empathy – Impact Lab

Latest News, New Viewpoints, People Making a Difference

The Dinner That Rewired a City: How 3,400 Strangers in Littleton Point to the Future of Local Civilization

October 10, 2025

By Futurist Thomas Frey

On an ordinary late-summer evening in Littleton, Colorado—a quiet suburb of 42,000 people—something extraordinary happened. Seven percent of the city showed up to dinner. (Photo Credit: Steve Slocomb Photography)

No protests, no politics, no speeches. Just tables stretching down Main Street, hundreds of conversations, and thousands of people rediscovering something that once defined communities but has all but vanished from modern life: the simple act of breaking bread together.

It may sound quaint, but this is how revolutions begin—not with hashtags or global summits, but with neighbors deciding to show up, sit down, and talk like human beings again.

Analysis, Healthcare, Human Behavior, Medicine, Science & Technology News

Doctors who are kind have healthier patients who heal faster, according to new book

May 9, 2019

Which doctor would you pick: a physician who is kind and warm, or one who is cold but graduated at the top of the class in medical school?

A new book makes a strong argument for the ones who are kind and warm, not just because they’re more pleasant, but because they have better patient outcomes.

“Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence That Caring Makes a Difference,” written by physician-scientist team Stephen Trzeciak and Anthony Mazzarelli, provides overwhelming evidence for the healing power of compassion.

Continue reading… “Doctors who are kind have healthier patients who heal faster, according to new book”

Children, Education, Employment, Future, Science & Technology News

These are the skills that your kids will need for the future (Hint: It’s not coding)

October 21, 2018

The jobs of the future will involve humans collaborating with other humans to design work for machines, and value will shift from cognitive to social skills.

An education is supposed to prepare you for the future. Traditionally, that meant learning certain facts and skills, like when Columbus discovered America or how to do multiplication and long division. Today, curriculums have shifted to focus on a more global and digital world, like cultural history, basic computer skills, and writing code.

Yet the challenges that our kids will face will be much different from those we faced growing up and many of the things a typical student learns in school today will no longer be relevant by the time he or she graduates college. In fact, a study at the University of Oxford found that 47 percent of today’s jobs will be eliminated over the next 20 years.

Continue reading… “These are the skills that your kids will need for the future (Hint: It’s not coding)”

Analysis, Business, Great Videos, Robots, Science & Technology News

How human empathy will shape the design of artificial intelligence

February 3, 2014

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odQw5BDnCRs[/youtube]

Harvey Milk understood the power of human empathy when he famously advised his “gay brothers and sisters” to come out, but “only to the people you know, and who know you.” It is hard to hate people you know and who know you.

Continue reading… “How human empathy will shape the design of artificial intelligence”

Analysis, Business, Human Behavior, Latest Trend

Top 20 people skills you need to succeed at work

November 20, 2013

“People skills come down to how people interact with each other.”

While being qualified for a certain job, having the ability to lead a team, or having extensive and highly developed technical skills are crucial to your professional success, it is also imperative that you have great soft skills – more commonly known as “people skills.”

Continue reading… “Top 20 people skills you need to succeed at work”

Analysis, Business, Globalism

Why American leaders of global corporations aren’t global leaders

August 24, 2012

Some 20 years of research by hundreds of experts have found that successful global leaders have great soft skills.

There’s a difference between leading a global company and being a global leader. America has a lot of people who can lead a global company, but not so many who can be global leader.

Continue reading… “Why American leaders of global corporations aren’t global leaders”

Analysis, Health & Fitness, Human Behavior

Women are happier in relationships when empathetic partner feels their pain

March 6, 2012

Relationship satisfaction was directly related to men’s ability to read their female partner’s positive emotions correctly.

According to a new study published by the American Psychological Association, men like to know when their wife or girlfriend is happy while women really want the man in their life to know when they are upset

Continue reading… “Women are happier in relationships when empathetic partner feels their pain”

Analysis, Brain, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

Brains of psychopaths are different

November 26, 2011

Brain scans of psychopaths shows differences in structure and function of brain.

Brain images of prisoners show important differences between who are diagnosed as psychopaths and those who aren’t, according to a new study from University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.

Continue reading… “Brains of psychopaths are different”