Over 40 heads of state and government, as well as 2,500 other leaders from business and society will convene at the 45th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, from 21 to 24 January 2015 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, to discuss The New Global Context.

This context consists of 10 global challenges affecting the world today: environment and resource scarcity; employment skills and human capital; gender parity; long-term investing, infrastructure and development; food security and agriculture; international trade and investment; future of the internet; global crime and anti-corruption; social inclusion; and future of financial systems. Current affairs, such as the escalating geopolitical conflicts, pandemics, diverging growth and the new energy context are on the agenda as well.

Ahmet Davutoğlu, Prime Minister of Turkey, Béji Caïd Essebsi, President of Tunisia, François Hollande, President of France, Li Keqiang, Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China, Angela Merkel, Federal Chancellor of Germany, John Kerry, US Secretary of State, Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan, Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister of Italy, Simonetta Sommaruga, President of the Swiss Confederation, andJacob Zuma, President of South Africa, will be among the key government representatives present.

Participants also include more than 1,500 business leaders from the Forum’s 1,000 Member companies, 300 public figures as well as recognized leaders from other Forum communities, including Social Entrepreneurs,Global Shapers, Young Global Leaders and Technology Pioneers. Representatives from international organizations and civil society, as well asreligious leaders, cultural leaders, academia and the media will also participate.

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Below is a collection of cartoons drawn by King Features cartoonists in response to the attack of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015.

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If you scored an invite to Lucious Lyon’s yacht party last week, then you’ve already won at life. But if you were lucky enough to sip a glass of Empire’s exclusive line of champagne on the deck, then you heard Lucious make his exciting announcement: Empire will be releasing albums by not one, but two of Lucious’s sons, Hakeem and Jamal. What Empire diehards know is that in Jamal’s case, it won’t be his debut album. That self-titled album was released to moderate fanfare several years ago. Outside of Williamsburg or Berkeley, though, the album didn’t have the wide commercial success that Empire had hoped.

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Late Friday night has turned into early Saturday morning in March 1987. In a small jingle studio, Studio 900 on Broadway in Manhattan, Keith Richards is leading a who’s who of rock and rollers through an expansive tear-down and rave-up of the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie.”

Keith is playing his Telecaster. Mick Taylor is on guitar as well. Steve Jordan is on drums, Don Covay is on co-lead and backup vocals. Bernie Worrell is on the keys, and Keith is singing. Each time the song circles back to that memorable refrain: “Wake up little Susie, Wake up little Susie , Wake up little Susie, we gotta go…” Covay chimes in with a great bass note to complete the chorus: “…home.” And as the bass note sustains, Keith kicks the band into the bridge of “Jumping Jack Flash,” which they careen through like a funhouse ride before slamming back into another verse of “Wake Up Little Susie.” Keith kicks his leg up a few times with that flourish you’ve seen onstage and in all those concert films.

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While browsing a tiny vintage shop in the 7th arrondissement in Paris, I found this magazine dated December 17, 1904, and titled, L’Assiette au beurre.It was bursting with loose, expressive, caricatures that are clearly politically-minded. Some quick research provides an interesting back-story. The following is the ROUGH Google translation of the Wikipedia article aboutL’Assiette au beurre.

“L’Assiette au beurre is a French satirical illustrated weekly newspaper open to designers and sensitive to the socialist and anarchist ideas. The first series ran from April 4, 1901 to October 15, 1912 and the title was taken, on a monthly basis between 1921 and 1925. L’ Assiette au beurre differs from most other humorous magazine in its composition. Each issue includes mainly cartoons and caricatures in two-three colors and full (or double) page spreads with a minimum of 16 illustrated pages. Sometimes an artist is entrusted with the implementation of a number of illustrations on a specific topic, making each delivery a real album.”

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I had the opportunity to spend much of last week in the Netherlands at theDelft University of Technology, which is a lead partner in the newAmsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (abbreviated as AMS below), the latest in a series of new tech-heavy urban research centers that have popped up in the last several years (like NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress and the University of Chicago’s Urban Center for Computation and Data).

I first visited Amsterdam as a grad student in 1998, and it was love at first sight. Much like in Manhattan at the time, you could see dot-coms popping up around the city. But in Amsterdam, you became aware of it through little signs with digital-sounding names hung from 17th-century canal houses. In my research on the geography of the internet, I had seen that the city was a key junction for global fiber optic networks. On top of the wonderful built environment and bicycle- and tram-based transportation scheme, Amsterdam has always been there in the back of my mind as one of just a handful of inspiring cities that shapes my aspirations for integrating traditional urban form and emerging technologies.

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I shared a brief Alen Mattich (WSJ) piece on Facebook yesterday. Titled “Is the ECB Sabotaging Itself?” the brief post framed a pensive black and white headshot of European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.

One reader’s reaction? “Cryptic.” My description, in reply? “Layer cake.” On that note, I’ll share a few informal notes on it here as a preview to next week’s ECB presser, with the add that we still have nine days to go and developments are still afoot. One key focus of my early January writing has been “Draghi and politics” — more specifically, Draghi’s attraction to things federal, to supranational designs and to the application of “themes of America” to the 21st century European case. Draghi, (like Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, and Greg Mankiw) had an influential professor named Stanley Fischer during his PhD years at MIT. Each has gone on to reflect Fischer’s influence in his own way, but each grapples — enthusiastically or not — with the idea that global organizations, incentives and alliances get to go over the top of countries when situations demand. Draghi, perhaps most of all (IMO), admires the American experiment very much and is more impressively well read on its beginnings than many might realize.

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Click each cover for a different response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

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Any person who really wants to be a producer needs the gift of overview. This is the ability to step back and see the forest for the trees and to be able to figure out the optimum path one needs to take in order to transform an idea on paper into a tangible asset. Producing is learning how to best achieve the goal within the agreed upon time and budget parameters that results in the fewest number of disgruntled folk left in the rearview mirror once the project is delivered.

My credo: there are a thousand ways to climb the mountain resulting in nine hundred and ninety four dead bodies along the way. There are six ways that work and I am fortunate to know one of them. If you’ve got a better way, I’m all ears. If not, then get out of my way or give me a hand. Being responsible for spending a couple hundred million dollars of other people’s money (OPM) while producing over 700 TV shows, commercials, rock videos and a dozen movies, I’ve avoided more than my share of near-fatal collisions and learned a few things along the way. On most shows there are several people who enjoy a variety of fancy producer titles but, ultimately, the day-to-day responsibilities devolve onto the shoulders of the real producer. This person’s job is to break down a project into all of its parts and then put it back together again so that in the end it most closely resembles the concept that was originally intended.

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hen Walmart decides to move into a neighborhood, approval is often contentious and met with opposition from local businesses and residents. Concerned citizens may fear increased traffic, stray gray and blue plastic bags wrapped around light poles, or just a bland big box invasion of a unique neighborhood. Small business owners are typically hesitant, as a Walmart down the street could draw their customers away. Some people just don’t like the idea of being associated with Walmart — as if the big blue sign is a scarlet letter on the area.

There are other, serious reservations as well — from trying to minimize overtime and scheduled hours among associates, to the decision to end healthcare benefits for thousands of its workers. The fact that the founders, the Walton family, donates just .04 percent of their combined $140 billion fortune to their own foundation does not help the Walmart image.

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On the surface, hip-hop had a not-so-awesome year in 2014. The titans—Jay Z, Lil Wayne, Drake and others—took the year off in regards to releasing full albums. DJ and producer A-Trak, however, wrapped up the year with anop-ed here on Cuepoint about how ’14 was actually a transcendent, “pivotal and surprising year in hip-hop.” And he’s spot-on. It was like all the new jacks saw the veterans and superstars were taking a water break and decided to go from zero to a hundred real quick.

Out bopped Bobby Shmurda, shmoney dancing. With right and left hooks came Migos. Young Thug, boasting panache (and nearly unintelligible raps), swagged his way to noteworthiness. But none of the 2014 upstarts—except for possibly Thug and Travi$ Scott, whose Days Before Rodeo album was stellar—seem to have the sheen and skills to make an album that propels them from being marginally hot acts enjoying their 15 minutes in the sun. I hope to be proven wrong, but something tells me Dej Loaf isn’t in a Detroit studio making timeless, galvanizing music. But fret not. Help is on the way, which is exactly why 2015 is going an even better year for hip-hop.

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Charli XCX is hardly a household name, but she’s well on her way to becoming the next big thing

The 22-year-old Brit sings the hooks and, more importantly, co-wrote two of the biggest and catchiest hits in recent memory—Icona Pop’s “I Love It” and Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy.” Her single “Boom Clap” from the Fault in Our Stars soundtrack reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts. Looking back, 2013's “I Love It” was a precursor to the confident, genre-hopping female sound that is one of the most popular styles in music right now. Charli XCX is likely to be a big pop star, if she’s not already. But she has suggested she wants to be more than that—she wants to defy categorization altogether. The question is, does she have the chops to back it up? Is she a true artist or just a master of the catchy hook? When I saw her concert recently at a small venue called Lincoln Hall in Chicago, it was clear that “Fancy” and “I Love It” were just the beginning. Judging by the effusive reaction of the crowd and the raucous energy in the room, it will likely be one of the last times she appears in front of a few hundred people. She powered through a set of a little over an hour, proclaiming “pussy power” as men and women, men and men, and women and women danced together joyously.

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Early in autumn, in the year 2000, members of the American Printing History Association gathered at the Rochester Institute of Technology to consider the precipice between centuries. The conference: “On the Digital Brink.” Among the figures invited to address the assembly, Robert Bringhurst stood apart. As a typographer and poet, Bringhurst was intimately acquainted with the forms words take, and the ache that accompanies shepherding one’s own work toward print. Asked to issue an epitaph for the twentieth-century book, Bringhurst approached its apparent demise with caution; sensible, for at the turn of the twenty-first century, the book in its familiar form retained a certain indeterminate allure.

The allure remains. In the twenty-first century, the case for or against books is often made with readers in mind. “Books,” as we unthinkingly understand them — made of paper, released by publishing houses, available in bookstores — afford a host of pleasures and create a number of annoyances, as well. It is deeply satisfying to feel the weight of a hardcover book, but a nuisance to read one lying down. Touching paper beneath fingertips is a simple luxury; increasingly, though, at a time when information can be transmitted weightlessly and instantly from screen to glowing screen, the immense cost of creating and transporting paper volumes en masse seems indefensible. These are the justifications and criticisms that tend to surface whenever the merits of new technologies for readers are discussed; the ambivalence that swirls around the Kindle comes to mind. On a Friday evening in October, Bringhurst issued a forecast. “The book,” he first said, “is poised to move, in the coming century, from its familiar paper house to a kind of handheld movie screen.” But, he continued, “I assure you that I see no reason to be worried by any of this. For while it does look to me like a part of our future, I expect that part to be short-lived. Wherever human beings live their own lives instead of somebody else’s, stories form in their hearts and in their heads.” Finally: “stories and people nourish each other. Where that occurs are the seeds of the book, some of which are certain to sprout.” Expressing sympathy for the impulse to publish while remaining vague about what form that impulse would come to inhabit in the future, Bringhurst drew his epitaph to a close. Stories, he suggested, were going nowhere. But nowhere did he promise that the houses they inhabit would not change.

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Tenderfoot was a pedicure parlor on Main Street near Channing. Two reclining chairs — usually only one was in use — faced the street through a large plate-glass window. And so customers, alone with Paige, got a kind of public privacy — anybody could see them, no one but Paige could hear them. Paige was an expert listener — rarely commenting on what she heard, never repeating it.

She was a widow, forty-nine and childless. She lived behind and above her store. She played poker with five other women every Saturday night. They called one another by their last names and smoked cigars. She had lost her husband, a talented mechanic, to the war. Carl was in favor of the war, more or less; but he’d joined up mainly to get further mechanical training at the military’s expense. She’d objected to his risking their joint future, their happiness . . . but she’d let the argument drop. The Marines took him despite his age. And then, three days into the desert, the tank he was riding met a mine. Each of his parts was severed from the others, and his whole — his former whole — was severed from Paige.

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It’s easy to see the actions of the cops as immature, and surely there’s truth in that. The whole notion of back turning at public gatherings feels high-schoolish to me, indulging in empty displays of rebellion in no way commensurate to the reality of the situation. Their theatrics actually turns De Blasio into a hero here, though his political actions do not warrant that title. Such is the rewards of theatrical politics. But more than that it is also surely a highly manipulative diversionary tactic.

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Let’s say you’ve built the next big thing. You’re ready to take on the world and make billions. Your product is amazing and you’re convinced you’ve bested the competition. As a point of fact, you know you offer the very best solution in your market. But here’s the rub. If your competition has established strong customer habits than you have, you’re in trouble.

The cold truth is that the better product does not necessarily win. However, there’s hope. The right strategy can crowbar the competition’s users’ habits, giving you a chance to win them over.

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It is remarkable how porous historical accounts of the bond insurance industry have become. Articles written about the industry almost never discuss ratings arbitrage, for example. Ratings arbitrage was the raison d’être of bond insurance before the financial crisis.

These holes in the narrative are significant because what is missing would inform investors about the value of bond insurance in the market now. (This might not be an accident.) In 2007, roughly half of new municipal bond issues carried bond insurance. (This equates to hundreds of billions of dollars in volume.) The bond insurance industry was decimated during the financial crisis due to their heavy exposure to toxic mortgage-backed securities.

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I’m fascinated by those moments, incidents, encounters that go on ricocheting about for years. We make choices and move on, and mostly those choices simply blend into our lives. But not always — every so often a choice, decades old, knocks on the door, makes the phone ring, or walks ’round the corner, and BLAM, everything will never be the same again. That’s the story of Match, directed by Stephen Belber and adapted from his Tony-nominated play, in which my character, a Juilliard dance teacher, faces one of those very moments.

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At University last year, I thought about memory. I thought about it so much I began to lose sleep over it. I started to think of everything I’d done the previous week and suddenly, it was 4am, I was drinking coffee with my iCal open. Headphones in, completely in the zone and enjoying my one-man rememberthon.

I set myself the first challenge which was to plot my tracks of the last month, determined and ready to match my memory with as much historical evidence as possible. After about the second week I began to struggle. I grabbed some cereal and opened every website I could remember, every social account I’d ever opened and calendars I still had access to. Yet after a good few hours work, the gaps in my memory were still terribly noticeable. Man, why was I so bad at this? It became apparent that the trend of information uploaded consisted of ridiculously selective representations or useless information that even today, I still don’t understand why I ever uploaded.

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Once upon a rose, I went on The Bachelor, the hit reality series where love goes to die. The one that millions of viewers tune into on Monday nights, settling so deeply into their couches they risk bed sores. As if it needs any introduction, it’s the one with the hot tubs, the hometown dates, and The Fantasy Suite™. The one where choosing the wrong guy and giving him the wrong finger promises a myriad of career opportunities, like hosting a show on E! or going on Dancing With The Stars to shake what Dr. 90210 gave you.

I’m always a little embarrassed about my dubious decision to go on reality television. And I hate it when other people say going on The Bachelor was the best experience of their lives. My response is always, “good for you because it almost killed me.” (More on that here.) Since its inception in the early 2000s, The Bachelor has evolved from controversy to cultural obsession, spawning a number of hedonistic spin-offs in paradise that give producers a reason to hurl their arms heavenward and thank the Patron Saint of Hopeless Television at least ten times a day. The fact that this show is still in the prime time lineup is truly a miracle because, 1.) ABC is notorious for peddling frogs under the guise of princes and 2.) before we ever started filming back in 2005, a loose-lipped producer cornered a few of us in the back of a limo and, in no uncertain terms, told us it was our responsibility to save sinking ratings, which had been caused by a massive iceberg (that iceberg happened to be their previous star, Charlie O’Connell, the brother of a D-List actor). We were told that if our collective antics didn’t bring the franchise out of its coma, someone was going to pull the plug once and for all.

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If you know who Peter Thiel is, you probably also know what most people referred as Thiel’s law: “A startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed.”

That’s what happened to us. I wish I knew what I know now. Perhaps I should write another article about how we failed, if it’s useful for people. I was under the impression I was supposed to sacrifice everything to make it work. I didn’t pay enough attention to my health and I let myself go. For me, the only important thing was my startup and nothing else. The number of people I have encountered that think like I did is alarming. This is a warning for other entrepreneurs that might be going through the same, or if they think there would be time later to take care of themselves.

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So turns out day 4 was tracksuit day! How I felt on day 4 was a good reflection of how I looked on day 3, in the dreaded tracksuit. As I woke up and got myself out of bed, it didn’t take long to realise that that the effects had started. So I opted for denial…. I laid myself back in bed where I couldn’t tell whether I felt weak or not and pretended I just fancied a nice long lay in, and I wasn’t doing so because I didn’t feel capable of doing more… Totally could have if I wanted to. I got off to such a rubbish start this morning that I almost couldn’t be bothered to get my laptop out and send out my blog, but I couldn’t do that to you guys! Could not let you too be the victims of chemotherapy!

Anyway, the morning was spent drifting in and out of sleep, not having a clue what to do with myself, if it wasn’t for another hospital appointment at 4pm, i’m not sure i’d have gotten out of bed at all. And thats bad, kids! Bad for morale, bad for keeping spirits up. When I did eventually get myself up, the nausea kicked in, but I put that to bed immediately and upped my anti-sickness tablet dose. Once showered, hair done and a bit of make-up on, I realised the importance of getting yourself up and being presentable everyday! Made a big difference in how I felt. Plus, showering is so much fun when you have to wear a big plastic sleeve to protect your PICC line, not to mention looks great!

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My anxiety turns me into King Pellinore.

The hapless knight, and I’m specifically thinking of the version from The Once and Future King, wants but also doesn’t want to find the Questing Beast. It is a hunt that is also a love affair. In that way, I may obsess and worry but deep down I’m just obsessed with the pursuit, trying to really truly understand an event or feeling (real or imagined or merely foreseen in my infinite wisdom). Then I’ll name it and file it away where it can be later dissected for whatever magical silvery goo lives in the horn of my own Questing Beast.

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Back at my first blogging conference in 2008, it seemed like the potential income for mommy bloggers was limitless. But guess what? The “personal brand” I built online that allowed me to sustain a substantial readership was unappealing to brands. I didn’t look the part, I was too emotionally raw, I was far too publicly liberal, and I used too much foul language. The very things that helped me build up a large audience shot down any chance of hitting the commercial big time. In addition, the handful of projects I did participate in alienated my readers — and as a professional blogger I often blogged about blogging, a meta kiss of death. Bloggers who came after me were much more savvy.

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I’ve kind of just given up on trying to blend in. It’s impossible to go unnoticed here in Cameroon when your white. I try and wear the dullest clothes and less makeup and I never do anything with my hair, yet still its impossible to blend in, even when I’m covered in the red powdery dust from dry season they still look at me as if I’m an exotic animal who has escaped it’s cage. Just walking out of my gate I’m met with curious, staring eyes from the young and the old, that follow me as I walk down the road to get a taxi. As the children have their own theme song that goes like this: “White man, white man, white man. White man with a long nose, since my mother born me I never seen a white man.” The men have a different strategy, they make kissing noises or call out “baby” to try and attract my attention. Or they all just shout “white man.” As I pass a group of kids coming back from school I can usually hear them talking about me, either about my long hair or about my white skin. Some kids pass by and greet and once I say ‘hello’ it’s repeated back to me with a high-pitched nasally sound, the effects of them trying to copy my voice.

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I’ve heard people say that runners like to run away from their problems. As a lifelong runner, I’ve always run toward something — a goal, a relief from stress, my mom’s arms.

My penchant for running started at a young age. Shortly after my 3rd birthday, my mom signed me up for youth track and field. Every Monday night throughout that summer, she took me to the high school track, where the town held 50- to 400- yard races for kids ages 3 and up. I hardly knew what it meant to run a 50-yard dash when I started. “When they say ‘on your mark, get set, go, run as fast as you can until you see me,” Mom would say. “And don’t look back.” “But why?” “Because it can slow you down. Just run straight down the track toward me. … You’ll get a free ribbon at the end!” “Ooo! A ribbon?!”

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As a fifth grade teacher in rural New Mexico, I didn’t even flinch when my student accidentally called me “mom.”

It was already so clear to me: teachers are much more than instructors — they are equal parts parent, counselor, friend, and warrior to students. I came to understand the power of relationships in my classroom. One day I began to greet my students by name when they lined up outside my classroom in the mornings. Most days, my students grumbled and rolled their eyes. But one morning, my thoughts were so occupied by the test we would be administering later in the day that I completely forgot my daily morning greetings. As I walked inside, my students immediately took notice.

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In our blog, Inside Flipboard, we do a series illuminating what various interesting people — including former governors, Jeopardy contestants andwine connoisseurs — are reading on Flipboard. Social media maven Mario Sundar (formerly of LinkedIn, now of 500 Startups) recently shared his daily flipping habits with us. Here’s a quick list of some essentials:

Sundar looks at two of his own Twitter lists (tech and magazines) on Flipboard, which allow him to quickly scan news from many sources in a magazine format.“Evan Doll and Mike McCue are both very careful about the must-read articles they share,” he says. (To track what Flipboard’s co-founders are sharing, click on their names above, then “follow.” You must have a Flipboard account to do this.)Esquire, which has a Flipboard edition with custom pages. (Click on the link from a device with Flipboard to see.)Sundar collects articles into his own magazines, The Daily Tech (“The best writing on cutting edge technology, from the heart of Silicon Valley”) and Popcorn (“Breaking movie news that’s fit to flip”).

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There has been a lot of rumbling about firing Dick Costolo from Twitter … on Twitter. While the company continues to become more and more culturally important (think: police protests) and their revenue soars, they’ve had a bit of a problem with user growth.

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It occurred a few days ago, immediately after the moment where I had drawn enough willpower to unlike and unfollow the Twitter and Facebook pages of a few mainstream media companies that were guilty of constant clickbait.

Prior to my unfollowing rampage, I had grown exhausted from their psychological hacks. Like you, I crave meaningful content, analysis, and insights on topics that I care about. So, why does clickbait exist and why is it so wrong? And more importantly, how can we, as content consumers, defeat clickbait once-and-for-all? I am hoping to answer all of these questions in this brief post. Clickbait is annoying. It is also tarnishing the professional reputations of media companies. To exacerbate the damage done, here’s an experiment:Spend ten short seconds randomly naming companies that are guilty of using clickbait headlines to drive traffic. At the end of those ten seconds, you and I would likely have many common names on our respective lists. If you’re a media firm, would you really want to be remembered for these tactics?

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I do not mean that I am a liar, or that I intentionally deceive. Only on rare occasion do I spin an unlikely tale, and only then at a bar with strangers who might be convinced to buy a few rounds or avoid beating up a friend.
Rather, I have told the story of myself for such a long time that I do not always stop to think: Is this still true?

We all tell our own stories, to each other but more often to ourselves, the best of which are our tales as winsome children and the worst are our boring drug stories no one wants to hear. These are our markers, placeholders in time. I mattered enough to someone that they gave me this memory to carry with me, we assure ourselves by repeating these tiny oral histories. Or at the very least: I was alive at this moment and made a little keepsake out of my memory. Let me share it with you.

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One of the great things about being a woman of a “certain age” is a burgeoning maturity to give zero fucks on what the public at large thinks about one’s fashion sense let alone the sagging ragtag bits of the aging female body in all of its subversive glory.

Yeah, I’m wearing my pajamas in public while holding a maraca. You got a problem with that?Yes, my ass has fallen and can’t get up. It has made peace with gravity a long time ago.

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New Year’s. As the bubbles from the champagne subside, the bubbles on our brains rise. For it’s prognostication time! And 2015 will surely be the year the bubble bursts.

Just as was sure to happen in 2014. And 2013. And 2012. And 2011. And 2010. And so on. I’m not even going to bother linking to such claims because there are too many to find. Others have tried in the past and grown weary. They come fast and furious around this time of year and usually build as the year continues.Thank god we have Google. In fact, I’m weary of writing re-caps of bubble bursting predictions that were ultimately proven incorrect. It’s as tedious as trying to call the bubble.

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