Tight rope standing
It’s much easier to walk a tight rope than it is to simply stand in place. Forward momentum creates stability.
Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect
Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect
That’s what studies are for
“Are you sure it’s going to work?” That’s the wrong question to consider when proposing a study. It’s also not helpful to say, “It’s unlikely to solve the problem.” All the likely
Imagination is work
We spend most of the time we’re in school extinguishing imagination. “Will this be on the test?” is a much more common question than “What if?” We’ve been trained to do tasks in a
The Uncanny Valley
It used to be an obscure oddity, now we all need to understand it. 18 years ago, I posted this image: …and I still can’t get it out of my head. Sorry. Why do we have such a creeped-out reaction
The gap between “I” and “no one”
This is where empathy lies, and it’s an easy chasm to fall into. “I can’t imagine eating durian ice cream,” is not the same as “no one likes durian ice cream.” We fail as marketers,
Popular (and good)
Popular is easy to measure. Good, not so much. Setting out to make something popular requires only a focus on the crowd and on the moment. Most pop music is popular simply because that’s what it
A nearly perfect score
After playing 498 days in a row, my score today in Bongo was the second-highest in the world: There’s a difference between casual online games that have a right answer, and those that are
AI slop
It’s not slop because it was created by an AI. It’s slop because it’s slop. I just read the first two pages of a sci-fi novel on my Kindle. The author proudly proclaims that the 400-page book
How to win a bidding war
Pundits are saying that Netflix “lost” the bidding for Warner. Actually, they won. They didn’t just win because they got a nearly $3 billion breakup fee. They won because in just about every
Justice and luck
Orson Welles may have said, “Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck.” I think it’s more productive to imagine that “Justice is how society deals with luck.” Good and bad.
Love your customers
It’s nice if you do, but it’s not required. You’re not them. You may have had different experiences, been exposed to different ideas or simply be prepared to make different choices. That’s
Time is the wildcard
There are two feet of snow blocking your car from the road. This is a problem. Except it’s not a problem if you don’t need to leave the house for a few days—the snow will melt on its own. And
Sarcasm self-defeats
Sarcasm is an easy way to amplify feedback. It has two hidden costs: If you have confidence in your standing and your idea, then sarcasm is simply getting in the way, because it undermines both.
Blizzard pasttimes
Millions of folks are about to get snowed in. Stay safe. Here’s a code for last year’s Thriving with AI course on Udemy. It’s free for the first 1,000 people. And I see that This is Marketing
Should you keep playing your hit song?
It depends. A freelancer, a brand, a musician–they’re here to serve. If people come to the restaurant for your famous marinara sauce, if new clients hire you to architect your signature style
Brown rice and status
Rice is one of the most consumed foods in the world, and it gives us insight into our relentless search for status and for affiliation. Once rice is harvested for consumption, it’s brown. The outer
“Hide competitive stats”
I’ve been playing an online wordgame for a few months, and after each round, it shows me how well I’m doing against the 10,000 other people who are also playing. It didn’t take long for me to
Freelancer empathy
When phone cameras got good enough, portrait photographers scolded people who took their own headshots. And when the Mac got pretty good at typesetting, professional designers pointed out that people
How to write a coaching/learning prompt
An AI like Claude is actually a pretty good fortune cookie. You can ask a simple question and get a simple answer, sometimes a profound one. But this is a waste of the tool’s potential. The AI is
Misguided optimization
Industrialism brought us the idea of optimization. Incremental improvements combined with measurement to gradually improve results. We can optimize for precision. A car made in 2026 is orders of