What I'm reading, what I'm noticing, and the handful of ideas I can't seem to put down. Nothing here builds on anything else. Read one, read nine, leave.
We bother because we care. Things that take no effort are hard to value.Robert Hodgin · Why Bother Making Art in the Age of AI
He's working through whether suffering is a prerequisite for making things, and a friend cuts straight past it. I keep turning it over against AI and prioritization. Where does the effort belong? What do I actually care about, and are my hours anywhere near it?
You don't grow by speaking to everyone. You grow by resonating deeply with the right people, who bring others with them.
Not a production job. The work is noticing what keeps coming up, not filling the calendar.
Be curious, not judgmental.Ted Lasso, quoting Whitman
The best content starts with questions. Lead with curiosity and you uncover the nuance, the language, and the truths your community actually cares about.
There usually is one. It's just further down than the brief goes.
We are here on Earth to fart around.Kurt Vonnegut
I feel perhaps overly connected to this. Not to loaf, but to meander. To bump into people and ask what they're up to and why they do it that way.
You can't build a brand narrative on top of a company that hasn't decided what it stands for. Every time I've tried, I've been writing fiction.
Mike Rowe never glamorized the work. What made it good was that he genuinely appreciated the people doing it. Same with customer stories. The interest is in the person, not the workflow.
It starts with working up the courage to go on stage with your note cards, read the room, keep what got a laugh, and cut what died.
You have to bomb a few sets before you find the right message.
Visibility gets someone to the page. Clarity, credibility, and being actually useful are what make them stay, and come back.
Treat your audience like poets and geniuses and they'll rise to the occasion.Overheard, kept since
The right audience finds you. They're also the ones who bring everyone else.
So that when they are, they already believe you.
A year ago I had an idea for a YouTube channel where each video was one step toward building an online audience. The first step: just get started. I filmed it. I edited it. I never worked up the courage to post it.
Good content can feel vulnerable. That's usually the tell that it's worth making.
It reflects how deeply you understand your community and how consistently you show up for them. Nothing else.
I know what good content looks like. Making content that actually resonates takes time, because it takes getting to know the people you're speaking to.
I think if they got to know me, they wouldn't hate me.Pam Beesly · The Office
She's talking about al-Qaeda. I feel that way about every customer and every person working in the same industry as me. If they just heard what I had to say.
It's been a treat. Hundreds of conversations with people doing hard, unglamorous, genuinely important work, and a few years spent trying to build something that represents them well.
Convictions before solutions, an editorial bar that decides what gets made, and a way of shipping rough on purpose. Same thinking, more structure.