“Things I’ve Learned from Lately” is a regular compilation of articles that have made me a smarter marketer. Hopefully, they’ll help you, too.

A Better Late than Never Apology – Kate Briquelet writes in the New York Post about a man who apologized to the victim of a mugging the poster committed 35 years ago after recently seeing the victim’s name in a Facebook post. We often see the negative side of a connected society. This shows the potential for good on both a small and large scale.

A New Kind of Identity – Simon Kuper writes that society is shifting from people having professional identities to having less job-focused identities because of factors related to the economy, technology and job satisfaction. This leads to a new middle class separating people who choose their jobs and those who don’t. Those who don’t are less likely and less compelled to have a professional identity, so they supplement their identities with the brands they align with and their personal social media outlets.

Citizen Science Pushing the Boundaries of Exploration - David Lang writes about the potential for citizen science, especially with an increasingly curious segment of the population armed with more ubiquitous technology—the Maker Movement. This group is growing more and more sophisticated, pushing the boundaries for what citizen science means by exploring the ocean floor and even space.