On the wall We are story-processing creatures, and the most effective stories are often embodied in people. Living examples of the lesson we're trying to learn and the posture we hope to model. Heroes, mentors, martyrs, examples, icons, avatars, archetypes, and even villains. Sometimes those…

Fake news and trust Celebrity gossip, fortune-telling and superstitions are the original forms of fake news, but now it's increasingly widespread. In every field from science to world affairs, it's troubling to see. People who are familiar with reality can't understand why it's popular--in a…

The sorting Until you look at the system. Kevin Wilson wrote a great short story about the workers who have to sort the tiles that go into a Scrabble box. The hero is responsible for searching through the pile for the letter 'q'. All day. On commission. At this absurd level, it's clear that the…

The squeeze Once a company hits a plateau in its market share, the pressure begins to mount. Investors want more of a return, shareholders want the stock price to go up. Managers pay attention to the metrics they're held to, and the squeeze begins. At first, the squeeze focuses on efficiency. Cut…

Mad magazine autostereogram, cutecore Pop culture is spiralling. I had no idea what "mad magazine autostereogram, cutecore" meant, but it was enough for Midjourney to create this: Older generations have always been left out of the codewords and trends of the makers of pop culture, but the…

“It’s not for you” Nothing important is for everyone. When we encounter a thoughtful critic, we need to quickly understand who is speaking to us. If the work we made was intended for someone just like this, and they don't like it, we need to do a better job next time. The criticism will help us…

“Leave yourself an out” This is the first rule of safe driving. Don't hurtle your car into a jam where you have no options. But the first rule of management and human interaction is to leave other people an out. When you give people a chance to take action that helps them get to where they're…

Not trying very hard This is not the same as not working very hard. In fact, they're very different. We've been indoctrinated to avoid trying hard (too risky and emotionally fraught) and to resign ourselves to working hard (held up as a virtue). People who work in productivity-focused jobs where…

Make and take In a world of automation, AI and outsourcing, what exactly do we do for a living? Perhaps we make decisions. And what's in short supply? A willingness to take responsibility. If you choose to sign up to make and take, there have never been more tools or more leverage available to you.

Room temperature Left alone, a cup of coffee will gradually cool until it reaches room temperature. Stable systems regress to the mean. Things level out on their way to average, which maintains the stability of the system. The same pressures are put on any individual in our culture. Sooner or…

Listen to yourself Here's a useful writing breakthrough that has made a difference for me... Set up an account at ElevenLabs. Create a custom voice by uploading some recordings of yourself speaking. It's not perfect, but it's eerily close. Now, when writing an essay, a book or even a report for…

Assume bugs Of course it's not going to work the first time. You'll need to fix errors in the code. Adjust errors in measurement. Deal with changing conditions. Perhaps there are systems effects no one could have predicted. If we begin a project with the high school mindset of getting a good grade…

“It’s your fault” Those are harsh words. They imply agency, responsibility and failure. The response might be, "I did everything I was supposed to do." Or perhaps, "What should I have done? I followed all the instructions." Agency and freedom go together. We have more choices than we want to…

To be sure Even though yeast is far more reliable than it used to be, many bakers still proof it before investing the time and materials to bake a loaf of bread. The extra few minutes waiting for it to bloom is cheap insurance to avoid a failed loaf a day later. If you need to be sure there are no…

Who eats lunch first Consider the role of status in just about all human interactions. It begins at a primal level--every species cares about access to food and resources. We share a prehistoric history of status based on strength. But civilization is about awarding status on something other than…

Beyond a resolution Consider beginning the new year by subscribing to purple.space. It's a private online discussion group that I started several years ago. A practice keeps a promise. A community of people who support, respect and encourage each other makes it far more likely we'll find our way…

What you don’t know Are entrepreneurs professionals? In professional fields, like law, medicine or accounting, it's expected that you've done the reading. A professional has seen what has come before, understands the best practices and eagerly duplicates effective methods that have been shown to…

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.…