Spring is in the air, which means it’s time to go green! Planting and gardening is a relaxing and rewarding hobby, and filling your home with plant life is visually appealing and can improve productivity, reduce stress, and boost your mood. If you’d love to have all those perks but aren’t gifted with a green thumb, then the Xiaomi Smart Monitor can lend you one. The Xiaomi Smart Monitor is a four-in-one capability monitor for indoor and outdoor plants. Its pronged sensors push directly into the soil surrounding the plant so its real-time sensor can track how much water and sunlight the plant is getting and also read its temperature and nutrition levels. The device then communicates with a downloadable app on your smartphone so you can expertly monitor every delicate detail of your vegetation. The interactive app has over 5,000 plants and flowers in its database, so it knows exactly how to care for each species. You can also use it for multiplant tracking by simply changing the sensor’s location in the soil then switching to the profile of a different plant in your app. So take the guesswork out of gardening and use Xiaomi to keep your plants thriving this season. GIVE YOURSELF A GREEN THUMB
BUCKETFEET BRINGS COLOR TO THE WORLD
By Making Art for Your Feet
Bucketfeet sells some beautiful shoes. In fact, you can’t get their shoes anywhere else. That’s because each shoe is custom-crafted by an artist who creates your shoe based on your design preferences. But Bucketfeet is about a lot more than personalized, funky fashion trends. The co-founders of Bucketfeet met by happenstance while traveling independently in Argentina. Aaron and Raaja formed a quick friendship, and when they parted ways, Aaron gave Raaja a pair of hand-designed shoes he made. During the remainder of Raaja’s trip around the world, those shoes sparked hundreds of conversations with people from dozens of countries, cultures, and backgrounds. That led to an incredible epiphany. Art has the power to bring people together, so in 2011, they launched Bucketfeet, a company that commissions artists from around the world to design unique sneakers. Every pair of Bucketfeet shoes is handmade to order and crafted specifically for the buyer. The wearable art sparks conversation because each shoe is unique to the wearer. That also means nothing is ever out of stock or overpurchased, which cuts down on the environmental waste that results from housing excess product and material. Bucketfeet’s network contains over 40,000 artists from 120-plus countries. They connect and collaborate with one another and their customers, which means styles change quickly and are entirely unique. When a customer buys a pair of Bucketfeet shoes, they directly support these global artists who earn commission on every pair sold. Since launching, Bucketfeet has given over $600,000 back to their artist community. Art plays an important role in everyone’s life, whether they’re aware of it or not. It’s in everything we see, from architecture to advertisements. It has the power to impact people, raise awareness, and inspire connections. A single conversation can spark a lifetime relationship, and Bucketfeet knows that. Now, they want to share it with the world.
FORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW ‘Nine Lies About Work’ Sheds Light on Leadership
Countless methods exist for promoting business growth. In general, they point to the necessity of good feedback, organization, strategy, culture, and leadership. But the authors of “Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World” suggest that the basics of these elements aren’t entirely accurate. Authors Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall come from impressive leadership and team-building backgrounds with
successful companies. They’ve seen many businesses adhere to all the operational tenants they seemingly should yet never reach their full potential. After dissecting real-world stories and poring over analytics, Buckingham and Goodall concluded that successful, freethinking leaders have the ability to recognize something in their workplace that other leaders don’t: the power of individual uniqueness. The cohesiveness of a team matters more than the company’s culture. Real-time intelligence should gain focus over top-down planning, and rather than attempting to align people’s goals, you should strive to give each person a sense of purpose in their work. The success of a team is not about constant feedback, but rather helpful attention. Freethinking doesn’t mean you’re not a team player. It means you have unique ideas to contribute to your team. “Nine Lies About Work” is an eye-opening new approach to leading your team if you think you’ve been doing everything right but haven’t seen the results you’ve been expecting.
855-556-4677 AZCOMP Technologies www.azcomp.com/it • 3
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