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San Jose City Employees Get Strike-Ready After Several Months of Stalled Contract Negotiations with City Administration

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SAN JOSE, Calif., July 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On Wednesday, July 29, hundreds of San Jose city employees and members of IFPTE Local 21 and MEF-AFSCME Local 101 will attend Strike School to learn what it means to strike and the laws that protect their right to strike. Organization around Strike School comes after months of stalled negotiations between city workers and the City Administration. Workers have signed a strike pledge and held several informational pickets to shed light on San Jose being the most thinly staffed agency in the state, as well as the City’s implementation of AI without any guardrails, which further jeopardizes quality public services. Workers are forced to do more with less across all city departments. This Strike School session comes as the second of two- the first took place on Saturday, July 25, with hundreds of members in attendance.

Who: Hundreds of City of San Jose employees represented by IFPTE Local 21 and MEF-AFSCME Local 101. Spokespeople will be available for interviews before the members-only program.

What: San Jose Strike School Session #2

When/Where: Wednesday, July 29, 2026, at San Jose First United Methodist Church (24 N 5th St, San Jose, CA 95112). The program begins at 5:30 pm; registration begins at 5:00 pm

Visuals: Workers in blue, green, and teal union shirts, with banners and picket signs

BACKGROUND: In June, after receiving the City’s Last, Best, and Final Offer (LBFO) and working to reach a deal before contract expiration and City Council’s summer recess, San Jose workers called for mediation in order to reach a fair agreement.

Now, at the end of July, members of both unions have been without a contract for over a month. Instead of investing in our community, city officials have elected to spend taxpayer money on corporate giveaways through massive contracts with ineffective AI companies and an outrageous $325 million subsidy towards hockey arena renovations. The City could develop a strategy that ensures corporations pay their fair share from benefitting directly from city services. Instead, San Jose insists on cutting taxes for some of the largest corporations that occupy the city, while residents and working families pay more. Workers are preparing to go on strike if necessary.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/san-jose-city-employees-get-strike-ready-after-several-months-of-stalled-contract-negotiations-with-city-administration-302837042.html

SOURCE IFPTE Local 21

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War Room Helps SkiBig3 Grow Revenue 31% with First-Party Data

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New case study details how War Room’s Kedet Intelligence unified SkiBig3’s first-party data, alongside a 17% reduction in ad spend and 51% higher ROAS year over year.

VANCOUVER, BC, Oct. 23, 2026 /CNW/ – War Room, a Canadian digital advertising company specializing in programmatic advertising and data-driven marketing, has released a new case study detailing how it helped SkiBig3 unify fragmented first-party customer data and improve advertising performance through Kedet Intelligence, its proprietary first-party data unification technology.

The case study reports a 31% year-over-year increase in revenue, a 51% year-over-year improvement in return on ad spend (ROAS) to 10.03, and a 17% reduction in advertising spend. While multiple factors contributed to the season’s performance, the implementation of Kedet Intelligence represented a major structural change in how SkiBig3 manages customer data and activates its marketing campaigns.

Discover how SkiBig3 unlocked 8x longer customer memory, uncovered 11,000+ previously invisible guests, and achieved a 10.03 ROAS–all while reducing ad spend by 17%.

Representing three of Canada’s iconic mountain resorts–Banff Sunshine, Lake Louise Ski Resort, and Mt. Norquay–SkiBig3 serves an international audience of skiers and snowboarders. Its challenge was not a lack of customer data, but the inability to connect information across its customer relationship management (CRM) system, booking platforms, website analytics, and advertising channels.

Connecting First-Party Data to Advertising Performance

Through Kedet Intelligence, War Room helped SkiBig3 connect customer information across its existing systems, unlocking valuable insights and more precise audience targeting.

The implementation delivered three key improvements:

8x longer customer memory, extending visibility into historical guest behavior.11,000+ previously invisible guests, uncovering new opportunities for audience engagement.Daily automated audience updates, keeping customer segments current across paid media platforms.

These capabilities gave SkiBig3 a stronger foundation for reaching high-value guests and making more informed marketing decisions.

“First-party data is really about knowing our skiers better and using that knowledge to improve the full experience. If we get that right, they’ll come back with more friends,” said Pete Woods, President of SkiBig3.

Improving Attribution Across the Customer Journey

Travel decisions often involve months of research, multiple touchpoints, and bookings made close to departure. For SkiBig3, this made understanding the full customer journey particularly challenging.

By connecting first-party customer data with advertising platforms, War Room helped SkiBig3 improve audience targeting, strengthen conversion measurement, and gain a clearer view of advertising performance beyond individual platform reports.

“Ad platforms change their rules every year. A clear view of your own customers is the one strategy that holds up no matter what changes next,” said Mike Tyler, CEO of War Room.

Why First-Party Data Matters for Travel and Tourism Marketing

As customer journeys become increasingly complex, travel and tourism brands need more than disconnected platform data to make informed marketing decisions.

SkiBig3’s experience highlights the value of bringing customer intelligence and paid media together to support more effective acquisition, retention, and long-term growth.

About War Room

War Room is a Vancouver-based paid media agency specializing in programmatic advertising and data-driven performance marketing. Through strategic planning, real-time optimization, and its proprietary ad tech platform, Kedet, War Room helps brands scale and maximize return on ad spend. A Google Premier Partner and certified Google Marketing Platform Partner, War Room works with clients including SkiBig3, the Vancouver Whitecaps, and the Vancouver Canucks. 

www.warroominc.com 

SOURCE War Room Inc

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Miami Startup BOB Raises $5.5M To Build An AI-Powered Banking Platform

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The Miami-based company is building the most useful small business finance agent and banking platform in the world, with participation from Codie Sanchez, Mark Pincus,  and others.

MIAMI, Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — BOB AI Holdings Corp. (“BOB”), the AI finance employee for small business, today announced it has raised $5.5 million in seed funding. The round was led by Mischief (founder of Plaid, Zak Perret), with funding from Peter Thiel and participation from Codie Sanchez, Mark Pincus, Karman Ventures, and a group of additional investors and operators. BOB will use the capital to expand its product, grow its team in Miami, and bring a free AI finance agent to more of the small business owners who keep the American economy running.

The seed round brings together investors who share a conviction that small businesses deserve the same caliber finance department g that large companies take for granted. Mischief led the round, and Peter Thiel joined as a backer alongside Codie Sanchez, the investor and operator known for championing Main Street business ownership.

The funding follows BOB’s private beta launch in September 2026 and will support three priorities: deepening the product’s financial capabilities, scaling customer onboarding, and growing BOB’s team in Miami.

BOB is an AI finance employee that works alongside small business owners to handle the annoying but necessary financial work that usually eats their nights and weekends. Owners talk to BOB the way they would talk to a trusted bookkeeper or CFO, over WhatsApp, text message, Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, or the BOB app. BOB keeps the books, sends invoices, accepts payments, holds funds in a deposit account, and helps owners see where their cash is headed so they can make decisions with confidence.

BOB’s long-term goal is to be the most useful banking product in the world, and a banking product specifically built for this new world of AI agents, robots, and drones. But they are getting started by building the most useful and safe financial agent for small business owners. And instead of handing owners another dashboard to learn, BOB just does the work for them and communicates in plain language.

BOB’s wedge has been particularly effective because the company is laser-focused on small business owners who have largely been underserved by the wave of financial technology built over the last five to ten years. Many of those products were designed for the general market or for enterprise finance teams, and they assume the owner has time, training, or staff to run them. BOB starts from the opposite assumption. The owner of a roofing company, a restaurant, or a local services firm should be able to get real financial help without hiring a department to get it.

“Small business owners have been an afterthought for most of the financial technology built over the last decade,” said Adam Wininger, CEO of BOB. “They are running the business, doing the work, and then staying up late trying to make sense of their books. We built BOB to take that work off their plate entirely. Our goal is simple: to be the most useful banking platform in the world, and this funding lets us put our free CFO agent, BOB, in the hands of many more owners.”

“We invest in infrastructure that becomes indispensable, and a financial layer for autonomous agents is one of the clearest examples we’ve seen,” said Dustin Moring, General Partner at Mischief. “BOB is attacking an immense market at the exact moment AI is moving from advising on transactions to executing them. We’re proud to lead this round and back Adam and the team as they build the foundation agent banking will run on.”

About BOB

BOB AI Holdings Corp. is a Miami-based company building BOB, the AI finance employee and banking platform for small business. BOB handles bookkeeping, invoicing, payments, and cash flow for small business owners through the channels they already use, including WhatsApp, text message, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. BOB’s mission is to build the world’s most useful banking product in the world. Learn more at joinbob.ai. Disclaimer: BOB AI Holdings Corp is a financial technology company, not a bank.

Media contact

Joel Strauss – joel@strausscomms.com 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/miami-startup-bob-raises-5-5m-to-build-an-ai-powered-banking-platform-302918254.html

SOURCE BOB AI Holdings Corp

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Union Home Mortgage unveils AI and automation advancements during 2026 Annual Partner Celebration

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The mortgage lender continues to make major technology investments going into 2027

STRONGSVILLE, Ohio, Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Union Home Mortgage (UHM), a high-growth independent mortgage banking company with a world-class culture, recently unveiled an array of AI and automation-driven technological achievements during the company’s 2026 Annual Partner Celebration held Oct. 16-17 in Cleveland, Ohio. This world-class event brought over 850 UHM employees, known internally as Partners, together to highlight the lender’s year-to-date business results, set goals to multiply business success, and foster connection between colleagues. Most notably, technology took center stage, highlighting advancements made in 2026 and a sneak peek at what is coming next.

Attendees were given an inside look at the next phase of technology shaping the business, with demonstrations of both newly implemented tools and future-focused prototypes. These innovations, ranging from conversational voice agents for enhanced customer support to the elimination of tedious manual document review, showcased the transformative potential of technology and underscored the lender’s ongoing investment in smarter, more efficient workflows.

“What makes this event so meaningful is the chance to celebrate our Partners and the impact they have on our business and culture,” said Bill Cosgrove, CEO of Union Home Mortgage. “By creating opportunities for open dialogue and idea-sharing, we’re able to strengthen our culture and identify new ways to move our business forward. As we look ahead to 2027, we remain focused on our 3X initiative, empowering our Partners with the resources, technology, and support they need to achieve more while continuing to deliver a world-class experience for our borrowers. Technology will be the key to UHM’s future, and I can’t wait to see what new solutions are developed in time for our next Annual Partner Celebration.”

While this year’s Annual Partner Celebration was heavily focused on technology, the event also featured senior leadership across all departments and business channels taking the stage to share updates on critical areas such as sales performance, servicing, benefits, employee recognition, and more. UHM Partners also took part in a panel discussion and Q&A with CEO Bill Cosgrove and Sr. Vice President of Business Development Al Blank. In addition to those attending in-person, the rest of the mortgage lender’s 2,300 Partners streamed the event virtually across the country. Following the event, attendees were invited to attend a celebratory carnival featuring casino-style games, a golf simulator, Family Feud, a custom t-shirt press, and more – earning raffle tickets to win high-value prizes. The lender also raffled off tickets to the MLB American League Championship Series being played at Progressive Field, as Union Home Mortgage is the Official Mortgage Partner of both teams that played in the series – the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cleveland Guardians.

Throughout the week, Partners also attended individualized leadership summits specific to their department or role within the company, as well as a Hard Stops Summit aimed at examining existing hard stops in the loan process to streamline operational efficiency.

Internal loan officer coaching program Partners Coaching Partners (PCP), which pairs each participating loan officer with a high-performing mentor and an accountability partner at their production level, also held their Fall PCP Impact event on October 14-15. The group aims to equip members with the skills and knowledge to increase productivity, generate leads, finetune the origination process, improve teambuilding, and increase profit margins. Next year, the PCP program will celebrate its twentieth consecutive PCP Impact event, cementing its status as a pillar of Partner development at UHM.

About Union Home Mortgage
Union Home Mortgage Corp. (UHM) is a high-growth, full-service retail, wholesale, and consumer direct independent mortgage banking company with branches across the U.S. in 49 states + D.C. UHM is an in-house loan servicer offering world-class customer service through high touch communication & technology. A privately held family business, with a collaborative culture that stands out in the mortgage industry, UHM Partners (employees) are guided by a Code of Conduct that emphasizes respect, open communication, and accountability. All these principles translate to industry-leading customer retention and satisfaction. Some honors include being a Six-Year USA TODAY Top Workplace and a Twelve-Year Northeast Ohio Top Workplace. Learn more at www.uhm.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/union-home-mortgage-unveils-ai-and-automation-advancements-during-2026-annual-partner-celebration-302918265.html

SOURCE Union Home Mortgage

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