Mediaboss Marketing

By Claire Dodson 03.20.17 | 6:00 am

CEO Jos Neves founded his nine-year-old company with a mission to bridge the gap between physical and digital by helping luxury boutiques around the world put their inventory online. This month, Farfetch will host an event called FarfetchOS, in London, where Neves will announce a new technology suite called the Store of the Future, the latest business unit for the $1 billion company. The new concept will allow Farfetchs partner retailers to track inventory across their e-commerce and storefront arms and help further individualize in-person customer interactions. We actually see the future of fashion as centered in the physical store, which I know is ironic for a tech business, Neves says. I really believe that beautiful products belong in great stores. They dont belong in these dark warehouses.

But for all his attention to real-world shopping, Neves is further cultivating Farfetch Black & White, a service the company offers to fashion brands to power their e-commerce sites. The platform provides support for everything from payments and logistics to customer service and in-store returns. Since its launch a year ago, the Black & White API has grown to six clients, including Manolo Blahnik, Christopher Kane, and DKNY.

Farfetch CEO Jos Neves is redefining luxury e-commerce.

At the same time, Farfetch has been expanding its own sites inventory to include jewelry and kids fashion, with even more categories to come. Recently, the company signed its 500th boutique, and boasted 60% growth and more than $800 million in sales in 2016. We are not a retailer, Neves says. We are here to help brands and retailers find what the luxury experience is of 2020 and beyond. We want to be the platform for the global fashion industry.

Milestones: In November, Farfetch hired its first-ever chief strategy officer, Stephanie Phair, a Net-a-Porter veteran.

Challenges: As Amazon ramps up its own inventory of luxury fashion, its treading close to Farfetchs terrain.

Buzz: Postive

Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors is creating digital tools tailored to the Trump era.

Just days before Donald Trumps inauguration, activist organization Black Lives Matter and advertising agency J. Walter Thompson launched a new web application called Mark Yourself Unsafe. A riff on Facebooks Safety Check, this unsafety check lets African Americans label themselves on social media as in danger because, the app explains, being Black in America is a national emergency. The app, says Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors, is a reminder that black people and other marginalized groups are unsafe under this administration.

The provocative app is part of an ongoing collaboration between BLM and the New Yorkbased ad agency, which began when JWT creative director Mo Osunbor reached out to Cullors, offering pro bono resources to the movement. Cullors, for her part, was looking to expand the organizations reach with actionable digital tools. In December, the two created a site called Backing Black Business, a searchable map of brick-and-mortar and online companies run by African Americans. Still in beta, the site features more than 300 businesses and is adding more daily.

Meanwhile, Mark Yourself Unsafe, which has been used by thousands of people, is becoming a viral tool to teach people about police violence and inequality. Projects like these, says Cullors, are vital given our political climate: We know that more human and civil rights will be violated. So what do you do with that? she says. Were planning for peoples survival right now. The act of marking yourself unsafe is an act of resistance.

Milestones: Black Lives Matter protesters played a key role in the wake of President Trumps immigration ban, helping to mobilize against the executive order.

Challenges: Post-election protest movements are springing up en masse, creating difficulty for Black Lives Matters hashtag activism to stay in the spotlight.

Buzz: Positive

Milestones: Thanks to a new partnership with the Big Ten Network, Riot Games multiplayer videogame League of Legends is becoming a serious college e-sport. Twelve of the conferences schools will compete this season, with every player receiving a $5,000 scholarship.

Challenges: Activision Blizzard is building up its e-sports league for its first-person shooter game Overwatch, which will eventually include in-person spectators.

Buzz: Positive

Milestones: In a bid to create autonomous-vehicle software for its own cars and others, Ford is investing $1 billion in Pittsburgh-based startup Argo AI, run by Google and Uber veterans.

Challenges: Fords big bet to create the self-driving platform of the future puts it up against the likes of Apple and Uberas well as basically every other automobile company.

Buzz: Neutral

Milestones: LGs new G6 smartphone moves the company away from its signature modular phone construction to prioritize usability and design. It has a taller screen ratio primed for full-view multitasking.

Challenges: LG has been struggling to break through in a crowded marketits mobile communications unit recently saw a 23% drop in quarterly revenue.

Buzz: Negative

Milestones: Yoky Matsuoka, who was responsible for much of Nests signature adaptive-thermostat technology, recently rejoined the company as CTO after a stint at Apple.

Challenges: Even as other startups rush into the connected-home space, Nest is still trying to speed up its product timeline. Last fall, it released its fourth product, an outdoor camera.

Buzz: Neutral

Birchbox.

Milestones: In February, Birchbox introduced a new premium tier for its current subscribers. At $14 a month, it will allow users to better customize their boxes. The company is also opening a second brick-and-mortar store, this time in Paris, which will let shoppers create their own boxes alongside beauty consultants.

Challenges: Last summer, Birchbox received a $15 million infusion to offset a rumored drop in customer subscriptions amid increased competition from Ipsy and other services. It was also beset by user complaints about repeat product samples and the changing rewards system.

Buzz: Neutral

Milestones: The U.K. department store reported a rise in clothing sales for the first time in two years. New CEO Steve Rowe has been increasing the number of products while reducing discounts.

Challenges: Last fall, M&S announced it would shutter 30 locations and turn 45 more into food-only shops, despite the fact that its food sales grew by only 0.6% in 2016.

Buzz: Neutral

Milestones: In January, AirAsia X became Asias first budget carrier approved by the FAA to fly into the U.S., opening the door to low-cost transpacific flights. First up may be routes into Hawaii.

Challenges: AirAsia was named in a bribery charge after an employee from Rolls-Royce allegedly gave a $3.2 million product discount to an airline executive. AirAsia has denied any wrongdoing, but the situation puts AirAsia under scrutiny from investigators.

Buzz: Neutral

Milestones: The company behind Gore-Tex recently unveiled new facilities at its Delaware headquarters to help it better test materials. The labs include an Environmental Chamber and Rain Tower, and they can now subject products to everything from solar radiation to high wind.

Challenges: One of Gores biggest competitors, Polartec, has been making strides with its own breathable, moisture-wicking technology and is creating its first brand of heavy-duty alpine gear, MtnLogic, to be released later this year.

More:
Updates From Our Most Innovative Companies: Farfetch, Black Lives Matter, And More - Fast Company

Eric Holder, who served as U.S. attorney general under President Barack Obama and who is taking a lead role in a national Democratic redistricting effort, will headline the state Democratic partys Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in June.

Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, will keynote the event on June 17 at the Richmond Marriott, days after Democrats and Republicans pick their candidates for statewide office in a June 13 primary.

Holder has called the Virginia governors race an important early focus for the group. The governor who is elected in November will preside as state lawmakers redraw legislative and congressional boundaries after the 2020 census.

This Novembers elections in Virginia are a top priority for Democrats and give us the opportunity to undo Republican gerrymandering and have a legislature and Congress that truly represent the views of the people, Holder said in a statement provided by the Democratic Party of Virginia.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe is helping to spearhead fundraising for the Democrats national effort to make gains through redrawn boundaries after the census.

David DOnofrio, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Virginia, said in a statement: Democrats are simply trying to accomplish in courts what they cant do at the ballot box.

They simply cant fathom why they cant win legislative elections in Virginia. It cant be voters rejecting their far-left policies, so they have to find another excuse. We hope someone will tell former Attorney General Holder that Democrats drew their own lines in the Virginia Senate, then-Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on the lines, as did Rep. Robert C. Bobby Scott, D-3rd and the Legislative Black Caucus, and they still wound up out of power.

Virginias congressional and legislative boundaries have been the subject of court action in recent months.

Democrats picked up a congressional seat in the 4th District after a three-judge panel redrew the states U.S. House boundaries after finding that legislators packed too many African-Americans into Scotts 3rd District.

In a second federal case over Virginia redistricting, the U.S. Supreme Court has instructed a lower court to re-examine whether the Virginia General Assembly unconstitutionally stuffed African-American voters into certain House of Delegates districts, opening the door to a new political map.

In a third case, a Richmond Circuit Court judge will soon rule in a challenge to 11 Virginia legislative districts. The redistricting group OneVirginia2021 charges that those districts violate requirements in the Virginia Constitution that districts be compact.

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Former US AG Eric Holder to headline Virginia Democrats' Jefferson-Jackson dinner in June - Richmond.com

Miami Herald

Democrats plan to strike back in redistricting wars Miami Herald Former Attorney Eric Holder joined the NDRC as chair after serving as one of Obama's most trusted lieutenants. The Democrats took our eye off the ball; we didn't realize the importance of redistricting, he said. Now, grassroots activists are ... Fixing Gerrymandering Doesn't Just Make Elections More FairSlate Magazine Will next congressional elections bring a Redder Michigan?Detroit Free Press all 5 news articles »

Continued here:
Democrats plan to strike back in redistricting wars - Miami Herald

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) Aaron P. Bernstein/ZUMA

At the start of Monday's hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, laid out why the hearing was so important.

Schiff, a former federal prosecutor, offered a detailed timeline of Russia's role in the election during a 15-minute opening statement ahead of the committee's questioning of FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers. The American public will never know whether Russian meddling swung the election, Schiff said, but there are some things that are known that deserve further exploration.

"What was happening in July/August of last year? And were US persons involved?"

"We do know this: The months of July and August 2016 appear to have been pivotal," Schiff said. "It was at this time that the Russians began using the information they had stolen to help Donald Trump and harm Hillary Clinton. And so the question is why? What was happening in July/August of last year? And were US persons involved?"

Schiff laid out details from the series of memos authored by a former Western intelligence operative detailing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. He highlighted the behavior of former Trump campaign national security adviser Carter Page, who reportedly traveled to Moscow on what Schiff described as a "trip approved by the Trump campaign" and met with the CEO of a Russian corporation who is reportedly a "former KGB agent and close friend" of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Schiff also pointed to allegations in the memos that the Trump campaign was offered documents damaging to Hillary Clinton in exchange for, as Schiff put it, "a Trump Administration policy that de-emphasizes Russia's invasion of Ukraine and instead focuses on NATO countries not paying their fair sharepolicies which, even as recently as the President's meeting last week with Angela Merkel, have now presciently come to pass."

Prior to the hearing, Trump tweeted that allegations that his campaign colluded with Russian officials are "FAKE NEWS" and that Democrats "made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign."

Schiff closed his statement by pointing out why the Congress must thoroughly investigate Russian interference in the election. "Only by understanding what the Russians did can we inoculate ourselves from the further Russian interference we know is coming," Schiff said. "Only then can we help protect our European allies who are, as we speak, enduring similar Russian interference in their own elections."

Read the full statement below:

Read the original post:
Here's the Democrats' Best Case for a Trump-Russia Investigation - Mother Jones

To tackle concerns aboutcollege affordability, a Democratic legislator is proposing to makepubliccolleges and universities tuition-free for all Californians,and wants to tax millionaires to do it.

The measure, which echoes calls for tuition-free college by former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is the latest in a flood of legislationthat's been introduced this year to address concerns about the rising costof attending college.

The state's 1960 Master Plan, which created a framework for higher education institutions, was meant to "make college affordable for everybody. That was going to be the California dream," Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), the proposal's author,said in an interview.

"Now we find ourselves in the position where that dream isnt being fulfilled," she said.

Eggman'sproposal would impose a 1%tax on incomes over $1 million to help pay for the approximate $2.2-billion price tag to cover tuition and fees for all in-state students in conjunction with existing aid.

"We know the very wealthy continue to control a huge amount of the states wealth, this countrys wealth, while the middle-class continues to get squeezed more and more," Eggman said.

New taxes generally face a steep climb in the Legislature, where a two-thirds vote is required for passage. But Eggman said her bill, AB 1356, would also be coupled with a constitutional amendment that would put the tax before voters for ultimate approval.

Doing so, she said, ensures "a greater buy-infrom the general public."

A recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 68% ofDemocrats, 20% ofRepublicansand 42% of independents support increased taxes to pay for higher education.

Eggman's tuition-free proposal takes a different approach from her colleagues, who unveiled a sweeping plan last week to make public colleges debt-free for nearly 400,000 students from families that make up to $150,000 per year. That measure aims to chip away at some of the associated costs of going to college, such as living expenses and textbooks.

Eggman said she envisions the two proposals complementing each other.

She also said she anticipates critiques her "clean sweep" plan to wipe tuition away for all Californians would benefit wealthy residents who don't need such assistance.

People may say "'millionaires kids might use it,'" Eggman said."Well, theyre paying for it, too."

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This California Democrat is proposing a tax on millionaires to make public colleges tuition-free for in-state students - Los Angeles Times