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Its little surprise that a gold-medal-winning Olympic skier comes from a family that loves the snow, but slopestyle champion Alex Halls mom and dad might love it more than most. The pair met on the slopes, Hall told Fast Company, and essentially raised him and his brother on skis. That didnt necessarily mean hed be good at it. But luckily, Hallwho took home silver last month at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and gold in Beijing in 2022is better than good. And thats a fortunate thing, because the amateur-to-professional athlete pipeline is already narrow, and most pro careers dry up as athletes move into their 30s. Hall isnt too sure what his future in the sport will look likealthough at 27, he definitely has the potential to show up at the 2030 Games in the French Alps. Like many high achievers, that question of whats next? can feel pervasive, not to mention daunting. Its an easy trap to fall into: to start thinking about the next project or success after youve just finished the last one. But Hall believes there’s something that will influence his post-Olympics career: his hobbies and interests outside of skiing. I’ve done a couple of internships with businesses and find it fairly interesting, Hall said. But I think right now at this pointwhere I’m at in my life nowit’s hard to really be 100% committed to something like that. It’s hard to envision myself doing that. As a person, you change a lot, he continued. And I think when the time comes where I’m competing less or skiing less, I think I’ll have changed enough to where I’ll have something else that I really want to do for a profession or in life. And I have plenty of hobbies. So I’m sure I’ll never run out of hobbies, but it just depends professionally, you know, what will come next. In addition to a variety of other sports interests, Hall also spends his time surfing and exploring video production. Though theres plenty of cautionary advice out there against turning hobbies into a career, theres also proof that doing so can be enormously rewarding. A 2025 study by the International Journal of Research in Marketing interviewed snowsport instructors in New Zealand, Japan, and Canada who left standard jobs to pursue their hobbies-turned-careers over a 10-year span of time. Though they encountered plenty of challenges, including financial insecurity and needing a lot of training, most respondents reported experiencing significant personal growth and fulfillment. Hall could also transition from skiing to creating action videos for brands and sponsors, like many Olympians havesomething he said hed love to focus a little more on when I have a little more time and I don’t have to dedicate so much of my time to the competing stuff. Hes not the only recent Olympian who takes a refreshingly different approach to success. Alysa Liu, who won gold in womens individual figure skating in Milan, had actually quit the sport to focus on being a normal teen before picking it back up and crushing it last month on the ice. Hall was 10 when he found out he might be good at freestyle skiing, despite not really knowing thats what the sport was called. We had a trampoline in our backyard, so I started doing some flips and stuff on the trampoline, Hall said. But when I was 10, I tried my first flip on skis just kind of randomly. We built a little jump off to the side of a ski run, and there was some fresh snow . . . so soft. And I was with a couple of my friends, and I just kind of randomly tried it and ended up landing it within a couple of tries. And then my love for the sport kind of just . . . was there. It may be that kind of openness to serendipity that defines the next chapter of his story, or of anyones after theyve achieved a high amount of success. Hall is still going strong nearly two decades later. As for what happens during the 2030 Winter Olympic Games (and beyond)the future is in the snow.
Category:
E-Commerce
Retail has always evolved around a central promise. First it was price and scale. Then convenience and speed. More recently, brand and experience took the lead. Now another shift is underway, one that many companies still treat as secondary. The next competitive advantage in retail is designing for real life. That means designing for the full range of human ability, attention, mobility, and circumstance. Not as a compliance exercise. Not as a niche offering. But as a smarter, more complete version of customer experience. Accessibility is often misunderstood as a feature aimed at a small group of people. In reality, it is a systems-level discipline. It asks a simple question: Where does friction accumulate across the journey, and who gets left behind because of it? Brick and mortar retail is a chain of moments. Parking. Entry. Navigation. Discovery. Reading labels. Comparing options. Carrying purchases. Checking out. Opening packaging. Setting up at home. If friction appears in any one of those moments, the chain weakens. Shoppers may not articulate why they abandon a purchase or fail to return to the store. They simply feel that the experience was harder than it needed to be. The hidden truth is that most friction is ordinary. It is the parent steering a stroller while scanning shelves. The older adult who shops in shorter trips because standing too long causes fatigue. The caregiver juggling time, lists, and another persons needs. The shopper straining to read small type under glare. The customer trying to hear an associate over loud music. These are not edge cases. They are daily realities. When retailers design with those realities in mind, they are not designing for special needs. They are designing for how people actually live. What does that look like in practice? Start with packaging. It is one of the few retail touchpoints that crosses the entire journey, from shelf to home. Clearer typography and stronger contrast reduce eye strain. Intuitive information hierarchy lowers cognitive load. Opening mechanisms that require less dexterity reduce frustration before the product is even used. When packaging is confusing or physically difficult, the brand relationship begins with resistance. When it is intuitive, confidence builds immediately. Merchandising and layout send equally powerful signals. Aisles that comfortably accommodate mobility devices, carts, and strollers reduce anxiety and improve flow for everyone. Product placement that considers customers range of reach makes browsing less physically demanding. Predictable layouts and consistent signage shorten decision time and reduce fatigue. None of these changes diminish aesthetic ambition. In fact, clarity often strengthens it. Environments that feel calm and legible tend to feel more sophisticated as well. Lighting and acoustics are another overlooked layer. Excessive glare can make labels unreadable. High ambient noise can discourage conversation and increase stress. Thoughtful lighting and sound design help customers compare options accurately and interact with staff more easily. Seating and rest points extend stamina, particularly in larger stores. These details rarely make headlines, yet they directly influence how long someone stays and how confident they feel while shopping. Digital touchpoints are now inseparable from physical retail. Search interfaces, pickup systems, and returns processes must work in conditions of distraction and time pressure. They must be usable by customers with low vision or hearing differences. The best omnichannel experiences are not complex. They are clear, consistent, and forgiving. They anticipate real-world interruptions and varied abilities. When shopping feels easier, customers come back When retailers approach accessibility as a full-system design challenge, the business impact follows naturally. Reducing friction improves conversion because fewer customers stall or abandon the journey. Clearer information reduces returns and customer service strain. Better wayfinding reduces reliance on staff for basic navigation. More comfortable environments encourage longer visits and greater exploration. The loyalty effect may be even stronger. When people find a store that makes shopping feel easier, safer, and more dignified, they come back. They recommend it. They build trust in the assortment. The experience signals that the retailer understands real life, not an idealized version of it. There is also a cultural dimension to this shift. Populations are aging. Caregiving responsibilities are increasing. Households are more multigenerational. Expectations around inclusion are rising. Retail is one of the most tangible spaces where values become visible. Shoppers do not experience a brands commitments in a mission statement. They experience them in aisles, at checkout, and at home. Importantly, designing for broader access does not mean sacrificing aspiration. Independence is aspirational. Confidence is aspirational. The most compelling retail environments are not the most exclusive ones. They are the ones that allow more people to move through them with ease and dignity. Final thoughts For years, differentiation strategies have centered on limited drops, collaborations, and spectacle. Those tactics can generate attention, but they are often temporary. Designing for real life is durable. It compounds over time because it strengthens every link in the experience chain. The next era of retail will not be defined solely by speed or novelty. It will be defined by intelligence. The retailers that study friction, understand changing human needs, and design environments that work beautifully across a spectrum of abilities will outperform those who optimize for a narrow idea of the average customer. Designing for more people is not a charitable gesture. It is a strategic evolution. In Retail 3.0, inclusion is not an add-on. It is the foundation of better design and better business. Ben Wintner is CEO of Michael Graves Design.
Category:
E-Commerce
At the Exceptional Women Alliance, we enable high-level women to mentor each other to enable personal and professional happiness through sisterhood. As the nonprofit organizations founder, chair, and CEO, I am honored to interview and share insights from some of the thought leaders who are part of our peer-to-peer mentoring. This month I introduce to youKarlyn Mattson, an award-winning retail C-suite executive and founder of The Leadership Advisors.She has decades of experience delivering profitable growth, transformative consumer and product experiences, omni-channel and digital transformation, and consumer centric value creation for brands such as Macys, Target, and Amazon. Q: You have a provocative hypothesis that agentic AI could be retails unexpected savior. Can you tell us more? Karlyn Mattson: The real promise of agentic AI isnt just automation. Its the chance to restore the human side of an industry that has quietly lost its creative and strategic edge. Retail has always been shaped by trends and counter-trendsthe existence of two radically opposite movements at the same time. Today, two forces are rising simultaneously: The rapid acceleration of AIand an equally strong need for human connection and creation, analog, and artisanalinfluencing brands, products, and experiences. While they appear to be at odds, I believe they are deeply connected. As retailers explore AI deployment, the opportunity is larger than the efficiency realized by leveraging generative AI. The more powerful opportunity is agentic AI, which can enable the refresh this industry desperately needs, freeing time for strategic and creative innovation. Q: Youve described retail malaise. Whats driving that? Karlyn: Creative and strategic oxygen has been replaced by analytical and operational dependence, evident in the lack of inspiration at so many retailers. Merchants, at their best, are equally left and right-brain professionals. They are hired for their potential to make great choices for the consumerdeciding where to buy more, where to pull back, where to take calculated risks. Instead, many spend their days toggling between versions of the same financial forecast or explaining variances across metrics. It’s not about a lack of great talent but instead frustration with the day-to-day job requirements. Q: How does Agentic AI change the equation? Karlyn: The insights and research that generative AI produces allow for amazing efficiency and synthesis. This is a huge win. The trend identification and product development processes absolutely benefit from this. Agentic systems change the game because they dont just analyze, they act. Within strategic guardrails, these systems continuously learn, rebalance, and adapt, autonomously managing thousands of SKUs across hundreds of locations with a precision that is beyond human capacity. Its intelligence that executes so humans can reclaim time to focus on decisions that shape future strategies and assortments. Q: How does reclaimed time impact retail merchants? Karlyn: It changes their motivation and inspiration. Most merchants I know enter retail to create compelling and differentiated assortments that surpass their competition and excite their consumers through storytelling. And that takes time. Instead of creating another report or refining a projection, merchants can think more strategically about long-term growth, competitive white space, brand positioning, product differentiation, and assortment architecture. The inability to spend time on strategy is one of the biggest tensions in a merchants job satisfaction. Q: Some leaders worry that more automation means less humanity. Is that a risk? Karlyn: I think for retail, it needs to be viewed as a capability amplifier. Retail is grounded in human workits emotional, creative, cultural work. And its also rooted in disciplined strategic work. For example, AI can detect a trend or signal but only a human can decide whether that trend aligns with your brand positioning. AI can optimize inventory flow but it cannot determine to place a big bet on a trend you saw on the streets of London. I believe that AI can strengthen human-centered retail strategy, not weaken it, if led correctly. Q: What does this mean for CEOs and boards? Karlyn: First, this is an operating model decision, not just a technology decision. A lot of money can be wasted if AI is bolted on to legacy systems. Significant workflow re-design is required to accommodate the opportunity of agentic AI. Second, if autonomous systems remove some of the analytical or operational work, how will organizations reinvest that capacity? It should be directed toward that capability amplification discussed earlierdefining growth initiatives, championing creativity and innovation, and developing sharper strategies. Q: What gives you confidence this shift will happen? Karlyn: First, necessitymargin erosion, consumer fragmentation, declining loyaltyretail cannot afford incrementality and mediocrity anymore. Second, the art of retail has quietly diminished over the past several years. The merchant role has shifted from curator to reconciler, from strategist to number cruncher. Agentic AI has the potential to reverse that trajectory. Its use can unleash incredible human-centric worksharper strategy and bolder imagination to reclaim the hearts and minds of consumers craving inspiration and connection. Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of the Exceptional Women Alliance.
Category:
E-Commerce
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