Jerry Colonna, the quiet coach of so many successful leaders, has his first book out, publishing tomorrow. It’s raw, personal and life-altering. It’s called Reboot. Lewis Hyde, author o… | Continue reading
We spend all day communicating, and we’ve invented a myriad of ways to do it. You can buy a stamp, press a button, rent a room or use a microphone. Choose wisely. Don’t send an email wh… | Continue reading
If your delivery drivers have to do six deliveries a day, they’ll rush from the first moment. They’ll be super efficient at easily measurable metrics. They’ll cut a few corners. I… | Continue reading
If your delivery drivers have to do six deliveries a day, they’ll rush from the first moment. They’ll be super efficient at easily measurable metrics. They’ll cut a few corners. I… | Continue reading
Consider writing. Not plastics. Not Wall Street. Simply writing. As we race toward a post-literate world, the surprising shortcut is compelling indeed: Learn to write. Audiobooks outsell print. AI … | Continue reading
There always is. The song you’re listening to will end, a surprising news story is going to change the status quo and you’ll get feedback you didn’t expect. It’s easy to ima… | Continue reading
That’s how many words get scanned the first time through. Perhaps five on a billboard. Which means that your memo, your ad, your announcement, your post–you get ten words. Highlight the… | Continue reading
Our society separates them. Somewhere along the way, we decided that one interfered with the other. Go to school for 8 years to become a doctor–most of that time, you’re learning about doctor… | Continue reading
Bit by bit, this is how we ended up with our organization, our job, our life. It’s impossible to move forward without them. And so we compromise on schedule, or quality, or on the pace of our… | Continue reading
Decorating a car with bling, mudflaps and an airhorn is a form of signalling. You can show your peers that you have the resources to waste on superfluous adornments. (Did you see what I just did th… | Continue reading
If you are asked a question in a job interview, on stage or even on a date, there’s probably a reason, and the reason might not be because the person asking wants to know your answer. Teenage… | Continue reading
A dozen states in the US have a Junction City. A place with the claim to fame that it’s on the way to somewhere else. You can do well being a stepping stone, a pathway, a place people go to g… | Continue reading
We learn better together. Marketing works. Marketing allows us to make products and services that we care about. Marketing requires telling true stories about our work. Marketing makes change happe… | Continue reading
When you’re traveling ahead of the curve, it’s silly to imagine that the road will be straight and flat. It’s actually more like a cliff. With bumps. That’s all part of the … | Continue reading
When you’re traveling ahead of the curve, it’s silly to imagine that the road will be straight and flat. It’s actually more like a cliff. With bumps. That’s all part of the … | Continue reading
For generations, people dumped crap into the Hudson River. The river was so large and so swift that they assumed that the effluent wouldn’t come back to haunt them. Of course, it did, killing… | Continue reading
If you want to make a long-term impact, build the roads. Stewart Brand points out that if you compare two maps of downtown Boston–from 1860 and 1960, for example–virtually every single … | Continue reading
It’s good news and bad news. The web knows what you like and it’s working hard to surround you with reminders that you’re right. This is good news because it can help an outsider … | Continue reading
It seems like our take on culture is that we’re right. We shake hands properly, use a napkin properly, speak up at events problerly and even greet one another on the street properly. When I&#… | Continue reading
It’s the new part. “How am I supposed to use this?” is the common question. You’re supposed to have a certain tone in your tweets, a certain format to your Facebook posts. Y… | Continue reading
Why do smart people trade away so much money and freedom for just a little convenience? We do it all the time. We take the easy path, the simple shortcut or the long-term bad deal simply because it… | Continue reading
Most people try to win. The real question is, “at what?” If you focus your sights on winning the local bowling league, the effort can consume you, and you will be aware of your progress… | Continue reading
The list of reasons is nearly endless. We need all of them to explain the shortcuts, phone-ins and half-work that we’re surrounded by. All of them are pretty good reasons too. We’re in … | Continue reading
Loosen the constraints on a system and the system will almost always do better in the short run. That’s if we define better as the visible outputs of what the system does. And short run as, &… | Continue reading
Accountability is done to you. It’s done by the industrial system, by those that want to create blame. Responsibility is done by you. It’s voluntary. You can take as much of it as you w… | Continue reading
Best I can tell, most of the folks in the organized crime industry care a lot more about the ‘organized’ part than they do the ‘crime.’ Organized as in: who’s up and w… | Continue reading
If you start a book, you will do better if you have a plan for finishing your book. If you take the time and spend the money to go to college, it’s worth considering graduating as well. Areth… | Continue reading
Civilization depends on the apology. When humans interact and something goes wrong, the apology builds a bridge that enables us to move forward. But apologies are failing more often. Two reasons: F… | Continue reading
It’s not that they don’t know the truth (they might, if they stopped to think about it.) It’s not that they want to know the truth, either. Information is available if they looked… | Continue reading
It’s the blockbusters that get all the hype. The home runs, the viral videos, the hits. It’s the sudden shifts, the ideas that change everything, the fell swoops. Fell swoops seem like … | Continue reading
With enough top-down energy, it feels like the creator of an idea can broadcast it, anytime and anywhere. That enough hype/promo/media/leverage ought to allow a major publisher or network or candid… | Continue reading
“You do it like that?” Every day, we’re at our machines, clicking and swiping and typing. And it’s entirely possible that the methods you’ve developed are costing you … | Continue reading
We have so many forms of “this will only take a minute” inputs. We have Slack, which is optimized for, “yep, I saw that.” We have email, which is optimized for, “I cle… | Continue reading
In 1995, Bo Diddley released his first record. It became a #1 bestseller. The name of the track? “Bo Diddley.” It was a song about a singer and his work. That’s what it sounds lik… | Continue reading
There’s the forever of discomfort. Sasha Dichter taught us about this. The feeling we get during a temporary situation that feels like it’s going to last forever. It’s one thing t… | Continue reading
“Gravity’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.” A truth is a useful, reliable statement of how the world is. You can ignore it, but it will cost you, because the world won&#… | Continue reading
It might be the biggest misconception in all of advertising. The Super Bowl has reach. Google has reach. Radio has reach. So? Why do you care if you can, for more money, reach more people? Why woul… | Continue reading
It lives right next to lifelong learning. Lifelong learning is the mindset of possibility. It is built on the idea that we can grow if we simply show up, ready to learn. Lifelong learning is never … | Continue reading
Industrialism is based on scarcity. So is traditional college admissions. In fact, much of the world as we know it is based on hierarchies, limited shelf space, and resources that are difficult to … | Continue reading
The incoming is coming to you because a while ago, you did something brave and generous and risky. Incoming is great. It’s a reward for your impact. It’s a chance to serve and to make a… | Continue reading
Innovation is essential, but it’s rarely true that we do something that’s truly never been done before. And that means that our work is toward something. We’re making decisions, t… | Continue reading
If you’re imagining your future and then looking back at today through a rear-view mirror, it can wear you out. Writing a book (all caps, WRITING A BOOK) or preparing for a TED talk (already … | Continue reading
You can’t be great at everything. None of us are. The question is: What will you do about it? What will you do about the areas where you don’t have the commitment, time or skill to be e… | Continue reading
There are people in your inner circle who trust you. Family members, close work colleagues, college alumni, dear friends–they will give you the benefit of the doubt. Think twice before turnin… | Continue reading
Maybe. Improvability is a choice. You can build a society, an organization or a family with improvement in mind. Either things are static or we’re putting effort into making them better. Here… | Continue reading
While a high-status college admission confers a measure of status, it doesn’t automatically grant a great education. Sometimes, a student gets both, but not always. Because learning is taken … | Continue reading
The ‘might’ in “this might work.” The ‘might’ of making a generous assertion, one that you can’t be sure of. Might, might, might. It adds up. | Continue reading
The problem with A/B testing is that people don’t like to fail. So they test option A against option B, where both options are quite similar. Blue boxes vs. green boxes. $199 vs. $205. Why no… | Continue reading