"It was magical."

Reading this article reminds me of how important it is to be exposed to the world, to have a chance to see a new environment, and to have the opportunity to richly consume life.

Reading this reminds me of the power of wonderment, the power of not knowing, and the power of asking a simple "can I?"

Brilliant.

This article won't create as much earned media as POTUS speeding down a test track in an F-150 Lightning, but this article will make a bigger dent in the universe.

Total brilliance by the Detroit Free Press and the communications team at Ford Motor Company.

Read Detroit Free Press: Experiencing the Ford F-150 Lightning through the eyes of a young journalist - click here.

Allegra Blackwood, 13, interviews Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co., at Ford World Headquarters on Wednesday in Dearborn before the F-150 Lightning reveal. Photo: Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press

The Huddle - Episode 19 - Electric Trucks, Masks, and the Middle East

Has the Biden team been so focused on their domestic agenda that they have started to drop the ball on other issues like diplomacy and the pandemic?

A bungled policy change on masks and stalling on the tense situation in Israel raises some doubts.

At least the President still looks cool in his aviators when driving a cool car.

But is that enough?

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Marc Ross

https://www.caracal.global/​

Brendan Kownacki

http://kownackimedia.com/​

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#TheHuddle is an inner circle analysis of the personalities and tactics that will aid Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States, on a quest to form an effective government.

As the new President configures his top tier of advisors, the question is a simple one -- who would you want in your Huddle when the going gets tough?

CEO + Corporate Expectations

Good data here.

Plus relevant to anyone having C-suite conversations on the expectations from various stakeholders of their leaders and institutions to address civic and political issues.

According to this year's spring update to the Edelman Trust Barometer, mistrust is continuing to grow in a world still very much in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decline of trust across all institutions persists, according to the online survey of more than 16,800 people in 14 markets around the world from April 30 to May 11. The index also referenced data from earlier Edelman surveys and, in some cases, made comparisons among subsets of data from the overall research.

Government trust surged 11 points to an all-time high of 65 percent, making it the most trusted institution for the first time in our 20 years of study.

Plus, people expect corporations and CEOs to continue addressing the most pressing social and political issues even after the pandemic is over.

Other highlights:

+ Businesses are now the most trusted institution in the world, a role they assumed mid-way through the pandemic once people realized governments were ill-equipped to develop and roll out vaccines alone.

+ Globally, the majority (60%) of people say their country will not be able to overcome its challenges without business' involvement.

+ Most people (77%) said their employer had become their most trusted institution, which has put much more pressure on CEOs to prioritize societal and political issues in addition to business outcomes.

+ Roughly 80% of employees, on average, expect their company to act on issues such as vaccine hesitancy, climate change, automation, misinformation, and racism.

You can access the updated analysis here.