Reading Time: 2 minI share a lot from Seth Godin on this blog and in emails to various people, but there is one of his posts that I share far more than others called “What is spam?“ He published it 10 years ago today, and I fear that things have gotten far worse over this last decade. The […]
Trust
If you purchase from cold outreach, you’re condoning their behavior
Reading Time: 2 minAs with most of you, I get hit with cold outreach all the time. Cold emails, phone calls, LinkedIn connections, people at our door, etc. While they may occasionally have decent offers, my rule on cold outreach has become very simple — no. Last week I had someone stop by our house to sell us […]
It’s time to confirm your held time
Reading Time: < 1 minThis was a new one for me, coming from a company that I trust(ed). I received the email below, and I was kind of surprised. I didn’t remember setting another appointment with them, but perhaps I had forgotten about it. I hadn’t forgotten, but their goal seems to be tricking people into thinking they had. […]
Looping for understanding
Reading Time: 2 minCharles Duhigg’s book “Supercommunicators” had a ton of great insights in it, and I encourage you to pick up a copy. I have a handful of thoughts that I’ll be sharing over the coming weeks, but this was one of the most interesting to me. So much of communication revolves around simply understanding what the […]
The four ways Google is failing
Reading Time: 2 minThe list of ways where Google is falling short continues to grow, and none of them have to do with AI. Well, maybe some do, but none that I’m talking about today. As I recently shared, Google’s approach over the last few years is very clearly aimed at shareholders instead of users, and it’s going […]
Swipe right on Android to see why Google is heading the wrong way
Reading Time: 3 minGoogle is no longer the darling that it once was. While it’s still clearly a huge, powerful and (generally) helpful company, it’s trending the wrong way. Business Insider compares Google to lumbering giants like IBM, and last year I shared how Google’s treatment of RSS ended up being horrible for the health of the internet […]
Pig butchering for cryptocurrency
Reading Time: 2 minIt’s a weird-sounding name, but you’ve likely seen it happen. You get a weird text from an unknown number, with something fairly innocent like “how are you doing?“, and it slowly evolves into a full conversation. The text is from a scammer, and over the course of a few days they try to build a […]
Artwork is signed because it matters who created it
Reading Time: < 1 minI’ve mentioned a few times on here that I’m not a fan of companies that put a “designed by” link in the footer of websites that they create. Google clearly says not to do it, and putting a link there is entirely for the (misguided) advantage of the designer, to the detriment of the site […]
Dance incoherently or just admit that you don’t know the answer
Reading Time: 2 minI’m a big believer in admitting when you don’t know the answer. That kind of truthfulness in meetings leads to better results, and ideally leads to additional learning by being less wrong than I was before. In “Poor Charlie’s Almanack“, Charlie Munger compares people who think they’re never wrong with bees that don’t know how […]
Legality is not morality
Reading Time: 2 minA few weeks ago, at the encouragement of a friend, I joined a Zoom session with a bunch of marketing folks that meet every month. Previous topics have looked interesting, but my calendar didn’t allow me to attend until this one. The subject this month? “How to improve your cold email outreach.” It was as […]