Huffington Post: News or NSFW?

Would you be proud to be seen reading The Huffington Post at Starbucks or heaven forbid work?! Or is it something you do in private because although there is some meat there it's also like being caught eating from a can of frosting?

Getting our news online has been a revolutionary use of technology and HuffPo was leading the way with its easy to read format and curation of the best political and breaking stories around the web. I was a fan. But somewhere along the way it went beyond political focus and got into click-bait as its dominant business model. Sad.

And the conflicting and annoying thing is there is still some great reading and information there but it is cluttered with crap.

Last month The World Post was launched and it made me wonder: are they in the news business or not? If HuffPo wants to attract world leaders (business leaders, political leaders...) to participate in their forum they need to clean up their pages and focus on being a respectable news source.

The day The World Post launched these were the FRONT PAGE right column entries along with that announcement. I am by no means a prude, but this is sleazy filler that they should know better than to feature on the home page, let alone on an important launch day.

If you have to headline a post NSFW (not safe for work)- guess what... it shouldn't be on your FRONT PAGE. Gratuitous nakedness, also not needed there. Anything Kardashian. Anything side-boob or wardrobe-malfunction related. Want to get eyes to the site- have a tab called THE DIRT and put all the tantalizing and National Enquirer-esque stuff there. I'll even read it... when I've caught up on actual news.

I just don't want to be embarrassed to say where I read something worthwhile on a site that is more and more becoming kinda trashy. When Comedy Central's Daily Show shows less crudeness than your FRONT PAGE maybe it's time for a new editorial direction.

Arianna Huffington is starting an important conversation about quality of life with Thrive and her Third Metric work and I sincerely hope she starts looking at her own HOME too because she's better than this and I 100% believe a higher quality site will THRIVE!  

Money & Power Aren't Enough; We Need The 3rd Metric.

Huffington Post

We've all bought into this male definition of success, money and power, and it's not working. It's not working for men, and it's not working for women. It's not working for anyone. ~Arianna Huffington

Arianna burnt herself out a few years ago- literally collapsed at her desk broke her cheekbone and required 5 stitches on her eye- so she was forced to look at what she had been doing to herself. She started a sleep movement and now is expanding this thought that life is more than power and money. Wellbeing is the missing element(s) that makes both men and women more joyful and therefore more successful in the end.

She recently held The Third Metric: Redefining Success Beyond Money & Power to introduce the idea and has been speaking and writing about it a lot lately and I applaud her message. My own burnout and that of many of the people I care about is the main catalyst for my work today. Exhausted whether we work inside or outside the home and even if we're successful in many areas of our lives we're often too depleted to appreciate the good fortune. And it's not just that we are doing this to ourselves, which would be bad enough, it's that we are parenting our kids that it is normal to be constantly busy and frantic. What kind of life is that for us let alone kids?

The graphic above was part of an infographic that was posted regarding this topic and what instantly popped out at me was how the new definition resembles a ME Map. Yup, I made The 3rd Metric about ME ;)    And while some might poo-poo the idea as fluffy and a luxury they should note how 8 out of 10 employees are experiencing workplace stress and it cost businesses $300BILLION a year. Gallup recently did a study that said only 30% of the US workforce is engaged with their jobs and that the cost is closer to $500B, but you get the point.

Something tells me this is going to be the hot new topic of conversation in business. The economy is starting to get better and whether next year or 5 years from now employees are going to start exiting companies that burn them out. The attraction for talent is going to include how they thrive and not just on the power and money that is offered up. If businesses brush this off not only are they holding back the engagement that could profit them now, they will be left with a stale and numb bench to work with then.