Hey Reader, Have you heard of diverticulitis? I feel like it’s something you only learn about as you get older and I don’t recommend it. But let’s talk about what caught my eye this week. Individual adoption versus business adoption generating marketing versus marketing strategy Illustration versus motion The individual versus the business gap in AI I’ve built a career in and around “digital marketing”. But most of the time I’ll avoid dropping that term because do you know what happens when...
8 days ago • 5 min read
Hi Reader, -> One quick thing - if you want to learn about this stuff in a webinar format, I'm running weekly webinars on AI, marketing, and automation topics for the foreseeable future - registration details at the bottom of the email. I’ve had fun doing the business development dance over the last week, and filling my pipeline with opportunities big and small. I’ve been able to play with different messages and say my “pitter-patter” out loud and narrowing my focus towards B2B companies...
16 days ago • 5 min read
Hey Reader - it’s good to do this again. Welcome back. I’m going to be playing around with some different formats and approaches over the next few weeks as I look to work this into a sustainable habit again. First things first - I’ve swapped things back to the original name/theme. AI is here to stay. I hate its well-documented impacts on energy and water consumption but am reminded of Robert Greene’s take on what to do about power: Psst, AI is a form of power So here’s some things that are...
24 days ago • 6 min read
a braindump. Hi Reader, I disappeared for a while. I’m sorry - late last year I joined a startup, then earlier this year went full-time contract on it with a high-risk, go big, or go home kind of bid. We’re now in the latter stages of that bid and at the “omgwtf I’m not sure if this is going to work out” stage, and look: I got what I signed up for. It’s been eye-opening and gratifying jumping onto the tools and building a growth engine for another business and if it doesn’t work it won’t be...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
the results are in. Last week I said I had a bit of spare time and wanted to test more video with shorts. This is what happened in the last week: Not bad right? Well actually in the scheme things - it’s unprecedented. Here’s the lifetime view count of my channel: The number’s pathetic. It’s never been a focus, and while I love presenting, have never been inclined to go hard at it because I have other things to do (like work for clients, raise my family, get sober and completely transform my...
5 months ago • 1 min read
a tierlist for growth channels. Have you heard of tier lists? They’re very common in gaming world. Influencers like to put together lists ranking characters, items, or selections and opine on them. I had a quieter week as I work through a project exension and thought: Do you know what the world needs? A tierlist for growth channels for startups. But not just any tierlist, but grabbing and ranking the channels from the book Traction. Written in 2015 Here’s the channels from the book: •...
5 months ago • 6 min read
doing the work. “So you’ve done the work…” I met Mel Greblo through my work in the impact space. She does a number of amazing things, including founding Banksia Academy. A destination for helping women create their own employment pathways to help remove themselves and recover from domestic violence. She now leads Humans of Purpose. “Oh yes, I have.” If you read into the question literally - you can ask things like: what work? in what context? is it this or that? what kind of work? But if...
5 months ago • 2 min read
the human element. A popular online writing teacher stopped his course 4 months ago. His name is David Perell. He is young, taught a course called “Write of Passage” for 6 years, and the AI boom has “set off an existential crisis” in him. There’s a certain irony in an influencer who has benefited from AI (Twitter algorithms) becoming challenged by AI (LLMs). If you’re a non-fiction writer - it’s going to become near impossible to perform better than AI. This means we’re going to have to work...
5 months ago • 1 min read
cutting edge. I share principles in this newsletter for a reason. The tech changes. A shiny thing will fade. Fast tactics are trumped by sound strategy. I work with tech startups and have done this for a long time. So it’s only natural people want to know what is happening on the edge. Today I’m going to indulge that curiosity - and let you know that the principles are more important. Things like the below only work if you understand the principles. So here’s what I’m seeing: AI-trained video...
5 months ago • 2 min read
