Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Roundup by Featured · Oct 15, 2026

According to MarketScreener, Meta’s Muse Wonder release adds another contender for teams evaluating AI models.

We asked leaders running these models in production to share specific decisions they have made or reconsidered because of multi-vendor competition, and the results that followed.

Kiyoshi CaseyFounder, 321ai · Melbourne, Florida, USA

One week of internal review was what it took for us to make the switch based on budget analysis of which AI model to use in production. In the next week we burned 1.55 billion tokens at a 96% cache read rate. Priced against market list rates we spent $62 total using a budget tier model that utilized off-peak rates versus $810 for a flagship model's pricing. That was a 13 fold difference and our workflows adapted to utilizing the frontier model to review the work, this ended up costing $44 for the frontier model to review all of the work with a minimal dropoff in output quality compared directly against the prior week's output. We internally built the infrastructure to support the orchestrator frontier model reviewing the budget model's output and now utilize this framework for all of our development.

Muninder AdavelliDev / Marketer, Proxy.Report · Bitola, North Macedonia

I have been working with websites: building them, ranking them, converting them to lead generators for the last 10 years. No wonder I get more than 100 link-building requests a week.

Some ask if I need link-building services, and some ask for guest posts on websites I manage.

1. The first layer sorts them into link sellers and link buyers.

2. The second layer classifies link buyers as high-value or low-value prospects.

3. The third layer is finding the right template.

The fallback in the system is the manual layer, for when the LLM cannot decide.

Before, when I first built this application with the help of ChatGPT, I used the OpenAI API, and it used to cost me around $0.012–$0.019 per email, and it was vendor-locked. Later I reconfigured the app to use OpenRouter. Now with Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507, it’s down to $0.0006–$0.0009 per email. That’s 20x cheaper.

The only drawback with Qwen is that it sent 3% more emails to the manual layer. It’s okay for me.

My take: not all tasks require new advanced models. Knowing what’s good enough can save big time on expensive LLM spending.

Vadzim TashlikovichHead of Software Department | CTO, SCAND · Warsaw, Poland

In the latest projects we often keep an eye on the model life cycle for specific providers. In fields where accuracy is very important, it is expensive to recalibrate all workflows and perform acceptance tests once again when a new version of the LLM vendor’s model appears. The older one gets deprecated, and prices become significantly higher.

We developed an innovative live speech translation pipeline for one of our customers. It captures audio from English speakers and creates a real-time audio translation into 5 languages (with great flexibility to add more). For this pipeline several ultrafast models were needed. We chose Groq as a provider that helps to maintain 500+ tokens per second for open-source models.

Initially, several models participated in the pipeline: GPT-OSS-120B and Llama 3.3 70B. The latter was especially great at translating small chunks of text into different languages, but its short life cycle (6 months) made it impossible to use. That’s why the whole pipeline now uses the industry-proven GPT-OSS-120B, which has a much longer life cycle. We stopped searching for new, faster and better models, because testing and recalibrating the pipeline is too costly: it requires 8–20 hours and the involvement of several native speakers of the supported output languages. Instead, we improved the algorithm itself to reach better results.

Manoj SethiFounder, Boffin Coders · Mohali, Punjab, India

In mid-2026 IELTS stopped offering the test on paper. IELTS Builder Canada, who already had their mock tests published as books on Amazon, reached us through our website. They wanted a platform where their students could take mocks with a real exam experience.

Reading and Listening were simple, as we mapped the correct answers and marked them after the exam. Writing and Speaking have no fixed answers, so feedback was the hard part. AI was already running the Speaking mock interview, so we advised them to extend its role to give immediate feedback and bands based on the IELTS rules.

The AI is not a single model. Different models are routed through OpenRouter, and we choose the model by the complexity of the task, to control token consumption and keep the budget in check. As newer and better models came, we shifted to them for better evaluation, without being locked to one vendor. Speech-to-text stays on the school's server and only text goes out, because the students are visa applicants and some are minors.

As per the data on 23 September 2026, there were 4,584 module submissions in 30 days, with no student waiting for a teacher's feedback.

James Hoad CoombeFounder, PolicyPing · Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

My product, PolicyPing (and side product ReefReport) monitors government building rules for changes and notifies customers which sites are affected, using frontier models to review the amendments. When planning, I routed the discovery and strategic AI work through Openrouter so I could test all models, and run them side by side with the same prompts to compare results. I did not have to commit to a single vendor, and it gave me comparison data. It also allowed me to amalgamate results where required if some performed markedly better, or came up with new ideas.

This flexibility was key for testing various LLMs for speed, accuracy but also capability. It clearly showed the frontier models of each provider were somewhat close to each other but the step down models were significantly 'worse' at some things than the top-tier. Fable and Opus clearly outperformed Sonnet (all Anthropic products) but were relatively evenly matched with their competing models at each tier with different focuses and largely different personalities.

The trade-off for OpenRouter as an aggregator is the increased cost and fees, but there's no other straight-forward way to get access to all models on an even interface. Once the model I picked proved itself (which ended up being Opus for a balance of cost/performance), I moved virtually all of my build work to Claude subscription (in lieu of API) methods entirely to leverage all their models and also ClaudeCode and their Cowork systems that clicked for me the best. Since then this has changed but the fact remains the aggregator API use was best for testing but could cost up to 5 times more than a subscription inclusion.

I've built my tech stack to be model agnostic so I can move between providers fairly easily, which is necessary with market competition changing capabilities and costs on a week by week basis at this moment in time.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

Interview with Dr. Mimi Smith

Edited by Haley Spracale, Editor at Featured News · Oct 15, 2026

This is a good question. It started with my little girls; they love writing stories, but it was the overwhelmingly emotional feedback from those stories that birthed Books for Little Hearts.

I work closely with a lot of children, so the way I delegate with adults is obviously not the same as with children. I prefer to relate to them in a manner that makes them feel safe and secure and able to respond openly and freely. This is how a great partnership, whether with a child or an adult, usually begins. Working with children helped shape the way I work with adults as well. It's important to be transparent, but also to have great communication skills. There's nothing worse than giving direction that no one understands.

In any business, workflows and processes are put in place. But when people are not turning to the SOPs on file and instead rely on a single individual, that is usually a dead giveaway that the person is the glue holding the department or organization together.

Too often that dependable person eventually becomes less reliable—not because they've become lazy, but because they are drained. A friend who worked in an adjacent department told me they felt they were the only person leadership asked for details about every project, and it had begun to mentally drain them.

One person having all the answers or needing to do the research for everyone should not be the norm. When they went on vacation, processes were put on hold until they returned. Can you imagine managing your own workload while also having to solve the workload of another?

A high performer often excels in their work. Their tasks are completed before deadlines, and when that happens, they offer to help on another project of their own initiative. This is where we should show that we value their initiative.

However, there is a thin line: the organization can become overly dependent on a person when that same person not only attends their own scheduled meetings but also ends up attending everyone else's. The difference is that the former demonstrates a willingness to help, while the latter becomes an expectation even though it is not part of their job description.

As a publisher, I repeat processes a lot. Granted, there are some twists and turns, but for the most part, the steps are repetitive.

Keeping a spreadsheet for my workflow helps streamline projects when taking on new clients. Each tab covers a different part of the same project. When you reach a fork in the road, I jot down the issue that occurred and how I solved it.

I recommend doing this because you will need that resolution again, and documenting processes in real time minimizes wasted time.

When I'm out and need to quickly jot something down, my iPhone notepad comes in handy. I transfer those notes at the end of the day into my Excel spreadsheet.

I take this information and turn it into standard operating procedures. Those become the guidelines for the process and are helpful when bringing on someone else because they have something to follow.

A manager can truly listen, not just hear concerns. As managers, we sit in weekly one-on-one sessions with our employees and sometimes fall into a pattern of only waiting to hear about deliverables and nothing else.

At a regular check-in, it helps a high performer if the manager probes and asks follow-up questions about concerns that arise. Those concerns might indicate bottlenecks or issues that no one has an answer to—areas that can delay a project if left for the high performer to figure out. High performers can do their work well; the problem is when their work depends on another party that does not have an answer.

• Ask follow-up questions about any concerns or unresolved issues that come up.

• End the meeting by asking if there are any other projects or responsibilities outside the scope of that meeting. That will uncover more than they realize.

I've had managers who noticed this right away. In those instances, they called a management meeting. In that meeting, they laid out the issue that had occurred and allowed the responsible leaders to speak up without immediately involving the employee or the entire team.

In my experience, leadership did not know a particular employee had taken on those responsibilities because the employee had never mentioned it. I believe the most practical first step is for leadership to understand where the process failed and who should actually own it before making changes that would disrupt the employee or the team.

Well, for one, don't reward your dependable employees by giving them more responsibilities outside their normal role. Many employees value autonomy, so reward them with more flexibility or by acknowledging their hard work publicly.

It also helps to share knowledge by training other employees on common questions and repeatable processes. That way, when your most dependable employee is on vacation, the work is not put on hold and the company can continue to function without them.

Remember, high performers are often dependable workers. It is in their nature to step in and get things done. Often, we unintentionally turn that dependability into an organizational backup plan. If we notice one person is the go-to person in every situation, stop and evaluate to see what system is not in place or what is not working as it should. The last person we want to lose is a high-performing employee.

Dr. Mimi SmithFounder, CEO, & Publisher at Books for Little Hearts™

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

Edited by Jenn Moon, Editor at Featured News · Oct 14, 2026

As a mom of an athlete, I have lost track of how many sports my kid plays. Baseball, football, basketball, hockey—the calendar fills up quickly. Between all his practices, games, and the emotional energy that comes with watching him compete, I sometimes wonder what my son will carry with him after the season ends.

A recent baseball season gave me an answer.

My then-11-year-old struggled with his confidence. He had an unusually hard time at the plate and on the pitching mound. Baseball meant everything to him. He was an amazing pitcher, but sometimes just struggled.

As a mom, I lost sleep over it. I worried about what the struggles were doing to his confidence and thought maybe it was time to move from baseball.

But he kept showing up.

He cheered for his teammates. He shared his Big League bubble gum—lots of it! He played with his heart, even when his performance did not reflect how much he cared. He had one particular coach who saw something special in him: He saw him as a mentor to the others. He recognized his ability and perseverance and allowed him to be a role model.

In sports, it is easy to focus on the players who have the best stats. At work, we often do the same with the person who wins the new account, delivers the best presentation, or gets the highest sales.

I believe a great team also depends on people who keep others motivated, take their role to heart, and remain invested when things get tough. My son backed his team and showed up even when he didn't want to.

That is a useful lesson for managers. Results matter, and so does recognizing the behaviors that help other people perform. Who follows through? Who shares their knowledge? Who helps a colleague after a big setback?

Although my son was known for his pitching skill, he wasn't always the best hitter. My very first instinct was to protect him from feeling discouraged with his hitting. I had to take a step back, let things play out, and trust the process.

Leaders face a similar responsibility when an employee struggles. A missed target, in my opinion, should lead to a conversation about what happened and how the employee needs better support next time to reach that goal.

Giving someone room to grow takes patience, which can be hard to give. It also requires paying attention to progress that may come before a visible result.

Team sports like baseball can give kids repeated opportunities to practice accountability. They have teammates depending on them, coaching feedback, and quick decisions to make at the plate. They can learn when to ask questions, when to listen, and when someone else is better positioned to lead.

Playing a sport does not automatically make someone a strong leader. For my son, that particular season offered practice in staying committed, accepting help, and finding his place on a team during a difficult stretch. There were days he just wanted to sit out, but his teammates made it fun and cheered him on.

When I think about that season, I think about a great boy who struggled and kept caring. He kept showing up for people who mattered to him. That is something I hope he carries into every team he joins.

Sue Sweenie

Sue Sweenie is a marketing, PR, communications, and personal branding professional with 20+ years of experience helping organizations and individuals build strong brands, tell compelling stories, and connect with the audiences that matter most. She is the author of "Branding You."

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Monica Frazier Anderson DDS, DBA, FICD

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 12, 2026

I love my granddaughter, but if she replays that song one more time, she is going to hear exactly what it sounds like when grandma turns into a demon. I’m not proud of it, but that was my thought when my beautiful 10-year-old granddaughter picked up the remote and smiled in my direction. She knows that one-dimple smile is Boomer kryptonite. I sighed, forced my lips to smile, and said yes to her unspoken request.

I was headed toward the kitchen with our empty popcorn bowl when she asked, “Will you watch with me, Memoe?” I almost reminded her I’d viewed K-Pop Demon Hunters twice already that day and at least a dozen times in the past year. But then I realized: I’d never actually paid attention. I’m often advising others to “be present,” to practice intention and mindful listening. Yet, I couldn’t recall anything beyond those six now-famous words “This is What It Sounds Like.”

I set the bowl on the counter, plopped down next to her, and stared at the screen, willing myself to care as much as she. Rumi, the lead character, was only 3 lines into the lyrics when my mouth fell open. She wasn’t singing to the demon hunters. She was singing to me. “The worst of what I came from, patterns I’m ashamed of…” In that moment, she transported me from my cozy den to a painful place I rarely let my mind linger.

In 2012, surgeons removed a large cancerous tumor from my abdomen. The scar extends ten inches from my sternum to below my navel. Initially, I thought of it as a badge of honor commemorating my survival. I overshared my painful journey and displayed my quilted torso to anyone who asked. Years passed, and something shifted. Slowly, unconsciously, I body-shamed myself into thinking my triumphant scar was a flaw, another imperfection I needed to conceal. I stopped celebrating my healing and became ashamed of the man-made evidence of it.

Rumi continued, “We listen to the demons...we let them get between us.” Sometimes the worst demons are in our heads. Think of the hours we waste fighting not monsters with otherworldly powers, but our negative self-talk that incessantly whispers:

· I’m too old.

· I’m too big.

· I can’t do it.

· I don’t deserve it.

· I'm not pretty enough.

· I can’t wear a bikini.

That last one? Totally me. All the magazines, fashion blogs, and filtered reels on social media pummel us with images of blemish-free, perfect people. They don’t have bad breath or bad hair days, let alone an unesthetic mark on their drum-tight abs. Who says overexposure to filtered reality only impacts young people? Even women with decades of accomplishments can be virtually waterboarded into believing those images reflect mandatory beauty standards we cannot reach with a ladder and 6-inch stilettos.

“The truth now?” I didn’t stop wearing sheer blouses, crop tops, and bikinis because I’m old. I stopped because, like Rumi, I was hiding my scars—my truth.

Ironically, I am always impressed when I see a woman with a V-neck blouse exposing the telltale scar of open-heart surgery. I don’t think, “Geez, cover that up. No one wants to see that.” I think, Wow, I love her confidence.

Or, as the Demon Hunters sing, “There’s so much unexpected beauty in broken glass.”

It’s true this long, deep scar will always be part of me, reflecting victory over the hardest battle of my life. And no, I’m not a shero, but I AM a survivor. Survivor means you have lived through something that caused others to die. Whether it’s war, an automobile accident, childbirth, or surgery, we’re still here!! The scars and crow’s feet are reminders of our resilience, not our weakness.

I’m no longer listening to the lies I told myself. There is nothing wrong with my body. My scars are my map. My receipts. The history of a life I fought hard to keep.

So heaven help me, I’m wearing my bikini. If someone sees the truth beneath my sunscreen…good. I do not care.

Sitting next to my granddaughter watching an animated half-demon sing about shame, survival, and self-acceptance, I felt my heart beat a new rhythm. One my cardiologist would approve of!

I hugged myself tight, smiled, and thought, THIS is what mental liberation sounds like!

Monica Frazier Anderson DDS, DBA, FICD

Dr. Monica “mOe” Anderson is a TEDx speaker, award-winning podcast host, multi-published author, and licensed healthcare professional. Through spoken and written word, she explores personal growth, health equity, and the complexities of modern life. She is a mother of two sons and the proud grandmother of four. She resides in Grand Prairie, Texas.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Mr Ozan Dagdeviren

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 9, 2026

What I find quite sad is that when a space becomes too noisy, it draws out the signal as well. Not the first or last time this happened. Do you remember what a big deal blockchain was? And NFTs? And the internet!Among the noise, it takes real deep expertise, critical judgement and most importantly being an original thinker to tell whether something is hot air or has any lasting substance to it. Some technologies did and some didn't. Anyone can tell with hindsight, but very few have the foresight to guess right.Just like the fact that desire is mimetic, so are most our own opinions. The positive or negative opinions you hold on AI, to a very large extent are shaped by others, without your explicit awareness. Unless you deliberately practice being an original thinker and sharpen those critical thinking skills - and have the self confidence to be okay with being seen as wrong - you will most likely follow the crowds.You'll be likely to be an AI fan - ignoring the real issues around it, or be an AI sceptic, burrowing your head in the sand around the benefits it brings. This is the bifurcated social discourse with many things. It's easier to pick a side as if you are watching a match, then to have the humility and mindset to be able to appreciate the skills and abilities of your opponent, or to criticise the one you support objectively.Same is true for sports, politics, public discourse around gender and minorities, immigration, religion and now, of course, for AI.I have a background in human sciences - I studied the individual mind through psychology and neuroscience and I studied the social mind through sociology and social psychology. I love the balanced perspective this helps me afford, as I can shift seats when looking at a topic and see it through multiple lenses. As such, that's the approach I'm taking with AI. I love it, I fear it, I use it, I am cautious about it.

Whatever camp you are in, you would benefit from learning AI. And I’m not talking here about learning about AI, the politics and the economics of it. No, I’m talking about becoming AI literate as a baseline, then getting to AI fluent very soon.

There are multiple dimension of AI Fluency, let me guide you along.

Prompting & CommsFirst, you need to be able to communicate with AI well. This is how you get across what you mean and what you want. Talking to an AI is different than talking to a human. As you talk more with it you'll understand how to engage with it better.Critical ThinkingThis is your evaluation and judgement with AI. Also involves your understanding of it's limits.Technical UnderstandingDo you understand AI fundamentals, memory and context, how LLMs work and why they always guess but never actually "know".Workflow ApplicationHave you integrated AI into a way of working, can you break down a task into components, can you apply it in the right domain whether that's arranging your social life or finances?Safety & ResponsibilityCan you use AI safely, with correct privacy judgement. Can you set reliable guardrails? Do you understand when and how it can go wrong?

Clearly, this is a new day for all of us. I like to say it's still day one with this new technology, in the grand scheme of things. (Well maybe now it's day two, but it's still very early days isn't it?)

I'd love to live in a world where more people understand what they are holding strong opinions about.What do you think?

Mr Ozan Dagdeviren

Mr Ozan Dagdeviren is the Founder & CEO at AISA AI Fluency. He also teaches on creative thinking part-time and has a background in behavioral science. He is the author of 5 books, has reached millions of people with his educational content.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Luciano De Castro Carvalho

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 7, 2026

I have been an advisor or in management roles for 20+ years and have participated in many board meetings. Some meetings accomplished a lot with very little waste. Others were a big waste of time, even though there were lots of good people and valuable information.

One consistent issue comes up often.

There is too much time spent looking at the past.

There are exceptions, but most of the time the meeting starts with management reporting on the prior month or quarter. There is an analysis of revenues, margin, cash, EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization), and other measures. Boards look for variances to the budget and management explains the rationale for the changes. Questions are asked, and sometimes Management needs to come back with more information, or details, to answer the questions. Questions that are asked in meetings often cover the same things that are brought up in the previous meeting.

In the best case scenario, and with any luck, the meeting gets to the good stuff in time. Good stuff typically means: strategy, capital allocation, and the hard decisions.

A board should care about and understand how the business makes its money, and then use that information to help the management team make important decisions.

The issue comes up when the board meeting is the first place directors go to find out what has already happened.

When deterioration in a margin calls for an explanation, I expect directors to describe the major reasons. If working capital consumes cash, they should identify the areas of inefficiency. If a major project is behind schedule, the basics should already be known.

Discussion in the board should start from there.

What effect does this change have? Will a decision be required? Has the assumption behind a certain business strategy become weaker? Should capital be allocated to other opportunities? Is the management, taking into account the strategy of the business, acting with enough urgency? Is there still the right leadership in place?

I think this is where board effectiveness begins.

Discussion about governance usually focuses on committees, controls, approvals and compliance. Of course these are important. However, I think there is another side of governance that is more practical and deserving of focus.

Who determines what is presented to the board?

This is not a secretarial question.

Time is probably the board's most constrained resource. If the board spends three hours explaining the past, it loses the opportunity to debate the future.

It is my experience that packs become huge because each function wants to show its work.

With so much information, a few key decisions probably deserve the full board's attention.

Those decisions should be the priority of the agenda.

Usually, I wouldn’t expect more than 20% of board discussion time to be spent reviewing performance or exception reports, looking backward. This is of course a rule of thumb. With a liquidity crisis, a significant operational problem, or a material transaction, for example, the board would need to spend more time addressing the exception and the strategy for addressing it, and therefore look forward.

But with everyday operations, most of the time should be spent determining what comes next.

Most boards have an oversight responsibility to ensure the organization is adopting the right strategy, making the right decisions about capital allocation, and is properly managing the significant risks the organization is exposed to.

Exceptions are for dealing with the abnormal. Governance is the operating system of an organization, behind the scenes, defining how the organization operates, especially with regard to decision rights.

It is important for board members to maintain a clear line of sight to the strategy of the organization they govern.

An overly bureaucratic process for strategy development leads to inflexibility of a strategy and rusting of assumptions, which ultimately doesn’t serve the organization.

These assumptions are important regardless of the form the ownership of the organization takes (i.e. publicly listed, privately held, family owned, investment company, etc.)

Names may change. A private equity owner may call it an investment thesis. A corporation may call it the strategic plan. I am less concerned about the naming and more about the testing of the underlying assumptions.

A company can achieve its annual EBITDA target and still be making bad decisions for the future.

It can be losing an important customer. It can be postponing maintenance that will create a bigger problem next year. It can be making the profit number for the year by reducing investments that the next stage of growth is dependent on.

The reverse can also be true. A company can miss a target and still be making an investment that is still justified.

Therefore, I don’t think the role of a board is simply to ensure management is aligned to the budget and to grade them against it.

The board also has to read between the lines of the performance.

Have the strategic assumptions on which the business was built and the rationale for investing changed? Which have been validated? Which have been disproved? What was unknown when the strategy was approved and what have we learned?

I think this discussion is more valuable than spending an additional 30 minutes in a board meeting to justify a variance.

Ultimately strategy and return on investment are intertwined.

I think one of the most important conversations the board has to continually have is on the trade off between short-term performance and long-term value.

There always has to be a balance between the two.

There may be some correct decisions. Others simply postpone today’s problems for next year.

The opposite is also true.

I’ve seen management use the word strategic to describe almost anything. After that, normal financial discipline sometimes vanishes. Projects become ongoing, and stopping them, despite adverse changes in the economics, sometimes becomes politically untenable.

I try to make the trade-off explicit.

In general, I think of actions in three groups. There are those that improve cash in the near term. There are those that improve competitiveness in the medium term, and enhance optionality and flexibility in the long term.

I’m not looking for an even split among the three.

A company under financial and time-pressure will likely consider the near term and cash the most important consideration. A fast growing company would likely have a stronger focus on capabilities in the medium term. A more mature company may have fewer justifications for funding something with a long time horizon.

What I am concerned with is whether the management and the board truly understand the time horizon they are funding, and why and what they expect in return.

Strategic choices and capital allocation are one and the same.

Capital allocation extends far beyond making a major acquisition or a large, one-time capital expenditure. Day-to-day choices like working capital, selling and purchasing decisions, and funding research and development are all capital allocation choices. Setting payment terms and deciding how to allocate and fund the firm’s real assets are all capital allocation choices. For a board to truly understand the trade-offs the firm is making, it has to be able to understand the choices management is making, and why.

Costly leadership questions happen when boards fail to act.

Another topic boards can sometimes leave unresolved for too long is leadership.

A board has a unique responsibility in this area. It selects the CEO and assesses the CEO and needs to consider succession planning.

What is dangerous is not the board making a decision to change a CEO. What is dangerous is the period before that decision when there is a sense that there is a problem and that something is amiss, but no one is willing to bring that question to the fore.

It becomes a circle that is repeated at each meeting.

I find that if it is a positive thing to make something concrete, then it should also be positive to make something negative concrete.

What is the deficit that people are talking about? Is it execution? Is the CEO unable to build the required management team? Is there a problem in the commercial area? Is the company growing too quickly, or is the organization becoming too complicated? Is there a financial problem?

What is the board looking at? What is the time frame? What is the evidence?

What needs to improve?

What support does the executive need?

What needs to change to demonstrate that the problem has been resolved? When will the board meet to address this?

Challenge your management team, but don't become management.

I've never agreed with the assertion that boards always operate at 30,000 feet.

There are times when you need to be at 500 feet.

Sometimes cash is deteriorating and you need to understand receivables and/or inventory and supplier terms. Sometimes customer retention is down and you need to get beyond the aggregate churn number. Sometimes the plant keeps missing deliveries.

These may not be micromanaging situations.

The line gets crossed when you turn from understanding to instructing.

It's board work to understand why a plant is missing deliveries and to what extent a key account is at risk.

It is not board work to tell the plant manager to run a certain production schedule to ensure deliveries.

The temptation to cross this line is especially acute for board members with significant operating experience, as they are naturally inclined to want to help the company and/or explain what needs to be done.

You may well be able to help.

But being able to help does not mean you should cross the line. The hard challenge should be at the understanding end, not the instructing end. Management needs to be free to manage. Otherwise, you end up with a situation where the CEO is the formal director of the company, but several board members have essentially removed themselves from governance and are micromanaging the CEO. That, also, does not improve accountability.

Work from the work.

As with the composition of the workforce, I prefer to work from the work rather than the résumés when it comes to the composition of the board.

What does this company have to do in the next few years?

If this company has to combine a number of acquisitions, then there needs to be someone on the board to address that. If the company has to go through a commercial reset, there needs to be relevant commercial judgment. If the balance sheet is under pressure, then there needs to be relevant financial judgment to address that.

Not every well-known person is the right director.

The same is true for the non-executive directors. The right board can change over time.

The chairman is particularly important.

The chairman is responsible for making the difficult issues on the board’s agenda discussable. He/she has to make the board work as a team. He/she has to integrate the views of everyone on the board and prevent any one person from dominating and making the board work a solo show.

Sometimes he/she has to tell the directors to keep their hands off management.

I prefer transparency for the people who are directly and extensively working with the company as advisors, partners and former executives.

We have to be clear about the role they are taking.

We have to be clear about whom they are advising. We have to be clear about the decisions they are making. We have to be clear about who is accountable. Otherwise, additional people can add additional ambiguity.

I prefer for the work to be done prior to the board meetings.

Much of what determines whether a board meeting will be useful happens before the meeting.

I’d like the fact base clear. I’d like the decision stated. I’d like the alternatives stated.

Management should not use the board meeting to read the board pack to the directors.

In important decisions I like to see a short paper stating the decision, the main alternatives considered, the recommendation, the economic impact of each, the downside risk, and the impact of waiting.

The rest of the analysis can be behind that.

I like to see important decisions early in the board paper agenda.

I am not a fan of saving the most important decision for the last part of a four-hour meeting.

I like to see an in-depth discussion on one or two topics than eight superficial discussions on “strategic” topics.

In ownership structures where there is a number of joint venture interests, I have found pre-briefs very useful. Pre-briefs can help resolve disputes on issues such as the level of funding, the level of risk, control, and even the facts.

A pre-brief should help surface the issues for discussion.

Discussions should help people come to their own conclusion.

Boards should evaluate the value they add.

Which decisions did we improve this year?

Where did we slow the company down?

Which difficult decision did we postpone for too long?

Did management bring us problems early, or only when there was no longer any choice?

Did we continue to provide funding for an initiative after the original case for support started to weaken?

Did we spend time on things in which management should have made the decision for us?

Those questions tell us a lot about board effectiveness. Attendance statistics don’t.

After almost 25 years of working with boards and executive teams, the boards that I value most, are not necessarily the boards with the best-known names or longest meetings.

They create the most clarity.

They understand the company’s history, but they do not get stuck living in the past.

They understand when to challenge, and when to support management.

When a difficult decision is theirs to make, they take action.

Luciano De Castro Carvalho

Luciano de Castro Carvalho is a senior transformation and turnaround executive with more than 20 years of experience working with boards and senior leadership teams. He currently leads the Business Transformation practice at Strategy& and has led large-scale transformation programs across more than 30 countries. Previously, he held roles at McKinsey, Alvarez & Marsal, and UBS. lucianodecastrocarvalho.com

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 2, 2026

According to According to Gettysburg College, people usually spend about 90,000 hours, or a third of their lives, at work. Without a doubt, how things are in the workplace can certainly influence not just our professional trajectory but also who we are as a person.

Harvard defines company culture as “a shared set of values, goals, attitudes, and practices that characterize an organization.” It shapes how you and your people work, and it can make or break your success.

You might have seen the phrase “great company culture” on job posts or company introductions many times. This description has been so overused that most people probably would just shrug it off as fluff. But what makes a company culture great? In this article, we discuss some do’s and don’ts to guide you on how you can live up to this.

To build a great company culture, you must start with the very core of your business: the people. Employees do most of the tough work and make up a significant portion of the company. As such, how they are and how they work will affect your business.

The way to employee empowerment is actually pretty simple: recognition and autonomy. People spend most of their waking hours in the office, and this sacrifice alone is enough reason to recognize their hard work.

Most employers might think that giving out free stuff, having an employees’ day, or giving out certificates is effective in making employees feel appreciated. While that may be true to some extent, you should dig deeper and consider other more productive ways that could make them feel valued.

One thing to consider is investment, and I’m not talking about salaries. It’s a continuous process that’s not limited to training and development but also improving their experience and well-being. Here at Digital Silk, for instance, we do regular check-ins to determine the tools employees need and provide training on new trends, especially with all the innovation at the moment. With the right investments, you get higher productivity, better performance, and even bigger savings — up to nearly 13% of the total revenue, a PwC study found.

Even a brief message, a one-on-one, or a well-deserved compliment can turn things around. These simple practices make people feel seen, and they might even be encouraged to pay it forward.

With how busy the days get, some problems often go unchecked, especially small ones. But be warned: Those issues might lead to bigger headaches if left unaddressed.

Workplace conflict can severely impact a company. In the United States, organizations lose over $350 billion annually because of unresolved problems at work. This is a clear indicator that when the people suffer, the company does too.

As such, prioritizing discussions and problem-solving can improve the general work atmosphere and help prevent such losses. Talk to your employees and leaders, and try to get to the root causes instead of slapping Band-Aid solutions that don’t fix things for the long term.

For instance, if overtime work becomes a concern, don’t just simply increase overtime pay or offer a meal allowance. While that’s great, it may not truly resolve the issue. Instead, look into why this keeps happening: Is it the workload? Is the workforce limited? You might want to offer flexible times or consider recruitment.

These are more concrete solutions that address a small problem in the long run and enhance the company’s habits and culture.

Communication is the foundation of any institution. When a company opens the communication lines between everyone — from the highest ranks to the most recent hires — the workplace becomes more conducive to innovation, growth, and change.

Encouraging active and healthy internal communication not only increases performance but also positively impacts employees’ attitudes toward work and colleagues. Communication can pave the way for people to advocate for one another and even the company, and this can lead to better performance and a better working atmosphere.

Meanwhile, when management makes an effort to communicate downward, they foster creativity and improve workplace dynamics. This makes leadership worth emulating, and soon enough, you’ll find that the workplace has transformed into a productive space for ideas and development.

One of the best ways to enhance company culture is to know when to give yourself and your team a break. If people are burnt out, the organization will stagnate, no matter how good the leadership is.

As a manager, this is something you can control. Supporting your staff by encouraging work-life balance can not only boost productivity but also build employees’ trust and appreciation of you.

Work-life balance was found to be an effective mediator between employee well-being and organizational culture. As a policymaker, you can enforce policy changes such as remote work, flexible schedules, and mandated leaves, and directly improve overall employee satisfaction and morale.

When this culture of empathy and care prevails in the workplace, you foster a healthy environment that is driven to succeed but acknowledges boundaries.

You don’t need boxes of pizzas to cultivate company culture. It only takes some observation, communication, and a little bit of sacrifice to understand what the workplace needs.

Once achieved, the real challenge begins: sustaining this great environment. As the manager, this responsibility falls on you, but for this to happen, you must work together with your people.

Ultimately, great company culture is one where trust and support — not fear and conflict — dominate. It is one where employees are valued, and leaders are in tune with the status quo. Start building your organization’s culture using this guide, and watch it shape your company’s progress in the years to come.

Gabriel Shaoolian

Gabriel Shaoolian is the CEO and Founder of the award-winning digital marketing agency Digital Silk. With a team of seasoned experts, Digital Silk delivers digital experiences through strategic branding, custom web design and digital marketing services that improve visibility and drive engagement.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

Interview with Robert Watson

Edited by Haley Spracale, Editor at Featured News · Oct 14, 2026

For first-timers, the key is helping them to connect. Everyone else who comes regularly is likely welcoming but has an established routine or a preferred group to sit with, and may even have pre-arranged a game for themselves to play already.

Welcome the new people. Do a quick assessment to figure out how game-savvy they are, and then find a matching group. The ideal groups are outgoing, friendly and diverse, and are playing a game on the easier end of the spectrum. Tables with good teachers are always a positive.

If you have an established gamer, feel free to pair them with a group playing an advanced game, but make sure to introduce them and ask if there's room for someone new to join. If not, have a few welcoming games at the ready to play with them yourself. This gives you a great chance to get to know them and to figure out who to pair them with next time, as well as a chance to give them an introduction to what to expect from your game night.

I think that in most cases, you need a newcomer to feel like they've found a place where they really fit in. If they tell you their favorite game and you have something that shares an element with it, then you've done it. For example, if their favorite game is Catan, ask what they like about it. Is it the tile-laying aspect? Give them a tile-laying game. Is it the trading? Find a game that encourages player interaction and trading. Do they just love Catan? If you've got it, play Catan with them. Finding a game with a similar depth of rules and strategies, so you're not overwhelming them with new content, is the best method. It's difficult enough to play games with strangers in a strange environment. There's no need to give them a very complex new set of game rules to learn as well.

Explaining rules is an art rather than a science. In most cases, you should start with the theme — who the players are and why they care — and explain how to win.

Then move into the turn structure and what actions can be taken to move them toward that goal.

Mistakes happen. I make it a point to always allow takebacks in my games if at all possible. If a player makes an error, I handle it like this: If they forgot a bonus they should have had, let them take it. If they’re not sure whether they grabbed the right colored cubes, let them decide what they had. If you feel like they’re uncomfortable with it, make a mistake yourself and demonstrate the kind of grace you can expect from your group.

Communication is really underrated among board game organizers. It's easy to set up a Discord server, a public Facebook group, or a Meetup that lets others join and learn about upcoming events. For public groups that rely on private communication — such as a group text as their only method — it can be difficult for newcomers to know who to ask about future events, and it can make them feel left out or uninvited.

Consistency is key too. "We meet here every second Wednesday" lets those who are less comfortable with technology know when and where to show up to play next time. Don't assume people know; make it very clear when and where the same group will reassemble.

Robert WatsonCEO at BoardGamingTees

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Ben Williams

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 13, 2026

As a young operations leader, I managed a custom packaging department, where items that didn't fit in the standard box sizes were packed. These items were often large and bulky and the work was difficult. And when I started working with the department, there were a large number of quality defects being generated: tape that didn't cover the full seam of the box; incorrect items being packaged; receipt slips missing... And senior leadership's read was that it was a people problem. So I investigated.

When I spoke with the team, they knew the quality errors were there. They told me that the quality requirements slowed them down. They were held to an hourly rate, and when they applied extra tape, or waited for the slip to print out, or verified the item on the screen, they had trouble making rate.

This is a classic defect and the finding isn't the main point to this story. In most departments, packages per hour is an important metric. Distribution centers are often handling huge demands with limited labor available. Maintaining a reasonable work pace helps meet that demand. But this department was different. The demand was minimal and the work was more difficult. Quality mistakes stood out. It was being measured like the other pack departments and that was the issue.

I had found the problem, but telling senior leadership that I needed the team to go slower wasn't the answer, in and of itself anyway. I dove into the data and saw that these quality mistakes were costly. And with the lower volume of packages, speed didn't save a lot. There was a small trade-off in additional labor hours to allow the team to slow down, but it didn't outweigh the money gained by mitigating the quality issues. I presented the math and I got the green light to experiment.

I went back to the team and I told them to prioritize mitigating the quality errors. Their immediate response was that they would not be able to "make rate" and my rebuttal was to not worry about the rate. Quality improved immediately. It was measurable and evident on day one. Packages per hour slowed by about 15%, but quality errors went to near zero. We stopped celebrating the wrong KPI and the team gladly followed suit. People genuinely want to do what is right most of the time. That's what makes what you measure so important. The results were an estimated $400,000 annual net savings from a six-person packaging team. The team was proud. Senior leadership was happy. And I became a better operations leader through the experience.

What I often think about is what would have happened if I didn't dig deeper. If I simply took the initial diagnosis at face value. The consequences would have been a tension with the packaging associates, a worsening in the quality issues as the team was held to unrealistic standards, and a complete loss of trust from the team, senior leadership, and likely myself. If your team looks like they're underperforming, take the extra time to check the scoreboard before you check the players.

Ben Williams

Ben Williams is the founder of OpsStack Solutions, an operations consulting practice for small and mid-sized warehouse, fulfillment, and distribution businesses. A Marine Corps veteran, he spent fifteen years running physical operations — from the floor of a 1.3M-square-foot fulfillment center to network programs across 80+ facilities — before starting OpsStack to fix operations the way an operator would.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Mehdi Zare CFA

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 12, 2026

Contributing to your 401(k) plan and maximizing any matching employer contribution is one of the most impactful financial decisions you can make to help ensure a successful financial retirement.

It’s important to treat any employer match like what it really is: a component of your compensation. Vanguard’s How America Saves 2026 publication reports the average employer match as promised was 4.7% of pay and the median employer match was 4.0%. These statistics are calculated across all plans that are recorded by Vanguard analyzed in their study.

It’s important to know your plan’s matching contribution formula to be able to maximize that employer’s matching contribution. For example, assume your employee contribution is 3% of compensation. One plan promises a 50% match of the first 6% employee contribution, and the other promises a 100% match of the first 3% employee contribution. With a 3% employee contribution, you’ll receive a 1.5% matching contribution from the former plan and a 3.0% matching contribution from the latter plan.

The next detail to check is whether your match is calculated each paycheck or across the year.

For 2026, the IRS allows $24,500 of compensation deferral into a 401(k) plan by the employee. Employees can defer more with catch-up contributions if eligible; $8,000 more for those that will be 50 years old or older this year, or $11,250 for those turning 60-63 this year. Compensation your employer contributes to match your employee contributions does not count towards this IRS defined employee elective-deferral limit.

Say you earn $150,000, receive 26 equal biweekly paychecks, and contribute 25% starting with your first paycheck. Assuming no catch-up contributions, bonuses, or other deferrals, you would reach $24,500 on paycheck 17. Your contribution on that check would be reduced to the remaining available amount, and regular elective deferrals would stop for the final nine paychecks.

Assuming your employer matches 100% of the first 5% of pay, the full annual match would be $7,500. But if matching is calculated separately each paycheck and the plan provides no annual adjustment, those nine paychecks without contributions would cost you approximately $2,596 in missed matching contributions, or leaving money on the table.

That is why it pays to ask about a true-up: an adjustment that reconciles the match already paid with what you qualify for under the plan’s annual formula. Some employers provide one; others do not. Ask when it is paid and what eligibility requirements apply, including whether leaving the company affects it. A true-up may arrive after the year ends.

Read your plan’s summary description or speak to your Human Resources contact to fully understand your company’s matching formula; Whether it’s on each paycheck or the year as a whole, and if there’s a true-up and the rules around the true-up.

If your company’s formula calculates matches on each paycheck and doesn’t true-up, contributing evenly across paychecks will help you not leave matching compensation on the table. This can be accomplished by contributing an amount evenly through the year.

Increasing your deferral percentage during the year may not mean you’ll hit the IRS contribution limit sooner. Starting at a lower rate and raising it later generally means reaching the cap later than if you had used the higher rate all year.

I know first-hand about not capturing an employer match, when I changed jobs midyear, I had already hit my contribution limit so couldn’t defer compensation into my new employer’s plan to receive their matching contribution!

Vesting. While employee contributions are vested, employer matching contributions could be vested immediately, fully vested after three years, or even vested over a six-year graded schedule per IRS vesting guidelines. Learn more about your plan’s vesting schedule.

Check that your deferral rate didn’t reset. This can happen after taking a leave of absence, changing employers, or if your benefits platform was updated. I’ve experienced this reset before!

The opportunity is meaningful. In its separate 2024 paper, Are employers optimizing their 401(k) match?, Vanguard found that 24% of employees in its study sample contributed below the threshold for the full match, while another 22% did not participate. Those findings appear in Figure 8, page 11, and reflect observations from 2013–2022.

Your employer’s match is part of your compensation. Knowing the formula is the first step; checking that your contributions actually earn it is what puts the money in your account.

Mehdi Zare CFA

Mehdi Zare, CFA, is the founder of Bina Capital, a free financial education site built around side-by-side comparisons. He writes about FIRE paths, retirement accounts, tax basics, and turning a paycheck into a long-term plan, with an education-first approach and no product pitches. https://www.bina.capital

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Mehdi Zare CFA

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 8, 2026

Classic FIRE, which is what the term FIRE originally referred to (financial independence, retire early) requires you save a high % of your income (40-50% is commonly cited), for long enough, so that your investment portfolio will be enough to cover your expenses for the rest of your life.

Coast FIRE refers to the point when you have saved enough aggressively that your investments should grow into a sufficient nest egg by the time you plan on traditional retirement. You’d continue working (and covering your expenses with income), but you would no longer have to save aggressively.

Which should you go for? Well, they’re optimizing for different things. With classic FIRE you can stop working completely sooner, with coast FIRE you get out of saving mode sooner. I think that Coast FIRE doesn’t get enough credit.

There are some questions you need to ask yourself though

Can you bear saving X% for another Y years? Obviously with coast FIRE you’re getting out of that situation sooner, which is why it can be attractive. Saving 40-50% is no easy feat and may require both a higher income and lower expenses (or a varying degree of each). Maintaining that for over a decade could be rough. If the idea makes you queasy your FIRE number better be pretty attainable!

What will you be giving up? This is mostly applicable to Classic FIRE, since Coast FIRE by definition requires that you continue working. If you’re trying to fully retire at 40 what happens when the market tanks that year? Would you consider part time work? How much income would you need?

When can you get health insurance? This one goes for either situation and is a common mistake I see people make when planning for early retirement. Health insurance can be expensive if you leave too soon, which could sour either situation.

Can you coast on part time income? This one applies to either situation, but is another common mistake I see people make when they think they’ll be coasting, but find that a part time job without employer-provided insurance means that their income doesn’t even cover rent.

How will this help? What’s your goal here? Classic FIRE means you’ll be able to not have to work. Coast FIRE means that you’ll be able to reduce stress, take a lower paying job you enjoy more, work part time, etc. If the idea of having the option to say no to a bad boss or say yes to a great opportunity excites you, then Coast FIRE may fit you better than full FIRE.

Next you’re going to want to crunch some numbers

How much do you spend in a year (in today’s dollars)? (yes this means you need to do this part first)

Classic FIRE: use this to figure out your FIRE number. This step often times involves using a withdrawal rate (WR), which is really a rule of thumb and shortcut (not a guarantee!)

Coast FIRE: figure out your target age to retire traditionally and figure out how much you would need at that age. Work backwards from there using a reasonable return on investments to determine what you need today.

The formulas are pretty straightforward. It’s the inputs where people go astray. I’ve seen some common problems people run into.

I’m coasting but still need to save a ton...forever? Chances are you’re not coasting.

I can coast on practically nothing! You’re underestimating how much you need. See the part-time income question above.

I’ll retire at ___. Fill in the blank. This one could be that you picked a number without figuring out what you actually needed. Or, this could be the opposite problem that you picked a number you saw online, didn’t dig deeper and may find you need more.

The inputs are very situation and timing specific. Have a kid and your timeline may slip a few years. Move to an expensive (or inexpensive) city and your timeline will shift. Improve your health insurance situation or find a job you love and your timeline may change too. Update your numbers often.

Mehdi Zare CFA

Mehdi Zare, CFA, is the founder of Bina Capital, a free financial education site built around side-by-side comparisons. He writes about FIRE paths, retirement accounts, tax basics, and turning a paycheck into a long-term plan, with an education-first approach and no product pitches.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Andre Granito

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 7, 2026

This year we paid for and tested nine VPNs (virtual private networks). From every angle. Today I am explaining my VPN research, focusing on the pricing aspects.

While starting our research, I was already surprised. One of the biggest VPN brands was offering a two-year plan at $3.49/month. However, on the checkout page, the total due jumped "a little bit": $94.23, paid upfront, because the deal actually covers 27 months (24 + 3 bonus months).

Monthly prices are one unit, not the full charge. The ads were offering $2.00-$4.99/month. But the real charge was from $56.94 to $119.76. Looking at the real monthly plan, without long-term commitment, the price is around $9 to $16.45.

And this doesn't happen only with this specific provider, or only in the VPN niche.

Personally, and professionally, it is common for me to have problems while registering or renewing domains with popular domain registrars. They offer amazing deals on yearly plans. This way you are locked in with the company, because transferring domain names is not something website owners usually do, I don't really need to explain why. However when the renewal charge comes, you are always surprised.

Median renewal increase of more than 85%. Four out of nine more than doubled, and the biggest jump was +232%.

On the other hand, this is not a general rule: one went up only 8%, and two didn't change at all.

Now, this is the point I want you to understand. Paying for at least five years of coverage cost $158 with the cheapest option and $511 with the most expensive.

This assumes renewal prices stay the same. Taxes and future promos aren't included.

In fact, bonus months and odd timeframes make comparison very difficult. One provider is a good example: $72 buys 36 months (12 paid + 24 free), so $2/month. But the renewal is $72 for only 12 months, which means $6/month.

My tip for you is: compare the effective monthly cost in the whole term.

I found very irritating the fact that many companies find themselves with the right to mislead and deceive their customers. Capitalism expects the seller and the buyer to complete a "transaction" when one offers something the other finds valuable at the price offered. If you need to deceive your customers to keep your company running, something is deeply wrong, and probably it is time to rethink it, move to a different niche, or simply shut it down.

Informed consumers are capable of driving this type of company out of the market.

Beyond the hidden catches in the pricing of these services, you need to keep an eye on other things.

During our research, we realized that most of them offer some kind of free trial, but almost all of those ask for a credit card and convert it into a subscription.

Only one of the nine offered a free trial with no credit card in the desktop app. Paid trials cost between $0.99 and $2.

All nine VPN services we tested refunded 100% of our money. Six on the same day, two the next day and the slowest after 7 days.

While researching one company, we had a few problems getting the refund. In fact, a support agent made our work very difficult from the first question we sent them. After some days of testing, we asked for a refund, and he would not approve it, even though our request was 100% within their terms, accusing us of "using services without paying for it" while testing and asking for refunds.

After disagreements and a heated argument, he instantly deleted our account; this automatically logged me out of the site, preventing me from contacting support again. I was stunned. Later that same day, I received the money back in my bank account.

One last tip about refunds: Purchases done through App Store or Google Play Store always follow the store rules, not the VPN provider's.

About half of the nine VPN providers we tested had a verifiable no-logs policy, the same percentage applies when we search for independent audits.

With one of them, a Domain Name System (DNS) leak test showed our real internet provider's DNS while the VPN was connected.

And here we get to the most important point of this article. When we talk about subscribing to a VPN provider - this can also relate to other niches - we have two possibilities:

1- You are indeed hiring a VPN service that will make your internet navigation safer and more private. Your data and path are actually protected. You are able to access streaming content from other countries, that are blocked in your region.

2- You are buying, paying for a service that is selling your data.

The latter - where you are the product - normally happens when we try to go for the cheapest option.

There are a few free plans I'd trust. With most free VPNs, ask how they make money. Often, the answer is your data.

In this case, there seems to be no difference between the VPN company and your internet service provider; you are simply swapping one company that sees your traffic for another. A VPN company selling your data might be even more dangerous than your internet service provider.

Without further ado, here are 5 simple things that apply to any subscription:

1- The amount charged today;

2- The actual term, including bonus months;

3- The renewal price and term;

4- Who processes the refund (provider or store);

5- Whether the trial requires a credit card.

If you are experienced and have purchased various online services, you have likely encountered some of these issues before and know the steps to take before committing, especially regarding annual or long-term plans.

However, the tips in this article can still be helpful, even to the most experienced internet users.

Often, pricing and renewal rates are the catch.

At other times, unusual terms and bonuses are introduced to confuse you.

And in some cases, depending on the niche, you might end up signing up for something that does you more harm than good.

The only way to avoid unpleasant surprises is to pay close attention to the five points mentioned above, plus the terms of service. Yes, it is tedious, but necessary.

Between May and July 2026, we paid for a plan from each of nine VPN providers (CyberGhost, NordVPN, Private Internet Access, PrivateVPN, Proton VPN, PureVPN, Surfshark, Turbo VPN and VPN.ac), tested them hands-on (baseline speed tests from Latin America), and then requested refunds. All were one-month plans: CyberGhost VPN (1 month plan), NordVPN (Complete Plan, monthly), Private Internet Access (1 month plan), PrivateVPN (1 month plan), Proton VPN (VPN Plus, monthly), PureVPN (Max, monthly), Surfshark (One+, monthly), Turbo VPN (Platinum, monthly), VPN.ac (1 month plan).

The long-term prices in this article come from each provider's U.S. checkout, in U.S. dollars, rechecked on August 14, 2026. These prices are for each provider's cheapest plan, not the higher tiers we bought for testing. All prices are before tax, because tax depends on where you buy. Renewal figures are the renewal prices shown at checkout or in each provider's terms; we did not wait years to watch them charge.

Disclosure: I'm the founder of Reviews Ally, which earns affiliate commissions from the nine VPN providers tested here. We paid for every subscription ourselves, and no provider reviewed or approved this article.

Andre Granito

Andre Granito is a software engineer, founder & lead reviewer at Reviews Ally, an independent site that buys and tests software with its own money. He paid for, tested and requested refunds from nine VPN providers, and published the pricing and refund data. He also tests other types of software.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Mary Massoumi

Edited by Jenn Moon, Editor at Featured News · Oct 14, 2026

Credit-card marketing is a billion-dollar business. Capital One alone reported $5.0 billion in credit-card marketing expenses in 2025. With my marketing hat on, I know how tempting a strong offer can look. Before applying, I check what it takes to earn the bonus and whether the card fits my spending.

If there’s a sign-up bonus, determine if it makes sense based on your existing spending. For example, if you’ll typically spend $3,500 in the first three months and there’s a sign-up bonus with a spend of $4,000 requirement in the first three months, it probably won’t be worth spending an additional $500 just for the bonus. There are, of course, some exceptions to this, but I generally avoid messing with my budget for credit cards.

If there isn’t a sign-up bonus, or if you can compare the sign-up bonus to something else), try to figure out the break-even point for the annual fee. Let’s say Card A has 75,000 points as a sign-up bonus, and Card B is what you could sign up for elsewhere (or what the historical sign-up bonus has been). Assuming Card B has no annual fee (and if there is an annual fee, work that back into this example), Card A’s $795 annual fee immediately puts you at a $495 disadvantage (at 1.2¢ per point, I usually peg 75,000 points to be worth $900). To break even on the annual fee, you’d have to get $495 worth out of the card benefits. If there’s a $300 annual statement credit for eligible travel purchases (like the Chase Sapphire Reserve has), that narrows it down to $195. From there, it’s a matter of determining how much value you’ll get out of things like the DoorDash statement credit, TSA Pre/Global Entry fee reimbursement, Priority Pass (PP), etc.

PP deserves its own little PSA: PP lounge access is not guaranteed. You do have to activate it on your Chase Sapphire Reserve, and lounges can get packed and turn away visitors. However, if you do get in, you’re allowed two guests each (for you as the primary cardholder and each of your $195-a-pop authorized users!) for free, with each additional guest costing $27 per person per visit.

As another example, I saw an in-flight ad recently on an American Airlines flight for the Citi/AAdvantage Executive card with an offer of a free Admirals Club membership and first checked bag (for you and up to eight people traveling on the same domestic AA itinerary) when you become a new cardmember and use the card for eligible purchases within three months of account opening. If you can access that offer, it could definitely be worth it compared to the current offer, but it would also have a $695 annual fee. You’d have to determine how often you’d use the Admirals Club (note: you can either bring immediate family, defined as your spouse/domestic partner and children under the age of 18, or two guests each time, with adult children counting as guests) or first checked bag benefits and whether those would offset the annual fee. AA Admirals Club guest(s)/family must be traveling to or from the same city on the same day on an eligible (American or oneworld) flight and must enter with the Admirals Club member, who must show a valid physical AA Admirals Club Card and boarding pass for an eligible same day flight.

I also have the now-closed to new applicants Citi Prestige, which costs $495 a year to maintain, but does come with perks like the $250 annual statement credit for eligible travel purchases and fourth night free (when booking hotels through Citi Travel, up to two times per calendar year). With the annual statement credit, that narrows it down to $245 in benefits/value needed. The fourth night free can save you a decent chunk of change, but be sure to research the best price (the fourth night perk doesn’t always make Citi the cheapest).

Keep track of credit cards, either with an Excel sheet like I use or with your credit union/bank if it tracks them for you, including when you opened them and when any applicable bonus offer(s) expire, current balance, when the fee renews, etc. Set an alert a month in advance of renewal so you can decide what you want to do.

I typically wait until somewhere around the one-year anniversary of a card and reassess. There are basically three options: keep as-is, call and ask if it can be downgraded to a no/lower-fee card, or cancel. In any case, it’s a good idea to double-check the terms of the bonus to ensure you’ve met them and figure out how long you have after the annual fee posts before it will be reversed if you downgrade/cancel the card.

When calling, if you tell them you’d like to cancel, sometimes they’ll offer to waive/rebate the annual fee to keep the account open (no promises, though, and always ask about any strings attached to these offers, like spend requirements or whether you have to keep the account open for x months). Cancelling a card can adversely affect your credit score(s), so a downgrade may be best in some situations. If cancelling, make sure you use/save any points/miles, update any automatic payments, and pay off/transfer the balance before closing the account.

Always pay attention to credit card offers and read the fine print before applying. Double-check bonus terms and expiration dates, perks and annual fees before renewal. Sign-up bonuses typically can only be earned once and some companies won’t honor sign-up bonuses if you’ve had the card in the past. Set up payment alerts and calendar reminders so you don’t miss anything and remember to pay your statement balance in full to avoid interest charges.

Disclosure: As of October 2026, Rewardopedia has no affiliate or referral arrangements with Chase, Citi, or American Airlines. We are pursuing affiliate partnerships.

Mary Massoumi

Mary Massoumi is the CEO at Rewardopedia. She draws on her own experience managing credit cards and travel rewards to explain how she weighs sign-up bonuses, annual fees, and card perks. Her approach starts with everyday spending, reading the fine print, and checking whether benefits justify the cost.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Maurice Sikkink

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 12, 2026

When I got married last year, I didn't want the wedding all over the internet. Apart from my LinkedIn, I'm pretty much invisible online, so it would have felt odd to have one of the most personal days of my life show up on other people's Instagram and Facebook feeds.

With my kids, I feel even more strongly about it. I know that once someone publishes a photo of them online, I have no control where it ends up, who's looking at it and with what intention, or what some future piece of software might do with it.

That's my own point of view, but it also matched with something we'd been noticing.

Working on a photo-sharing service, I’ve noticed that people are a lot more careful with their photos now than they used to be. I don’t have exact numbers for it, but you can tell from the questions they ask before they sign up. How easy is it to share photos with others? How much can I store? And then, more often: where are the photos stored? That one comes up especially from people in Europe. Who can access them, do you scan them, do you use them for AI? People really do dig through our FAQ and terms to find out the answers. To me, that says privacy has moved out of the small print and into the main reasons people choose a product.

My own family photos got me thinking about this from another angle too. Most of the conversation is about whether photos are published on Insta. Although I do know some successful influencers who don't mind and show their entire family online.

But at my children's school, for instance, there's a lot of attention around posting pictures of other people's kids, and at weddings couples now regularly ask guests not to put everything online. Or even just put the phones down. I've been at weddings from which I have no photos at all, only bride and groom had a photographer and didn't show the photos to anyone except one printed album at their house. Fair enough, but keeping photos off Instagram doesn't mean you stop keeping them somewhere and they just become some kind of secret.

You still want the grandparents to see the kids. Me, personally, I still wanted our wedding guests to send us their pictures. They have to live somewhere.

So the question I keep coming back to is: whether the place you store them is looking at them. Not who can see your photos, but whether the service holding them is analyzing their content. Ten or fifteen years of photos says a huge amount about a person: your kids growing up, your partner, your house, your holidays, your friends, where you spend your weekends, and probably a pile of weird screenshots and photographed documents and just awkward poses and places as well. With current AI, a library like that is something software can actually read and make sense of.

And this isn't just a theoretical thing. Google Photos explains that it uses algorithms to detect faces and group photos of the same person when its Face Groups feature is on. Apple Photos also recognizes people, places and scenes, although Apple says this analysis happens on your own device.

That doesn't necessarily mean these companies are doing anything wrong. And analyzing photos is also not the same as using them to train AI models. Google says it doesn't use people's personal Google Photos data to train generative AI models outside Google Photos. But I think it's important to understand the difference, especially when we're talking about years of private family pictures.

So what can you actually do about it? I would start with the privacy policy of whichever service holds your photos. Look for things like facial recognition, AI, machine learning and model training. Does the service analyze your photos? Does it happen on your own device or on their servers? Can you turn it off? And are your photos used for anything beyond storing and sharing them?

If you can't find the answers, ask the company directly. From my experience, people are already doing that a lot more often.

Funnily enough, I never really thought about these questions being so important when choosing where to keep photos. It was the questions from customers that made me think about it more seriously.

And perhaps that's the bigger point. We are becoming more careful about who gets to see our photos, but we should probably be just as careful about what happens to them where we store them.

Disclaimer: The author is the founder of Yogile, a photo-sharing service that competes with some of the products mentioned.

Maurice Sikkink

Maurice Sikkink is the Founder of Yogile, a private photo storage and sharing platform. With over 15 years of experience in photo-sharing technology, he has seen firsthand how people's attitudes toward privacy have changed. He is particularly interested in how AI is reshaping the way we store, share and protect our personal memories.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Roundup by Featured · Oct 9, 2026

Bloomberg reported that U.S. mortgage rates reached 7.49%, their highest level since 2023.

We asked housing-market and mortgage professionals to identify changes they expect this rate environment to bring for buyers, sellers or lenders over the next 6–12 months.

Russell VolkREALTOR®, Elite Realty Group · Huntingdon Valley, PA

What I’m seeing is that higher mortgage rates are creating two very different housing markets. Many of the 55+/Active Adult and downsizing buyers I work with are coming from homes that have been either fully paid off or they have substantial equity and some are able to buy with cash or a large down payment. Those buyers are much less affected by an increase in mortgage rates than buyers who are putting 20% or less down payment.

Over the next 6 to 12 months, I expect that difference to become more noticeable. Homes that appeal to downsizers with lots of equity and cash buyers can still see strong demand, while homes that depend primarily on financed buyers may require more aggressive pricing or seller concessions.

I also expect builder incentives and rate buydowns, and I already see that, to become increasingly important because many financed buyers care more about the monthly payment than a relatively small reduction in the purchase price.

Doug Perrystrategic financing advisor, Real Estate Bees · Bethesda, MD

Rates are going up to slow down inflation, which has been running hot for years, eroding purchasing power for consumers through higher prices on just about everything. Consumer budgets are exhausted, and under stress. Higher rates drive up borrowing costs in just about every lending segment and higher savings rates encourage consumers to save money instead of spending it. The slowdown in demand will drive down inflation but it will take 6-12 months.

As prospective homebuyers pull back during this higher rate cycle, I don't think we will see a noticeable decrease in home prices, but we will see a big shift in negotiating power favoring home buyers.

Prospective home buyers shouldn't back out of the market just because rates are up and home prices aren't dropping. Historically, some of the most profitable moves in real estate have been against the trend, and this is one of those times home buyers have that exact opportunity.

Dale GremillionSenior Loan Officer and Producing Branch Manager, Capital Home Mortgage Arizona

Rates being at 7.49% will allow buyers to sit on the fence and shop around with us for the best option whether it be conventional FHA VA or Jumbo.

As we start to see more inventory available on the market home will sit longer and allow sellers to give more towards closing cost. Using programs such as Home Plus AZ or Home in Five Advantage can help your buyers get closed on their next home faster.

Another thing we have noticed is the increase of using one time close loans. These loans will allow your buyers to get locked into one rate when they start building their home and only draw on what they use during the building process.

Something that I have noticed that was unexpected was more buyers wanting to use 1099 loans on there primary residence. With these loans you only need to put down 10-20% and do not need to provide tax returns but can use bank statement's or P&Ls.

Tripp ButlerOwner, Southbridge Greater Savannah Realty · Savannah, GA

The housing market has definitely slowed in our area because of interest rates, inflation (which is driving gas and food prices up), and the uncertainty around the war in Iran. Buyers have the upper hand right now and can negotiate much more on price, ask for closing costs, and many are getting an Old Republic Home Warranty included in their contract. It has taken a little more explaining for sellers to understand this because they are still expecting to get what their neighbors sold their house for a few months back, when interest rates were more than half a point lower than they are today.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Dr. Mimi Smith

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 7, 2026

I’m sure you’ve heard the unspoken debate about homeschool versus brick-and-mortar school once or twice in your lifetime. If the discussion isn’t coming from parents, it’s being whispered among teachers and counselors in schools.

And you know what? I understand this debate firsthand.

At first, I wondered why we concern ourselves so much with which type of school a child attends. Isn’t the point simply to make sure children are receiving the education they need to become successful adults? I mean, wouldn’t that be the ultimate mission?

Two years ago, I tutored a third grader who was bright, curious, and needed a little extra guidance with reading comprehension. From what I could tell, he was doing pretty well.

We all thought he would move on to the next grade.

Then came the reading assessments. You know, the infamous Florida Assessment of Student Thinking, that every student dreads.

Well, maybe not every student.

This young kid ended up just a few points shy of meeting the requirement to move on to the next grade level.

I was shocked. Missing it by only a few points was difficult to swallow, even for his parents.

His parents ultimately decided to homeschool him.

I noticed when the parents transitioned him to homeschool, they had more freedom in the way they helped him learn.

Throughout his fourth-grade year, his parents kept me updated.

He was doing amazingly well.

By the end of the school year, he had all A’s.

No, literally. All A’s.

They sent me a copy of the transcript, and I was so proud of him.

In that moment, I started wondering whether homeschool was simply better for him than brick-and-mortar school. I had officially started the entire debate in my own head.

If I had made my decision based only on that transcript, I probably would have concluded that homeschool was the way to go.

But then his parents put a funny twist in my thinking.

They sent him back to brick-and-mortar school for fifth grade.

And guess what?

Their reasoning made perfect sense.

Homeschooling had helped him improve academically, but it had also given his parents the opportunity to notice things about the way he learned.

Yes.

They noticed that during tests, he would work far too quickly and get answers wrong, but they knew he understood the question.

His parents asked him why he wouldn’t simply slow down when he already knew the material.

His answer had nothing to do with academics.

He told them the other children at school were much faster test takers. He felt like he had to finish before them or they might think he wasn’t smart enough.

That’s exhibit A.

Stay with me.

His parents realized that working in smaller groups, or around other children who also took more time during tests, might work better for him.

And guess what?

His brick-and-mortar school was willing to accommodate him.

There were more of these little gems that ultimately helped his parents decide he could return to the classroom, but that one stayed with me.

It changed my thinking about whether homeschool might have been the better option.

More importantly, it made me realize that choosing a side may not benefit the child at all.

In some cases, choosing a side could actually prevent us from recognizing what the child needs.

You see, while the child was being homeschooled, the family was able to observe behavior that they were previously unaware of.

Not bad behavior, but learning behavior.

The child had some strengths they were able to use while being homeschooled, and for any weaknesses, they adjusted around them so that he could continue to progress.

By the end of the school year, they took all of their assessments and shared it with his classroom teacher when he transitioned back. His school was happy to support him!

Whether his parents realized it at the time or not, homeschool became a bridge back into brick-and-mortar school.

One need in a child’s life changed the plan.

Then the plan changed again.

There were no sides to choose for this family because the side they chose was the child’s.

A child does not have to be permanently homeschooled or permanently educated in a brick-and-mortar school. Their educational environment can change depending on what they need during a particular season of their life.

Homeschool and the traditional classroom can work together.

Dr. Mimi Smith

Dr. Mimi Smith is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of Books for Little Hearts™, a children’s publishing brand and youth authorship development platform centered on creating opportunities for young authors to write books for children. She also founded its fully funded Young Author Publishing Program, which provides selected young writers with professional publishing support at no cost to their families.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Adam Miller

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 5, 2026

A car accident is confusing enough. You may be hurt, your car may be totaled, and you’re trying to figure out what happens next. How are you going to get to the doctor or work?

Then your phone rings. Or maybe it's a text message, sometimes an email.

The person on the other end knows your name. They know you were in an accident and they want to “help” you. Sometimes they even know details about your accident that make you wonder how they got your information in the first place.

I’ve represented dozens of Texans who have received these calls, and that’s usually one of the first questions they ask me: How did they know?

That’s a great question. And honestly, sometimes I want to know the answer just as much as they do. Somebody knew about this wreck before the person had even started looking for a lawyer. How?

In Texas, certain types of illegal solicitation fall under what’s called barratry. Most people know the practice by another name: ambulance chasing. However, most people don’t know that its illegal and that you can sue these bad actors and get paid.

I’m a personal injury lawyer in Houston. Of course I advertise, everyone does. People see my commercials, social media posts, media coverage, and website. If someone sees one of those and decides to call me, that person made the choice to reach out. They were not illegally solicited.

That is very different from someone getting information about an accident victim, contacting that person directly and trying to steer them toward a particular lawyer or medical provider. They might even do this on a website which I have seen recently. Get your accident report here and you end up signing an electronic attorney contract without knowing it.

One barratry case I handled still stands out to me.

After an accident, my client didn't get one solicitation. He got six.

Fortunately, he kept the evidence. He recorded the calls. He took screenshots. He saved the contracts that were sent to him. That turned out to be extremely important.

At the time, the applicable statutory penalty was $10,000 per violation. We ultimately collected $60,000 for him based on those six solicitations.

But there was another part of that case that I think says a lot about how this business can work.

When I got the police report, I discovered that my client had caused the accident.

In other words, the people soliciting him apparently hadn't even done enough homework to realize he didn't have the personal injury case they thought they were chasing.

His barratry claims were a separate issue, and the evidence he had saved allowed us to pursue them. He caused the accident and he STILL got paid. Most people don’t know this law and I am trying to spread the news.

That's why I tell people not to simply delete an unwanted text or hang up and forget about a suspicious call. Keep it. You may need it later.

People imagine an ambulance chaser as someone who walks into a hospital room and hands an injured person a lawyer's business card like on a TV show or movie.

It isn't always that obvious.

The person contacting you may sound helpful. They may use an official-sounding business name. They might talk about getting your vehicle repaired or helping you find medical treatment. They might offer to help you get a rental car or cash loans for your expenses while you wait for your case to settle.

Eventually, the conversation may turn to whether you already have an attorney.

I recently talked about this issue on KPRC 2's Houston Life, and one of the things I tried to get across is that people should trust their instincts enough to ask questions.

If you didn't contact this person, ask who they are.

Who do you work for?

How did you get my phone number?

How did you know I was in an accident?

Why are you recommending this particular lawyer?

A legitimate professional shouldn't have a problem explaining who they are and why they're contacting you. If they aren't doing anything wrong they will have no issues answering all of these questions without hesitation.

Timing. The timing is a big one for me.

If you were in an accident a few hours ago and somebody you don't know is already contacting you about lawyers or medical treatment, I would want to know how that happened.

I would also be very cautious about anyone pressuring you to sign something right away.  Insurance companies use this tactic too.

After a serious wreck, people are usually feeling overwhelmed. They're thinking about pain, transportation, work and their family. Most people have plans coming up and are worried about cancelling or rescheduling.  Also, they may be dealing with an insurance adjuster for the first time in their lives.

That is not the time someone should be creating more pressure.

Promises about how much money you're going to receive are another red flag. No lawyer can responsibly know what a case is worth from a quick phone call right after a crash. There are too many things we don't know yet.

What happened? Who was at fault? What does the evidence show? How badly was the person injured? What insurance coverage is available?

Those questions take time to research before you can answer with any certainty.

And, even worse, if somebody offers money, gifts or something else of value to get you to sign with a particular lawyer, this is a big red flag. Paying for cases is also super illegal in Texas but firms are doing it every single day.

A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that barratry isn't just against the rules for lawyers. It's actually against Texas law, and there can be real consequences for the people involved.

There are a few different laws that come into play. Texas Penal Code §38.12 deals with barratry and solicitation of professional employment. Lawyers also have to follow Rule 7.03 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, which puts limits on how we can directly solicit potential clients.

What surprises a lot of clients is that Texas actually gives them a way to go after the people doing this. Texas Government Code §82.0651 is the law we use in these cases.

And the even law changed recently to help crack down on this practice. The Legislature increased the penalty in 2025. If somebody illegally solicits you and you don't sign the contract, the penalty can now be $50,000. You may also be able to recover damages and attorney's fees.

Signed the contract already? Tell me anyway. That's a different situation, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're stuck with the lawyer who solicited you.

I also don't want people seeing “$50,000” and thinking, I got a weird text yesterday. Where's my check? That's not how this works.

When someone calls me about barratry, I usually end up asking a million questions. Show me the text. What number did it come from? Did you call them first? What did they promise you? Did they send you a link? Did you click it? Did you sign anything?

Sometimes the person doesn't remember much about the call, and that's understandable. They had just been in a wreck. Barratry wasn't exactly the first thing on their mind.

That's why I keep coming back to the same advice: don't delete anything. You don't need to know what law was broken or even whether a law was broken. Save it and let somebody who knows this area take a look.

The client I talked about earlier who got the six calls is just one example. I had another barratry case that went all the way to a jury, and that client was awarded $350,000. That's the biggest barratry verdict I've had so far.

Unfortunately, that wasn't some one-off case either. I have dozens of barratry cases going on in different parts of Texas right now. People are willing to risk these strict fines, penalties and loss of license to get these cases instead of building a great reputation or advertising.

And I hear the same thing all the time: “I deleted the text because I thought it was spam.” I get it. I delete junk from my phone too.

But if the person knows you were just in a wreck, stop before you hit delete. Take a screenshot. If they leave a voicemail, keep it. If they send you some strange link or a contract you never asked for, definitely keep that.

I've had people come to me months later trying to remember exactly what somebody said to them. That's a lot harder than handing me the phone and saying, “Here. This is what they sent me.”

I've represented injured people in Houston for many years, and choosing a lawyer is a personal decision. When you hire a lawyer, that person is going to be in your life for a while. They will know a lot of personal information about you, your injuries, your medical history as well as your income and work situation. You should be the one choosing your lawyer. Not some stranger who got your phone number after a wreck.

So take your time and really decide who you want to work with. Maybe you hire the first lawyer you talk to. Maybe you talk to three. Maybe your brother or your neighbor had a lawyer they loved and you call that person. That's up to you.

I don't care how you find your lawyer. Ask your friends. Read reviews. Drive past a billboard. Google ten different firms if you want. What I care about is that YOU made the decision to call them, not the other way around.

What shouldn't happen is somebody you never contacted getting your information after a wreck and making you feel like the decision has already been made for you. Don't be a victim twice.

Remember it's always worth asking some questions. Start with the obvious one: How did you get my number?

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Legal Disclaimer: This article is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship. Laws and regulations vary by jurisdiction and may change over time. Readers should not rely on the information in this article as a substitute for advice from a qualified attorney regarding their individual circumstances. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Featured News or its affiliates.

Adam Miller

Adam Miller, known as The Texas Bulldog, is a Houston personal injury attorney and founder of The Miller Law Firm. Licensed in Texas since 1990, he has tried more than 100 jury trials and represents accident victims, including people targeted by illegal solicitation after a crash.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

Interview with Jordan Park

Edited by Haley Spracale, Editor at Featured News · Oct 14, 2026

We're spoon-fed so much content daily that people are starting to pay more attention to content that's unique, informative, and genuinely engaging.

Throughout my experience, I've learned how branding, demand generation strategy, and automation can shape your content strategy.

Your brand strategy can help you define your unique value proposition, mission, and values, and use them in your content to generate leads and demand.

Of course, AI can automate some content production, but human input remains a valuable element.

Google uses the E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness) framework to assess the trustworthiness of content. Therefore, you should focus on whether your content is original, addresses audience pain points, and is structured properly before publishing anything.

I have over 15 years of experience in performance- and data-driven marketing across various platforms and channels. Working in tech, SaaS, blockchain, and process manufacturing has contributed to my unique perspective and skill set as a CMO.

Marketers, in general, are focused on brand, content, and messaging rather than data-driven metrics. It's important to understand that marketing is based on data; data should define how you approach campaigns and enable you to better serve your audience.

Sales cycles can last anywhere from 3 to 12 months, or even longer, so building trust with your audience takes time.

There is absolutely a place for brand, content, and messaging elements in marketing, but taking a data-driven approach can help you cater to the target audience's needs much more effectively.

Don't get me wrong: good branding and content definitely sell. But if you're investing heavily in marketing and you don't know where it's going, you're missing the point.

AI is a big topic of conversation. I think it’s going to allow companies to create significantly more content than they are currently able to. It can also automate many mundane or manual tasks, which saves a lot of time.

However, a large volume of content doesn’t inherently make it good. Using AI as a tool is one thing, but thoroughly reviewing it and giving it the necessary human touch is the key component.

I’d say there are three main things that make content valuable:

• Original data, such as a survey, benchmark report, or industry insights, that can help you stand out in the sea of fluff and commodity content.
• A very specific point of view. AI tends to produce an average of what’s already published. If you’re opinionated and have the experience to back it up, you’re already at an advantage.
• Freshness—updating your content at least once a year to account for industry changes or new trends, and giving your take on them as you go.

If your content sounds like everything else out there, you’re not providing value to your target audience or to search engines.

Think about your core message and how each audience can benefit from it. Someone who has founded a company only cares about scaling their business and how quickly they can do so. eCommerce businesses care about engagement and conversion, while SaaS brands want more qualified demo and sign-up requests.

There are only so many ways that you can say one and the same thing. You can’t recycle the same content and only briefly adapt it to different audiences, hoping it will work. It needs to have industry-specific issues, regulations, and implementation techniques for it to truly be personalized.

The first move, as I see it, is collecting audience insights. You may want to check on-site searches, review sites, Reddit and other forums, social networks, and similar platforms, for example.

Natural-language-processing models can sift through large amounts of data and identify which topics are being discussed most.

Knowing what’s trending can help you tap into potential content gaps that your competitors haven’t explored yet. For example, you can write about which products are creating hype these days or the common problems with a new tool or feature. Treat this as an opportunity to share your insights or tips and establish yourself as the leading authority or expert in the field more easily.

We've established this as part of our content process at Digital Silk. Each piece of content we create is vetted based on insights provided by subject-matter experts.

It's far more valuable than the typical AI-generated content because it comes from people with industry experience who can share their expertise. Often, it's information you can't easily find online.

Marketers can draw these insights out by setting up interviews or asking experts for their firsthand stories. In other words, you should take an investigative, personal approach when gathering your insights.

If you're working with a limited budget, focus on growing trust organically. Paid channels require a minimum spend to see real success, so I wouldn't prioritize them. Instead, focus on content marketing you can create yourself—written or filmed—and share it on your channels.

Prioritize case studies, original research, and expert-led insights. Case studies help buyers assess your track record and whether you're the right fit. Original research and expert commentary build thought leadership and increase visibility.

Our client had a limited budget of around $12k a month, which shaped expectations for the overall strategy. We improved audience matching using Customer Match Lists so incoming leads connected with verified professionals. We also redid their whole YouTube channel and grew it from 650 to over 180,000 subscribers.

In our experience, the assets that earn sustained attention and trust are case studies, original research, and expert-led videos. Case studies demonstrate your track record; original research provides new, citable insights; and videos put a real expert in front of the audience.

It’s tricky when AI can write so fluently on any topic. But it can also say a whole lot of nothing and go around in circles, even when there’s a lot of text. That’s what I think really separates the two: how unique, original, and interesting the information is, and how you package it for different purposes.

Take brand marketing, for example. It makes sense to include some information that’s specific to the brand or to have an expert from the company give their two cents on a topic. Then, for SEO, you can climb the rankings by publishing useful information that actually answers users’ questions.

As far as distribution goes, you can tweak the content a bit so it has its own angle for different channels. For LinkedIn, for example, you can go with an interesting stat; for email campaigns, you can use an expert quote.

Creating AI agents can help smooth out the content-creation process tremendously. You can feed each model the specifics of a particular project and then test and enhance it over time so you get a useful output.

Setting this up now can help with the initial brainstorming and research phases. It can assist with some of the more time-consuming tasks, such as completing SEO checklists. Everyone can use the same models with the core data, expert input, tone of voice, and messaging guidelines.

If you want to scale your business, don’t underestimate the role that your marketing activities play in it. You should invest about 5% to 10% of your growth revenue into marketing, especially if you’re planning on growing aggressively.

What I would also focus on from an operational standpoint is really tying up your sales and marketing functions within your business. A large portion of your budget will probably go to paid user acquisition, like Google Ads or Bing Ads. Once you’re bringing in those top-of-the-funnel leads, make sure you have an automated lead qualification model in place.

From there, once they hit a certain criterion within your marketing automation platform, your sales team can reach out and qualify those leads. You need to define the process of how your leads move from marketing into sales.

The way I’ve done it in the past for a software provider, I sent them into very specific nurture sequences based on what they showed interest in on our website. From there, when they hit a score of about 45, we had a separate lead generation team call that lead and qualify them.

Only once we defined the budget, the time frame, and the expected deliverables did we pass that on to the sales team. This increased our sales close rate dramatically, so that’s something I generally recommend. If you want more insights like this, I sometimes talk about them live on LinkedIn or the Digital Trends section of our website.

Jordan ParkChief Marketing Officer at Digital Silk

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Luba Inz

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 13, 2026

When we keep solving problems and don't let our employees make mistakes, or make decisions that are important enough, the owner puts himself in the place of the bottleneck.

And for a long time it can feel like you're helping people and the company moves faster. But this is exactly how owners walk themselves into a trap, where not a single process can move without them anymore, because people got used to asking for an okay on everything. It’s a form of learned helplessness.

I've been on the other side of this.

When I started my career as Chief Operating Officer, I worked out a delegation of authority with the owner. We wrote down the levels where he steps in and we escalate to him, and the levels where I solve things. And we set those limits pretty high. Basically, I was supposed to handle any issue, and the owner could only step in if revenue dropped below a certain number. It was set quite conservatively, and it didn't drop.

What that meant was that all the headaches the owner used to have just moved over to me.

So I looked at the company as an organization and at the resources I had. I drew diagrams of who comes to me, with whom, and with what. I set levels for every person in the company. I had four levels of reporting, and each level could decide up to a certain financial limit.

I estimated the cost of a mistake. I could allow, let's say, the fourth level a mistake of up to $100, the third level up to $500, the second level up to $1,000, and the first level up to $2,500. The cost of a mistake was probably somewhat subjective, I'll admit that. But I said those numbers out loud to people, and I explained that everything you do can actually be translated into money. Say you lost 10 hours, and your rate is, for example, $20 an hour. Then the cost of your mistake is $200, right?

The second thing I did was tracking and reporting. Every week, people at every level answered the same questions: what did you do, what was successful, what was unsuccessful, what will I do next week. At the lower levels it was daily tracking, sometimes even hourly. The higher the level, the longer the time span. Over time I automated that reporting and put AI agents in place to help people do it.

After a while my operating rhythm took shape. My direct reports collected information from their reports, and those from theirs, in a cascade, all on one system. Up top, I only collected escalations. At first there were a lot of decisions, all the time, because I was putting out fires. But at some point it became about one decision a day. Sometimes three decisions a week.

It took around four to five months. Almost half a year. Mostly it's hard because of how people buy into it. It's a mindset problem. People are used to working their own way, and changing their attitude to the work is the hardest part. And if it doesn't work out with some people to work the way the system needs, there are replacements, and that makes the process longer too.

The hardest part for me was managing fires from both sides. The owner was letting go of running the company for the first time in his life. That takes courage, and of course he had questions every day. I understood him very well. Answering those questions took up to half of my time. The other half went to actually running the company.

Because once you establish authority, it's not that hard. If you've put the system in place, explained to people how to work, and they're ready to change their mindset, they're motivated and they go. They march along, in step, and happily.

The owner's side is the part nobody prepares you for. It took more of my attention than a team of over 200 people did. And it should. The owner built the company, and his trust is what makes the whole system work.

I think the most common decision the owner keeps holding on to is the decision about people. It's practically manual picking of team members, going around the recruiting process.

If the owner wants to close a role faster, he can go around the system and bring in his own person. And then, very often, problems happen. Not because the person is bad. Mostly because when you go around the system, that person's attitude to the work can be different from the people who went through the recruiting filter. Their onboarding gets squashed. And the expectations the owner gives the person he found himself, and the expectations the team has, often don't match.

So this is the hardest decision an owner can hand off. And at the same time, it's the most necessary one. A recruiting system checks not only hard skills and soft skills, but how complementary this person will be for the team. From the top, the owner, the CEO, an executive manager, we often don't see what the team down below needs.

Sit down and write down the cost of mistakes. Write the limits for each role, for each level, the way you see it. Feel out where you can start letting go of control a little, and where not yet. And put it in numbers. Not some ghostly concepts. Numbers, so you can see the financial impact on operations.

Then test it. After you've done the delegation of authority, step away from the computer and turn off notifications. I know it's hard. It will feel like everything is about to turn upside down and people won't be able to make the right decisions without you. Start with one hour of deep work with notifications off, so nobody can reach you, and slowly increase the number of those hours.

Move your team from instant communication to structured meetings. Have a weekly one-on-one with your direct reports, even if you talk every single day and sit in the same office. Ask the same questions every time. That's operational discipline, and I've seen in my own practice that only discipline changes our habits. Same as going to the gym. Consistency is the key.

And use those meetings to coach. Ask: what decisions did you make this week? Okay, let's discuss why, and how I would have done it. Write it down: my approach is like this, so next time you'll know how I, as the owner, would make that decision, and why. That's how you shape your company in your own image without being there all the time. In my experience, an AI copy of the owner, a chatbot built on the owner's rules and values, helped too: people got asynchronous access to the owner instead of waiting for him.

Owners see the problem. They're tired. They feel it at the end of the day, or in the morning when it's hard to wake up and there's stress. But it's a question of habit, and habits make our lifestyle.

One of your first deep work slots should go to one question. Imagine your company already runs like a clock, on its own. What will you do? Where's your next step? Where's your dream?

Because operational things can be delegated. But the genius that created your company at the very start, and the grit that only you have as the founder, nobody will replace that. Bring back that motivation, joy and curiosity, and start using it for the good of your team.

Luba Inz

Luba Inz is the founder of Efficiency Sprint. Efficiency Sprint makes companies operationally ready for AI. She has 15 years in leadership as a COO and a founder. She helps owners hand off decisions, install operational systems, and put AI agents to work inside those systems alongside people. Learn more at efficiencysprint.com.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.

By Robert Watson

Edited by Adrian James, Editor at Featured News · Oct 9, 2026

Games have evolved to become a huge part of our lives. They are an increasingly important part of educational software, are available on consoles, PCs and phones, and even games like fantasy football or Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) are increasingly part of youth culture. Our students are getting deeply involved and invested in them.

And there is a significant depth of experience to be found here – seeking mastery in what appears to be a simple one-on-one fighting game actually involves calculating where specific on-screen pixels will appear, and comparing that to “hit boxes” on other characters, or counting frames to determine, down to the millisecond, how quick a character moves or attacks.

Students and teachers need no longer be tied to short and simple game structures to find success. Exploring and utilizing more complex, engaging and deep games in classrooms is not only an option, it is preferred. Students respond because they can invest themselves deeply and control their own outcomes.

Framing a lesson in the form of a deep dive into a complex game offers teachers a number of significant advantages in engagement of students.

• Games promote participation – Simply put, you can’t engage students who aren’t present for the lesson either physically because of absenteeism, or mentally because of distraction. Games create motivation and participation where a lecture may not.

• Games provide agency – Students can think creatively, explore possibilities and develop strategies that involve thinking beyond the usual. They will see cause and effect in real time, and get immediate feedback.

• Games can connect all disciplines – There’s a lot of math in games like D&D, but also the opportunity to engage in storytelling and complex problem-solving. You can structure games differently based on the day’s learning objectives.

At the school level, the shared framework of games can support each discipline approaching problems through different lenses, and offer students opportunities to make connections that may otherwise have been missed.

Take, for example, a classroom in which the teacher chooses to frame lessons as a Dungeons and Dragons game. Students show up for the class, and are given a scenario and characters to use to help a town solve a problem. In math, that problem might involve a horde of goblins, and be framed as a fighting scenario, involving the use of coordinate planes, probability, and algebra to determine if attacks succeed or fail. In a science classroom, the town’s well could have been poisoned, and characters need to create solutions that may involve crafting hypothetical experiments or developing feasible environmental solutions to the problem. In an English classroom, the solution may be framed as a mission to collect evidence of the mayor’s corruption, evaluating sources or writing compelling argument for or against. In social studies, there may be competing cultural or community interest that players need to help mediate.

These are typical high school learning objectives, but the game framework asks students to apply skills through creative problem-solving rather than simply learn facts. When an evolving scenario continues across an entire unit—or even across disciplines—it can reinforce concepts, connect learning objectives, and give students a reason to remain invested in what happens next.

Robert Watson

Robert Watson is an educator who works in a mental health hospital, a longtime board gamer, and the founder of BoardGamingTees, an independent apparel company built around board gaming culture. He writes about how games can bring people together, strengthen family connections, and create opportunities for learning and belonging.

This story was produced by Featured and republished with permission. Experts featured here are members of Connectively, Featured's expert network.