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Some studies show that the interview process can take up to six weeks. But there are ways that might help speed up the process and get those final hiring managers to land on you as the one they offer the job to.
Category:
E-Commerce
Just under a year after the rebirth of the Kickstarter favorite Pebble smartwatch, the founder of that tech gadget is debuting the company’s next product. The Pebble Index 01 is a smart ring of sorts, but instead of focusing on health data or sleep cycles, the sole purpose of this ring is to help wearers remember thoughts that bolt out of the blue during the middle of the day. “Do you ever have flashes of insight or an idea worth remembering? This happens to me five to 10 times every day,” Eric Migicovsky, who shepherded Pebble from Y Combinator to an angel investment of $375,000 to the record-setting Kickstarter campaign, wrote in a blog post. “If I dont write down the thought immediately, it slips out of my mind. Worst of all, I remember that Ive forgotten something and spend the next 10 minutes trying to remember what it is. So I invented external memory for my brain.” While some gadget hounds might balk at the Index’s singular focus, they can’t grumble at the price or battery life. RePebble (the company’s new operating name) says people who preorder the Index 01 will pay just $75and the product will cost $99 when it ships in March 2026. As for the battery life? Forget recharging. Migicovsky said it lasts for years. When the battery does reach the end of its life, the Pebble app will alert users and ask if they want to order another ring. (There’s no charger, as Pebble believed people were more likely to misplace the charger before they needed it.) [Screenshot: Eric Migicovsky] Worn on the index finger, the ring has a button you can click with your thumb to record your thoughts to internal memory. If your phone is within range, that recording is automatically sent over and converted to text on the device. A large language model (LLM) will then select the appropriate action (which could be anything from creating a note to scheduling an appointment). And if there’s wind or loud background noises, you can listen to a raw audio playback to recapture your thought. The ring itself is water-resistant up to 1 meter and doesn’t need to be removed when showering or washing your hands. Unlike some digital assistants, it’s not listening to anything you do if you’re not pressing the button. There’s no monthly subscription fee either. “Initially, we experimented by building this as an app on Pebble, since it has a mic and Im always wearing one,” Migicovsky wrote. “But, I realized quickly that this was suboptimalit required me to use my other hand to press the button to start recording (lift-to-wake gestures and wake-words are too unreliable). This was tough to use while bicycling or carrying stuff. Then a genius electrical engineer friend of mine came up with an idea to fit everything into a tiny ring.” The Index 01 comes in three colorspolished silver, polished gold, and matte blackand in U.S. ring sizes 6 to 13. While the point of the ring is to do one thing well, Migicovsky said Pebble is leaving the door open for users to customize it and create additional functionality. Pebble was one of the first smartwatches, raising $10.3 million on Kickstarter in 2012. From 2013 to 2016, having a Pebble on your wrist gave you instant geek street cred. But in December of 2016, the company announced it would shut down, as it struggled to find a mainstream audience and competition increased. Migicovsky resurrected it earlier this year, changing the name to rePebble, after Google released the Pebble operating system (OS) as open-source software. With this new product, the company is hoping to show it has learned from its past mistakes. Pebble Time, the second watch in the Pebble’s original incarnation, was largely responsible for the company’s collapse. The company didnt market the new watch properly, basically dropping it in stores and expecting it to sell, based on the Kickstarter success. Pebble failed, for years, to hire a head of marketing, and any promotion decision the company did make was not necessarily one it stuck with. Things are a bit different this time around. RePebble has been working on the Index 01 in the background while developing its new Pebble watch, and it is using the same partner factory. There will be a wide alpha test of the product in January before rePebble launches mass production.
Category:
E-Commerce
Every December, something strange happens inside companies. Decisions that were stuck for months suddenly fly through. Projects get approved. Budgets get finalized. People stop debating and finally choose. Leaders usually chalk this up to year-end energy or the holiday push. That is an easy story, but it hides what is actually going on. December forces leaders into a tighter frame. There is less time to overthink, fewer acceptable choices, and clearer expectations. In other words, the environment is designed in a way that produces commitment instead of delayeven though for complex, novel strategic bets, the calendar alone is rarely enough. This isnt holiday spirit. Its design and a great lesson in influence. If leaders learned how to design decisions the way December does, they would get clarity, alignment, and speed all year, and not just when the calendar runs out. The idea is simple. When options shrink, focus increases. When criteria are explicit, choices become easier. When time is clear, commitment accelerates. The research backs this up. The boardroom stories back this up. And anyone who has lived through a December sprint knows it. The question is not why December works. The question is why leaders tolerate the opposite for the other 11 months. What science tells us about too many choices Executives like saying they want openness. They want to consider every idea, hear every viewpoint, and keep options flexible. In reality, although valuable, this often destroys momentum. The most cited work on this comes from social psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper. Their study showed that people presented with fewer choices were far more likely to act. A small, curated set of jams led to dramatically higher purchase rates than a large display. That study has been replicated and expanded for two decades. The principle holds in various settings: When options multiply, action collapses. It is tempting to think that leaders are different because they have more experience. The evidence says otherwise. Cognitive load does not care about job titles. When executives face too many similar options, they pause, delay, or default to whatever feels safest. In large organizations, the safest option is inaction. If you want leadership teams to move, reduce the choices they must consider. Curate the field before it gets to the table. Eliminate the noise. Present two or three viable alternatives instead of 12. You will not only speed up decisions; you will improve them. Why heuristics make or break decision quality Once choices are reduced, another dynamic kicks in. With limited time or limited information, people rely on heuristics. These are not shortcuts for the unskilled. They are the mental tools that allow experts to move quickly. Studies on bounded rationality and dual-process theory show that when decisions must be made under constraint, people shift from slow, analytical processing to faster, more intuitive judgment. This is how high-pressure environments function. The problem is that most organizations leave these heuristics to chance. No criteria. No risk filters. No anchored recommendations. The result is inconsistent, political, or painfully slow decisions. If leaders want high-quality decisions, they need to supply better heuristics. Give people a clear view of what matters most. Define the nonnegotiables. Make success criteria visible and simple. Present recommended options, not loose collections of ideas. Heuristics are not the enemy of good thinking. They are the structure that allows it to happen at speed. The actual role of time pressure in executive decisions Time pressure is usually treated as a threat to decision quality. The research is more nuanced. Experiments published in academic journals show that time pressure can improve consistency and speed in certain types of tasks. In familiar or lower-risk decisions, moderate time pressure helps people filter distractions and commit. However, tackling highly complex or ambiguous problems while you’re rushed hinders performance, and studies warn that time pressure can increase risk-taking or reduce perceptual accuracy. But for the majority of decisions that leaders face, especially operational or moderately strategic choices, clear time frames increase action without sabotaging quality. There is a reason why year-end deadlines work. Not because the clock is ticking, but because the clock forces prioritization. It becomes obvious what matters and what does not. The real reason December feels productive December works because it removes the environmental factors that slow leaders down. The constraints create clarity. The deadlines force prioritization. The limited choices reduce noise. People are not more motivated in December. They are simply less confused. Leaders dont need more time or better slides. They need to design decisions the way December doeswith clearer choices, specific criteria, and no place for indecision to hide. Leadership influence is not about having the loudest voice in the room. It is about shaping the room so people can finally decide.
Category:
E-Commerce
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