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Why the future belongs to independents

It was an honor to be back on Media & the Machine, which has grown to be an un-skippable podcast — usually with guests who are much smarter than me. Rob Kelly puts a lot of work into these episodes – more than any other podcast I’ve been on (even

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Do experts keep cleaning you?

Have you ever been mysteriously unsubscribed from an email newsletter?  It happens to me all the time. But I expect it. In fact, it’s how I can tell which “experts” are really beginners. I subscribe to a lot of newsletters and I use RSS to read long-form newsletters,

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CJ’s Newsletter: 200 Abnormally Useful Ideas

Over in the VIP Lounge, I published a small ebook of readers’ favorite quotes from 20+ years of publishing.  I started it last month because I thought it would be the easiest project ever — a nice extra for paid members, filtering my collection of ~2,000 quotes down to the

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SeO what?

A new algo dropped from Google and it appears to have the world of SEO in a tizzy. So what? If you’re like me, you’ve learned to recoil at the thought of playing by the rules of someone else’s game instead of serving your readers.  And besides,

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AI can replace your job. Here’s what it can’t replace.

AI’s weakness lies in technology that predates the web. AI is now the single most-cited reason for job cuts in the U.S. CFOs expect AI-driven cuts to be 9x higher this year, with 44% of all CFOs saying they’re planning layoffs. 9-to-5 jobs

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Issue 283: The $200 plastic box opportunity

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The $200 plastic box opportunity

If you ever needed an example of the increasing importance of personal brands in the AI era, I’ve got a whopper.  Over the past few months, I’ve noticed something that construction professionals and jewelry makers on Etsy have in common: they’re always looking out for better ways

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Why it’s 1995 again

Rob Kelly was nice enough to have me on his new podcast, Media and the Machine. Unlike most of the podcasts I’ve been on recently, this one goes deep into my actual job: content strategy for tech companies. Here’s a summary of what’s covered: Why small creators

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Fix your roof when it’s raining.

Tis the season for overwhelm.  Often, in times like these and when being pushed to their limits, creatives will seek help and hear this age-old advice about when to adjust their processes, “Fix your roof when it’s sunny.” This is not helpful. Here’s the problem: Roofs don’

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I was wrong about AI

I updated my principles for creating with AI to find out if anything’s changed since I wrote it in 2023. I got pretty angry about a prediction I got totally wrong — never make predictions within a principle — lesson learned. I go in-depth about it all in an upcoming