Jaw-dropping Company Headquarters

Company benefits are reaching beyond insurance and vacation time and are moving into a revolution of the actual workspace. Everyone has the image of Google and Amazon’s headquarters in their mind; with dog parks, rainforests and nap pods galore, but that isn’t the only innovative space in the business world. From themed rooms to sustainability, these companies have some of the most exciting office spaces around.

Warby Parker

Glasses brand Warby Parker not only has a love for fashionable glasses but for books as well. Their Manhattan headquarters offers employees access to a library, a reading room, and of course, reading glasses. Read about the space and how employees like it here.

Dropbox

Cloud storage solution company Dropbox has worldwide offices, but their San Francisco headquarters, designed by Rapt Studio is an innovative space that allows for collaboration, quiet individual work, and a “neighborhood” set up to cater to the needs of each team. See a photo compilation of the office here.

Casper

New York City-based mattress company Casper was recently renovated and redesigned by FLOAT Studio, to create a workplace that fit in with the brand identity. The office includes sustainable construction, flexible meeting spaces and even nap pods. See the space here.

Sonos

Sonos’ Seattle headquarters bills itself as the “greenest commercial building in the world”, and based off of this GeekWire feature, it may be the most musical as well.  This modern and sleek office space make using the word headquarters the wrong descriptor though, as the company has a slew of conference rooms to meet with other Sonos “headquarters” around the world.

Squarespace

If you’ve built a website using Squarespace you know that the platform is simple but modern, and the company’s New York City offices follow the same formula. Built to be the most functional space for both collaborative and individual work, all without sacrificing design and comfort. See the office here and here.

Epic Systems Corporation

Medical software company Epic is aptly named, and the word epic can be used to describe almost everything about the company, especially when it comes to their headquarters. The Verona, Wisconsin campus is a grand adventure, with themed rooms, individual offices for every employee, a gorgeous view of the surrounding farmland, and an Indiana Jones styled hallway. See the campus here, and check out this video tour for a more in-depth look.

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Apps to Improve Your Instagram Experience

Instagram has over 500 million daily users, and you can make your profile stand out among the rest with the help of a few apps that can do everything from growing your audience to editing your photos with more than just the 24 standard filters. See how you can change up your Instagram game with a few add-on apps.

Snapseed

This app takes some of the key enhancement tools from Photoshop and allows you to selectively edit the parts of your photos that may need adjustments for color temperature, saturation, and exposure as well as the ability to edit out smaller flaws and unwanted features.

Free for iOS and Android

Followers for Instagram

Understand your Instagram audience with this app designed to show you accounts that have unfollowed you, those that don’t follow you back, and accounts that are recommended based on your following behaviors.

Free for iOS and Android

Crowdfire

Find inactive followers and boost your analytics by only having followers that interact with your page. With account automation tools like finding followers and direct messaging, you can start generating better metrics.

Free for iOS

Priime

Professional photographers have collaborated with Priime to offer more than 100 photo filters, making the editing process even more fine-tuned.  Priime even has a Smart Suggestions feature that can offer recommendations of which filters will look best for your image.

Available on iOS for $2.99

VSCO

VSCO has been around for a while, so many people are already familiar with its capabilities. Apart from offering more filters, VSCO boasts its own editing tools for color correction, cropping and more. Finished images can be shared to Instagram, or even shared in-app on VSCO’s own internal social network.

Free for iOS and Android

Social Rocket

Earn points in a “likes/followers” marketplace on Social Rocket. Though not a sufficient long-term way to keep post engagement up, the points you garner to exchange for likes and followers can help to build an initial following.

Free for iOS

Pixlr

Create your own filters with overlays and effects from Pixlr. Like other editing apps, Pixlr also contains photo-editing tools that can adjust brightness, red-eye, sharpness and an array of other options.

Free for iOS and Android

InstaTag

InstaTag gathers lists of the top trending hashtags, sorted categorically so you can use the most relevant and popular tags for your posts. You can even search across categories for a personalized list of trending tags.

Free for Android

Squarelovin

For gathering analytics including engagement, follower count, popular hashtags, post time efficiency tracking and growth, Squarelovin is a great free app for those looking to test strategies, with reports delivered in various periods; daily, weekly and monthly.

Free for iOS and Android

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Event Profile: SXSW 2018

South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas has become a cultural mecca for music and film buffs, as well as a place for hosting interactive events that cover a range of topics from everything new in technology, to entertainment and advertising. There is always a huge amount of news coming from this week-long event, so here is a breakdown of what we’ve seen so far.

SXSW Trust Barometer

Every year, festival attendees are polled for the Trust Barometer, which measures the general feelings those attending have towards technology, business, and media. The results of this year’s poll brought up interesting discussions, as there is a very low amount of trust in emerging technology, one of SXSW’s biggest draws.

Most of the distrust comes from a shift towards a need for more human elements in technological interactions, and a distrust in blockchain technology, virtual reality, and autonomous vehicles. Discussions about smaller, more personal social media platforms were held, as well as conversations about the widespread use of bots and voice assistants and how the reactions to these technologies have become more and more personal, with users sometimes treating bots as though they were chatting with another human being. There is without a doubt a need to shift to more personal communication methods and develop an understanding of how emotional attachments can tie into interacting with these responsive communication technologies.

Experiential Exhibitions: ‘Westworld’ and ‘Ready Player One’

HBO hit-show Westworld and Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’ both partnered with creative agency Giant Spoon to bring the worlds of the screen to life for festival attendees. These immersive exhibits allow you to step into the ‘Westworld’ town of Sweetwater and the Oasis of  ‘Ready Player One’ interacting with environments, actors in character, and becoming a character yourself. Read a review of the ‘Westworld’ exhibit on Forbes and Business Insider and see a walkthrough of Sweetwater here and the ‘Ready Player One’ exhibit here.

Speeches

SXSW is focused on cultivating the creative and entrepreneurial spirit throughout the world, and each day speakers from convergence, music, technology, and film focused paths present their take on various topics. The hope is to generate meaningful conversations about the state of the world in each of SXSW’s featured verticals. Notable speakers this year include Elon Musk, Melinda Gates, Darren Aronofsky, Sadiq Khan, and Esther Perel.

SXSW ends this Saturday, so there is bound to be more excitement in the last few days of the festival. For more SXSW news and live streams of keynotes and other events, visit sxsw.com.

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Business Podcasts to Subscribe to in 2018

Continued education doesn’t have to come in the form of classrooms and textbooks, you can glean knowledge from many sources. One of the most popular ways to continue learning is listening to podcasts. Podcasts can cover a wide range of subjects from pop culture to politics to business practices. The following podcast recommendations cover topics from entrepreneurship, marketing, and business.

School of Greatness

Host Lewis Howes has overcome his share of adversity. This podcast launched in 2013 and has grown to be one of iTunes’ top-rated Business and Self-Development podcasts. The mission on ‘School of Greatness’ is to empowerer listeners to achieve success in the face of adversity, and he shares not only his story but the stories of the guests that come on the show.

Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do

Thom Singer started this podcast hoping to enable a new generation of leaders to use his knowledge of business relationships, sales, networking and more, including fitness, trends, and entrepreneurial spirit.

Product Hunt Radio

Product Hunt is great for the B2C business person, and those interested in current product trends. It focuses on physical products and how they’re created, the marketing behind them that turns them into global brands, and guests’ takes on productivity, management and investment.

Rocketship.fm

With big-name guests, this weekly podcast covers everything about building a startup from developing a product to finding and converting a customer base. This show is great for anyone in the B2B or B2C world.

The Influencer Podcast

Julie Solomon, marketing strategist, publisher and influencer hosts this show and brings in guests to talk about their experiences in the world of influencer marketing, as well as sharing insights into how to grow, engage with and persuade an audience.

Smart Passive Income

Learn how Pat Flynn author of The Smart Passive Income Blog uses all of his online blog and business strategies, as well as marketing tips and income sources which will help you take the next steps forward with your online businesses, blogs and more.

Copyblogger FM

In a world where content is king, it never hurts to strive for an improved approach to writing and content marketing. Host Sonia Simone and a rotating panel of experts discuss news, trends, and updates in copywriting, email marketing, conversion, content marketing and more.

The Science of Social Media

Buffer has a great blog, and the podcast they produce is just as influential. The content presented covers everything from the state of social media marketing, new algorithms, and third-party tools to maximize your social media management. This is a great podcast for everyone from beginners to the well seasoned social media practitioner.

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Tech Radar- Mobile World Congress 2018

Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain is a huge event, and it seems as though excitement behind the tech showcase isn’t stopping anytime soon. From the Galaxy S9 to new laptops, this is what MWC attendees got to encounter this year.

Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus

The Galaxy ecosystem has stayed pretty consistent in the designs the last few years, but the new flagship phone is freshened up with new features, from AR Emojis to low light photography, there is something for everyone, both on a fun and practical wavelength.

MateBook X Pro

Huawei does not have new phones that were released at this event, but the tech company did show off the MateBook X Pro, an impossibly thin machine with an all screen display, a webcam that can be stored within the keyboard, and specs that rival those of the MacBook Pro.

5G

5G has been thrown around as a buzzword for a few years now, but this year the hype was real. It sounds like we can expect to see carriers deploying the service and devices with 5G capabilities later this year.

Nokia 8110

Feeding into 90s nostalgia HMD’s Nokia 8110 slider phone is a call back to the Matrix’s banana phones, only this time with 4G and social media. Not to worry, you can still play Snake on this classic redux.

Asus Zenfone 5

The iPhone X was a key influence for smartphone design this year, from the software to the infamous notch on the top of the screen. Asus new Zenfone iteration, the Zenfone 5, is almost an identical twin of the iPhone X on the hardware side, but at half the price. The new model boasts a Snapdragon 845 processor, and a headphone jack, making it a powerful addition to the Zen ecosystem.

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