The right words in the right sequence create information. Ideas that change our world.
The first kind of word salad allows the writer to hide. Fancy words, carefully juxtaposed, saying nothing. This can serve a valuable function for politicians, academics and bosses–but there’s no real information for the reader. It’s simply a collection of words pretending to be an idea.
The second kind of word salad is different. This is the reader’s choice. An idea that’s complex, frightening or brand new can be difficult to embrace. Dismissing it as word salad is the easiest way to maintain the status quo and move on.
The simple tell: Is anyone else getting the idea? If the emperor is actually wearing clothes, insisting that they’re naked doesn’t do you any good.
Important ideas often seem like word salad at first.
Even though it’s invisible, easily transported and weightless, software used to stick around. It took years to architect and build a complex bit of software, and thousands of people to help maintain it. Even a complex website could be seen as a durable technical asset.
Now, with Claude Code on everyone’s desk, new software is often easier to write than old software is to maintain.
No one gives a second thought to disposable cups or bottles–and we’re in the midst of an explosion of temporary and disposable software that will dwarf what came before.
And yet, one thing persists: The network.
When an organization is at the center of a network, it doesn’t matter if a competitor makes a fresh new piece of software. The network sticks around.
A vibrant network is more valuable than ever. People like us are here, doing things like this. Why would we go over there?
Even if you were actually engaging with the attendees before, it’s over. You took a new medium and stuffed an old one into it, changed the dynamic and ruined it.
Zoom is a device that eliminates physical distance and enables a synchronized conversation. Interactions in real time. In particular, groups of three to eight professionals, there to have a discussion.
Throwing your powerpoint into the mix transforms the dynamic. It takes your face off the screen and makes everyone else irrelevant. It forbids interaction. And it prevents you from reacting to the room as it unfolds, since it’s linear.
The disrespect comes through, even if you didn’t intend it to.
If you have something to show us, send it before the meeting. If there’s a memo, we can read it in advance, or afterward. In fact, if the memo is really important, simply pause the meeting while we all take two minutes to read it. We know how to read.
Reading and interacting are different events.
Powerpoint was invented by socially-awkward engineers as a way to create deniability and clarity in boring tech meetings. It’s a persistently misused piece of tech, used as a crutch or an effective way to hide.
If you call a meeting, do the work to earn it. Make sure the right people are there, make sure you’re prepared and make sure they are too. Use any excuse you can to cancel the meeting and replace it with a memo, one that’s short, clear and designed to accept responsibility.
There’s another new medium that’s arriving–well-edited, short and punchy videos, a one-way method to carefully say what you wanted to say. Send one of those if you want…
Show and tell has a long history going back to first grade. But if you’re going to do show and tell, do it with care.
When we upgrade something in our lives, the thing we used to be satisfied with is no longer satisfying.
That’s the nature of an upgrade.
After a certain point, the only thing we’re buying is the way the upgrade makes us feel in the moment, not our satisfaction going forward.
Stereos, salt, art on the wall. It’s easy to get hooked on the climb, not the altitude.
Luxury goods are a special set of upgrades. These are purchases that aren’t actually an upgrade, they simply feel that way because of their cost (and the status that goes with it).
At some point, the best upgrade is the realization that we have enough.
This is a useful term. It helps us understand a topic or theory that can be considered from multiple points of view by people engaging with good intent.
“Pluto is a planet” was a controversial statement among some people who study the solar system.
On the other hand, it’s not controversial that Pluto actually exists.
Choosing to engage in a conversation about something that’s controversial gives us a chance to share our insights and engage in dialogue. And it also comes with the knowledge that we’ll need to devote time and care to having that conversation.
On the other hand, inventing false controversy is simply a tool to keep people away.
If you insist that the world is flat, and that talking about its spherical nature is controversial, then you’ve made it hard to be a travel agent, a geologist or a sailor. You’ve scared people away from a productive conversation because you’re claiming something without good intent.
The key element of ‘controversial’ is possibility. If that’s not there, it’s simply an empty argument.
Last year, the recording session I did with Mel Robbins was going so well that her producers asked me to stick around–four hours later, we had recorded enough for two episodes.
One never knows how these things will feel until after the fact, but part 2 is live now. I hope you get as much out of it as I did…
My day with Mel inspired my new book, which ships in 9 weeks. And the limited-edition multi-pack is well on its way to being fully subscribed. I just added a new spiral-bound booklet for the first 700 orders. Photos to come when it comes back from the printer.
The moment you start treating your customers as captives, they begin to make other plans.
It might take a while, but they always end up leaving. The first step is warning away their friends.
On the other hand, when we treat our customers like the free agents they are, they often choose to stick around (and bring the others).
Before you reward an analyst for jacking up the price and making some money this week, it might be worth focusing on what that short-term move is going to cost you.
More than 345 riffs, worthy of a calendar, all in one place. They don’t fit in a blog post, so I made a page of them. Hit the refresh above to see another one, or see them all, and vote on your favorites, at sethsriffs.com
On the riffs page, you can click the ? icon and launch a search of the blog for more details and discovery. Share links are also there.
The professionals you have the most in common with may be your competition. They wrestle with similar problems and have similar goals.
And you can offer value by sharing what you’ve learned and what you know–and that value will often be reciprocated.
I met Tom Rielly when was running PlanetOut in the 1990s. About forty of AOL’s biggest software partners had been invited to a conference, and Tom hosted a small gathering for a dozen of us in his hotel suite. When we got there, he shared the most interesting parts of his contract with AOL. Many of us did the same. As a result, everyone in that room was able to get a better deal the next time around.
When the acting community shared information about predators in Hollywood, it created progress toward safety, helped apprehend some of the worst offenders, and built connection and trust.
Literary agents regularly talk with each other, and via the living database at Publisher’s Lunch, share insights about genres, editors and authors.
NFL coaching staff, who you would think of as quite competitive, often talk to one another about players, policies, and personnel.
Chefs welcome up-and-coming chefs into their kitchens and share their best suppliers, because a supplier without customers doesn’t stick around for long.
Creative Mornings has changed the lives of thousands of freelance creators, simply by giving them a useful way to connect.
Walmart doesn’t want its suppliers to talk with one another, which is a really good reason for them to do it. Comparing test questions in high school is called cheating. Doing it in real life is a smart way to reclaim power and agency.
The competition isn’t the competition. ‘None of the above’ is the competition. The powerful monopoly is the competition. Loneliness is the competition.
It might be that your industry doesn’t already have a vibrant association of peers. If it doesn’t, start one. There have never been more tools or more upside for doing so.
