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The Cold War lasted 45 agonizing years. Daily life in the Soviet Union was a mixture of dread and horrorchildren taught to report their parents’ whispered doubts, families queuing for hours for bread, dissidents vanishing in the night. November 8, 1989, was just another day of knowing World War III might pop off at any time. But on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. No tanks. No gun battles. No sabotage. Just a peaceful, surreal collapse. The empire fell both slowly and suddenly. Gen Xers and boomers remember the disorienting feeling of watching the impossible happen on evening news broadcasts. With the benefit of hindsight and declassified records now available, we know life under Soviet rule was far worse than Cold War movies or propaganda posters ever revealed. Millions suffered in silence, unable to ask for help because everyone was incentivized to spy on their neighbors. And then, out of nowhere, Germans from east and west Berlin were blaring American rock music from boom boxes, laughing, dancing, and spray-painting graffiti. Strangers took turns smashing apart the physical barrier between despair and hope with whatever they could findhammers, pickaxes, or bare hands. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":""}} Spontaneous acts of high-spirited foolishness, to quote Sky News. Utter disbelief and glee. The lesson history keeps teaching us Just because current circumstances are miserable doesn’t mean they can’t turn around. When you study history, you can’t help but be overwhelmed by how often things get better in the endand how quickly the transformation can happen once it begins. Cynicism can be tempting for urbanism reformers. They desperately want to break free of status quo regulations and processes that create an antihuman built environment, but it seems hopeless. And yes, the current situation for most Americans is harmful: Anxiety and depression from isolation. Loneliness from neighborhoods designed to keep people apart. Chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancers. Air pollution and noise pollution. Traffic crashes as a leading cause of death. It feels like things have always been this way and always will be. Lack of pedestrian infrastructure, unreliable transit service, subsidized sprawl, ever-expanding arterialsit’s exhausting. Focusing only on the negative without exploring positive outcomes is how cynicism creeps in. “They’re never going to change, because they don’t care about us.” (Whoever “they” happens to be for any given topiccity council, planners, engineers, developers, NIMBYs.) Cynic (noun): a faultfinding critic who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest Cynicism feels like realism, but it’s actually a form of blindness. It prevents you from seeing the change agents working in the background, the small victories accumulating, the institutional momentum slowly, imperceptibly shiftinguntil suddenly, the wall comes down. The walls will come down The internet is full of inspiring examples of institutional reform, from massive governments to pocket neighborhoods. Change agents work quietly in the background for years, and then suddenly . . . liberation. Just like world history lessons, you can’t hold onto cynicism if you allow yourself to learn about before-and-after stories related to the built environment. There’s too much evidence of reform, too many walls already crumbling, for anyone to hang their head in gloom about the future of planning and design. The people dancing on the Berlin Wall in 1989 didn’t bring it down alone. They were the visible celebration of decades of invisible workdissidents who wrote forbidden letters, families who maintained hope, officials who made small concessions that accumulated into structural weakness, and a few rogue journalists who told the truth despite the consequences. You might be one of those invisible workers right now. The person who shows up to planning meetings, who writes letters, who builds tactical urbanism projects, who votes for better policy, or who simply talks to friends about what’s possible. The wall you’re pushing against might not fall tomorrow. But if history teaches us anything, it’s that things that seem permanent can collapse with stunning speed once enough pressure accumulates. What feels impossible on a Wednesday becomes reality by Thursday. Things get better in the end. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-desktop.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/speakeasy-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Urbanism Speakeasy\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/\u0022\u003Eurbanismspeakeasy.com.\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"http:\/\/urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91453933,"imageMobileId":91453932,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
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E-Commerce
Some days, starting feels effortless. A clear challenge or opportunity presents itself, an idea crystallizes, and then contracts into a single coherent thought. Today, frankly? Thats not happening. Im staring at a pristine white canvas while the cursor mocks me. That uncomfortable spacethe blinking cursor, the first messy draft, the false startsisnt a nuisance. Its where creativity lives. Today, the temptation is to skip past all that. With AI, you dont even need to know where youre going. The bot can map it out, hand you something good enough. But what does good enough mean if you didnt wrestle with the idea yourself? A recent MIT Media Lab study, Your Brain on ChatGPT, found that people who wrote without AI showed the strongest and most widespread brain activity, tied to creativity and memory. Essays produced with LLMs, by contrast, were described as flatter and more forgettable. The researchers warn that skipping the messy part of creation may create cognitive debtyou get an output, but you dont actually grow. How to avoid this? Create, restrain, and edit the hell out of where youve been. Create: Start Messy, Start Anyway Starting anything new, even if youve done it a million times, is one of the great joys of the creative world. Sure, I could fill a blank canvas (or deck, or comp) with tried-and-true things we know work, but the beauty of creativity is that the first version is never, never, the last version. We have to start somewhere so we have something to improve. I see creatives regularly jump right into making slides. Creating templates and parameters to work with that map out all the “must have” components of a complete idea. But when youre just starting out you dont need completely connected dots, just a gathering of interesting things that could become the idea. I personally like to read the brief and try to let it go, but keep a literal blank sheet of paper in front of me for the day or a new note on my phone. I jot down the sparks and weird things I come across during the day and keep adding to it while going about my life. In the collection stage its about volume and seeing where the energy of ideating takes you. Restrain: Creativity Thrives Within Limits Think of a tight budget like a limited palette. Only have $500? Youll approach the recycled cardboard canvas way differently than youll approach that 10-foot primed beauty with endless oils on hand. Only have two days? Youll make different choices than if you had two months. No designer available? Better figure out how to do it with words. Great restraint is only going to get harder with so much immediate action at our fingertips. But those who can hold backwho know how to simplifywill reach simple, compelling, and worthwhile ideas faster. Amazon is known for having their teams create fake press releases instead of pitches to help contextualize the details of an idea. A great exercise later in the process when you need to describe what youre looking to achieve. Lately, Ive had our teams test how much an idea can scale by writing it up in different voices. How would your favorite podcast host take and run with the idea? Does it still work and how does the tool of only audio change what you have to say? Good marketers shouldnt fear constraints. Use them strategically. Whether its a tighter budget, a shorter timeline, or a smaller format, guardrails force creativity and result in sharper, more memorable work. Edit: The Discipline That Makes Ideas Great Good editing is another great skill of this new age: the ability to cut, to know whats worth amplifying, and to decide what actually makes the main feed. But editing is harder in an AI-powered world. Like the dopamine loop of social media, LLMs can make every idea feel validated: Heres your idea! Youre brilliant! The client just doesnt get it! False confidence is dangerous. The only way to become a strong editor is to put in the work: writing, failing, and listening. Taking feedback not from machines, but from mentors, peers, and audiences. I learned how to develop good ideas by generating a lot of bad onesand killing most of them. Editing is leadership. Brands and agencies need to create a culture where teams arent just encouraged to generate but also to refine. Build space for young creatives to dream wildly, then guide them through the discipline of cutting back to the ideas that truly deserve to live. I got better at editing by getting off the computer and having the conversation with someone else far away from the work and without the material in front of me. What remains? What must be said in a conversation to have it all make sense. If you have it, its easy to see what stays. If you find it confusing to even share over conversation the work needs more refinement, and maybe an edit overhaul. I believe the creative work that stands out will be anything that resists skipping to good enough. Itll embrace the blank canvas, lean into the discomfort, and edit ruthlessly until whats left is not just efficient, but meaningful.
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E-Commerce
Lurking on sites like LinkedIn and Indeed, or among your incoming text messages and emails, lies yet another disappointment to dodge in the already lacking job market: fake recruiters. Posing as representatives from top companies, theyll contact you out of the blue, offering a job so tempting, that 40% of targets ignore the warning signs and move forward with the interview. More than half of them, 51%, end up being scammed to give up personal data or money. Those findings came from a survey of more than 1,200 U.S. job seekers published in October by Password Manager. The prevalence of fake recruiters came to my attention several years ago, says Gunnar Kallstrom, the cybersecurity expert who conducted survey for the company, which reviews password manager apps. Since then, the number of fake recruiters has been on the rise . . . posing as recruiters for well-known companies. Per the survey, those companies include Amazon, Google, FedEx, UPS, Walmart, Apple, and Facebook (identified that way instead of by Meta in the survey), in that order of frequency. These scams pose real risks for the job seekers who fall for them. Fake recruiters steal Social Security numbers, bank information, and passwords in a variety of ways, some sneakier, or more sophisticated, than others. The Better Business Bureaus 2024 Scam Risk Tracker Report puts the median dollar loss at $1,500 for victimsno small sum, especially considering that these people are likely out of work. Not only do they result in material losses; they also put a serious dent in morale for those on the employment hunt. More than half of Password Manager survey respondents said theyre now less trusting of job opportunities and find the process more stressful40% say theyve even let legitimate posts pass them by, too concerned that theyre being tricked again. The trend is a nuisance at best; an active threat at worst. Still, false job recruiters have many tells that job seekers can use to spot them. Enterprises, too, have become increasingly aware of these scammers tactics. Representatives from some of the companies that fake recruiters most frequently impersonate told Fast Company exactly what job seekers should watch for to avoid falling victim to these insidious hiring scams. What is the MO of false recruiters? Generally, fake recruiters operate exactly like a social engineering campaign, says Kallstrom, in which their MO is to create a sense of urgency, legitimacy, and promise of reward for their victims. Those surprise text messages you receive saying your resume caught a recruiters eye, but the post theyre hiring for needs to be filled ASAP? Dont give it a second look. We simply do not do anything to create an undue sense of urgency, says Brian Ong, vice president of recruiting at Google. Hes heard from Google job candidates and employees about people falsely posing as members of the companys recruiting team, sending direct messages and emails even to those who havent previously applied for jobs at Google. Theyll use emails or websites, Ong adds, that look like they belong to Google, often using the companys logo. Weve also seen situations where these scams are using our name and brand to ask for money or an immediate in-person interview, says Ong, Both of which are misrepresentative of our hiring process. Amazon, meanwhile, has noticed customers reporting an increase in scammers pretending to be Amazon recruiters in September and October 2025, says Scott Knapp, the companys vice president of worldwide buyer risk prevention. These recruiters will ask for information like SSNs, bank information, or Amazon account detailsall information real recruiters for the company wouldnt solicit. At Target, No. 9 on Password Managers list of most-impersonated companies, the scams tend to focus on secret shopper opportunities, per the companys website. Via emails with subject lines like job offer or influencer opportunities, scammers will offer free products or cash in exchange for recipients buying items to review online, or for purchasing gift cards and sharing the cards information with the false Target reps. Tactics vary based on the type of company scammers are impersonating, adapting to whatever feels normal for that brand, Kallstrom says. FedExs fake delivery job offers will arrive via text: Urgent hiring needno interview required, Kallstrom says, a likely enough assertion since delivery companies tend to bring on seasonal employees for busy times, like holidays, without asking for extensive interviews or experience. For Meta, on the other hand, since they are a tech company, there may be a fake HR portal, software skills assessments, and fake interviews, adds Kallstrom, who describes tech company hiring scams as more sophisticated. They may entail full-on skills tests for software engineers that include coding challenges, through which scammers end up downloading malware onto the coders computer. The high salaries these fake recruiters offer may also cause applicants to let their guard down, Kallstrom says, because they are enticed by the money. Across the board, these companies are chosen by scammers because of their name recognition, says Kallstrom: They make great bait for a potential unsuspecting victim. How do you spot a recruiter impersonator? Any request for personal information is likely a sign of a scam, Googles Ong says, adding that candidates whove applied to Google jobs have already shared information like email addresses and phone numbers. Real recruiters shouldnt be asking for thoseespecially not alongside an invitation to a Google Meet or link to a login page where users need to input that information to sign in. Scammer tells will also appear in their own email addresses. Ong says he and his colleagues have seen fake recruiters with incomplete websites or misspelled emails along with outreach from people who do not have Google in their title or email. Misspellings, poor grammar, and inconsistencies in general could indicate an impersonator. Emails or websites replete with stock photos, too, should warrant a side-eye. As obvious as it may sound, any job opportunity that comes with an ask for payment should be avoidedeven if its indirect payment, like requesting you purchase a gift card. Amazon will never ask you to provide payment information, including gift cards (or verification cards, as some scammers call them) for products or services, says Knapp. Ultimately, if youre unsure whether a job opportunity is a scam, check the companys website. Companies tend to list their job openings online. Both Google and Amazon representatives point to their companies online job boards, where those whove received offers to apply for jobs can cross-check that those posts indeed appear on their websites. Job seekers can also do due diligence on the alleged recruiters doing outreach. Verify the contact by checking the email addresses, Ong says, looking up the person online, such as on LinkedIn. And if something does seem suspicious, flag it to the outlet where it was received. What to do if youve been targeted? The first step is to report it. The more consumers report scams to us, the better our tools get at identifying bad actors so that we can take action against them and protect consumers, says Knapp, pointing out Amazons scams help page where those targeted can report. The company works with consumer groups like the National Cybersecurity Alliance and the Better Business Bureau to create awareness campaigns about the latest, most common scams. Amazon also partners with law enforcement across the globe, Knapp adds, to hold scammers accountable, having initiated takedowns of more than 55,000 phishing websites and 12,000 phone numbers being used as part of impersonation schemes in 2024. A representative from Target says that cybersecurity experts from the companys Cyber Fusion Center use advanced tools and training to prevent and address potential threats. That includes tools developed by the company as part of an open source initiative on GitHub, like one that scans files, such as emails, to detect possible malicious activity. Anyone can get baited on social media or get a text about a job opportunity thats too good to be true, says Knapp. If something seems too good to be true, it likely is an impersonation scam.
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E-Commerce
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