Reading Time: < 1 min The word “value” gets discussed and dissected in business quite a bit, but what does it really mean? At the end of the day, it means whatever the customer wants it to mean. I once bought a $5 bottle of Coke and was happy to do it. Given the situation, the value was high. I […]
The value of having social media followers is plummeting
Reading Time: 2 min Over the past few years we’ve seen a slow decline in the value of having “followers” on social media, as the algorithms continue to shift to show content to all users as they see fit. YouTube, while it’s changing quickly, is an example of the old model. More often than not, videos are shown to […]
The Sunday Summary: Spam, summaries, and teamwork
Reading Time: < 1 min In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week. Mon, April 29: “What is spam”, 10 years laterIt’s been 10 years since Seth Godin wrote his famous “What is spam?” post, and things have likely only gotten worse […]
Accept the inevitable
Reading Time: 2 min There are things in this world that we can and should choose to fight against — improving the climate, housing the homeless, and uncovering cures for various diseases. We might not win all of these fights, but they’re good ones to take on. On the other hand, some things are inevitable, mostly related to technology, […]
Failure comes from a failure to imagine failure
Reading Time: 2 min “Be prepared” has been the motto of the Boy Scouts since 1907, and it’s good advice. Being prepared is rarely a bad idea and can help immensely when you unexpectedly need it most. In his book “Clear Thinking“, author Shane Parrish gives some examples of how being prepared makes you a better “problem anticipator”, which […]
Your personal board of directors
Reading Time: 2 min Having a personal board of directors would be amazing. I’m on a few boards with other organizations, but it’d be neat to have my own — I could just have a group of people to call on to answer questions and help me work through things. As it turns out, I have one! Most of […]
Teamwork requires trust
Reading Time: 2 min One thing that I love about having a relatively small team (it’s myself and Ali, and then seven others) that are full-time employees instead of contractors is the trust that can be built. You certainly can build trust with larger teams and with part-time or contract employees, but it gets more difficult. Having people by […]
Summaries can create blind spots
Reading Time: 2 min I’m a big fan of summaries, as they can be a great way to get a lot of information in a short period of time. Blinkist creates fantastic summaries, and I certainly read them quite often. That said, summaries can leave you short. In his book “Clear Thinking“, Shane Parrish shares: Reading a summary might […]
“What is spam?”, 10 years later
Reading Time: 2 min I share a lot from Seth Godin on this blog and in emails to various people, but there is one of his posts that I share far more than others called “What is spam?“ He published it 10 years ago today, and I fear that things have gotten far worse over this last decade. The […]
The Sunday Summary: Cooperation, media creation, and hot takes regarding TikTok
Reading Time: < 1 min In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week. Mon, April 22: Sit quietly in a room aloneIt can be a very difficult thing to do, but can you sit quietly in a room alone? Tue, April 23: […]