Memorize the system or just let the learnings wash over you?

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As I read more and more, I come across a lot of great systems for business structures, meeting cadences, and many other little tools that can be useful to know.

For example, the “SMART” framework is a great way to set goals: Make sure that your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. That’s one I’ve worked to memorize.

Another would be Kim Scott’s concept of “Radical Candor” and the various angles around it, which Kim unpacks in this short video here:

For items like that, I put them in my Anki flashcards and slowly learn to memorize them. However, I come across so many frameworks that it’s not really helpful (or even possible) for me to memorize all of them. Still, it can be helpful to understand most of them to gain overall understanding and contribute to making me who I am.

A recent example came from a friend of mine on LinkedIn who shared the “5 Levels of Development” (Survive, Sustain, Scale, Succeed, Steward). It’s a great framework, and got me to think about our business a bit more, but I don’t think it’s worth memorizing as I don’t see a case for needing to be able to recall it in a moment’s notice.

There’s still a lot of gray in there, though. Is any given system worth taking the time to memorize? I don’t have a clear line for what is and what isn’t, so I take them individually.

Do you have a benchmark for determining what’s worth memorizing versus what’s worth just getting a basic understanding of?

Merry Christmas

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If you celebrate Christmas, I wish you a wonderful day full of presents and friends.

If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I wish you an excellent day of quiet and rest.

Our body and mind tend to recharge when unplugged (the opposite of our devices), so may all of your batteries be full today.

No one expected AI to hit white-collar jobs first

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The idea of AI has been floating around for decades, but it’s only in the past few years that we’ve really started to see it come to life. As it turns out, the historical ideas of how AI was going to work had everything backward.

It can be hard to see that far into the future.

It’s kind of like when Marty McFly visited 2015 (from 1985) in “Back to the Future Part II”. The movie created wild visions of what 2015 might be like but they missed the biggest one — cell phones. If you watch the movie, not a single person in 2015 has a cell phone in their hand. To be fair, there were very few people who could have predicted that, but it feels very strange from our viewpoint in time.

It’s similar with AI. If you look back to shows like “The Jetsons”, they had a clear vision of the future — they had Rosie the robot to do all of the housework, but George had to push buttons all day long to help build space sprockets. Today is exactly the inverse.

In a recent episode of Guy Kawasaki’s “Remarkable People” podcast, he had a show featuring Bill Gates and his thoughts on the state of the world. It was an excellent episode and I encourage you to give it a listen, but one thing that Gates said really stood out to me:

“It was widely assumed that AI and robots would come for warehouse work first, not writing legal briefs and code.”

While there are some warehouse-capable robots, most of that work is still done by humans. Conversely, writing code and legal briefs are tasks that are relatively simple for today’s AI models to handle. It’s not super clear-cut, but it’s certainly far from the “robots will do chores first, and write code much later” idea that most people had running around their minds.

It seems likely to balance out in the coming years, but it’s super interesting that things started this way instead of the way that everyone assumed it would unfold.

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The incentives of the media have flipped

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I’ve long heard people (including myself) long for the days of the “old” media, where you had broadcasters like Walter Cronkite that were less biased than the media today. It seems to be true, and the problem today is one of incentives.

Years ago, it was in the interest of media outlets to stay in the center and be a reliable source of information. Everything was vanilla because there weren’t many choices; if a news anchor drifted too far toward an edge, it’d be troublesome.

Today it’s the opposite, with millions of options to choose from. People are seemingly forced to pick a side and those that try to remain moderate get squashed. Being extreme (on either end) is where the audience and the money lies.

In a recent episode of Seth Godin’s “Akimbo” podcast, Seth laid it out like this:

And so you’ve got anti-vaxxers who are actually hurting the lives of children, putting stuff up on Facebook with no actual scientific proof about what they’re saying. But because it touches a nerve and because it’s easy to spread, they get a bigger audience. And there’s little or no incentive for them to become conservative about their point of view because the more extreme they make it, the more of an audience they get.

And so if we are chasing popularity or chasing monetization, the pressure has flipped. It has flipped from being a reliable curator who doesn’t take payola, who is very careful about what they are picking because they want a reputation for being careful about what they’re picking, to a different environment. Amazon did the same thing with the Kindle.

The lack of moderate viewpoints is becoming a bigger and bigger problem, and it’s not an easy fix. Social media algorithms reward extreme content, which makes it tough to solve. My two hopes:

Whether you like Bluesky or not, I hope that their approach will do good things for our future. Are you on there yet?

The Sunday Summary: Misusing AI, presenting with Word, and knowing your own boundaries

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In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.

Mon, December 16: There’s no copying, there’s just execution
“There’s no copying. There’s execution. I promise whatever anyone who’s watching right now thinks somebody copied them on something, you copied someone else. So I don’t need that.”

Tue, December 17: The two greatest misuses of AI
AI has some fantastic uses, but if you’re using it to replace your learning or to make life worse for others, that’s not good.

Wed, December 18: Present with Word, not PowerPoint
An interesting take from Jeff Bezos on why you should run your presentations with Word and not with PowerPoint.

Thu, December 19: What is the boundary of your understanding?
“Imitators don’t know the limits of their expertise. Experts know what they know, and also know what they don’t know. They understand that their understanding has boundaries, and they’re able to tell you when they’re approaching the limits of their circle of competence. Imitators can’t. They can’t tell when they’re crossing the boundary into things they don’t understand.“

Fri, December 20: Businesses don’t need to be moral to succeed
“There are many different business models. I have spent 20 years encouraging people to look at an overlooked one. It is the business model of trust and attention, of generosity and care, the business model of humanity, of being the one who’s worth paying extra for, of being the one we would miss if you were gone.”

Sat, December 21: Evidence versus intuition
As discussion leader, it was liberating to ask the questions but not give the answers. In fact, I found it strangely powerful. And when the students spouted off their views and interpretations of the story, it was thrilling to look them straight in the eye and say, “Do you have any evidence to support that claim?” Initially, they looked terrified. But they quickly learned that the cost of an opinion was evidence.

I hope you found some value in this. If you ever have questions, ideas, or disagreements regarding anything I write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Evidence versus intuition

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Over the past two weeks I’ve heard two opposing takes on trusting your intuition, and it’s been interesting trying to match them up.

First, I was listening to an episode of the Founders podcast about Oprah Winfrey, which covered her rise to fame. When she was first looking to start her talk show, people told her not to waste her time trying because Phil Donahue was already dominating and couldn’t be beat. She was confident that she’d succeed because both of their audiences were largely female, and her perspective and her intuition on topics would lead to success. She was clearly correct.

On the flip side, I saw this quote while reading the book “Multipliers“:

As discussion leader, it was liberating to ask the questions but not give the answers. In fact, I found it strangely powerful. And when the students spouted off their views and interpretations of the story, it was thrilling to look them straight in the eye and say, “Do you have any evidence to support that claim?” Initially, they looked terrified. But they quickly learned that the cost of an opinion was evidence.

So which wins — evidence or intuition? It’s a tough call, and I think the answer is situational. I see this with my team from time to time when they suggest ideas: sometimes with evidence and stats, and sometimes just with intuition.

When it comes to marketing, a frustratingly large portion of what we learn comes in the form of intuition versus data, particularly as attribution becomes harder to track. There will be more and more cases where reliable data isn’t possible, leaving you no choice but to default to intuition.

However, if you have data, bring it. More importantly, if you have evidence and the other side doesn’t, you win!

Businesses don’t need to be moral to succeed

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There are a lot of ways to run a business and make good money in a way that is fair to everyone. There are also ways to run a business that are manipulative and exploitative, and those can make good money as well. A great example would be those companies that are using AI to make life worse for all of us, but are probably succeeding — at least for now.

In a recent podcast episode from Seth Godin, he explained his take on things:

The business model of building an asset around acting like a leader. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only business model. There have always been business models exploited by capitalists that don’t meet most of our standards for how moral leaders ought to lead.

He also explains that where there are a lot of different business models, one direction is clearly better than the other:

There are many different business models. I have spent 20 years encouraging people to look at an overlooked one. It is the business model of trust and attention, of generosity and care, the business model of humanity, of being the one who’s worth paying extra for, of being the one we would miss if you were gone.

You can work to make things better for everyone, or you can work to take as much as you can for yourself. I hope you choose the right one.

What is the boundary of your understanding?

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Knowing your limits is one of the best ways to grow. If you know where your understanding ends, you can choose to develop further in that area (if you want to), or accept help when things get beyond your grasp.

I first shared this a few years ago when talking about “Alex” and “Joan”, and Joan’s lack of understanding of her own skills.

I saw this again recently in Shane Parrish’s book “Clear Thinking” when he shared:

“Imitators don’t know the limits of their expertise. Experts know what they know, and also know what they don’t know. They understand that their understanding has boundaries, and they’re able to tell you when they’re approaching the limits of their circle of competence. Imitators can’t. They can’t tell when they’re crossing the boundary into things they don’t understand.“

While my knowledge in many areas is quite low, I try to recognize where the boundaries are. Shane mentioned the “circle of competence”, which I mentioned in that post above, where he pointed out that the more we know, the more we don’t know. Specifically, from Albert Einstein:

“as our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it“

Since your “circumference of darkness” always grows, it’d be foolish to try to ever capture all of it. However, simply recognizing that it exists and knowing where your edges are will leave you far wiser than those that “know it all”.

Present with Word, not PowerPoint

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PowerPoint (and Keynote and Google Slides) can be a powerful tool, but it’s very often misused. Beyond just presentations, I’ve seen it used to design layouts and even create logos. However, it can be even worse when people use it to avoid having to really think through an issue.

In the book “Working Backwards” about the history of Amazon, they share some thoughts on why Word can be a better choice for sharing information than PowerPoint.

First, Edward Tufte offered some advice on how to get started:

“Making this transition in large organizations requires a straightforward executive order: From now on your presentation software is Microsoft Word, not PowerPoint, Get used to it.”

Jeff Bezos explained further:

“The reason writing a good 4 page memo is harder than “writing” a 20 page PowerPoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what’s more important than what, and how things are related. PowerPoint-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas, flatten out any sense of relative importance, and ignore the interconnectedness of ideas.”

As shared in a Forbes article from a few years ago, this works because Bezos starts every leadership meeting with 15 minutes of silence while everyone reading the document that explains what they’re here to discuss.

Of course, that’s not to say that PowerPoint has no value. I still use it frequently when presenting to groups, and I intend to for the foreseeable future. I think it might be weird to start a presentation for a business group by asking everyone to take a few minutes to read a handout first, but maybe not. It’d be different, for sure, but could it be effective in that kind of situation or does this only really work for focused leadership teams?

The two greatest misuses of AI

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I’m using AI more and more in the work I do. I talk with ChatGPT quite often, I generate many of my “featured images” for this post using AI, and I’m always looking to do more with it. However, I’m noticing two recurring patterns of AI use that are making things worse.

The first is using AI to replace learning. There are many things that I still do 100% by hand (including writing every word on this blog) because my goal is to learn. I think that schools are falling behind by not integrating more AI into the classroom, but it’s certainly a difficult balance. Students need to learn to take advantage of AI, but they also need to develop their own critical thinking skills. It’s a tough time to be a teacher.

The second is using AI to make life worse for others. As I shared a few days ago, many people are using AI to generate piles of spam for the rest of us. They’re not necessarily looking to “make life worse for others” as they just see it as “doing better at promoting their company”, but it’s both. Their promotion is likely doing better, at least for a very brief period of time, but they’re making life worse for everyone else.

I encourage you to test out AI tools and use them to improve your productivity, but I encourage you to not use it to replace your learning or to take shortcuts at the expense of others. Both of those are very easy to do, and they require intentional focus to avoid.