs have a tendency to hallucinate URLs that dont exist, so if the user clicks on them, they will land on your 404 page, says SEO expert Lily Ray. This makes it important for site owners to rethink how 404 pages function and to guide users toward the content they were originally seeking. The best way to provide an optimal UX [user experience] on 404 pages is to provide messaging about the content not being found and include links to important pages on the site, says Ray, who also suggests incorporating standard site navigation into the 404 page template. Arturo, for his part, acknowledges this is yet another case of AI systems creating new challenges for those not involved in their development. It would be nice if it sent them to the correct page, he says. But he adds that even AI companies may not fully understand how their models behave and may not be able to fix the issue right away. Until they fix itif they can fix itwe just have to kind of adapt and work around it.
Category:
E-Commerce
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