I asked Google Gemini about the last decade of Google’s relentless push to make blogs less popular. It wrote: Your timeline is spot on. The systematic destruction of the independent web’s infrastructure didn’t start with modern AI; it began directly with the death of Google Reade … | Continue reading
Birthdays are a little overrated. I’ve never met anyone who was more than a passive participant in their birth, but anniversaries represent a choice. Every year, we can commemorate a commitment we made and then decide to recommit. Anniversaries aren’t just romantic. The day you t … | Continue reading
Thirty years ago, Cory Doctorow did an interview showing primitive inklings of the internet future (music, videos, etc.). At the time, it was easy to dismiss it as an irrelevant toy, and most people in power did just that. Around the same time, I wrote an article for Direct Marke … | Continue reading
A 100-foot long boat that’s 99% complete is going to sink before it leaves the dock. That gaping hole is more than enough to do it in. On the other hand, a baked ziti that’s 99% as good as the best baked ziti ever made is exactly good enough to serve in any setting. Mediocrity [… … | Continue reading
We have more agency and choice than we know. And sometimes, when the awareness of our freedom arrives, it’s too late to reclaim the opportunities we missed. Some of the walls around us are real—built by people who have no right to build them, who profit from our staying put. And … | Continue reading
[A long riff on book publishing with (perhaps) wide applicability to your work as well.] Publishing is different from writing—it’s the hard work of creating the conditions to help people get in sync, move forward, and get to where they’re headed. The best reason to publish a non- … | Continue reading
It’s pretty astonishing how far people will go to announce various forms of status: The list has little to do with money spent or money in the bank. Humans care about status and affiliation. We’ve spent our lives being very good at noticing both. | Continue reading
There are more than a million podcasts. The good news is that it’s easy to start one. The top 1% of all podcasts account for 99% of all downloads. That means that if your goal is reach, the long tail isn’t going to help much. The short head, even in a medium as wide open […] | Continue reading
When tech shows up, it offers a shortcut and convenience. You can use Google Maps to direct you somewhere without paying much attention to the surroundings. You can use Claude to write your marketing copy and get a better-than-mediocre result the first try. You can look for a gif … | Continue reading
No one cares about it as much as the person who’s planning it. Some folks waited in line for the first iPhone, but not many. It’s tempting to try to bend the curve and put the ‘grand’ into ‘grand’ opening. But that usually creates disappointment. In any population, only a few fol … | Continue reading
There have always been trolls. Hecklers, jesters, and class clowns. The troll lives under the bridge and invents nonsense grievances in order to get attention. But, until recently, there wasn’t much of a business model to support this career choice. It’s said that William Randolp … | Continue reading
Every day, about 16,000,000 hours of tennis are played. The percentage of that devoted to tournament play approaches zero. So why is informal tennis built on a zero-sum model? In a game, every shot is designed to have the opponent fail. The goal is to have your opponent miss the … | Continue reading
When culture pushes us to measure things that don’t matter to us, our values are captured. Once the metrics turn a profit for corporations and those in power, they are amplified, and almost overnight, begin to matter to us, even if they run contrary to what we originally set out … | Continue reading
What’s the structure of your project? Here are three paradigms to consider: Video game development is expensive and risky because you’re on two frontiers at once. The tech frontier, trying to do something with hardware that hasn’t been done before, and the game mechanics frontier … | Continue reading
Steinbeck points out that the stars shine in the sky, regardless of the drama here on Earth. Perspective fools us into believing that our point of view is primary, but it’s not difficult to imagine a more distant (or closer) one that would change everything. The service at table … | Continue reading
If a machine makes a painting that no one ever sees, it might be well-crafted or match some objective form of beauty, but it’s not art. Art changes the creator and the viewer. Art requires participation. Art is a verb. Decoration is important. Beauty matters. But decoration and b … | Continue reading
Bookkeepers do important work. But a bookkeeper is not the head of accounting. Marketers are responsible for anything the organization does that touches the market. But many people with ‘marketer’ in their title simply go to meetings and do tasks after the real work of marketing … | Continue reading
Real artists do all the painting themselves, not like Rembrandt Real artists use brushes, not technology like Cartier-Bresson Real writers write it out by hand, not like Jack Kerouac Real musicians record it live, not like Steely Dan Real singers sing without processing, not like … | Continue reading
Trick title. There are at least three kinds of “marketing” we ought to be teaching: Most organized marketing instruction is about the first or second, with some online courses teaching hustle and hype, which I don’t count as marketing. My best work is about the third kind, the on … | Continue reading
In simple situations with obvious metrics, transparency earns trust. Voting, for example, benefits from audit trails and inspectability. But transparency can also undermine trust. Walking through the typical restaurant kitchen on the way to dinner probably won’t increase the typi … | Continue reading
We evolved words on top of our primordial ability to have feelings. Words allow us to be specific, to understand a situation more completely and to teach. Our hunches and feelings still matter, but professionals choose to be able to talk about their work. Learn the words and then … | Continue reading
Paul McGowan makes stereos. To paraphrase his insight: The musicality isn’t a feature you add to an amplifier. It’s what’s left when you stop ruining it. To expand: Customer delight isn’t something we add to our projects. It’s what’s left if we don’t ruin it. Curiosity isn’t simp … | Continue reading
Even if you’re not applying, this thought experiment gives a glimpse into how the world is about to be rewired. The top 10 most selective colleges in the US admit about 5% of those who apply. They’re not selling education as much as a label, a rare chance for someone to slot them … | Continue reading
Any gathering of more than two people involves compromise. Embracing this fact actually increases the utility of the event. It’s a trap to commit to making it perfect for everyone–we end up sacrificing what the event could be and creating mediocrity instead. A surprise party migh … | Continue reading
If you’re not sure of the difference, you’re probably just doing your job. Perhaps, if you’re fortunate, your job is in sync with your work. But most of the time, our work is something we have to fight for. It’s not something we’re given, or apply for. It’s what we choose to do. … | Continue reading
If we choose you based on price, please don’t be surprised if we leave the moment someone else uses the same tactic on you. Low price is a temporary refuge for a marketer who has run out of useful ways to improve the experience and deliver more value. | Continue reading
It took me thirty years to populate the bookshelf that’s behind me in most of my videos. Most of us don’t have the time or patience to do that. At the same time, the wonky computer-generated background many people use on Zoom calls undermines the impact and authority you might be … | Continue reading
It’s possible you use social media to grow your business. Or to enhance your career. Or maybe it’s to find delight and joy. When you add up all the tikking, tokking, tweeting and clicking, what’s the return on that investment? Is your vacation more fun when you spend it taking ph … | Continue reading
Not, “what do you think you can get?” Not, “what you’d be willing to live with…” Instead: If you were willing to be on the hook for the responsibility (if it works out) and the disappointment (if it doesn’t), which one do you actually want? It’s harder to answer than it sounds. | Continue reading
Moore’s Law was stated 60 years ago, but it only became a law once its predictions came true. The reason that your laptop doesn’t cost as much as your house is that computer chips get relentlessly cheaper and more powerful. Just as Gordon Moore predicted. But perhaps it wasn’t a … | Continue reading
If that’s not happening, it’s possible you’re not being bold enough, generous enough or creative enough. It might be teenagers, competitors or that stranger down the street, but generous creative leadership always creates skeptics. | Continue reading
To quote the great Steve Wozniak, “Actual Intelligence.” The kind we’re born with and can develop if we choose. It’s worth more now than ever before. Alas, it’s rarely taught in school. The difficult work of making choices. The act of curation. The responsibility of putting your … | Continue reading
If your toaster isn’t working, this is the first place to start. A combination of an easy first step and also the likelihood that it’s the problem. The troubleshooting for things not working in our interactions with others isn’t as obvious, but we can think about it in a similar … | Continue reading
It’s useful and satisfying to have people go along with your wishes and your taste. But hoping that they’ll be delighted to do so and thank you for pointing out their previous errors might be asking for too much. It’s one thing for people to act as if you’re right. It’s a whole o … | Continue reading
We create a job whenever someone with the authority to hire decides the value created is greater than the wages paid. In my lifetime, we’ve invented 7 billion or more jobs, which is great news. Great for the people who were able to earn a living, and productive for everyone who e … | Continue reading
Another unique German word. Umfunktionierung. Functional transformation. Most of us take the tools we’re given and use them as instructed. We follow the manual. We color inside the lines. We accept the functions as defined by those who came before us. But the ruckus maker asks: W … | Continue reading
At 2:30 in the morning, the night clerk at the hotel is a great help if you’ve locked yourself out of your room. But if you want to complain about the hours of the gym, the hotel’s environmental footprint or even their late check-in policy, you’re almost certainly wasting their t … | Continue reading
On a beautiful Sunday in Central Park, you’ll see thousands of people out for a jog. Each person has exactly the right running style–and none of those styles are the same. Each is wearing what they think of as the right clothes, listening (or not) to the right sort of music, goin … | Continue reading
We can search for the perfect option or settle for something better than we have right now. The search for perfect never ends, and it’s a great place to hide. Would you rather wait for the perfect job, or take this new one, which is better than the one you have? The perfect leade … | Continue reading
Highlighting the non-existent negative is confusing. “Don’t be late,” isn’t as useful as, “We’re going to leave on time.” “I don’t want to be rude, but…” can easily be replaced by simply saying something that isn’t rude. And of course, “with all due respect…” is often the preface … | Continue reading
Professionals take their work seriously. Hobbyists can take it personally. We arrive and make a promise. We do it on behalf of the client, and that promise has little to do with what we might want to do–it’s what they need us to do. And so we make our promises carefully, and keep … | Continue reading
A dog gets fed and thinks his person is an omniscient, benevolent being. A cat gets fed and thinks it is. How we see ourselves in this analogy is actually up to each of us, every day. It also tells us a bit about how we think about customers, vendors, and partners. | Continue reading
You’re flying over Mount Ranier and a hole opens up in the bottom of your airplane. In that moment, you think hard about what you’ve done, what you’re doing, and what matters. My friend Ty actually had this happen. In that moment, she decided to stop wasting her days on a career … | Continue reading
Long after the fact, these are the best kind. They remind us of how far we’ve come. They’re proof that not giving up was a good idea. They are fuel for the next thing. But, at the time, they’re pretty hard to live with. All we can do is remind ourselves that it’s an unskippable [ … | Continue reading
Runaway selection happens when organizations compete with each other far beyond the point where it’s rational to do so. We see this in species as well–peacocks have ungainly and inefficient feather displays because, as Alice’s Red Queen said, “It takes all the running you can do … | Continue reading
It requires skill and effort. It can be taught. And it’s worth prioritizing. When we wing it, allocate little time to it or assume it’s a side effect of our work, we diminish the effort and blur our focus. “I wonder what it’s like to be you” is part of what makes us human, but [… … | Continue reading
Where did the five-second rule come from? Science makes it clear that if disgusting germs are going to go from the floor to your toast, it’s going to take less than five seconds for that to happen. It might as well be the four-minute rule as far as food safety goes. But it’s comp … | Continue reading
There’s the fast of a drag racer. Purpose-built, difficult to steer, expensive and fragile. There’s the fast of the marathon runner. Beat by a sprinter every time, but able to keep it up for hours. And the fast of a well-integrated team. Communications, clarity, and respect enabl … | Continue reading