News: August 20, 2025

EMBER™, the Only Standardized System for Linking Workforce Identity to Growth, Appoints Global Brand Visionary Bret Sanford-Chung to Board of Directors 

Acclaimed CMO, global agency leader, and KPMG executive joins EMBER to scale and accelerate adoption, as the only platform scientifically proven to successfully connect employees, brands, and revenue

New York, NY – August 20, 2025 – EMBER™, the company behind the scientific breakthrough of Collective Organizational Identification (COI™), today announced that Bret Sanford-Chung has joined its Board of Directors. Sanford-Chung, widely recognized as one of the foremost and most influential leaders in modern global marketing, comes to EMBER with a track record of transforming brands, building organizations, and advising senior executives at the highest levels. 

The End of Original Thought? How AI Became the Ghostwriter of the Social Self
Every day, ChatGPT alone pumps out 100 billion words, which is enough to hand every person on Earth a dozen fresh words daily. Meanwhile, on LinkedIn, over 54% of longer English-language posts are probably AI-generated. If you think you're reading personal stories or career epiphanies, think again: more than half may be ghostwritten by a machine.

Once upon a time, posting on the internet was an act of vulnerability. You had to decide what to say, how to say it, and, if you were unlucky, defend it. Every post bore the fingerprints of its creator: typos, mixed metaphors, odd tangents, a tone that could veer from charming to mortifying in a few sentences. These quirks were not flaws; they were human.

Why the Experts Are Wrong: Being Engaged at Work Doesn’t Matter
For years, companies have obsessed over employee engagement—measuring it, managing it, trying to spark it. But what if they’ve been chasing the wrong thing all along?

In 2000, Gallup began regularly reporting on the state of the American workforce. The headline stat—what percent of employees are "engaged at work"—was born. Business leaders latched on. Engagement became the pulse-check of corporate health, a tidy percentage used to justify cultural initiatives, HR investments, and entire departments. But today, 25 years later, the average engagement score in the U.S. is… still just 33%.

EMBER Unveils Collective Organizational Identification (COI™):
A Scientific Breakthrough Powering the First Standardized System for Linking Workforce Identity to Business Growth

Where traditional employee metrics fall short, science-backed COI powers measurable business outcomes and lasting competitive advantage—by Building Companies and Brands from the Inside Out™

New York, NY – June 10, 2025 – After nearly a decade of empirical research into the connection between employee identity and business outcomes, EMBER™ today unveils Collective Organizational Identification (COI™)—a groundbreaking scientific metric at the core of its proprietary performance system. COI™ captures the extent to which employees identify with their job, their company, and the brand they represent—as well as how individuals collectively see their success, values, and identity as intertwined with the company’s purpose and performance. Unlike traditional engagement metrics—which often fluctuate and lack predictive power—COI offers a stable, scientifically validated alternative that directly links workforce identity to brand and business outcomes.​..