Online messaging for vaccine-wary - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

Online messaging for vaccine-wary - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

When marketing products, companies often test colors, language, typeface and other variables to determine which ads are most likely to make a consumer click. Why not apply the same sort of A/B testing to vaccines?

It turned out that not only did certain content evoke more positive opinions about vaccines, but the messaging that did best varied based on the country where it was tested. In Ukraine, for example, an informative tone did a better job at improving perceptions of vaccination than emotional pleas. In some countries, cartoons worked best. In India, the top-performing message was a personal appeal from a doctor talking about why he vaccinated his own kids. In Kenya, the winner was a straightforward message accompanied by an infographic with a recommended vaccine schedule for kids.

“We need to test our vaccine messaging for efficacy and safety just as we test our vaccines for efficacy and safety,” says Angus Thomson, a social scientist at United Nations Children’s Fund who worked on the study in conjunction with Facebook, The Public Good Projects and the Yale Institute for Global Health.

Evergrande’s threat to China - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

Evergrande’s threat to China - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

As the world’s most indebted real estate company sinks closer to collapse, the optimistic take among global investors when it comes to China’s Evergrande Group is that this is a “controlled explosion” rather than a “Lehman moment.” But didn’t Beijing itself light the fuse? The “red lines” on corporate debt the government issued last year all but guaranteed Evergrande’s demise. Still, the bulls say, financial authorities have had plenty of practice at this kind of demolition job. Earlier this year, they placed into bankruptcy administration the HNA Group, one of China’s most acquisitive conglomerates, and on Friday the company announced police had detained its chairman and chief executive. HNA is one thing. When it comes to Evergrande, though, this explosion can’t be so easily contained. In fact, the developer’s troubles may eventually blow up China’s entire economic growth model. Protesters outside Evergrande’s Shenzhen headquarters earlier this month. This Week in the New Economy Taiwan applies to join Pacific trade deal on the heels of China. China to form two rare earth giants to strengthen pricing power. UAE, India aim to double trade to $100 billion in five years. Abu Dhabi’s wealth funds weigh Turkey investments worth billions. Ethiopia seeks IMF deal as talks begin to revamp older debt.   Evergrande is the Chinese economy both miniaturized and exaggerated—a debt-fueled construction business that grew on the back of vast migratory flows from the countryside to cities. The company focused on third- and fourth-tier urban centers to which farmers are allowed to move, not mega-cities like Beijing or Shanghai where they are largely excluded. It was a strategy that spread wealth far and wide. Demand for Evergrande apartments benefited makers of washing machines, refrigerators and other appliances. In China, new car sales became correlated 1:1 with apartments as housing projects sprawled from downtown areas to distant suburbs. And all the housing activity helped fill the coffers of local governments through the sale of land. Though representing only 4% of China’s real estate market, Evergrande became an integral part of a pro-growth cycle in which local governments place money gained from land sales into infrastructure—roads, railways, ports and the like—thus encouraging further inflows of workers and businesses, and adding to tax receipts. Along the way, the alignment of commercial and bureaucratic interests came to define the political economy of China. In smaller cities across the country, the power brokers are the real estate moguls, whose fortunes are entwined with local officials and state bankers. Evergrande now owns more than 1,300 real estate projects in more than 280 Chinese cities, making it a big player in governing circles. But this growth model has always rested on a doubtful proposition: that demand for property is inexhaustible, and therefore prices will keep going up. Covid-19 jolted that idea, slowing property sales. But the most important economic sector in China—and indeed the world—was already being undermined by a more powerful, irreversible reality: Migrant flows are drying up. A deserted bridge that connects the Hongbaihua Park and the Ruyi Lake Cultural Square in Zhengzhou. China’s growth model has long relied on continued demand for property. Photographer: Yufan Lu for Bloomberg Businessweek Just about everybody who wants to leave the Chinese countryside has already left. Moreover, the national workforce is contracting as a result of long-term demographic trends. That’s quite a problem when it’s the workers who are the main buyers of new homes. Making matters worse, those workers are getting pickier about where they live, shunning smaller cities with lower growth prospects. According to researchers at the Paulson Institute, 60% of China’s urban population now lives in shrinking cities. Logan Wright, a director at the Rhodium Group, calculates that the entire population of France could fit into empty Chinese apartments. The pro-growth cycle, in other words, is about to shift into reverse. Beijing has seen all this coming and is rightfully alarmed. The property sector accounts for more than one-quarter of economic output, and some 80% of family wealth is tied up in real estate. It’s quite likely, then, that Evergrande was intended as a controlled explosion—one big enough to get the attention of other highly indebted real estate firms headed toward insolvency but not so big as to take down the entire property sector, and with it the Chinese economy. That doesn’t mean that China will escape unscathed. The routes of contagion likely don’t run through the financial system, as they did in 2008, even though Evergrande has more than $300 billion of debt. As the China Beige Book points out, “There is no durable counterparty risk when the state owns or controls all of the counterparties.” Still, real estate prices are barely rising, and if they start sliding it will crimp consumption, slowing overall growth and further depressing demand for real estate. A decline in infrastructure spending will act as another drag on the economy. Beijing now faces an awesome challenge. It must shift the drivers of growth while reengineering local governance and its entire fiscal system. This may not be a classic Lehman moment. But make no mistake, a systemic threat is looming.

Built by a refugee, Enlight’s edtech tool bets it can help students hope harder | TechCrunch

Built by a refugee, Enlight’s edtech tool bets it can help students hope harder | TechCrunch

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021

Built by a refugee, Enlight’s edtech tool bets it can help students hope harder

Raised in a Tanzania refugee camp, Dieumerci Christel’s first brush with entrepreneurship began with a stick of gum.

In the early 2000s, kids in his camp were all gravitating toward a brand of gum named after Barack Obama, the then-soon-to-be U.S. president. Noticing the budding interest, Christel began selling Obama gum to his friends, and soon enough, he had a stream of disposable income.

While gum sales taught Christel the power of scrappiness and smart timing, it’s what he spent his earnings on that brought him the bigger entrepreneurial lesson. He used the money to go to the movies, where he would see glimpses of what life looked like outside his world. He was struck by scenes with computers, excited students in lab coats and the overall allure of school in America. The visuals, and opportunity of a computer, gave him the motivation he needed to study his way out of his situation.

“You’re going to school in a refugee camp knowing that you won’t go anywhere at all,” he said. “[Movies] for me was where I got to see the window through the world.”

Today, Christel is the founder of Enlight, a web platform that aims to help teachers carve out the intrinsic motivations within their students at scale. It wants to recreate what Christel stumbled upon through his own grit: a reason to go to school, communicated in a language that resonated with his natural interests.

While Christel was motivated by the opportunity of America and access to computers, another student may be motivated by the overlap between their dream of being an artist and how English class could get them there.

The goal to motivate students based on their interests is philosophical, but Enlight, competing in TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield this week, believes that it hinges on giving teachers better data about their students.

To do so, Enlight invites students to fill out a profile and answer questions like top interests and learning mode preference, as well as respond to open-ended response prompts like “if you could solve any problem in your community or the world, what would it be and why?”

The data begins to get aggregated so that teachers can see the common denominators within their classes when it comes to teaching style or hobbies.

The platform also gives teachers the ability to run polls to temperature check their classes. By embedding live feedback, as well as student interests, into one platform, Christel thinks it will be easier for teachers to get a holistic view of their classes.

It’s here where the startup’s impact will get tested: What will teachers do with those insights?

If Enlight works the way that Christel intends it to, he thinks that it will help “everyone find their why.”

“How can that educator understand that you have a passion for writing and then ignite that potential to actually make you continue to follow it?” he said.

It’s a question Enlight will need to do more than pose in order to be an effective product.

Enlight is currently working with a charter school right now to help teachers develop curriculum with passion data that they aggregate.

“We want to become a recommendation engine for the teacher on how to make better and faster decisions [that] actually engage students emotionally and in the classroom,” Christel said. He likened Enlight’s data profile for teachers to how TikTok gives analytics to content creators that shows how their audience looks and where they’re coming from.

For now, teachers and students can use the basic Enlight product for free but the startup is experimenting with a paid tier that could show a district view of student interests or provide more analytics.

Beyond implementation, a challenge for Enlight will be the sheer fatigue that teachers and learners already face today. Another platform, even with well intent, could add more work to their plates or another to-do list item.

“You don’t have to go to each student and learn about them right away,” Christel said. “Instead, you can get an overview on how to tailor your instruction. We find a common denominator between the students and give that teacher the data to help them tailor for the masses.” Enlight is also creating a student-of-the-week feature to motivate teachers to continuously learn about their students without requiring a 1:1 meeting.

Enlight’s communication focus means that it may have to compete with the well-capitalized ClassDojo, a communication app to help parents and teachers better communicate about students that recently became profitable.

“I think the thing that they are missing is the student,” he said. “Sometimes you feel like these people are making decisions for you … student feedback is missing.” Enlight thinks it can differentiate by involving students in communication channels, better aligning decision-making to what they request.

Kids Mental Health - POLITICO's Global Insider: Up close and personal with Linda Thomas-Greenfield - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

POLITICO's Global Insider: Up close and personal with Linda Thomas-Greenfield - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

... THE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHT #1 — CLIMATE ANXIETY: The first major study of climate anxiety in children, soon to be published in the The Lancet Planetary Health, surveyed 10,000 people aged 16 to 25 from four continents. The full report is available here.

The study’s lead author, University of Bath psychotherapist Caroline Hickman, said by email: “We didn't know how scared they were. We knew children's lives were affected on a daily basis but we didn't know how much this was affecting their eating, sleeping, playing. We knew this anxiety was affecting childrens’ thinking and cognition. What we did not know was how this correlated with beliefs about government action or inaction. We now know two-thirds of children believe governments are lying, failing and betraying them and future generations.”

THE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHT #2 — SCHOOL LOCKDOWNS MAY LEAD TO NEAR TOTAL LEARNING LOSS: I’m not a parent, so I can’t talk to you first-hand about what it was like to have kids stuck at home during Covid lockdowns. But any suspicions you have that digital-only learning failed your kids will be fueled by a new Dutch study of the learning outcomes of 350,000 students in 2020. It concludes that in some cases students effectively learn nothing during lockdown periods . The effects are, of course, worse for students from poorer backgrounds.

Biden’s ‘cradle to grave’ agenda - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

Biden’s ‘cradle to grave’ agenda - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

DRIVING THE DAY

A busy week to start a busy month: Unemployment benefits have ended for millions of Americans … Biden visits storm-damaged areas of New Jersey and Queens today … House committees continue to work on the Dems’ reconciliation bill in advance of a Sept. 15 deadline … The Producer Price Index , a key measure of inflation, is released Friday … The 20th anniversary of 9/11 is Saturday WHAT TO WATCH THIS MONTH: One challenge in covering the Dems’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill is conveying the sheer enormity of it. Nobody really even knows what to call it. Is it a jobs package? A human infrastructure bill? A climate bill? Social welfare legislation? Yes. Because Dems aim to pass into law every major domestic priority on which they can find agreement, it is all of those things and more. The NYT’s Jonathan Weisman today has one of the better distillations of the breadth of this legislation by looking at its “cradle to grave” qualities and how they would affect the relationship between Americans and the federal government: “[C]onsider a life, from conception to death. Democrats intend to fund paid family and medical leave” — see Tara’s take on this below — “to allow a parent to take some time off during pregnancy and after a child’s birth. “When that parent is ready to return to work, expanded funding for child care would kick in to help cover day care costs. When that child turns 3, another part of the bill, universal prekindergarten, would ensure public education can begin at an earlier age, regardless of where that child lives. “Most families with children would continue to receive federal income supplements each month in the form of an expanded child tax credit … “And at high school graduation, most students would be guaranteed two years of higher education through expanded federal financial aid, geared toward community colleges. “Even after that, income supplements and generous work force training programs — including specific efforts to train home health and elder-care workers — would keep the government present in many adult lives. In old age, people would be helped by tax credits to offset the cost of elder care and by an expansion of Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision services.” Even this description doesn’t capture the bill’s ambitions when it comes to policies on taxes, climate and immigration. While previous Democratic administrations shied away from emphasizing the “government” part of new government benefits, members of the White House staff are embracing it. “If we get this passed, a decade from now, people are going to see many more touch points of government supporting them and their families,” HEATHER BOUSHEY, one of President JOE BIDEN’s top economists, tells Weisman. Before Democrats pass any of this, they will need to deal with the September Scylla and Charybdis of keeping the government open after annual funding bills expire Oct. 1 and raising the debt limit. There will be an enormous amount of parliamentary intrigue about how they navigate around those two legislative monsters, and we’ll be watching it carefully for you. (Take a shot every time you read “high-stakes political gamesmanship.”) But we don’t believe a Democratic Congress and president will allow a government shutdown or a debt default. How Biden, Speaker NANCY PELOSI and Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER find the votes will be interesting, but keep your eye on what’s more important: the substance of the reconciliation bill, which is what this Congress will be remembered for.

Grisham dishes on Melania - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

Grisham dishes on Melania - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

... #BEBEST — Sometimes it seems that everything has already been said about the Trump years though not everyone has said it.

In the latter camp is STEPHANIE GRISHAM, the former Trump White House press secretary best known for never holding a press briefing.

Now Grisham is breaking her silence, and POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman emails us with a scoopy preview of her forthcoming tell-all:

At 1:25 p.m. on Jan. 6, soon after rioters had broken through barricades outside of the Capitol, MELANIA TRUMP received a text message from her then-chief of staff, STEPHANIE GRISHAM.

“Do you want to tweet that peaceful protests are the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness and violence?” Grisham asked the first lady.

A minute later, Melania replied with a one-word answer: “No.” At that moment, she was at the White House preparing for a photo shoot of a rug she had selected, according to exclusive excerpts of Grisham’s forthcoming book, “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in The Trump White House,” obtained by POLITICO.

Grisham, a years-long Trump loyalist who resigned within hours of that text exchange, also writes that she asked Melania a couple times whether she should reach out to JILL BIDEN during the transition to set up the traditional inauguration tea. But instead of setting up the meeting, Melania told her that they should “see what the West Wing does.” The reason, according to Grisham: Melania, like her husband, believed the election was illegitimate.

A statement provided by the office of Melania Trump said: “The intent behind this book is obvious. It is an attempt to redeem herself after a poor performance as press secretary, failed personal relationships, and unprofessional behavior in the White House. Through mistruth and betrayal, she seeks to gain relevance and money at the expense of Mrs. Trump.” (Her mention of “failed personal relationships” appears likely to be a reference to Grisham’s past relationship with former Trump aide MAX MILLER . Citing three people familiar with the incident, POLITICO Magazine reported in July that the relationship “ended when he pushed her against a wall and slapped her in the face in his Washington apartment after she accused him of cheating on her.” He denied the allegation.)

On Jan. 11, Melania did issue a statement saying she was “disappointed and disheartened with what happened last week.” But she added that she found it “shameful that surrounding these tragic events there has been salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me — from people who are looking to be relevant and have an agenda.” She seemed to be referring to her former close friend STEPHANIE WINSTON WOLKOFF, who penned an op-ed in the Daily Beast a few days earlier arguing that Melania “was complicit in the destruction of America.”

Grisham joined the Trump campaign in 2015 and, despite her misgivings, remained with the White House until close to the end. She writes that Melania’s response to her text on Jan. 6 “broke” her since she had long defended the first lady against accusations that she was a Marie Antoinette-type dilettante.

Now, Grisham writes, she sees Melania like “the doomed French queen. Dismissive. Defeated. Detached.”

Though it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that Melania stood by her husband on important questions like the election, Grisham writes in the book that she was “shocked” to learn that Melania seemed to share DONALD TRUMP’s view that the election was rigged.

Melania told Grisham that “something bad happened” and that the election results weren’t legitimate. She didn’t listen to Grisham when she tried to explain to her that there are small irregularities in all elections but there was no grand conspiracy to unfairly remove Trump from office, according to the book.

Grisham’s book is scheduled to be released on Oct. 5.

A publishing source said that “Stephanie knows she’s stirred up a hornet’s nest with this book.” It includes potentially unflattering nuggets about other officials with whom Grisham tangled during her time in the White House, according to the source. Among them are JARED KUSHNER and MARK MEADOWS, who removed her as White House press secretary, the person said.

“Stephanie has secrets about Trump that even the first lady doesn’t know,” the source said. “Secrets that he doesn’t want her to know. They will be in this book.”

Since news of the book broke late last week, numerous Trump-world figures have contacted Grisham to see how they are depicted in the book or to offer private messages of support, according to the source. Grisham, who is very familiar with how the Trumps operate, is also bracing for a potential smear campaign and legal fight if anyone sues to try to prevent publication. She knows, the source said, that there’s a hunt on to try to get a copy of the book to the Trumps; she’s received calls from people she barely knows asking for an early copy.

Labor Shortage Feedback - Brook Sutherland - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

The earnings crunch is getting real - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

Labor Shortage Feedback Thanks to everyone who sent responses to the question posed in my last newsletter about why the U.S. labor shortage may be uniquely worse than other parts of the world. The comments were very thoughtful and I appreciated hearing your perspectives. Here are some of the best ideas and comments I received: The U.S. puts too much emphasis on four-year college degrees as the gold standard. This creates a negative aura around careers in manual labor. There’s a false perception that brick masons and electricians — jobs that require a significant amount of technical skill and are usually well-paid — are somehow inferior to people who push papers around a desk simply because the latter group spent more time in a classroom. In a social-media obsessed world, these image problems may matter more than they used to. Other countries do a better job promoting vocational training.  Unions traditionally played a major role in establishing and organizing apprenticeship programs that provided a reliable pipeline of U.S. workers to manufacturing companies. The decline of unions in the U.S. weakened that infrastructure and companies haven’t done enough to replace it. Not all Covid stimulus is the same. While U.S. airlines got special payroll protection dispensation, manufacturers were free to lay off workers as they pleased during the pandemic and many of them did so in abundance. Enhanced unemployment insurance helped cushion the financial blow but the nature of the aid also meant there was nothing tying workers to their former position. It doesn’t take much of a mental leap to think that workers cast aside during the crisis weren’t eager to return to the same company, or even the same industry. In contrast, other countries crafted pandemic assistance in a way that kept workers connected to their employer and in a position to be called back as the economy rebounded.  Younger workers want more flexibility. A 9-to-5 job on a manufacturing line can’t compete with the explosion of money-making opportunities in the gig economy and through social media. These may not be the most stable or well-paying jobs, but they allow people to set their own hours, and that may mean more to the younger generation. Marijuana use may be keeping otherwise eligible workers from joining the manufacturing labor force. As more states legalize pot, removing this from drug screenings could help in the hiring process. Amazon.com Inc. is reportedly betting on this as a way to ease the current shortage of delivery drivers. The e-commerce giant found that screening for marijuana use reduces the prospective worker pool by up to 30%, whereas dropping this from the application process (and advertising the change) can boost the number of interested candidates by as much as 400%, according to correspondence reviewed by Bloomberg News.  Like Bloomberg’s Industrial Strength? Your friends and colleagues can sign up here. For more content like this, subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close.

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Something Ventured Part 3: For Daybreak Health, A Back-To-School Season Like No Other – Crunchbase News

Something Ventured Part 3: For Daybreak Health, A Back-To-School Season Like No Other – Crunchbase News

Profiling the major geothermal power companies in the US - NS Energy

Profiling the major geothermal power companies in the US - NS Energy

Cultural Revolution 2.0 - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

Cultural Revolution 2.0 - btbirkett@gmail.com - Gmail

... Xi’s revolution is top-down: the last thing he wants is chaos on the streets.

What does he intend, then? As my Bloomberg colleague Malcolm Scott reports, the pilot project for the economic future Xi imagines is Zhejiang province, one of the wealthiest parts of China (incomes there are approaching levels in southern Europe) and a hotbed of private enterprise. Zhejiang is also Xi’s power base; he was party secretary there before ascending to higher office in Beijing.

The evidence from Zhejiang suggests that on economic matters Xi is not Mao, in the sense that he wants to redirect the energies of entrepreneurs, not eliminate them as a class. The emphasis is on state control.