It’s not just about what happens once they’re on board and the vessel is setting sail. It’s not just about the on-boarding rituals that occur once they’ve arrived at the place of departure and they’re beginning to assimilate into the culture of how we do things here. It’s also about…
Browsing Category Entrepreneurship
Learnings from the other side of an accelerator program
In the Spring of 2018, I was approached about collaborating on a new project being presented by New York City’s Department of Small Business Services and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. The project came about from the City looking to further their support to creative businesses. Media &…
Great (Un)Expectations
Below is a very lightly edited version of a brief introduction I gave at the final presentation day for the second cohort of the AMP NYC media & entertainment accelerator program in New York. I’d had a busy few days and showed up at the venue with nothing prepared at…
No Reply = No Interest?
Next week marks the 31st edition of my monthly email newsletter which I started in late 2015. As you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t really kept up my end of the bargain. In the early days I sometimes let two, three or even four months pass without a newsletter leaving the…
Switching to Annual View
Whether we’re coming fresh out of a salaried role or have spent years out on the road as an independent, it’s easy to default to the monthly view. Just like a calendar, the month is the most easily understood timeframe. No time differences to manage, or weeks starting on a…
Positioning: Get Uncomfortably Narrow
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…
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….
The Circuit
The challenges — and the importance — of being out on the road, in the middle, on the circuit as a creative professional When I was a talent agent, something I didn’t do as much as I should have was developing a deeper understanding and empathy for the experiences of my clients. They all…