Welcome to Spark's inaugural edition

Welcome to Spark, a weekly newsletter from Vivace Content. We compile news signals from across the business, financial, and cultural landscape, and spark ideas to help you and your business jump on something new to talk about. Send tips and feedback to [email protected].

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Spark. Ryan and I are trying something new to help you stay abreast of what’s going on in the world of global business, finance, and culture, how to get ahead of it, and what to say. In a world consumed by artificial intelligence, think of it as human prompts to help figure out what you should focus on next.

In today’s issue: The controversy of COP, one year of ChatGPT, ongoing back-to-office struggles, plus Bitcoin, DealBook Summit highlights, and “rizz”.

-joel

📈 TRENDING NOW

Climate and controversy as COP28 kicks off in Dubai.

If you’re reading this, you likely have been thinking and planning for this year’s mega annual climate summit (Conference of the Parties), which began meeting in 1995, when this newsletter author was four years old.

If you’re just playing catch-up, a few pieces to help you get up to speed:

• Fossil fuels and frustration at COP28, including controversy over the hosts (New York Times)

• The road to Dubai, with history and context (The New Yorker)

• Video: Everything you need to know about COP28 (Climate Money Work)

• Podcast: What’s at stake in global climate talks (Reuters)

• Who to watch at COP28, including the A-listers, the Horse Traders, the Green Backers, the Hellraisers, and the Press Whisperers (Semafor)

>Angles:

• What role does the Oil & Gas industry play in the transition to net zero?

• Is COP still the best convening mechanism to fight climate change?

• What is your business doing now to address the climate crisis, and what are you paying closest attention to at COP28?

• Is your marketing and communications around climate and ESG rooted in real, authentic commitments, or are you part of the greenwashing problem?

The year of Artificial Intelligence

We will forever remember 2023 as a turning point for artificial intelligence. In recent weeks, we hit one year of ChatGPT and saw one of the most insane and public boardroom dramas of AI’s current posterchild, OpenAI. That drama disrupted well-laid plans for the world’s second-largest company (by market cap), which Microsoft employees called a “Turkey-Shoot Clusterfuck.”

What all of that drama masks, however, is how artificial intelligence will indeed disrupt every industry. How will you find the signal through the noise?

>Angles:

• What is your company’s POV on artificial intelligence, and how are you communicating it to your stakeholder groups?

• Is this as big of a tipping point as the media is making it out, or is it just another milestone in a research field decades in the making?

• Are you incorporating AI into your public-facing communications? If so, are you being transparent about it?

For a bit of fun:

• Take FT Alphaville’s Quiz: Who said it — ChatGPT or Investment Researchers?

• Reuters asked ChatGPT how it felt on its first birthday. Apparently AI doesn’t have emotions. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Back to office

Unsurprisingly, employers are still struggling to figure out how to get employees back to the office. Consider these findings from a newly released poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, covered in Fortune:

• 3 in 4 HR reps say retaining employees who don’t want to work in the office is a problem.

• Additional pay and other incentives would hold sway over workers to bring them back into the office, but only 4% of HR reps say their companies have rolled something like this out.

And it’s not just businesses, either. The Biden White House has recently been pushing aggressively to bring federal employees back in. In fact, according to data from JLL, return-to-office rates in federal buildings this September were at 33%, compared to 62% in nonfederal buildings.

>Angles:

• Is getting people back in the office an issue for your organization or have you found a happy solution? If so, now might be the time to showcase your brilliance!

📰 ELSEWHERE:

• Bitcoin is back above $40,000 for the first time since May 2022. Here we go again. (Reuters)

• $44 trillion of economic value (more than half of global gross GDP) is moderate to highly dependent on nature. Here’s why nature’s future underpins the future of business. (Financial Times)

• Oxford’s word of the year is ‘rizz’. We’re not necessarily saying you should do anything about this, but it felt like something we had to include. It’s Gen Z slang for charisma. (New York Times)

• A new buzzy book is out (The Fund) detailing the truly wild inner workings of Bridgewater, the world’s most successful hedge fund. (Excerpts: New York Magazine, New York Times, Fortune) 

• Lots of news was made at last week’s DealBook Summit, helmed by Andrew Ross Sorkin, in conversation with business and world leaders including JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, U.S. VP Kamala Harris, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen, Disney CEO Bob Iger, and FTC Chair Lina Khan. Plus an absolutely bananas wide-ranging conversation with Elon Musk. (NYT DealBook YouTube)

OFF THE CHARTS

📆 UPCOMING DAYS & EVENTS

• Dec 4: International Day of Banks (UN)

• Dec 5: World Soil Day (DOTY)

• Dec 7: Hanukkah begins

• Dec 9: International Anti-Corruption Day (UN)

• Dec 10: Human Rights Day (Unesco)

COMING SOON

Before you know it, we’ll be in 2024, so make sure you start your end-of-year and January editorial planning now. Here’s some of what we’re thinking about — what else is on your desk?

• End of year content: We’ve begun my favorite season of content — that magical time of year when you can roll out your reflections on the year, “best of” posts, and anything else that can add context to the year that was. We’ll share some of our favorites in the next few weeks, but if you’re looking for a little inspiration, start with Spotify Wrapped! 

• CES24: The biggest tech event of the year kicks off Jan 9-12 in Las Vegas. What gadgets and gizmos will get rolled out this year?

• Davos: The World Economic Forum Annual meeting is set to take place January 15-19, with a heavy focus on artificial intelligence, and its implications on decision-making and global partnership. (McKinsey)

• Predictions for the year ahead: While no one can predict the future, audiences are always hungry for context, insight, and analysis on how to plan for the future. What insights can you offer to your audience on the year ahead? Let us know if you need a few ideas on where to get started.  

FRIENDS OF VIVACE: NEWS & VIEWS

• Thanks to Kaye Ramsden for flagging this item: Open AI has announced their new board, with exactly 0 women.

• Congratulations to Sherry Madera, who is celebrating her first COP as CEO of CDP, as well as one month until her book launch. Congrats also to Shannon Joly, who recently joined CDP as Global Strategic Marketing Advisor.

• Congratulations also to Rob Sartain, who recently began a new position as Head of Content and Publishing at IG Group.

• From our friends at Signal Climate Analytics: An important report on what responsible investors need to know about methane emissions and why it matters. Published with Morgan Stanley’s Calvert Center for Responsible Investing.

• Finally, a HUGE congratulations to Trang Chu Minh on her One Young World Campaigner of the Year award. She is doing incredible work, and anyone who has been part of the OYW community knows what incredible recognition and achievement this is.

Send us your shout-outs, strong opinions, and headlines to include in next week’s edition.

Thanks for joining us this week. Anything we missed? Something we should include next week? Please send all ideas and feedback to [email protected]. 

Spark is a production of Vivace Content, where we help our clients navigate what to say and how to say it every single day. Get in touch if you’d like to have a no-hassle consultation about how we can help you too. Have a great week ahead, and see you next Monday.