Top of the Post 📥  …

• DevSecOps AI Challenges

• Florida gets FDA nod to import cheaper drugs from Canada

• Podcast interview: Joh Olson's Insights on Thriving Businesses

• Success story: Two friends on a mission to decarbonize cement

• Crafting effective zero-click content

Weekly Catchups

News | Industry Insights | Trends

• 🤖 Tackling AI Bias 
  Adapting to AI-powered workflows requires training DevSecOps teams in AI oversight. AI’s threat to IP and privacy in software security will accelerate. To tackle AI bias, developers must diversify training datasets to include fairness metrics. 

•  💊 Florida Gets FDA Nod to Import Cost-Effective Drugs from Canada 

  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Florida’s plan to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, ending U.S. patients’ woes with expensive drugs. Fierce opposition from the pharmaceutical industry awaits.

• 🏡 Forecast: Home Prices to Fall in 34 Cities 

  In some hope for potential homebuyers, Zillow predicts home prices will fall in 34 of the 50 largest U.S. cities this year. These include San Jose, California, followed by New Orleans, Louisiana among others. See list. 

Nurturing The Leader Within

Personal Development | Success Story

Rock Solid

If cement were a country, it would be the third-biggest climate polluter on Earth. 

Some Context 📃 The world generates 30 billion tons of concrete each year. That’s a LOT of carbon footprint. Of this, cement is responsible for around 8% of global emissions. 

Cody Finke said it does not have to be this way. In 2019, along with Hugo Leandri, he founded Brimstone Energy, a California startup, that created Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). Creating cement involves heating limestone (which releases CO2). That’s not the case with OPC made out of grinding calcium silicate rock.

By becoming the first and only company to develop a carbon-negative process for making industry-standard OPC, Brimstone Energy has eliminated the regulatory hurdles to industry adoption while solving cement's climate problem.

In 2022, Bill Gates’ climate finance firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures and DCVC, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm announced they led a $55 million funding round in Brimstone Energy. 

Onward and Upward 🚀 In 2023, the company achieved another milestone by receiving third-party certification that its decarbonized cement meets the ASTM C 150 standard for Ordinary Portland Cement. 

A Venture Built Out of Friendship, Travel 

Cody and Hugo grew up halfway around the globe from one another. Their paths crossed at the California Institute of Technology in 2017. It was not until 2018 when they bonded on a work trip to Beijing at a conference about improving, well, toilets! Finke had previously worked to develop a solar-powered toilet to generate hydrogen and electricity. The idea was eventually expensive to scale. He began devoting his energies elsewhere. Leandri was familiar with the cement world due to his father’s concrete business. Together, they created pure genius.

Strategies | Tools | Marketing Tips

Aim for Zero Clicks

Amused? Hear us out…

It’s a brutal world for creators. Fancy spending precious hours working on a blog about your business only to discover that a minuscule minority of the audience has stumbled upon it. Social media algorithms want to keep audiences hooked on their platforms 

Enter zero-click content, a term coined by the Vice President of Marketing at SparkToro, Amanda Natividad. Provide users valuable information without them having to leave the platform they’re engaging with.

Here’s why you must hop on the social media marketing trick. 

• The algorithm will award you: Experiments have proven how linkless posts on platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and LinkedIn perform better than the ones with links. 

• Your audience will appreciate it: A change in platform for the user is an interruption from the scrolling and swiping. This approach is bound to improve the performance of both your current and future posts. 

• Building your brand: As a thought leader in your domain, more followers engage with your posts, and the possibilities of brand awareness and audience growth will open, potentially leading to monetization.
  
  Three non-negotiable elements of zero-click content to help you dive in!

• Be clear and concise: Take the time to write each word, thoughtfully. Avoid jargon or complex talk that can leave your audience confused. Give one compelling idea in 200 words, 1 minute, or less. 

• Start with a magnetic hook: It can be a startling fact, a compelling question, or a visual to get your audience interested. 

• Call-to-action: Leave your audience with a thought-provoking question or a prompt.

• Need some inspiration to get started? See this post on X
  

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Networking | Business Development | Entrepreneurship

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