If we give an isolated community access to the internet, very quickly, the quality of life will improve. Time will be saved, research into proven solutions will produce value, and people will becom… | Continue reading
Security theater is a rule requiring you to take off your shoes when you get to the airport. It doesn’t actually catch anyone, it simply makes people feel more secure, and it allows those in … | Continue reading
Security theater is a rule requiring you to take off your shoes when you get to the airport. It doesn’t actually catch anyone, it simply makes people feel more secure, and it allows those in … | Continue reading
Four years at MIT cost about $250,000 all in. Or, you could engage in more than 2,000 of their courses on their site, for free. What’s the difference? When you do education, you pay tuition, … | Continue reading
Your anecdote isn’t true. I know it happened. I know that your experience, your feelings, your outcomes are real. And they’re yours. Statistics suffer when compared to anecdotes. Becaus… | Continue reading
That’s unlikely. If I’m lucky, I can glance at them. But just for a second or two. Our fears burn so bright that if we truly face them, we think we might be blinded. Of course, we may t… | Continue reading
Is there something you do every day that builds an asset for you? Every single day? Something that creates another bit of intellectual property that belongs to you? Something that makes an asset yo… | Continue reading
If you want to change the mind of a scientist, do more science. Do better science. Get your hands on the data set and prove your assertions. If you want to change the mind of a bureaucrat, bring mo… | Continue reading
Halloween is a month away. And over the next few weeks, a lot of cheap chocolate is going to get bought in preparation for the ringing doorbell. Cheap chocolate is made from beans picked by poor ki… | Continue reading
It’s worth remembering that if someone knows how to do something, that means, with sufficient effort, you could probably learn it too. You might not be willing to put in the time and effort, … | Continue reading
A checklist to get you started—you can either do the same thing or a different thing… More of the same Persist Get the word out Doing something different Change an element of what you do … | Continue reading
When anyone has the ability to announce breaking news, urgent updates, RIGHT NOW, steal attention and emergencies, then sooner or later, many will do just that. Attention is scarce, scarcer than ev… | Continue reading
That’s something worth building. Electricity is a ratchet with leverage. Once communities have access to a little electricity, a solar lantern, say, they quickly discover that they want/need … | Continue reading
But in fact, just about everything is a portrait. It’s our temporary understanding of the world as it is, not an actual experience of it. We see things through our filters, match them to our … | Continue reading
Democracy is a marketing problem. Health is a marketing problem. Climate change is a marketing problem. Growing your organization, spreading the word, doing work you’re proud of–these a… | Continue reading
Supposedly, going against the grain is really difficult. It turns out, though, that it’s far more dangerous to cut with a rip saw, a blade that goes along the grain. It often leads to a botch… | Continue reading
It’s pretty easy to know what you’re doing when you’re doing something that you’ve done before. Follow the path. It’s a lot more difficult when the task ahead is not q… | Continue reading
It’s absurd to trim trees like this. There are high power lines. There’s a helicopter. There are cables. Do the math. It turns out, apparently, that a swinging chainsaw is far safer tha… | Continue reading
The optimists who got excited about the ‘everyone has a microphone’ promise of the Net 20 years ago overlooked two flaws in human nature: First, given sufficient reward (money, attentio… | Continue reading
There’s just one way to become one: Do something creative. It’s a little bit like leaders. What they have in common is that they lead. Simply begin. | Continue reading
It’s tempting to claim the role of artist. Once you’re an artist, you’re free. Free to work your own hours, free to make what you want to make, free to express yourself. Except no… | Continue reading
Going faster increases the chances that you’ll find a landmark and become unlost. This rule has a corollary though: If you’re going the wrong direction, turn around. PS on… | Continue reading
If you’ve ever bought a mattress online, or a private label product from Amazon, you’ve experienced the value created by the last step. That mattress company didn’t make the mattr… | Continue reading
You can go to work offended by the idea that you might traffic in placebos. You can be certain that your aromatherapy, jewelry store, engineering consulting, stereo gear or home improvement practic… | Continue reading
The linchpin faces a fork in the road: You can try to make your job have more. More impact, more responsibility, more leverage. Or you can be industrial about it and try to have your job involve le… | Continue reading
Art is a human activity. It is the creation of something new, something that might not work, something that causes a viewer to be influenced. Art uses context and culture to send a message. Instead… | Continue reading
Not the limit of our skills. Not the limit of our knowledge. Not the limit of our physical capacity… It’s almost always the limits of our internal narrative. Our guts. Our willingness t… | Continue reading
That’s most of what we’ve got. We don’t actually remember much of what happens. Instead, we get what we’ve rehearsed. If we fail to rehearse, the memory will fade. And if th… | Continue reading
Tactics are great. Execution is essential. But a smart strategy is like having the wind at your back. It makes everything easier. Once we dig in on our tactics and invest in execution, it gets emot… | Continue reading
That’s precisely why you’re stuck. Every decision you’ve made, all the status quo you’re holding on to, the fears you have–they’re all reasonable. This is a matu… | Continue reading
People say that as if there’s something wrong with it. In fact, once you become an acquired taste, then those that have done the hard work to like what you make are likely to talk about it, l… | Continue reading
The easiest way to win a poll, rig a plebiscite or generally end up as number one is to have the competing votes split among many similar competitors. Bob Marley was a magical artist, but one reaso… | Continue reading
The eight-hour workday is precious and humane, and difficult to find in an era of always-on communication. But there are two kinds of 9 to 5 jobs. The first one is the industrialized cog. Protect y… | Continue reading
The best way to be in the room where it happens is to be the person who called the meeting. Things rarely happen on their own. Everyone is waiting for you to organize the next thing. | Continue reading
Small business is a resilient backbone of the modern world. Choosing to not simply be the day laborer or the gig worker, but someone who actually owns something. You might own a permission asset… | Continue reading
It’s possible (not easy, but possible) to be a dispassionate observer. To have a sense of what the market wants, of what’s likely to work, of what quality looks and feels like. But not … | Continue reading
Here it is, tested, effective and worthwhile: Stop chasing shortcuts. Personal finance, weight loss, marketing, careers, beating traffic, relationships, education–everything that matters to s… | Continue reading
Everyone else also thinks it’s about them. Everyone else is in a hurry. Everyone else is afraid. Everyone else wonders if they’re being left behind. Everyone else is tired. Everyone els… | Continue reading
Online marketing has become a messy mix of direct marketing, seo, tricks, tips, code and guesswork. It’s an always-moving target and it’s mostly focused on tactics, not strategy, becaus… | Continue reading
“It’s just politics.” No one ever says, “it’s just governance.” Politics is organized sparring about power, without much regard for efficacy or right or wrong. G… | Continue reading
Someone has to win the lottery, it might as well be you. Buying a lottery ticket is economically irrational and emotionally rewarding for some. Because while someone has to win, it’s probably… | Continue reading
Arithmetic is true. It’s true because 1. we accept the terms for what they mean 2. it’s timeless, past and present and future are the same 3. it’s testable In every fourth-grade classroom, th… | Continue reading
It's rampant. The big reason is that we're all impostors. You're not imagining that you're an impostor, it's likely that you are one. Everyone who is doing important work i… | Continue reading
How’d you perform on the sales call? It was great. How do you know? They bought. How did you play? Super. How do you know? We won. Actually, that’s selling your potential short. Even if… | Continue reading
Shun the people who have transgressed against cultural norms. And shun the people who have stood with those people. Shun the people who have a different solution to an urgent problem. Shun the peop… | Continue reading
Giving a talk to three people is easy. No sweat. Giving it to 100 costs you a night’s sleep. Sending an email to six colleagues is normal. Sending a note to a list of 400 is cause for concern… | Continue reading
I’m going to do a live QA and rant today at 10 am NY time. Topic: there’s a difference between reckless, fearless and generous, and once you see it, it’ll help you move forward. Y… | Continue reading
What does it sound like when you put something off? All of us have a catalog of voices in our head. We’ve got the one for feeling behind, the one for not feeling good enough, the one we use when we… | Continue reading