Reading Time: < 1 minHonesty and helpfulness are two virtues that are key to any great relationship, so it’s easy to spot long-term trouble if either of those are weak early on. I personally look for this when evaluating new tools or technology for our company; if it’s difficult to talk to educated sales folks when I’m actively wanting […]
Trust
The incentives of the media have flipped
Reading Time: 2 minI’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 […]
Assumed execution
Reading Time: 2 minI’ve shared a few times how the trust I have for my team can make my life so much easier. Specifically, if I email any of them with a task or question, I can just let it go and be confident that it will be taken care of (or that they’ll respond with follow-up questions, […]
Ruining a good thing by trying too hard
Reading Time: 2 minI remember back in elementary school we had an assignment to draw a map of a fictional city. I worked hard on mine, and it was great! However, I couldn’t leave well enough alone so I kept adding more and more stuff to it until it was a huge mess. Trying too hard created a […]
You are or you aren’t
Reading Time: < 1 minI was recently reading “The Challenger Sale“, and they got to talking about what makes a great sales manager. The book goes into some depth, but this part stood out to me when they were discussing the core attributes of a person (and not their sales skills specifically). From the book: Yet interestingly, we also […]
Fake photos have been a problem for a long time
Reading Time: 2 minIn the past few weeks you’ve probably seen this photo of a little girl holding her puppy during the flooding from Hurricane Helene. You probably also know that it was AI-generated. This type of thing seems like a growing problem, and it is, but I was surprised to see how far back the problem of […]
Satisfying your customers isn’t nearly enough
Reading Time: 2 minSatisfying your customers is a good thing, and it absolutely beats the alternative. In most environments, though, “satisfying” falls far short of where you need to be. In the book “Raving Fans“, the authors argue for this very point: Blanchard and Bowles argue that there’s a clear distinction between satisfying your customers and exceeding the […]
Almost all word of mouth is still offline
Reading Time: 2 minThere are a lot of influences in our lives, but word of mouth is still the top reason why people buy products and services. Ads are important, marketing is important, but people buy most often based on what other people have to say. Of that word of mouth, how much happens online? Most people guess […]
Accurate facts that mislead
Reading Time: 2 minI’ve always been fascinated by accurate stats that can be misleading. For example, Simpson’s Paradox explains why Reggie Miller was more accurate than Larry Bird in both three-point shots and two-point shots, but Bird was more accurate when you combine them. Or you have the fact that Chick-Fil-A is mathematically the fastest drive-thru restaurant, but […]
Using RSS to sniff out AI
Reading Time: 2 minWhile RSS has almost completely disappeared from the tech landscape, I’m still a big fan of it. I get the majority of my information via RSS, and it’s fantastic. If you’re not familiar with RSS, it’s essentially a way to subscribe to news sites and blogs. It’s not unlike getting email updates on every new […]