More like itself Every year, on the first weekend of the year, it's probably worth replacing the dried spices in your pantry. The best, freshest spices still taste like the spice that's on the label, but they taste more like themselves. That's what successful brands and freelancers do as well.…

The paradox of ‘on trend’ By the time you get around to embracing the fashion of the moment, it's almost certainly too late. The leading edge is defined by the fact that most of us aren't on it.

Bottlenecks An essential feature of every bottle is the neck. No neck, no bottle. There are bottlenecks in every process, every project and every method. Something is limited. We can pretend that's not the case and avoid the discussion. Or we can see it as an opportunity. Successful organizations…

1981 time machine If you went back 45 years, the built world would be eerily similar--the clothes, the cars, even the haircuts. Except you'd quickly notice that there were no personal computers and no smart phones. That for seven or ten hours a day, every day, people were interacting in real life,…

Which kind of ‘enough’? If you buy an Ikea table, you'll need 8 bolts to put it together. 7 is not enough. This is functional sort of 'enough.' It can be critical to our survival. "I have enough medication to last through this illness." "We have enough food to feed our family." But this isn't the…

Library fatigue Perhaps this has happened to you: You're at the reference desk of the library, with the answer to any question available--and you can't think of anything to ask. And there's the vegetable blindness that occurs at a really good farmer's market. After a few stalls, it's hard to…

Warning labels On poison and high voltage wires, the label clearly informs us that this can kill us, right away. For obvious reasons, these are important labels, and generally quite effective. On cigarettes, it's clear that if you smoke long enough, you're going to die, and probably not…

“It’s a bargain” At some point, anything we buy feels like a bargain. Something needs to be worth more than it costs or we wouldn't buy it. So, what makes what you offer a bargain? Is it that you've lowered the price, or have you increased the value?

Building blocks of marketing The Method: Everyone who disagrees with you is right to do so--based on who they are and what they see Attention is priceless and trust is worth even more Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem Don't find customers for your products, find…

Your best work "Feels So Good" and "Chuck E's in Love" were megahits. They transformed the careers of their creators. But any fan of Mangione or Jones will tell you that it's far from their best work. Not even close. And yet, that's what the crowds came to hear. In a long tail world filled with…

All bananas are the same Not just similar. Cavendish bananas (the usual kind here in the US) are all clones, each from a tree grafted from a tree grafted, all the way back, from the first tree of the species in the UK. There are problems with this. Sure, the banana is the most reliable fruit. The…

Popular new ideas They seem like they'll spread to everyone and stick around forever. This almost never happens. In order to spread to everyone, they need to move beyond the people who are looking for a new idea. And that happens when existing users have a powerful reason to tell their friends.…

Random access Under each post on my blog there's a button that says RANDOM. I'll confess that reading posts I wrote ten or twenty years ago is often a surprise. I wrote each one, but I have no recollection of doing so. We can no longer expect that others will experience an introduction to us and…

The Spiderman inversion Uncle Ben told Peter Parker, "with great power comes great responsibility." Some people, hoping to avoid responsibility, insist that they don't have great power. That's a choice, but it might undermine what we're capable of.

Timing your overnight success If it takes three to five years for a project to gain traction, it probably doesn't pay to start a project that the world knows it needs right now. The challenge is picking something the world will need then. And the hard part is patiently and persistently sticking…

“Use your best judgment” Extraordinary organizations have this is as their employee handbook. Resilient ones. Human ones that can thrive in the face of automation and AI. Organizations that are built on customer service, hospitality and flexibility. Of course, this means you'll need to treat your…

Bottomless Some pits are infinitely deep. Problems that, once addressed, always get worse. N +1. For some folks, the acquisition of money or power are like this. A little needs to a desire for more. Other problems have known solutions. The tank only holds 8 gallons and then you can move on to…

Our practice What do you do regularly? Where do you show up, what do you publish? Who do you ask, and what do you answer to? What gets better because you persist? Are there systems you support or work to change? What do you do when you don't feel like it? Especially then. The ocean is made of…

The thing about chess In a typical tournament, you don't score any extra points for winning with the fewest number of moves. Quickly isn't the point.

Filtering ourselves We don't use the same language or ideas with an in-law that we do with our bar buddies. When the internet was young, people often chose to filter themselves online. We didn't know who was on the other end of the pipe, and we knew it would be there forever. And typing feels more…

Better than the cheap alternative Frozen pizza changed the game for many pizzerias. If you couldn't offer something better than what I had in my freezer, what do I need you for? If the wedding photographer can't deliver more magic than the phone in my guest's pocket, no thanks. Does working with…

Taken for granted It's an odd term, worth a look. We don't notice that the tree we planted a few years ago thrives just a bit more each day. We don't notice that the mail shows up when it's supposed to, that our civilization persists in the face of chaos, and that the lights (usually) go on when…

Where did kiwi come from? And shiitake mushrooms, spaghetti squash, ginger and even packaged tofu? In the 1960s, the culture changed, and so did the supermarket. Small markets with fifty or sixty kinds of fruits and vegetables transformed into supermarkets carrying hundreds of varieties. Cooking…

Looking at pareidolia There's a face on Mars. Ever since Viking took this photo fifty years ago, some people have been sure--certain--that it clearly shows a face on the planet's surface. Of course, once we had a high resolution image from a later mission, all resemblance to a face went away.…

9 shortcuts The simple rule: Nine shortcuts take longer and are less productive than simply doing the work the right way the first time. When we look for one-quick-tip and the lazy hack, we're wasting time we could have spent on the direct path instead. When a shortcut becomes the best way to do…

Upgrade available As soon as we see that notice, the current model gets less good. It was fine yesterday, but simply being told that better is available seems to tarnish something that worked. Perhaps "compared to what" isn't always the best question.

If your marketing isn’t working… If you are struggling to get the word out, if customer traction is elusive, if you are always hustling for a little bit of attention, if it feels like you need to spend more money on promotion... It might be that you skipped the important part. Marketing isn't…

Understanding carriage The announcement of the planned Netflix acquisition of Warner Bros, one of the last remaining major studios, is shedding light on a key issue we often overlook when thinking about culture, creativity and creation. Carriage is the term for the method that books, movies, TV…

Avoiding the toxic status loop Organizations and cultures are build on affiliation and organized by status. And that status never stays stable. There's a status loop in some suburbs in how the front lawn looks. A nicely kept yard gets a nod of approval from a neighbor and might be rewarded with a…

1 point away from first place! puzzmo.com/puzzle/2025-...

Actions and beliefs It's tempting to believe that our actions follow our beliefs. That's what we do, it seems, and so others must as well. In fact, just about always, our beliefs arise as a result of our actions. If you want to change what people believe, change how they act.

Bold enough to fail The only theories worth testing are those that are falsifiable--that it's possible for the test to indicate that in fact, the theory is wrong. And the difference between art and illustration is the same. Illustration can't fail. It can be improved, surely, but it's not wrong.…

Simple and obvious… or nuanced and complicated? Some choices seem obvious, while others demand care and insight. And some offerings are simple, while others have depth and multiple variables. As you've probably guessed, the choices that are simple and obvious tend to do best in the mass market.…

The red zone, wasted Sports cars have a tachometer, a gauge showing how close the motor is to melting down. When the revs enter the red zone, performance is enhanced--for a while. Do it too much or for too long, and you'll burn out. In our work, there are two sorts of red zones. Athletes know that…

Mediocre means average Two different ways to consider this: First, in the marketplace, where most people, most of the time, want the thing that most people want. The average one. Exceptional is the exception. Second, in the committee meeting, where the easiest way forward is to sand off…

Rehearsing emotional state If you walk into the Parthenon or paddle at dawn on Joe Lake, it's easy to feel a sense of wonder. And waiting in a long line for an important flight can trigger frustration. But much of the time, our state is automatic. What's your default? Satisfied, bitter, anxious,…

The shard moment of transition When a new technology arrives, it appears unpolished, ill-formed and a bit wonky. As it gains traction, existing industries and processes begin to be threatened, often before their replacements in the new technology are fully ready. This is how Napster showed up for…

Two kinds of useful specifications Professionals use specs to invite others to participate in the work. One kind of spec outlines the solution. In clear language, it defines the work to be done. A good solution spec defines an outcome with no room for error or variety. "It's this. Not that, not…

Build a better alternative to Black Friday About thirty years ago, Jerry Shereshewsky invented "Cyber Monday" as an alternative to Black Friday. The idea was that you'd wait until you got to work on Monday after the Thanksgiving break (where there was high speed internet and you wanted to avoid…

Gratitude and empathy Empathy is difficult. I'm not you, I can't imagine the path you've traveled, the stories you tell yourself and the pressures you're under. But real gratitude requires empathy. Everyone is under the circumstances. Everyone does the best they think they can with the options…

The Prompt Decks are now available We hit 500% of our Kickstarter goal, and they're now available to the public. A lot of folks have answers for us about AI, but these decks are designed to help us with the questions. Not just questions about the systems at work, but about how we might use them.…

The Hotel California (and subscriptions) Every day, this blog is automatically echoed on my Linkedin channel. Over the last few years, the traffic to those posts on Linkedin is down more than 90%. Understandable. Platforms evolve, people shift their patterns and interests. I recently did a manual…

Complex systems Gall's Law is appropriately simple: “A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.”…

Marketing lessons from the Grateful Dead Of course, a book with a title like this gives us pause--when we think of marketers, we don't ordinarily think about Jerry, Phil, Bobby and the rest of the crew. But that's one reason why the insights are so profound. Marketing isn't hype or hustle or…

On meeting spec The most useful definition of quality: It meets spec. The hard part isn't putting in enormous effort to somehow beat the spec. The hard part is setting the spec properly. If you're not happy with the change you're making and the customer experience, change the spec. And when you…

Infantilization The worst sort of powerlessness happens when we're seduced into doing it to ourselves. Waiting to get picked Repeating and rehearsing negative self-talk Only choosing from the available options Refusing to do the reading Not having a budget Not having a timeline Avoiding new ideas…

A convincing argument It's almost never exclusively based on logic. We navigate the world with stories, beliefs and assumptions. And the people you're trying to persuade have a different set of all three than you do. "If I were you" is a hard sentence to sell, because you're not me. A convincing…

Hard work and goodwill The other day, Tom Cruise gave a long acceptance speech. But unlike every other speech of its kind, there were no notes. No rambling. No false starts. He did what he always does--he outworked everyone else. It must have taken weeks to write, rehearse and edit this…

Kinds of stealing Most cultures are built around the idea of private property. Grain is harvested once a year and stored for months. If someone steals the grain (which is difficult to securely lock up), it threatens the livelihood of the farmer and the stability of the community. By the time…

Kinds of value Which is worth more, Kind of Blue from Miles Davis, or the third Boston album? It depends on your taste. I hope we can agree, though, that the fact that Miles spent four days on his album and Tom spent eight years on his is irrelevant. Sometimes, we buy the story of inconvenient…