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In 2014, five years before Dana Nessel became the attorney general of Michiganback when she was still running her own law firmshe took on a pivotal case challenging the states ban on same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples. The case put her in direct opposition to her predecessor and attorney general at the time, Bill Schuette, who she says fought tooth and nail to uphold the state law. During the trial, Schuette hired experts who used spurious anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric to defend the law. [They] said that gay people were going to hell, Nessel recalls. On the standunder oath, getting paid by our tax dollarsthey made arguments that same-sex couples couldn’t appreciate the sanctity of marriage. Another argument was that the children of same-sex couples would be more likely to go to prison, or become addicted to drugs or alcohol, or become criminals. I had to sit there with my future wife, who was at the table with me and also worked on the case, and listen to these arguments being made. Nessel ultimately won the case, which was then consolidated with other lawsuits and appealed to the Supreme Court as part of the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges, paving the way for the national legalization of same-sex marriage. In 2019, when she assumed the role of attorney general, Nessel became the first openly LGBTQ+ person elected to statewide office in Michiganas well as the first Democrat to hold the position in over 15 years. An office that represents each and every person Coming into the role, she felt strongly about sharply deviating from Schuettes record. I wanted my department to operate in a very different way than the office had operated under him and his predecessor, which was very discriminatory against the LGBTQ community, she says. Case after case after case, they took the side of discrimination. I wanted it to be an office that represented each and every person in my state and thought that the Department of Attorney General should be used to advance people’s rights and not to impugn them. So thats what I tried to do. In the six years since she took office, Nessel has made a name for herself in Michigan as a progressive darling and a fierce critic of President Trump, dating back to his first term in office. In 2022, Nessel successfully argued a case before the Michigan Supreme Court that people should be protected against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity under the states civil rights law. Over the years, Nessel has worked with legislators to advance multiple bills intended to mitigate gun violence, which have now been enacted into law. She supported the charges brought after the 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School in southeast Michigan, which set a legal precedent for demanding accountability from the parents of a school shooter. Nessel also continued to push for further scrutiny of the schools responsibility and is currently overseeing an investigation alongside local prosecutors. In December, she joined a coalition of attorneys general as part of a concerted effort to hold the firearms industry accountable for its role in perpetuating gun violence. After Roe v. Wade fell, Nessel refused to enforce an abortion ban dating back to 1931 that was still technically in effect in Michigan. The law has since been struck down, and Michigan voters also passed a constitutional amendment to enshrine access to abortion care; the state has also repealed a number of TRAP laws that imposed stringent restrictions on people seeking abortions. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that we did make some progress, even in areas where it seems like we’ve lost significant rights, Nessel says of the states progress on abortion access. It’s sort of paradoxical, but in some ways, in Michigan, [after] that decision, we actually have more rights when it comes to access to reproductive care. Nessel has presided over a number of high-profile cases, including an investigation into how Michigan State University handled allegations of sexual abuse brought against Larry Nassar and lawsuits brought against opioid distributors and the leading manufacturers of PFAS, otherwise known as forever chemicals. Early into her tenure, she established a hate crimes unit in response to an uptick in incidents across the state of Michigan. She has also faced her share of criticism, particularly in recent months, following her decision to pursue multiple cases involving pro-Palestinian activistsand at a time when the Trump administration has explicitly cracked down on student protesters who support Palestine. The attorney generals office had brought a case against student protesters who were arrested at the University of Michigan last year, though the charges were recently dropped by Nessel. The office is, however, still pursuing charges against activists who allegedly vandalized the homes of university officials and a handful of businesses. It’s about me investigating and prosecuting people who are alleged to have committed crimes, period, Nessel says of the vandalism cases. And I would do this if these individuals supported LGBTQ rights; I would do it the exact same way if they supported reproductive rights. I would do it irrespective of whatever cause they support. It’s not their rationale for having committed these crimesit’s their actions. That’s my job. I’m the top law enforcement officer in the state, and I take that job very seriously. This administration has absolutely no regard for the law Perhaps most notably, Nessel has emerged as a formidable figure in the legal resistance to the Trump administration. In no way, shape, or form does this resemble a normal presidency, Nessel says of Trumps return to the White House. This administration just has absolutely no regard for the law or the Constitution or any of our American governmental norms, and they’ve continued to break down all of our societal norms that I would submit are the things that make America great. So it concerns me when I see elected leaders who treat President Trump as though he is a good faith actor. Nessels approach is also notable as a stark contrast to how Michigans governor has responded to Trump in his second term. Prior to his inauguration, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who sparred with Trump in his first term, indicated she would find ways to work with him, citing the fact that Michigan helped elect hima reversal from her posture prior to the election. I dont want to pretend like well always agree, but I will always seek collaboration first, Whitmer said in January. I wont go looking for fights, but I wont back down from them either. Im not here to play games. Ive got a job to do. Since then, Whitmer has visited the White House and met with Trump multiple times, leading the president to openly praise her and note that se had done an excellent job in her capacity as governor. (During the pandemic, Trump had insulted her and described her as that woman in Michigan.) The governor and I are independently elected office holders, Nessel says. I don’t tell her how to do her job, and she doesn’t tell me how to do mine. But she adds that she has grave concerns about the policy of appeasement and believes that Trump cant be trusted to keep his promises about how he could help the state of Michigan. While Whitmer has engaged with Trump, Nessel has secured several temporary injunctions to push back on his administrations attempts to curtail crucial federal funding allocated to the state; she has also joined many lawsuits brought alongside other attorneys general, targeting Trumps executive order to limit birthright citizenship and the mass layoffs he ordered across the federal workforce. These orders are just ridiculous Trumps prolonged attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts have also led him to target state and local education agencies: In a memo last month, the administration ordered public schools to eliminate DEI programs or risk losing their federal funding. Nessel was among a coalition of attorneys general who sued in response to prevent the education department from withholding financial support from states like Michigan, which was allocated nearly $1.3 billion in federal funding for fiscal year 2024. The orders from the federal government are just ridiculous on their face, she says. They don’t even define what they consider to be diversity, equity, and inclusion. Even if one desperately wanted to comply with the federal orders, it would be impossible to do so because there’s no real definition of it. To simply eliminate all of this incredibly important programming and then to threaten our educational systems, whether we’re talking about K-12 [or] colleges and universitiesit’s just so horrific to do that in no sane way and with no interest in looking to see if this is a program that is effective and is actively helping the community that it purports to serve. Of course its not just formal diversity programs in schools or corporate DEI initiatives that have been a target under this administration. Since his first term, Trump has chipped away at LGBTQ+ rights, escalating many of those efforts in the past few months by issuing wide-ranging executive orders that restrict access to gender-affirming care, erase protections for queer students, and ban transgender people from the militarya policy that was upheld by a Supreme Court ruling in May. In this moment of intense backlash and upheaval, Nessel feels an especially urgent responsibility to stay the course and advocate for the LGBTQ+ constituents that she represents. It’s more important than ever to have people in these positions who are representatives of the communities and who are fighters for the community, she says. So that people know you do still have somebody in your corner, and you have people who are willing to file these lawsuits and willing to fight on behalf of [those] who oftentimes feel like they have no voice. That’s what I’ve done the entire time I’ve been in officeand that’s what I’m going to continue to do.
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Morgan Lombardi, Keurigs senior director of product management, believes pod coffee makers have become too big, too mechanical, and maybe even a little bit ugly. Weve seen that coffee makers, including our own, have started to feel more and more like a machine, she says. They are also getting increasingly bigger while kitchens are getting progressively smaller. Which is why Keurig is introducing the K-Mini Mate, a 4-inch-wide brewer that costs $79.99 and launches exclusively at Target starting June 29.After seven years watching consumer behavior at Keurig, Lombardi tells me she observed that people were starting to view their morning brew routine as an obligation rather than a moment of pleasure. Her team discovered that consumers wanted their morning coffee ritual to feel like this wonderful little momentrather than a mechanical click-CLACK! chore. The coffee maker needed to be gentler to the eye and to the touch, and it also needed to be much smaller. Both were hard challenges, she says, because the current puncturing mechanisms for Keurigs brewers are too unwieldy to allow for a subtler, smaller design.[Photo: Keurig]The space problem drives everythingKitchen real estate drives modern appliance design decisions. Nobodys kitchen is getting any bigger, Lombardi explains. Yet, coffee makers remain essential equipment to turn on human brains in the morning, and they need to be there 24/7not taken out of a cabinet. They require permanent positioning, she says, creating a design constraint that forces manufacturers to think smaller.The most significant technical challenge to achieve the smaller footprint involved redesigning what Keurig calls the puncture mechanism. Standard Keurig brewers use a mechanical crunching motion to pierce K-Cup pods; a big handle pushes down to move the array of needles that open holes in that pod. If you have ever used a Keurig machine, it feels a little like pushing down the handle to turn off the Death Star. The standard Keurig mechanism feels like you are crunching something inside, Lombardi says.[Photo: Keurig]To enable the smaller brewer size, the puncturing mechanism needed to be much shorter: The space between the brewer mechanism and the bottom of the brewer needed to be able to fit a travel mug [around 7 inches], she says.[Photo: Keurig]They managed to reengineer the mechanism and change its position, which allowed them to get rid of the crunching handle and turn it into a flat surface that matches the cylindrical shape of its front. The new mechanism doesnt give you the same hard resistance as the previous one, which allowed Keurig to use soft-spring open and closing. She thinks that this alone creates a feeling thats more human, making the act of making coffee more like a soft handshake and less like destroying coffee pods inside a plastic crunching machine.[Photo: Keurig]A new design languageThe resulting machine is much more attractive. The design language features softer radius curves compared with Keurigs standard angular aesthetic. The brewer uses rubberized touchpoints alongside ABS plastic construction to make it feel softer to the touch, too. A small rubberized tab on the top helps you to take the water deposit out, requiring just a finger to easily remove the top. The water reservoir also sits flat on counters without tipping over, like a water jar.[Photos: Keurig]The resultavailable in black, red, and greenis a machine that brews up to 12 ounces of coffee and is about 33% smaller than Keurigs previous smallest model. One that, perhaps more importantly, doesnt look like your great aunts brewer from yesteryear, but like a modern piece of design.The companys research revealed that younger consumers entering the coffee-maker market prioritize simplicity and visual appeal over advanced features. Generation Z buyers need coffee makers for college or first apartments, but they dont have strong preferences about brewing functionality.[Photo: Keurig]According to Lombardi, consumer response has been great during testing. From initial foam prototypes through in-home use studies, people fell in love with this productand theyre saying, you know, its small. I havent seen anything like this. Its just really cute. When can I have it?She also tells me that the K-Mini Mate represents the first product in what will become Keurigs new visual brand language across its entire lineup. Keurig updates its visual brand language every five years to match shifting consumer preferences, she points out. Future models will incorporate similar aesthetic principles while adding features like larger water tanks. So, thats definitely good news for Keurig fans everywhere.
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How often do you leave work thinking, Wow, that was fun! Once a week? Once a month? Never? If you arent having funreal funit may be time to rethink your work life, says Bree Groff, author of Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously). The idea that work needed to be fun didnt hit home for Groff until her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2022. She took a leave of absence from her job at a New York-based transformation consulting firm to care for her and her father, who had Alzheimers disease. After her mother passed away, she went back to work part time with a new perspective. One of the things that became obvious while taking care of my parents is that at some point, well run out of Mondays, she says. They aren’t a renewable resource. So, what are we doing to our lives when we’re wishing away five out of seven days of every week? A common attitude is that work is called work for a reason; its something to get through to get a paycheck. The flip side is: Love what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life. This phrase suggests that the solution to work being drudgery is that it should be your passion and your identity. That notion also didn’t sit right with Groff. Many of the leaders shed worked with were pouring themselves into their work, but they were also sacrificing their health, sleep, and relationships, hoping for a reward that would come someday in the future. It seemed to me that the answer was somewhere in the middle, Groff says. Every day that I spend at work comes out of the finite bank of days that I have on the planet. What would it take to have fun today? If youre not having fun, Groff offers two places to start. Micro Acts of Mischief Too often, people feel they need to be their most buttoned-up, professional, palatable versions of themselves at work. But once we put on a business mask, we stifle all of our vitality, play, and joy, Groff says. Instead, introduce micro acts of mischief into the day. These are moments of diversion to the work culture or routine. If you have to adhere to a dress code, for example, wear some ridiculous socks. Or add a joke or ridiculous font to a presentation deck. Or literally mix things up, she suggests. One day we rearranged the office furniture, pulling comfy chairs over, so we could all hang out a little bit better, Groff says. The facilities team wasnt pleased with us, but it felt a little mischievous, sneaky, and fun in a way that made our team chuckle. Micro Acts of Connections You can also cultivate fun through micro acts of connections, including camaraderie and self-expression. Groff recommends sending a coworker a direct message or email, expressing appreciation for something they did. You can also ask a colleague to grab coffee. Make it light, she says. The idea is to gain a sense of the people you’re working with, knowing a little bit about their lives outside of work. Where do they live? Do they have a pet? Its getting to know them as a human and not just about the work at hand. Also, look for places to show your personality by putting your own stamp on your work. This isn’t just for creative marketing professionals, Groff says. A barista at a coffee shop can make latte art. Or a project manager can make a brilliant project timeline. How can you put your stamp on your work? Connection and self-expression humanize the workplace, Groff says. We should like the people that we’re spending our days with. Sometimes, we’re spending more time with our colleagues than our families or significant others.” Are We Having Fun Yet? Groff says you can usually tell if you’re having fun, and you can always tell if you’re not. It’s almost childlike in its sensibility. I define fun as a sense of play, experimentation, and vitality. My metric for the day is: How many minutes have I spent laughing? Dont confuse fun-looking workplaces with fun work, Groff adds. Theres a difference between thinking of fun as icing on the work cake, or fun as being the cake itself, she says. If we look at fun as the icing, thats where Ping-Pong tables or happy hour get a bad rap. You cannot fill your days with Ping-Pong and happy hour, or nothing gets done. Id also argue that is a superficial sliver of fun. Having fun at work is using your skills in a way that makes you feel good because you contributed and made an impact on customers, clients, or other parts of the organization. While there is a business argument for having more fun at work, such as increased productivity and performance, the existential argument is much stronger. If I’m a manager, I don’t want to end my career thinking, I really extracted every last hour from that employee or I made them perform better for the business, Groff says. I want to make sure that these humans have made good use of their days on the planet. That they’ve gotten to contribute joyfully and profoundly.
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