The Curious Engineer

Seth's Blog

2014–2016

1,163 posts

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2016 380

December 2016

  1. After your first job
  2. When your phone uses you
  3. Moving a conversation forward
  4. Shared reality, shared goals
  5. Today’s a great day to dig in for next year
  6. Your mileage may vary
  7. The wrong side of history
  8. Is it a note worth playing?
  9. When everyone is in favor…
  10. No one knows anything
  11. The last-minute, just-in-time, change-things gift solution: books
  12. Avoiding bottlenecks
  13. We are all biased
  14. “I don’t know the first thing about this issue”
  15. You’ve reached the beginning
  16. It’s never enough
  17. Times 10
  18. The road to imperfection
  19. Omotenashi and the service split
  20. Tricked into playing the wrong game
  21. When your marketplace shifts
  22. Two quality spirals worth avoiding
  23. Most vs. Enough
  24. One way to think about talent
  25. Two kinds of winning
  26. “Missed it by that much”
  27. Catching up on your reading
  28. Community standards
  29. The other person is always right
  30. The myth of quick
  31. Pushiness
  32. Understanding the backlist (for everything, including books)
  33. The best way to stand for something
  34. Which kind of truth?

November 2016

  1. Plasticity
  2. The FLASH drives
  3. Sort by price
  4. Hobson’s choice, Occam’s razor, Wheeler’s which and the way we decide
  5. On demand vs. in stock
  6. Finding the thread
  7. Choose better
  8. All we have is each other
  9. The yeasayer
  10. Limited, unique & educational
  11. The powerful seduction of ‘powerless’
  12. Is it possible there was a misunderstanding?
  13. The magic wand store is closed
  14. Batteries not included
  15. The memories we rehearse are the ones we live with
  16. The confusion about enough
  17. It’s not the bottom, it’s the foundation
  18. New: A master class in value creation
  19. Empathy is a bridge
  20. Education is the answer
  21. Hang in there
  22. What do you see?
  23. Rolling up our sleeves
  24. Resilience
  25. If not now, when?
  26. The next one or the last one?
  27. How they talk you out of voting
  28. The next one in line
  29. And when it breaks?
  30. What if the curves were going the other way?
  31. Plenty of room on the island
  32. The idea awareness cycle

October 2016

  1. A dark chocolate sampler
  2. What does the poll say?
  3. On your toes
  4. Decoding pro wrestling
  5. Two kinds of filters
  6. One way to get a raise
  7. Fear of outsiders
  8. On being irritated
  9. Moral hazard and inhumanity
  10. Hardware is sexy, but it’s software that matters
  11. Beating yourself up
  12. Pet peeves
  13. Making a new decision based on new information
  14. Differences
  15. You’re invited to an all-day Q&A in New York in December
  16. Ketchup and the third-party problem
  17. Corrosion
  18. Your discomfort zone
  19. Cutting through the clutter
  20. What would happen…
  21. Cable news
  22. Now is never (but here comes tomorrow)
  23. Fpo
  24. Visualize the leaks
  25. “Here, I made this”
  26. The chance of a lifetime
  27. Do what you’re good at, or…
  28. Breakage vs. references
  29. Indomitable is a mirage
  30. Enough ethics?
  31. Unweasonable
  32. Overdraft protection

September 2016

  1. Dropping the narrative
  2. Fully baked
  3. The ripples
  4. Wedding syndrome
  5. Spectator sports
  6. Anxiety loves company
  7. Looking for the trick
  8. Skills vs. talents
  9. For the weekend…
  10. Widespread confusion about what it takes to be strong
  11. Big fish in a little pond
  12. Three things to keep in mind about your reputation
  13. Understanding taxonomy
  14. The opposite of the freeloader problem
  15. The post-reality paradox
  16. But how much does it cost?
  17. The professional pushes back
  18. The clown suit
  19. A value creation checklist
  20. What’s at the bottom of the river?
  21. Erosion
  22. A tunnel is a cave with a light at the end
  23. Make something great
  24. Teaching certainty
  25. A hierarchy of value when everything functions
  26. Could a book be worth $400?
  27. Commodities
  28. The paradox of the flawless record
  29. Endless September (10 quick rules)
  30. Throwing money at it
  31. Justifiable

August 2016

  1. Self-starters, needed
  2. Big company advertising
  3. Features and marginal cost in the digital age
  4. Most projects end with a whimper
  5. Speed is relative
  6. Expectation is the brand killer
  7. Demand guardrails
  8. In pursuit of cheap
  9. Graceful degradation
  10. Temperament is a skill
  11. “The main topic that’s been on everybody’s mind”
  12. Marketing in four steps
  13. Joint ownership
  14. Pattern matching as a shortcut to growth
  15. Bureaucracy, success and the status quo
  16. Function (and the dysfunctional organization)
  17. Don’t argue about belief, argue about arguments
  18. The lottery winners (a secret of unhappiness)
  19. Without training wheels
  20. Uniquely unique
  21. Three things about good jobs in a new economy
  22. I knew it!
  23. Is patience a skill?
  24. A parody of yourself
  25. The two risk mistakes
  26. It happens around the edges
  27. Scientist, Engineer and Operations Manager
  28. Conservation and concentration of effort
  29. Enough small moments
  30. “I think we are an outfit headed for extinction”
  31. Reviewing a contract
  32. The struggle to raise money

July 2016

  1. Narratives keep the feeling going
  2. Empathy is difficult
  3. Just because you’re right…
  4. Your best shot
  5. Profit and loss
  6. In search of palliatives
  7. What have we become? (And what are we becoming?)
  8. “So simple it doesn’t need instructions”
  9. Managing the gap
  10. “You can not make a spoon that’s better than a spoon”
  11. Singular isn’t about scale
  12. Living with what happens next
  13. The very same software
  14. Objections vs. excuses
  15. A drop in the bucket
  16. The second time you create that breakthrough
  17. Defeat, defend or transform
  18. The flip is elusive
  19. To earn our attention, there needs to be tension
  20. Effort
  21. First chance, best chance
  22. Good decisions (and sunk costs)
  23. Speed is relative
  24. The top of the pile
  25. It’s never been as easy to be an intellectual
  26. The computer, the network and the economy
  27. No one is unreasonable
  28. The signals we send
  29. Consider reconsidering
  30. We are all home schooled
  31. Compliance is quite different from contribution
  32. What makes it art

June 2016

  1. Chump (Don’t get played)
  2. A dollar more (vs. a dollar less)
  3. The benefit of the doubt
  4. Don’t tug on capes, share them
  5. Uninformed dissent
  6. Not enough ‘if’ or not enough ‘then’?
  7. The problem with complaining about the system
  8. Taking notes vs. taking belief
  9. Bigger for?
  10. “So busy doing my job, I can’t get any work done”
  11. You can’t ask customers what they want
  12. The saying/doing gap
  13. “The way we do things”
  14. Stretching without support
  15. The ruby slippers problem
  16. It’s not a race
  17. “Things have gotten a little quiet…”
  18. Raising the average
  19. Shields up
  20. “But where’s the money?”
  21. The marketing we deserve
  22. Your job vs. your project
  23. “Um” and “like” and being heard
  24. Try better
  25. On knowing it can be done
  26. A ten-year plan is absurd
  27. Neophilia and ennui
  28. Add engines until airborne
  29. All mirrors are broken
  30. Read more blogs

May 2016

  1. Wasting our technology surplus
  2. The possibility of optimism (the optimism of possibility)
  3. Problems
  4. The originality paradox
  5. Beware the gulf of disapproval
  6. Pretty, cheap and well-rounded (three misunderstandings)
  7. Transitions
  8. There is more than one solution to your problem (and your problem is real)
  9. Breakpoints
  10. More than ten is too many
  11. Metaphors aren’t true
  12. The other kind of harm
  13. Our bias for paid marketing
  14. The short run and the long run
  15. Identity vs. logic
  16. Using video well
  17. Actually, more data might not be what you’re hoping for
  18. Amplifying social proof
  19. The momentum myth
  20. The toddler strategy
  21. Striking a chord
  22. The problem you can’t talk about
  23. On being treated like an adult
  24. Rigor
  25. Calling your finding
  26. Unlimited bowling
  27. The most common b2b objection (and the one we have about most innovations)
  28. “What do I owe you?”
  29. Learning from the rejection
  30. Duck
  31. How to use a microphone

April 2016

  1. Errors in scale
  2. Your money and your future
  3. Closing the gate
  4. Transformation tourism
  5. Just a little more
  6. Perfect; could be better
  7. The tidal wave is overrated
  8. The other kind of power move
  9. Supply and demand
  10. Turning paradoxes into problems
  11. Processing feedback
  12. Numbers (and the magic of measuring the right thing)
  13. Abstaining
  14. It feels risky
  15. Awareness, trust and action
  16. I am not a brand
  17. Apocalypse soon
  18. The foggy mirror
  19. Finding your big magic
  20. Sharpening failure
  21. Conspicuous mediocrity
  22. Our software must get better
  23. Going the distance
  24. Choose your role
  25. None of the above
  26. An interesting alternative to primaries
  27. And what else will you lie about?
  28. Depth of field
  29. More powerful than you know
  30. Treating your talk as a gift
  31. All the events you weren’t there to control…
  32. The choke points
  33. Actually, the truth isn’t up to them

March 2016

  1. Considering the nocebo
  2. Time for a new model?
  3. Big questions before little ones
  4. Short order cooks rarely make change happen
  5. The train is coming
  6. Hacking reciprocity
  7. “I agree in principle…”
  8. The fundamental mismatch error
  9. When will you get to Ramsgate?
  10. What are you competing on?
  11. Coercion
  12. Survey questions
  13. No choice
  14. Would you rather…
  15. Show your work
  16. Hot: A theory of propulsion
  17. The slippery slope
  18. Links, shared
  19. While waiting for perfect
  20. The difference between confidence and arrogance
  21. Self awareness in the face of marketing
  22. Galvanized
  23. Give up and go up goals
  24. Are they ready for you yet?
  25. Freedom and responsibility
  26. The dominant narrative
  27. Listening to smart vs. I’m with stupid
  28. On saying “no”
  29. Special orders don’t upset us
  30. The front row culture
  31. “Will this be on the test?”
  32. Reading between the lines

February 2016

  1. A whole year? Yes, a whole year for leaping.
  2. The irrational thing about trust
  3. Instead
  4. Intuition
  5. When creativity becomes a profession…
  6. Worth thinking about
  7. The thing about “wolf!”
  8. Managing the very small business
  9. Prep, spec, fit and finish
  10. The realest thing in our lives
  11. How to talk about your project
  12. A manifesto for small teams doing important work
  13. For those unwilling to think deeply…
  14. Crowd pleaser is not the only option
  15. “I’ve got this”
  16. It’s not your turn, is it?
  17. How to deal with seams
  18. Live at Carnegie Hall
  19. Milton Glaser’s rule
  20. At the edges, it all falls apart
  21. The Leadership Workshop—one more time
  22. Pattern recognition is not the same as pattern matching
  23. Audience participation
  24. “I”, “We” and “You”
  25. What investors want
  26. “There’s no need for alarm”
  27. Anchoring can sink you
  28. Loose/tight, thoughts on management
  29. The thrill is gone
  30. Living with your frustum

January 2016

  1. Fit and finish
  2. 3-D printers, the blockchain and drones
  3. “But what will I tell the others?”
  4. The mythical 10x marketer
  5. Without a doubt
  6. “When I want your opinion…”
  7. Eventually, snow melts
  8. All my best posts are the posts I haven’t written
  9. The client and the customer
  10. On average, averages are stupid
  11. Instant yes
  12. Obvious or elegant?
  13. Deconstructing urgent vs. important
  14. Volunteer engagement
  15. Fear is easy, hope is real
  16. The first fifteen minutes
  17. 1, 2, 3, 9
  18. It’s all a mistake
  19. Resilience
  20. The top things
  21. Ten questions for work that matters
  22. Hiding
  23. Getting ahead vs. doing well
  24. How to teach science
  25. Where does leadership come from?
  26. No direction home
  27. The crowd, your work, and a choice
  28. Who is us?
  29. Software is testing
  30. When to charge by the hour
  31. Expectations

2015 386

December 2015

  1. Fighting entropy
  2. It’s not a problem if you prepare for it
  3. Surefire predictions
  4. Is it too little butter, or too much bread?
  5. One big idea
  6. Business ethics, ripples and the work that matters
  7. Very good results (and an alternative)
  8. Let’s build a school
  9. Powering a digital future
  10. Half measures
  11. Training and the infinite return on investment
  12. Living in a high-stakes universe
  13. The edges
  14. The next
  15. Decoding “who is it for?”
  16. Paying the smart phone tax
  17. Regrets as fuel
  18. Shopping
  19. Three elements to go beyond hourly freelancing
  20. Centered and complete
  21. When things go wrong
  22. Light on your feet
  23. Quantum content and blurred lines
  24. Making a new decision
  25. The last minute
  26. Full speed, then stop, gracefully
  27. The joy of whining
  28. Why scale?
  29. Expecting the unexpected
  30. Understanding the doublings
  31. Just passing through
  32. Running out of room (length vs. density)
  33. The paradox of popular

November 2015

  1. What does branded look like?
  2. About to be
  3. Past performance is not indicative of future results
  4. Unconscious consumption
  5. The vulnerability of ‘thank you’
  6. The end of the future is premature
  7. All cases are special cases
  8. Thanksgiving reminder
  9. Is productive the same as busy?
  10. Did you do the reading?
  11. A reason persuasion is surprisingly difficult
  12. Yes, in my backyard
  13. Your big break
  14. Saying vs. doing
  15. Natural light
  16. A Thanksgiving Reader
  17. Surveys and focus groups
  18. Iceland
  19. The initiator
  20. Falling down the quality abyss
  21. Alumni updates
  22. Your progress report
  23. Certain failure
  24. Advertising’s hidden design and its impact on our culture
  25. The simple way to get better at business writing
  26. Variations on stupid
  27. Idiosyncratic
  28. Should we pander?
  29. Some people hate change
  30. Who is this for?
  31. Election day
  32. It’s not your fault

October 2015

  1. Witch hunts make no sense
  2. Symbolic logic
  3. Entitlement vs. worthiness
  4. The other element of guerilla marketing
  5. Bravery is for other people
  6. 70% re-orders is a sweet spot
  7. First, interact
  8. Are you interesting?
  9. Selling like Steve
  10. Gravity and entropy, denied
  11. The two-review technique
  12. The coming podcast surplus
  13. Offense and defense, a b2b insight
  14. Too much salt
  15. What are corporations for?
  16. The power of fear
  17. Does vocabulary matter?
  18. Infrastructure
  19. When in doubt, draw a bell curve
  20. Simple questions for writers
  21. Discovery day
  22. Peak Mac
  23. Narcissistic altruism (altruistic narcissism)
  24. “No one clicked on it, no one liked it…”
  25. Going to the edges
  26. Sloppy ties
  27. Alphagrams
  28. Promotion, demotion and opportunity
  29. Sometimes, you have to believe it in order to see it
  30. Bikes and cars
  31. On feeling like a failure
  32. Choose your impact

September 2015

  1. Susdat
  2. For less than it’s worth
  3. Thanks, let’s write that down
  4. The 2% who misunderstand you
  5. More of a realist
  6. Attitude is a skill
  7. Industrializing, professionalizing, scaling…
  8. The banality of the magazine rack
  9. #WeAreAllWeird (3 contest updates)
  10. Dreams and fears
  11. Tires, coffee and people
  12. Pathfinding
  13. Ad blocking
  14. Rejection-seeking as a form of hiding
  15. Serving size
  16. When did you give up?
  17. Hello, London
  18. The patina of books and the magic thrill of a new idea
  19. Shouting into the wind
  20. Another chance to start over
  21. Will this be on the test?
  22. A fly on the wall
  23. How idea adoption works–The Idea Progression
  24. Which part do you disagree with?
  25. Back to school
  26. Three changes in marketing
  27. Taking it personally
  28. Special orders
  29. On doing your best
  30. Rearranging our prejudices
  31. No one knows
  32. “Don’t touch it, you might break it.”
  33. Failing, again

August 2015

  1. Day traders rarely make history
  2. Contempt is contagious
  3. The average
  4. Scientific Management 2.0
  5. The strawberry conundrum
  6. Embarrassed
  7. The one thing that will change everything
  8. Sooner or later, the critics move on
  9. Looking for change in all the wrong places
  10. After you’ve done your best work
  11. Trends vs. Fads
  12. Agreeing on the problem
  13. Glow in the dark
  14. The interim strategy
  15. The permanent rules
  16. Fired up
  17. Pattern matching
  18. Grit and hard work
  19. What and how
  20. Empathy
  21. Compared to…
  22. The simple rule for successful online apps
  23. “I didn’t do anything”
  24. Superstition at work
  25. Make three lists
  26. The squeaky wheel problem
  27. The illusion of control
  28. The other kinds of laziness
  29. Self cleaning
  30. Show us the pictures
  31. Yes!, please and thank you

July 2015

  1. On adding a zero
  2. Three things that make CEOs stupid
  3. Notes, not received
  4. Predicting the future isn’t easy
  5. What is your art?
  6. Thoughts for the consigliere
  7. “Can we talk about this?”
  8. In search of your calling
  9. Opposition
  10. You have no credibility (yet)
  11. Are you ready?
  12. “I’ll take care of it”
  13. Preparing for a shark attack
  14. An alternative to believing in yourself
  15. “Because it has always been this way”
  16. Raising money is not the same thing as making a sale
  17. In search of metaphor
  18. Shadows and light
  19. The technology ratchet
  20. Bounce forward
  21. Telling, not showing
  22. I’m afraid of that
  23. Happy birthday
  24. Debt
  25. Unreasonable
  26. Templates for organic and viral growth
  27. Comparison, escalation and the golf clap
  28. Interesting
  29. Embellishments
  30. “All other difficulties are of minor importance”
  31. More pious
  32. Announcing my candidacy

June 2015

  1. What happens when things go wrong?
  2. The rejectionists
  3. Buzzer management
  4. A corollary to ‘Too big to fail’
  5. Pugilists
  6. Pulling a hat out of a rabbit
  7. The tragedy of small expectations (and the trap of false dreams)
  8. “Did you win?”
  9. New times call for new decisions
  10. The problem with holding a grudge
  11. You will rarely guess/create/cause #1
  12. Kneejerks
  13. How, why and the other thing
  14. Plenty more
  15. Abandoning perfection
  16. Overpriced
  17. A good bucket brigade
  18. The unknowable path
  19. Every marketing challenge revolves around these questions
  20. Overcoming the extraction mindset
  21. Name calling
  22. The tension of now
  23. Control or resilience
  24. High resolution is not the same as accurate
  25. Holding the umbrella
  26. The Debate Channel
  27. Blah, blah, blah
  28. The fruitless search for extraordinary people willing to take ordinary jobs
  29. The critic as an amateur hack
  30. Word of mouse
  31. Marketing to the organization

May 2015

  1. Not all who are lost, wander
  2. Pain and money and b2b selling
  3. Do-able
  4. Taking names
  5. What is a sale for? (48 hours)
  6. Degrees of freedom
  7. The do over
  8. We are all social entrepreneurs
  9. When you do work that matters, the crowd will call you a fool
  10. But do you want to get better?
  11. How to win an argument with a scientist
  12. You don’t know Lefsetz?
  13. Is it meeting your needs…
  14. Unlimited scale
  15. Why do you do it this way?
  16. Politicians, patriots and statesmen
  17. How to go faster
  18. Can we talk about this?
  19. Choosing what’s possible: Your turn to grow
  20. Non-profits and stories that matter
  21. Imperfect substitutes
  22. A new way to move forward
  23. Toasted
  24. “But how can you be sure?”
  25. A hierarchy of organizational needs
  26. Do you want our apathy?
  27. Capitalism vs. lock in
  28. Pretty websites
  29. The two books
  30. Telling the truth with charts
  31. Are you certain that you’re trapped?
  32. (re)Radical
  33. The angry teenager (your customer?, your boss?)
  34. Discovery fatigue

April 2015

  1. The naked corn paradox
  2. I didn’t see it because I wasn’t looking
  3. Good design (and serial numbers)
  4. Product adoption: different problems for different folks
  5. To overcome an irrational fear…
  6. Terroir
  7. Reckless abandon (is neither)
  8. Thanks
  9. People are real, but the crowd disappoints
  10. Demand higher standards
  11. The freelancer course is here
  12. The difference between mass and banality
  13. Seen, heard, gotten, changed
  14. “What have you got?”
  15. What if you stopped?
  16. I am ‘anti-business’, you might be too
  17. Are you feeling lucky?
  18. “I’m not the kind of person who…”
  19. Hope and expectation
  20. The noise in our head (and artificial intelligence)
  21. Five steps to digital hygiene
  22. Why not?
  23. Enthusiasm and contempt are both self-fulfilling
  24. Two heads or one?
  25. Try before you buy (or buy, then try)
  26. Categories
  27. A practical definition of reputation
  28. Customer service and luxury
  29. The hard part about surfing
  30. The selfish truth about word of mouth (why referrals don’t happen)
  31. When specialization starts to pay off (and the danger of getting it wrong)
  32. Different kinds of magic

March 2015

  1. Direct marketing (and the other kind)
  2. The panic tax
  3. Self talk
  4. ‘Pick yourself’ and taking responsibility
  5. Hypergrowth
  6. Active listening
  7. What is customer service for?
  8. Of course it’s difficult…
  9. Things we don’t see that much any more
  10. The tyranny of random numbers
  11. Companies don’t care about you
  12. How long is your long term?
  13. The difference between commitment and technique
  14. Spring forward
  15. Along for the ride
  16. When push comes to hug
  17. The one who makes things worse
  18. Double and half (freelancer math)
  19. Magic and irrational
  20. Apologies, owed
  21. Privilege
  22. Pumpkin seeds
  23. Avert your eyes
  24. More trouble than it’s worth
  25. Job creation/job destruction
  26. The narcissism of minor differences
  27. “That can’t be a legal parking space…”
  28. Samples and shipping and more
  29. The asymmetry of decay
  30. Labor unions in a post-industrial age
  31. The circus is coming to town
  32. Stupid is the brand killer
  33. Sorry confusion

February 2015

  1. If you want…
  2. Here comes ‘uh oh’
  3. The indirect investment (plural)
  4. ‘Connect to’ vs. ‘Connect’
  5. Shoes that don’t fit (and free salt)
  6. “Leap First” is now available
  7. Ruckusmaker day
  8. The trolls inside
  9. Mass production and mass media
  10. Pitchers and hitters
  11. And then you confound them again
  12. Kicking and screaming (vs. singing and dancing)
  13. “We need to hate them more”
  14. The first rule of web design
  15. “I just made a fool of myself”
  16. Measure what you care about (re: the big sign over your desk)
  17. Is Google making the web stupid?
  18. The enemy of creativity…
  19. The truth about sunk costs
  20. “I’m sure it’s probably going to happen”
  21. Variance or deviance?
  22. How we watch video now
  23. We don’t care enough to give you constructive feedback
  24. The DoSomething lessons
  25. A bird in search of a cage
  26. Give the people what they want
  27. Curiosity plus an audio book –> smarter
  28. The productivity pyramid (give yourself a promotion)
  29. Almost no one

January 2015

  1. The end of geography
  2. What do you want?
  3. Various updates
  4. The truth about admissions
  5. The best laid plans
  6. Your mood vs. your reality
  7. Fear of public speaking
  8. Advice or criticism?
  9. Two kinds of hustle
  10. How loud and how angry?
  11. A weekend seminar for those making a ruckus
  12. Optimistic time (vs. honest time)
  13. Freedom, control and good ideas
  14. “Find the others”
  15. Letter from the Birmingham Jail
  16. Please, go away
  17. Question checklist for reviewing your new marketing materials…
  18. You are what you share
  19. Getting unstuck (a one week challenge)
  20. Plyometrics
  21. Five thoughts on software
  22. Average is just another word for mediocre
  23. Failure imagined (24 variations)
  24. Planning on resilience
  25. Confused about the sample
  26. Lulled
  27. The paradox of rising expectations
  28. Logo vs. Brand
  29. Most people wait (for most people)
  30. Uncertainty is not the same thing as risk
  31. Doing calculus with Roman numerals
  32. When to decide
  33. Unprepared
  34. Used to be

2014 397

December 2014

  1. A year of posts
  2. Cutting through Singer’s Paradox
  3. In search of arrogance
  4. But what if this was your only job?
  5. Is your niche too small?
  6. Asking why
  7. Choices
  8. The alternative gift card
  9. The meritocracy trap
  10. Festivus (and the airing of grievances)
  11. Right of way
  12. Daily
  13. Who let the air out of the balloon?
  14. This or that vs. yes or no
  15. Clear language and respect
  16. End of year book and audio roundup
  17. Where to start
  18. Retribution
  19. The annual plan construction set
  20. What kind of customers do you want?
  21. Costs before and after
  22. Go for a walk
  23. Get the word out vs. Find the others
  24. The thing about a clean sheet of paper
  25. Obedience
  26. What’s next?
  27. The stories we tell ourselves
  28. Goals, strategy and tactics for change
  29. Backing into your future
  30. A one day design sprint (and a developer directory)
  31. Placebos, manipulation and preying on the weak
  32. “You’re right, we were wrong”
  33. Would you please share my new book?
  34. Babies and bathwater
  35. Doing more, giving more, who’s in charge?

November 2014

  1. We can’t talk about it
  2. Stumbling your way to greatness
  3. The fear of freedom
  4. The problem with problems
  5. The last minute glitch
  6. A three-step marketing ladder
  7. Sign your work
  8. The jobs only you can do
  9. A little more than a bushel, a little bit less
  10. The tragedy of the last 10%
  11. Inventing a tribe
  12. The wrong question to ask yourself before crowdfunding
  13. “This will blow over”
  14. Of course it’s been done before
  15. Is a photo of a Magritte painting better than the original?
  16. “I need you”
  17. Crowding the pan
  18. Staffed by mimes
  19. The time to think about middlemen is before there’s only one
  20. An end of radio
  21. A Peter Corollary
  22. Choosing those that choose you
  23. Wall Street gets what it wants
  24. Getting there
  25. The tiny cost of failure
  26. Clawing your way to the bottom
  27. Digital is slippery
  28. Despite, in spite of, because… three ways to manage creativity
  29. I am not a cobbler
  30. But not people like you
  31. Organizing for growth

October 2014

  1. Plasticity
  2. Decoding Apple as a luxury tools company
  3. This is not a promotion
  4. But what do *you* do?
  5. Solving the popular problem
  6. Munchausen by Proxy by Media
  7. Pitchcraft
  8. The dorm-room startup mindset
  9. Flags and mascots
  10. Handshakes and contracts, the future and the past
  11. Taking the plunge
  12. Biggest vs. best
  13. “Desire is full of endless distances”
  14. “Google it!”
  15. Famous to the family
  16. “Let’s go around the room”
  17. No one to say no
  18. Put a frame around it
  19. Avoiding magical thinking
  20. Coming to San Francisco (+ podcasts)
  21. Line or staff?
  22. We have Ebola
  23. Do the word
  24. Make two lists
  25. Four steps on the road to organizational growth, dominance or irrelevance
  26. The full stack keeps getting taller
  27. Good at math
  28. Dumb down and scale up
  29. Cassandra and Pollyanna
  30. Learning from the State Department
  31. A new book, you’re invited…
  32. “But why aren’t you hysterical?”
  33. You’re right, they’re wrong, but they won

September 2014

  1. Two ad campaigns of the moment
  2. The sophistication of truth
  3. Wishing vs. doing
  4. Two purposes of user feedback
  5. None of this makes sense
  6. A simple way to look at effective advertising in a digital age
  7. Symptoms and diseases
  8. Feeling the heat
  9. Smaller and smaller
  10. But the Beatles were out of tune
  11. Producers and consumers
  12. What everyone reads
  13. What are you seeking at work?
  14. Two elements of an apology
  15. Avoiding S-curve error
  16. People who like this stuff…
  17. The most important thing
  18. Without a keyboard
  19. Law and order
  20. The launch meeting
  21. Worthless (priceless)
  22. The value of access
  23. Functional jewelry
  24. The most important marketing decision the CMO makes…
  25. Things well done (and the smartest Lt Gov candidate ever)
  26. Are you willing to build a trail?
  27. Different kinds of broken systems
  28. Crucial elements for the placebo effect
  29. What’s wrong with your website?
  30. Does “stationary” matter?
  31. Marketing used to be what you say
  32. While you were out… (news from late August)
  33. The wasteful fraud of sorting for youth meritocracy: Stop Stealing Dreams
  34. Forgive yourself

August 2014

  1. It’s a great book, it has no typos!
  2. Turning passion on its head
  3. Why don’t authors compete?
  4. Announcing a fall internship
  5. The end of everyone
  6. “I made it my mission…”
  7. The best lesson from Fantasy Football’s success
  8. The idea is not the (only) hard part
  9. You could wreck this (if you want to)
  10. Why drafting works
  11. The shortlist
  12. If you choose to be in the dog food business…
  13. Tone deaf
  14. Totally and completely out of my control
  15. Squidthanks
  16. Slacktivism
  17. Who named the colors?
  18. Escalators, elevators and the ferry
  19. Skinny, sad and pale
  20. Your arms race
  21. Doing the best I can
  22. Just leave me to do my work!
  23. What’s it for?
  24. Understanding substitutes
  25. Tribes and their perceived threats
  26. A kick in the asterisk
  27. “I don’t get it”
  28. Simple, guaranteed, easy and free
  29. Analytics without action
  30. Experiencing something other than the prevailing system
  31. Is authenticity authentic?
  32. Short term, long term
  33. Pleasing a person who is not in the room
  34. A bigger logo?

July 2014

  1. Trading favors
  2. This is ours
  3. The easy ride
  4. Doing the hard things
  5. Brace for impact
  6. If you can’t sell it, you can’t build it
  7. Back to the drawing board
  8. It’s only high school if you let it
  9. Same as it ever was
  10. Where’s your bumper?
  11. Finding your peer group
  12. Go first
  13. Two new videos
  14. Weight thrown and the slippery slope
  15. “I don’t have any good ideas”
  16. The special problem
  17. When in doubt, re-read rule one
  18. Project management for work that matters
  19. Lessons from the Eiffel Tower
  20. Literacy (and unguided reading)
  21. The self-driving reset of just about everything in our cities
  22. LTL as a strategy
  23. Forty years of projects
  24. Burning bridges
  25. Beware the zeitgeister
  26. The artist who dances on the edge
  27. Discretion
  28. Bobsourcing
  29. Is better possible?
  30. The difference between impossible and nearly impossible
  31. It’s called self esteem
  32. How will you choose your next project?

June 2014

  1. The children’s menu
  2. References available upon request
  3. “How was your bike ride?”
  4. Three marketing lessons from Broadway
  5. Self assurance checklist for the anxious traveler
  6. The existential crisis (and the other kind)
  7. Don’t blow it (the secret of b2b)
  8. A review sprint
  9. Cat food is for people
  10. The handyman, the genius and the mad scientist
  11. Can we talk about process first?
  12. Fast, easy, guaranteed
  13. There are Kracos
  14. In search of meaningful
  15. Most likely to succeed
  16. The panda and the bicycle
  17. Micro marketing and the called bluff
  18. Worldview and stories
  19. Even better than an app?
  20. Are you solving a problem or creating a problem?
  21. What if you could love what you get paid for?
  22. It’s not about you
  23. Two kinds of busy
  24. Embracing boundaries
  25. “You can buy this from anyone, and we’re anyone”
  26. The number #1 reason to focus
  27. Clarity vs. impact
  28. Shame is a brand killer
  29. More people saying less (and a few more people saying more)
  30. Sharing and celebrating your favorite authors…
  31. Treating people with kindness
  32. The people who started Staples didn’t do it…

May 2014

  1. “But I might get rejected”
  2. The tyranny of lowest price
  3. What got you here…
  4. What’s on your agenda (a summer seminar)
  5. The problem with hit radio
  6. Thanks, Jack
  7. Tribal organizing (right and wrong, slow and fast)
  8. Three kinds of advertising
  9. Asking or announcing…
  10. To be seen
  11. Conventions and expectations
  12. Your choice
  13. Where’s your umbrella?
  14. One hit wonders
  15. Small differences, looming large
  16. Who says go?
  17. The benefit of the doubt
  18. The proven way to add value
  19. “You look ridiculous in that outfit”
  20. Good advice…
  21. Emotional handwashing
  22. No is essential
  23. “Don’t do what I said, do what I meant.”
  24. Set a date
  25. Power, policy and public perception
  26. Cognitive load
  27. Speedometer confusion
  28. Good at the beginning
  29. What’s your job?
  30. Thoughts on HugDug
  31. Most presentations aren’t bullet proof
  32. When is Mother’s Day?
  33. Origin stories
  34. Embracing the power user
  35. The short game, the long game and the infinite game
  36. Get rich (quick)

April 2014

  1. “I didn’t have time”
  2. What is spam?
  3. Taking your time doesn’t scale
  4. The most difficult work many professionals do…
  5. Deconstructing generosity
  6. Gripped in a free frenzy (or focused on scarcity and value)
  7. Is digital the end of luxury brands?
  8. How big is your shortcut budget?
  9. The generosity boomerang
  10. Does corporate trust have to be an oxymoron?
  11. Trapped by linkbait
  12. “How do I get rid of the fear?”
  13. Saying ‘thank you’ in public, three times
  14. They’re your words, choose them
  15. All the same
  16. The bottomless pit of pleasing strangers
  17. The thing that happened before this
  18. Connecting dots (or collecting dots)
  19. Trust and attention, the endless dance
  20. The right moment
  21. Steal, don’t invent
  22. Thinking lifetime (don’t break the chain)
  23. You are not the lowest common denominator
  24. The string with an idea at the end
  25. In search of an argument
  26. Some greatest hits
  27. Meandering toward nowhere special
  28. Looking for validation in all the wrong places
  29. Search vs. discovery
  30. The smart CEO’s guide to social justice
  31. Kanri Yakyu
  32. Cracking the pottery
  33. Have you been to this meeting?
  34. Maximizing the value of worry: Snowden’s new project

March 2014

  1. The cure or the story?
  2. Who’s responsible?
  3. Looking for the sure thing
  4. Thinking about placebos (a new ebooklet)
  5. No more kids?
  6. Your story about money
  7. The debilitating myth of musical chairs
  8. Not even one note
  9. Compromise, design and the literal edges
  10. Bulldozers and bullwhips
  11. Two ways to listen
  12. What does, “it’s too expensive,” mean?
  13. The rotten fish problem
  14. Happy wowday
  15. What’s not here?
  16. Confidence is a choice, not a symptom
  17. Most ramen is pretty good
  18. Better than free?
  19. Save the date: With Dave Ramsey and Gary Vee in NYC 10/2/14
  20. Sometimes you don’t need a budget
  21. The bacon/Yelp correlation
  22. Change the way you and your team see marketing
  23. Are we not plankton?
  24. Will they switch for cheaper?
  25. Entropy, bureaucracy and the fight for great
  26. What happens to privacy?
  27. Welcome to the monoculture
  28. The first leap
  29. Girl Scout cookies
  30. What does it sound like when you change your mind?
  31. Get out the vote
  32. Never eat sushi at the airport
  33. Might as well burn that bridge all the way down to the pilings

February 2014

  1. In search of competition
  2. Most of all, money is a story
  3. The opposite of why is now
  4. Framers and polishers
  5. Emotionally obsolete
  6. The most important question
  7. Should you teach the world a new word?
  8. Taking umbrage
  9. Doing what gets rewarded
  10. Is it time for a competitor to the Olympics?
  11. Genes and memes
  12. Done to us vs. things we do
  13. Too stupid to know better?
  14. I’m an elitist
  15. Modesty and hubris
  16. Two magical sentences missing from most job ads
  17. The problems you’ve got left…
  18. The you called brand
  19. Quality of production
  20. Uninformed or ignorant?
  21. ‘Refresh’ four weeks later
  22. Exhaustive lists as a reliable tool for unstucking yourself
  23. Our inability to see ahead (The Goldie Hawn problem)
  24. Your relationship with the future
  25. “Oh sure, I studied with him at Harvard”
  26. Are you looking for a project? (a live event in New York in March)
  27. Bat boy syndrome
  28. Do you love your customers?
  29. Groundhog day and the Super Bowl
  30. Every slide tells a story

January 2014

  1. Free Bird!
  2. The four horsemen of mediocrity
  3. Cheering you on when you lose
  4. Who would be surprised?
  5. …different people differently
  6. Conference call hygiene
  7. Measuring nothing (with great accuracy)
  8. On doing the work
  9. Copyediting, line editing and the other kind
  10. The answer to, “is that the best you can do…”
  11. Who has a seat at the table?
  12. The index and the menu
  13. The humility of the artist
  14. “Bring us your problems”
  15. Gradually and then suddenly
  16. Can I pay you to do me a favor?
  17. Our upside-down confusion about fairness
  18. The buffet problem keeps getting worse
  19. My skillshare course goes live tomorrow
  20. “Our biggest problem is awareness”
  21. Who are your customers?
  22. Less vs. more, give vs. take
  23. The feedback you’ve been waiting for
  24. Understanding sponsorship
  25. How much does it cost you to avoid the feeling of risk?
  26. Trapped by tl;dr
  27. How to draw an owl
  28. “But what if I fail?”
  29. Delight the weird
  30. The hard work of understanding
  31. Accuracy, resilience and denial
  32. For startups and those about to start: a new course on Skillshare
  33. Welcome to Paris

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