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The single best term I’ve learned this year. Apparently turned into a computer term by the MIT media lab five […]
Chris Fralic reminded me of this piece I wrote for Ode. Great stories succeed because they are able to capture […]
It happened again. There I was, meeting with someone who I thought had nothing to do with books or publishing, […]
From this week’s Guardian: 1. Understand the urgency of the situation. Half-measures simply won’t do. The only way to grow […]
I’m serious. Smart people with good ideas worth sharing can get a lot out of this exercise. It’s technically easy […]
Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want […]
This is Kevin Kelly’s best riff of the year, and that’s saying an enormous amount. Go read it! Some people […]
Before you hit send on that next email, perhaps you should run down this list, just to be sure: Is […]
This, in two words, is the secret of the new marketing. Find ten people. Ten people who trust you/respect you/need […]
The most important decision-making rule you learn in business school is still largely misunderstood. When making a choice between two […]
Business Development is a mysterious title for a little discussed function or department in most larger companies. It’s also a […]
Here’s my definition: A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a […]
How can I explain the never-ending irrationality of human behavior? We say we want one thing, then we do another. […]
It’s not clear to me why business plans are the way they are, but they’re often misused to obfuscate, bore […]
Many people in the United States purchase one or fewer books every year. Many of those people have seen every […]
That would be you. Even if you’re not self-employed, your boss is you. You manage your career, your day, your […]
Amanda Hocking is making a million dollars a year publishing her own work to the Kindle. No publisher. Rebecca Black […]
Making something is work. Let’s define work, for a moment, as something you create that has a lasting value in […]
Long work is what the lawyer who bills 14 hours a day filling in forms does. Hard work is what […]
Perhaps we could endeavor to teach our future the following: How to focus intently on a problem until it’s solved. […]
What is a public library for? First, how we got here: Before Gutenberg, a book cost about as much as […]
A hundred and fifty years ago, adults were incensed about child labor. Low-wage kids were taking jobs away from hard-working […]
No one ever gets talker’s block. No one wakes up in the morning, discovers he has nothing to say and […]
There are actually two recessions: The first is the cyclical one, the one that inevitably comes and then inevitably goes. […]
Managers work to get their employees to do what they did yesterday, but a little faster and a little cheaper. […]
Those are pretty much the only two choices. Being judged is uncomfortable. Snap judgments, prejudices, misinformation… all of these, combined […]
Impatient… great marketing takes time. Doing it wrong (and rushed) ten times costs much more and takes longer than doing […]
Most amateurs and citizens believe that marketing is the outer circle. Marketing = advertising, it seems. The job of marketing […]
You may have read Matt Fisher’s story about the tragic death of his sister and the response of her insurance […]
Professional farmers don’t begrudge the backyard gardener his tomato harvest. That’s silly. And talented mechanics certainly don’t mind the antics […]
That depends on what you mean by “work” and by “free.” Work is what you do as a professional, when […]
Many marketers work overtime to confuse us about money. They take advantage of our misunderstanding of the time value of […]
There is no more powerful tribal marketing connection than this. More than features, more than benefits, we are driven to […]
A luxury good gets its value from its lack of utility and value. A typical consumer would look at what […]
Deniability–“They decided, created, commanded or blocked. Not my fault.” Helplessness–“My boss won’t let me.” Contempt–“They don’t pay me enough to […]
Starting at the age of nine, I played the clarinet for eight years. Actually, that’s not true. I took clarinet […]
I realized the other day that most people grow up thinking in terms of professional affiliations. “I’m going to be […]
Resist the ad hoc. Announce that this is a project, and that it matters enough to be treated as one. […]
This post announced the most popular ebook I’ve ever published. Millions have shared it and you can read the entire […]
We are always under tight deadlines, because time is our most valuable asset. If you make a promise, set a […]
It’s about scale. Pick a long enough one (or a short enough one) and you can see the edges. In […]
Jobs are finite, specified and something we ‘get’. Doing a job makes us defensive, it limits our thinking. The goal […]
…is that the system can’t hear you. Only people can. And the problem is that people in the system are […]
“I’m not sure what it is, but I’m against it.” It’s a mistake to believe that people know all the […]
Consider a race to the top. How can Lyft possibly compete with Uber? Scale is often the secret to a commodity […]
Day after day, year after year, it’s the interactions we have at home that have the biggest impact on who […]
No one says, “I’m going to be unfair to this person today, brutal in fact, even though they don’t deserve […]
You may be right, but that doesn’t mean that people will care. Or pay attention. Or take action. Just because […]
If you believed what he believes, you’d do precisely what he’s doing. Think about that for a second. People act […]
You’re going to have to fight for every single thing, forever and ever. It’s really unlikely that they will pick […]
The first step is to invent a thing worth making, a story worth telling, a contribution worth talking about. The […]
Throwing tantrums, calling names, not doing the reading, making things up, demonizing the other, impulsivity, egomaniacal narcissism, breaking big promises… […]
If your work has never been criticized, it’s unlikely you have any work. Creating work is the point, though, which […]
The architect refuses to design the big, ugly building that merely maximizes short term revenue. She understands that raising the […]
Somehow, at least in our culture, we find relief when others are anxious too. So we spread our anxiety, stoking […]
Running a business is a lot more important than starting one. Choosing and preparing for the job you’ll do for […]
Okay, you don’t like what your boss did yesterday or last week or last month. But today, right now, sitting […]
Most of us need an external stimulus to do our best work. It helps to have an alarm clock if […]
Sir Kensington’s Ketchup is better ketchup. Most adults who try it agree that it’s more delicious, a better choice. Alas, […]
Have you noticed that authors often happily recommend books by other authors (even though an MBA might call them competitors)? […]
When we’re sure it’s not going to work, when we can’t figure out where to turn, when we don’t know […]
To watch people at work, it seems like we never have enough: We need more social media likes We want […]
A million things happened to you today. The second bite of your lunch. The red light on the third block […]
The best way to build a brand that matters, a story that spreads, an impact that we remember, is to […]
In his day job, The Wizard of Oz sold hokum. Patent medicines guaranteed to cure what ailed you. And none […]
About twenty years ago, Permission Marketing was getting ready to go to the publisher. We sent a copy to Jack Trout, co-author […]
Just published, a three-minute TED talk from 2014: It follows on the ideas in this TEDx talk from a […]
The bestselling novel of 1961 was Allen Drury’s Advise and Consent. Millions of people read this 690-page political novel. In 2016, the […]
It’s not forced on us, it’s something we choose. And we rarely benefit from that choice. That emergency surgery, the one […]
The arc of the moral universe is long, and it bends toward access. Twelve years ago, Acumen made a modest […]
(at something). Which makes it imperative that you connect and ask for help. At the same time that we encounter […]
Freelancers, writers, designers, photographers–there’s always an opportunity to work for free. There are countless websites and causes and clients that […]
Perhaps she wants to be heard instead. Or find something better, or unique. Or perhaps customer service, flexibility and speed […]
It’s not “less.” If we care enough, the opposite of more is better.
Fear runs deep. Fear used to keep our ancestors alive. Fear keeps you from taunting a saber tooth tiger. The […]
Get smarter. Hurry. Learn something new and difficult and valuable. Learn it today and continue learning it tomorrow. Solve interesting […]
People talk about bike riding when they want to remind us that some things, once learned, are not forgotten. What […]
Sort by price is the dominant way that shopping online now happens. The cheapest airline ticket or widget or freelancer […]
Are there any other options for people who seek to innovate?
You might need help to turn an idea into a project. Most of the time, though, project developers walk up […]
You’ve been wronged. The service was terrible. You went unseen, disrespected and abused. You didn’t get your money’s worth. The […]
Every time Ford increased the productivity of car production (in one three-year period, he lowered labor costs by 66% per […]
That’s the labor most of us do now. The work of doing what we don’t necessarily feel like doing, the […]
The work is difficult. Overcoming obstacles, facing rejection, exploring the unknown–many of us need a narrative to fuel our forward motion, […]
Drink enough water and you will cease to be thirsty. And yet, a doubting person can be drowning in facts, but […]
Don’t expect much from a drowning man. He’s not going to offer you a candy bar or ask how your […]
Nearly fifty years ago, Milton Friedman published a polemic, an article that altered the way many people think about corporations […]
I did an interview with a leading Turkish vlogger. He sent me his work (in Turkish) and of course, the […]
It’s well known that the team that wins an Olympic relay isn’t the fastest at running or swimming—it’s the team […]
Highlights from an annotated list of 17 rules for the new world of work: You are more powerful than you […]
Of course everyone wants to reach the maximum audience. To be seen by millions, to maximize return on investment, to […]
Almost everyone does it. I’m not sure why. After the fact (or even during it) all the blame, second-guessing and […]
A $30,000 software package is actually $3,000 worth of software plus $27,000 worth of meetings. And most clients are bad […]
For me, it’s not “do what you feel like doing,” because that’s unlikely to be useful. You might feel like […]
If you have a safe place to sleep, reasonable health and food in the fridge, you’re probably living with surplus. […]
A friend asked me for some ways to make money. (All direct quotes). “Can I do okay taking those surveys […]
When you’re cooking breakfast and the school bus is coming in just a few minutes, it’s tempting (and apparently efficient) […]
The first is quite common. Learn to play the notes as written. Move asymptotically toward perfection. Practice your technique and […]
Don’t hide your work Offer help Ask for help Tell the truth Upgrade your tools Don’t hide your mistakes Add […]
What you say is not nearly as important as what we hear. Which means that the words matter, and so […]
This is much better than, “start big, start later.” One advantage is that you don’t have to start perfect. You […]
The volatility of bitcoin turns the people who own it into addicts. At any given moment, it’s up $100 or […]
The creation of worthwhile work is a duet. The creator has to do her part, but so does the customer. […]
Charisma doesn’t permit us to lead. Leading gives us charisma.
Merely beginning. With inadequate preparation, because you will never be fully prepared. With imperfect odds of success, because the odds […]
Editor, publisher, instigator. The instigator is the author, the dreamer, the writer. She creates a screenplay, founds a non-profit, says […]
There’s confusion between tactics and strategy. It’s easy to get tied up in semantic knots as you work to figure […]
Give a four-minute presentation and take your time. The alternative is to try to give a six or seven-minute long […]
You don’t apply. You don’t get a salary. No one picks you. Bragging about how much money you’ve raised or […]
A note to the customer who just had a meltdown. To the groom without a perfect wedding, to the rental […]
Civilization depends on the apology. When humans interact and something goes wrong, the apology builds a bridge that enables us […]