Skip to content

marketing

Members Public

Solitude Deprivation

Since I’m doing some editing and cleaning on my site, I figured it might be fun to do another link love issue. Enjoy! — CJ 1 Author Cal Newport explains the collected research on whether smartphones are bad for kids or just another moral panic. This was more even-handed than

Members Public

When Pay to Play Doesn’t Pay

Seth Godin just posted about the search tax you’re paying: “Amazon took in more than $30 billion in ad revenue last year, money spent to elevate some products over others in the hierarchy of attention.” Amazon, like Google, YouTube, and Apple’s App Store are often referred to as

Members Public

Principles for Creating with AI

As usual, when I find myself writing too much about a topic, I have to distill it all into a set of principles — easily digested by a (very) mere human. These principles are backed by real data, case studies, and personal interviews. They are subject to change, ridicule, and memes…

Members Public

The C Word

“Curation” shouldn’t be a dirty word, but it is. In the last decade, it has come to mean slapped-together-links, or outright-stolen content, used to fill space and capture just enough attention to convert free onlookers into consumers. There’s a lot of truth behind that association. In fact, I’

Members Public

The Future of AI, Newsletters, and Your Garden

Let’s start off 2023 with some fun, get into some data, and play with ideas for how to ship more in the year to come. 1 What would it look like if creation was joyful and sane? From my swipe file of dream workspaces, this just series of tiny,

Members Public

4 big questions for email marketing in 2023

I posted last week about the predictions from Litmus (based in part on research from earlier in the year). It just re-affirmed what we’ve know for over a year about the future of email as a publishing and marketing platform. It’s a great future for readers and customers,

Members Public

The Stupidest Experiment

Me since 2001: Don’t revisit your Van Halen book for a third edition. It’s an endless pit of work that never makes money and invites trolls by the dozens. Me in 2022: Let’s do this thing. As always, I’ll report back with my findings on Substack,

Members Public

Why Nerds Win

Are you a good fit for what I write? Here’s one way to know. I’ve been getting a lot questions about my new website theme. It’s still being built out, but how I decided on the theme should tell you everything you need to know about “growth

Why Nerds Win
Members Public

You are more interesting than you think.

I’m guessing you’re a generalist, because most people are. But the online content-consumption machine seems to reward those who make their personalities all about one thing. I believe that’s a distracting, unhelpful remnant of the first 29-ish years of the web — minus the first five years. Why

Members Public

You’re Doing Email Marketing Wrong

The time and money invested in email is going to the wrong places. Investing for the long-term with relationship and content marketing is the best use of your funds. But short-term-focused marketing emails still represent the vast majority of spending. As long as that’s true, where should that spending