A lot of entrepreneurs and freelancers struggle with positioning. Often it’s ironic as the work many of us do is to help others communicate, tell stories, and stand out. Yet, of course, we struggle to do this effectively for ourselves. Here’s one way to think about it: get so narrow…
Browsing Category Business
Sampling: You don’t know it until you’ve tried it
Why the Hitchhiker’s 3 rules of technology reactions permeate far further Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, came up with three rules that describe our reaction to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a…
Dominant Design
When the car company uses dominant design, they may not even know they’re doing so. When they see the company starting to mirror the most important parts of its product – that’s dominant design. If the engine and chassis are more important than the radio and the seat covers (and…
The perils of a chain reaction
Our well-intentioned but misguided desires to root for the independents. A couple of times a week I’ll walk with my wife to her subway stop before I head a few blocks uptown to my office on Union Square. On the way to the subway is a Bluestone Lane coffee shop….
Empty Tank
On June 1st 2015 I broke out alone again. This month marks the end of the fourth year as an independent. It also marks the very first time the tank has been empty. There’s not enough left in the tank and the pipes to give the engine what it needs…
Ghosted: from URL to IRL
This week the video conferencing company Zoom announced its IPO. In the Forbes profile of its founder Eric Yuan, this nugget jumped out at me: For his IPO road show, Yuan deigned to make the 50-mile trek from his San Jose headquarters to San Francisco for a single investor lunch—and…
The one presentation slide to keep you on the edge of your seat
This morning I popped over to the John L. Tishman Auditorium at The New School on New York’s 5th Avenue. It was another edition of the immensely popular Creative Mornings lecture series, and this month’s guest speaker was the founder of Charity:Water, Scott Harrison. First was a slice of delicious…
The Kitchen
There’s a new kitchen opening up in town. Some ingredients are grown in-house – simple but juicy tomatoes, colourful bell peppers and a handful of flavourful herbs. Other items like organic eggs, crunchy kale, and succulent shallots need bringing in from experts. The kitchen has built a small but trusted…
Battle Scars
Every battle is different, as is each person’s experience of it. Every battle leaves its scars. Sometimes the scars are visible, other times they’re not. The battle may be oppression, or harassment, or abuse. A battle of love, or loss. It may be about moving up or moving on. It…
Introducing Coffee Notes: A template for better meetings
A big part of my discovery mission living in a new city was meeting people for coffee. A lot of people, and a lot of coffee. I quickly realized two things: Several topics and questions came up repeatedly Preparing well led to better outcomes I started using a simple template…