Category: Zigging when others zag
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How to do things if you’re not that smart and don’t have any talent
Adaobi has many great suggestions about how to make a difference on a team. Here's just one of the great ones. Adaobi's Substack: How to do things if you're not that smart and don't have any talent, 2024-Jan-28 by Adaobi Adibe Most people are super sensitive to being seen as annoying, and that’s the primary…
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Our Favorite Peacenik on the Ukraine War
Nonzero Newsletter: The Ukraine Archives 2023-Feb-23 by Robert Wright: I’m proud of the things this newsletter has published about the Ukraine war—not because I think they’re all great, but because collectively they represent a clear alternative to the perspective offered in mainstream media, where both reporting and commentary have tended to succumb to the conformist…
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Why convincing skeptics is unnecessary
Activate a strong minority instead… Digital Tonto: Change Consultants Recommend You Do These 3 Things. Don’t. 2021-Nov-21 by Greg Satell There is an inherent flaw in human nature that has endowed us with a burning desire to convince skeptics. So it shouldn’t be surprising that change consultants focus on persuasion. Nothing validates a high fee…
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When it comes to building community, go small or go home
For years I've helped companies send hundreds of newsletters to active customers. However, the newsletter that I'm working on now will serve a community. A much different approach is required. You don't want people to click to order–you want them to engage in a conversation. Person-to-person recognition is required, and if the community will really…
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Communicating one-to-few-to-many
A great email subject line is valuable, but targeting your message to the interests and preferences of your audience is even more important. If you can get someone who trusts and supports you to forward a message, that's worth more than a list. Quora: What is a good way to start promoting a church or…
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The Anti-Amazon: T.J. Maxx
A strong commitment to a clearly differentiated strategy is serving T.J. Maxx. One of the hardest things for a business to do is say, "no, that's not our customer," but they know what they're doing in ignoring e-commerce. Forbes: How Walgreens and T.J. Maxx Are Winning With Minimal Online Sales, 2017-May-25 by Barbara Thau The…
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Why the strategies of Google, USAA and Vanguard have been so effective
When we decide how we want to compete, we have to look at how we're going to fit into the market, both from our customers' point of view, as well as from our internal capabilities. Harvard Business Review: Strategic Choices Need to Be Made Simultaneously, Not Sequentially, 2017-Apr-3 by Roger L. Martin The only productive,…
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Unhealthy growth
We seem to have a growing awareness that unbridled growth is not healthy. Signal v. Noise: Exponential growth devours and corrupts, 2017-Feb-27 by David H. Hansson As Douglas Rushkoff says, we need a new operating system for startups. The current one will keep producing the same extractive and monopolistic empires we’ve gotten so far. No,…
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Finding the best clients by cultivating conversations about our processes
Alex Mather points out that moving away from supplying a commodity means finding and nurturing relationships with people who are interested in creating unique and powerful work. Those people will expect a journey and not a product. Red Lemon Club: How to Survive the Biggest Creative Job Decline of All Time, 2017-Feb-1 by Alex Mathers…
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