Values capture When culture pushes us to measure things that don't matter to us, our values are captured....

Video games, movies and books What's the structure of your project? Here are three paradigms to consider: Video game development is expensive and risky because you're on two frontiers at once....

None of it is important (and all of it is) Steinbeck points out that the stars shine in the sky, regardless of the drama here on Earth....

Art is a verb If a machine makes a painting that no one ever sees, it might be well-crafted or match some objective form of beauty, but it's not art....

Marketing clerks Bookkeepers do important work. But a bookkeeper is not the head of accounting. Marketers are responsible for anything the organization does that touches the market....

How to teach marketing Trick title. There are at least three kinds of "marketing" we ought to be teaching: Marketing from the point of view of the consumer....

Transparency and trust In simple situations with obvious metrics, transparency earns trust. Voting, for example, benefits from audit trails and inspectability....

Professionals know how to talk about it We evolved words on top of our primordial ability to have feelings. Words allow us to be specific, to understand a situation more completely and to teach....

Stop ruining it Paul McGowan makes stereos. To paraphrase his insight: The musicality isn't a feature you add to an amplifier....

Rethinking famous college admissions Even if you're not applying, this thought experiment gives a glimpse into how the world is about to be rewired. The top 10 most selective colleges in the US admit about 5% of those who apply. They're not selling education as much as a label, a rare chance for…

Suboptimal events Any gathering of more than two people involves compromise. Embracing this fact actually increases the utility of the event. It's a trap to commit to making it perfect for everyone--we end up sacrificing what the event could be and creating mediocrity instead. A surprise party…

Doing your job vs doing your work If you're not sure of the difference, you're probably just doing your job. Perhaps, if you're fortunate, your job is in sync with your work. But most of the time, our work is something we have to fight for. It's not something we're given, or apply for. It's what…

“Because you’re the cheapest” If we choose you based on price, please don't be surprised if we leave the moment someone else uses the same tactic on you. Low price is a temporary refuge for a marketer who has run out of useful ways to improve the experience and deliver more value.

Two video upgrades It took me thirty years to populate the bookshelf that's behind me in most of my videos. Most of us don't have the time or patience to do that. At the same time, the wonky computer-generated background many people use on Zoom calls undermines the impact and authority you might…

Unpaid labor It's possible you use social media to grow your business. Or to enhance your career. Or maybe it's to find delight and joy. When you add up all the tikking, tokking, tweeting and clicking, what's the return on that investment? Is your vacation more fun when you spend it taking photos…

Which one do you want? Not, "what do you think you can get?" Not, "what you'd be willing to live with..." Instead: If you were willing to be on the hook for the responsibility (if it works out) and the disappointment (if it doesn't), which one do you actually want? It's harder to answer than it…

Predictions, prescriptions and systems change Moore's Law was stated 60 years ago, but it only became a law once its predictions came true. The reason that your laptop doesn't cost as much as your house is that computer chips get relentlessly cheaper and more powerful. Just as Gordon Moore…

Laughing at you behind your back If that's not happening, it's possible you're not being bold enough, generous enough or creative enough. It might be teenagers, competitors or that stranger down the street, but generous creative leadership always creates skeptics.

The real AI To quote the great Steve Wozniak, "Actual Intelligence." The kind we're born with and can develop if we choose. It's worth more now than ever before. Alas, it's rarely taught in school. The difficult work of making choices. The act of curation. The responsibility of putting your name…

Is it plugged in? If your toaster isn't working, this is the first place to start. A combination of an easy first step and also the likelihood that it's the problem. The troubleshooting for things not working in our interactions with others isn't as obvious, but we can think about it in a similar…

The second thing It's useful and satisfying to have people go along with your wishes and your taste. But hoping that they'll be delighted to do so and thank you for pointing out their previous errors might be asking for too much. It's one thing for people to act as if you're right. It's a whole…

Value creation, bullshit jobs and the future of work We create a job whenever someone with the authority to hire decides the value created is greater than the wages paid. In my lifetime, we've invented 7 billion or more jobs, which is great news. Great for the people who were able to earn a…

The act of Umfunktionierung Another unique German word. Umfunktionierung. Functional transformation. Most of us take the tools we're given and use them as instructed. We follow the manual. We color inside the lines. We accept the functions as defined by those who came before us. But the ruckus…

The night clerk At 2:30 in the morning, the night clerk at the hotel is a great help if you've locked yourself out of your room. But if you want to complain about the hours of the gym, the hotel's environmental footprint or even their late check-in policy, you're almost certainly wasting their…

All right and none the same On a beautiful Sunday in Central Park, you'll see thousands of people out for a jog. Each person has exactly the right running style--and none of those styles are the same. Each is wearing what they think of as the right clothes, listening (or not) to the right sort of…

Perfect or better? We can search for the perfect option or settle for something better than we have right now. The search for perfect never ends, and it's a great place to hide. Would you rather wait for the perfect job, or take this new one, which is better than the one you have? The perfect…

“Here’s a pillow the cat didn’t pee on” Highlighting the non-existent negative is confusing. "Don't be late," isn't as useful as, "We're going to leave on time." "I don't want to be rude, but..." can easily be replaced by simply saying something that isn't rude. And of course, "with all due…

Personally Professionals take their work seriously. Hobbyists can take it personally. We arrive and make a promise. We do it on behalf of the client, and that promise has little to do with what we might want to do--it's what they need us to do. And so we make our promises carefully, and keep them…

Cats & Dogs A dog gets fed and thinks his person is an omniscient, benevolent being. A cat gets fed and thinks it is. How we see ourselves in this analogy is actually up to each of us, every day. It also tells us a bit about how we think about customers, vendors, and partners.

The airplane oath You're flying over Mount Ranier and a hole opens up in the bottom of your airplane. In that moment, you think hard about what you've done, what you're doing, and what matters. My friend Ty actually had this happen. In that moment, she decided to stop wasting her days on a career…

Early rejections Long after the fact, these are the best kind. They remind us of how far we've come. They're proof that not giving up was a good idea. They are fuel for the next thing. But, at the time, they're pretty hard to live with. All we can do is remind ourselves that it's an unskippable…

The shared tragedy of Red Queen hiring Runaway selection happens when organizations compete with each other far beyond the point where it's rational to do so. We see this in species as well--peacocks have ungainly and inefficient feather displays because, as Alice's Red Queen said, "It takes all…

Empathy is difficult It requires skill and effort. It can be taught. And it's worth prioritizing. When we wing it, allocate little time to it or assume it's a side effect of our work, we diminish the effort and blur our focus. "I wonder what it's like to be you" is part of what makes us human, but…

The narrow window of redemption Where did the five-second rule come from? Science makes it clear that if disgusting germs are going to go from the floor to your toast, it's going to take less than five seconds for that to happen. It might as well be the four-minute rule as far as food safety goes.…

Kinds of fast There's the fast of a drag racer. Purpose-built, difficult to steer, expensive and fragile. There's the fast of the marathon runner. Beat by a sprinter every time, but able to keep it up for hours. And the fast of a well-integrated team. Communications, clarity, and respect enable…

Dream physics In our dreams, the laws of thermodynamics don't apply, and gravity works in strange ways. We can jump across a chasm and stick the landing on the other side. This freedom is important. It's part of what makes a dream, a dream. It's not just the physics of moving matter, though. It's…

Your work diary Five short entries a day. A generous act of leadership A thank-you note sent Curiosity explored, or a hard question asked A new skill learned An interaction with a customer or co-worker that increased empathy It's easy to imagine that if you do this 200 workdays in a row, your…

AI together Today, using AI is almost always a solo endeavor. From the very start, forty years ago, the internet (inter + network) has amplified the exchange of information. But the first cycles of AI have been just one person at a time. No one joins in your chats, no one sees them. It's just you…

The best year Here's an interesting thought experiment. Imagine that you would be reincarnated into the soul and body of someone on Earth, 25 years old, at random. You won't know what you know now, you'll simply live their life. What year would you choose? Since it's random, it's not about picking…

Trained equanimity and a bias toward action Pay attention to what's in front of you. Don't let fear contaminate your understanding of the situation. Act with commitment. Notice the gap between event and reaction. Embrace the resources that are available to you. Optimism is a belief about possible…

Just like me, but… The actor, artist, mathematician, pianist, speaker, leader, tech nerd: Just like me, but talented. I'm not so sure. It might be more accurate to say "just like me, but dedicated." The first approach lets us off the hook. The second approach opens the door to possibility.

Nostalgia can be fatal For hundreds of years, nostalgia was seen as a serious disease, with doctors across Europe scrambling for a cure. Hundreds of thousands of people died from it. In the original understanding of the term, it was a sort of homesickness. Soldiers from Switzerland were the first…

“The most exciting mobile trend is full Qwerty keyboards” The creators of the Blackberry were sure that customers loved the keyboard. That's what they heard all day from their users, and it must have been right since they had a huge share of the mobile phone market. When the iPhone came out, it…

One thing at a time Multi-tasking is mostly an illusion. What we're actually doing is slicing our focus, jumping from one thing to another and then back again. All that jumping decreases our productivity and worse, erodes our peace of mind. You're only doing one thing at a time anyway. Might as…

Photoshopping the package I bought a snack food the other day, and was disappointed to discover that the thing inside the container had little in common with the picture on the front. It was pallid, lifeless and drab. The marketer who decided to improve the picture was making a choice, one with…

Puddles When there is motion, it creates an impact of the environment. First, the path is barely noticeable. But then, others see the hint of a path and walk on it, making it more clear. Finally, the path becomes the route. Sometimes there's a small rut. But a rut shifts gravity and wheels or feet…

Warm pistachios In terms of cost, serving a small ramekin of toasted pistachio nuts is a tiny portion of what an airline spends in transporting someone first class. In fact, it's such a relatively small expense that it's easy to simply avoid it. Send the money to the bottom line and focus on the…

Bad money… The expression "bad money crowds out the good" refers to Gresham’s Law. It means that once lesser-quality and counterfeit currency begins to be traded, people hoard the good stuff and only trade the poor substitutes. Social media platforms fall into a trap like this when they seek to…

Breathwork Mindfulness can improve your life. So can stillness and spiritual grounding. This is not a post about that. Breathing is an architectural challenge and a chemical necessity. We breathe about 20 pounds of air a day (and if you've ever tried to weigh air, you can imagine that this is…

Courage vs. excuses There are more available excuses now than ever before. In just two letters, "AI" is a simple, brand-new, all-purpose excuse for laying people off, averaging things down, closing things up and generally finding an easier/quicker path. Courage, on the other hand, is the…