With covid-19 lockdowns, more Americans feel they have more agency over, and less structure to their time; they are reluctant to return to old routines. This is leading to key shifts in meaning and practice that more companies need to tap into to succeed in a post-pandemic world.

This new phase of the pandemic is characterized by cautious optimism coupled with extreme volatility and imperfect information. In this context, business leaders are under pressure to make quick decisions that will have major implications for their businesses in the coming years.

Any brand seeking to be relevant in the current cultural landscape must understand what it means to be a gamer.

While China is ever more in the spotlight and speculation grows around how the pandemic will shift our world order, we are interested in how behaviors and values are evolving and mutating. How have, for example, habits and social interactions changed – and which changes are likely to persist?

During COVID-19, many people are searching for meaning in literature set during times of war, disease, and dystopia. Jonny Lowndes shares insights gleaned by reading by Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Be careful not to focus too much on the immediate changes when planning for a post-COVID world. This crisis might lead to deeper, more disruptive shifts in our societal structure — shifts that should be at the core of any business strategy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to rip the band-aid off dysfunctional healthcare systems.

As Denmark opens up after COVID-19 restrictions, we are watching out for early signals that show how people may permanently adopt some new social behaviors – and quickly default to other deeply ingrained ways of life.

Building contextually informed algorithms requires collaboration between human science and data science teams who are willing to extend their frame of reference beyond their core skill areas.

Clients have come to us asking for clues to the ‘next normal,’ and for ReD’s take on the social shifts that are most relevant to business. Like all our projects, we are taking a beginner’s mind in our response. As we embark on an exploratory study of social change, the questions raised in this letter are a sample of our working field guide.

When it comes to payments, the world of social science has much more to offer than nudges and dopamine-rushes. There are profound and durable human mechanisms to tap into – revealing opportunities for loyalty, relationships, and growth every provider aspires to capture.

A ReD paper based on work conducted with Facebook Reality Labs offers reflections on why context matters and how to study abstract concepts in everyday life.

We have been examining how group behaviors in specific social and physical contexts change with remote working.

As businesses scramble to understand the digital revolution of the home, they have misunderstood many of the realities of modern domestic life.

The not-too-distant future may bring more ubiquitous personal computing technologies seamlessly integrated into people's lives, with the potential to augment reality and support human cognition. For such technology to be truly assistive to people, it must be context-aware.

In this groundbreaking study of cancer patients treated with immunotherapy for stage IV cancer, ReD has illuminated the particular state of patients who survive longer than their initial prognosis. These patients are able to achieve a state of normalcy, despite having a terminal condition.

In our tech practice, we monitor CES each year for provocative and disruptive innovations that might force us to rethink the tech landscape our clients live in.

This podcast explores which problems require interdisciplinary collaboration and how teams with radically different world views can get it right.

This podcast explores “selection bias” by interviewing a conspiracy theory debunker and a conspiracy theorist.

How should companies understand cultural signifiers in order to capture the spirit of a generation?