“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.

Different Places. Different People. Different Values. - We all have different values but have to interact and collaborate with each other. This is even more true in marketing when we’re working to identify the intersection between our products and services with the people who may need them. Vox published this table that looks at the different values people share around the world. It’s a good illustration of the necessity to forget our expectations and understand where others are coming from (literally and figuratively).

Messaging Trumps SMS - WhatsApp now has 700 million monthly active users and is now 50% bigger than global SMS. Benedict Evans looks at how messaging is unsettling the mobile industry.

Better Than Your Friends Know You - This piece from Quartz shares the results of a new study that shows a computer model is better at understanding someone’s personality traits than friends and family. The study used Facebook Likes to evaluate people and showed the algorithm was more effective at understanding someone than everyone except for spouses.

Do We Really Need a Digital Detox - Claire Cain Miller of The New York Times separates the reality from the myth around the idea that technology is “stressing us out and making us unhealthy."