"Jean-Louis Gassee, who used to run Apple France, describes this situation as the choice between two tokens. When you deal with people who have trouble, you can either choose to take the token that says 'It's no big deal' or the token that says '
I made a big breakthrough solving a tricky data problem, and suddenly a barrier I had been stuck on for weeks was gone. It was one of those days where I was completely in the zone, and had lost track of the time as a result. I was due to
It's quite easy to let yourself get distracted by less-than-urgent projects, or time sink requests. That's all before you factor in outside distractions. Social media, entertainment, and more are all vying for your clicks and time. I keep pretty strict standards for my work life to
When they start a new job, the smart worker spends most of their time listening. Listening to what happened before. To "why we do it this way". Not as a substitute for action, but as research. After all, it would be foolish to start making decisions without any
When I started the altMBA last year, they mailed me a big box of books and some random supplies. In it were a few postcards with Seth Godin-isms like "Make a Ruckus". And another that says "Money is a story." Seth can be a little cryptic
Seth Godin's got a great podcast episode on pizza. He talks about the endless pizza options across this country. And yet most of it is terrible. Because pizza is made around convenience. Convenience for the customer, and convenience for the person making it. Easier ingredients. Shortcuts in the
If you're the data expert on the team, it's tempting to be the gatekeeper for all the data and insights. After all, it's hard and time consuming—especially on a smaller team—to try and make experts out of everyone. But as the organization
I recently got a new mouse for my home office, the Logitech MX Master 2S. And I think it's the best mouse I've ever owned. The ergonomics are just perfect. It can hop between devices easily. It has this amazing scroll wheel that I can'
The holy grail for many marketers is being able to show, closed loop ROI on their programs. To be able to say with confidence - if we spend $1 here, we'll get $2 there. And once you're there, it's tempting to boil things down
I've been writing here every weekday for months, and because of that frequency, the days blur together. I don't often recall well what I wrote a week ago. Let alone a day or two ago. Part of that is because writing here is a morning ritual
We recently watched two completely different climbing documentaries: The Dawn Wall and Free Solo. The former is a story of perseverance and determination. It's the story of how two guys had a dream, one everyone called them crazy to pursue, a reality. The latter tells the same lesson,
One of my friends was interviewing for a big job recently - and the first round of interviews went well. Except, the feedback was that he didn't quite look like VP material. They were referring to how he dressed. To be fair, he's not a poorly