The Need for Reversed Learning Issue 149, February 29, 2024 Is it really true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? If you’re an old dog in a digital marketplace, you don’t have a choice. Let’s say you are an editor. You used to work with writers to create provocative, well-researched, surprising articles. Today, you have to write titles, headlines, and content to optimize search and game the online systems. Or let’s say you are a marketer. You…
The Value and Challenge of Compromise Issue 148, February 22, 2024 How many times did your parents tell you to, “Pick your battle.” And then in the next breath say, “Never compromise your values.” That ambiguity could be confusing to a child, but is mind-bending to an adult navigating our complex, polarized society. Increasingly public opinion is becoming less compromising, leaving common ground hard to find. Compromise: Positive or Negative? In its most basic sense, a compromise can be understood…
Do You Fall Prey to Oversimplification? Issue 147, February 15, 2024 We all do it. We oversimplify when it suits us or when we believe that is what our audience wants to hear. In business, we have been programmed not to share too many financial details and just report the high-level numbers. Or not get all techy; talk in plain English. Avoid all those legal terms that make heads spin. Can’t you just say that a different way? Add to…
How Clock Time Reshaped the World and Work Issue 146, February 8, 2024 We think it’s safe to say that most of us take clock time for granted. Timepieces are ubiquitous; they are on our stoves, microwaves, refrigerators, walls, radios, wrists, and mobile phones. From 1300 to 1600, they were the centerpiece of small towns placed on towers and public buildings, which dramatically changed how people ordered their lives. So fast forward and timepieces have become so affordable and mobile…
Randomness and Flukes: Changing the Course of History Issue 145, February 1, 2024 Hindsight is foresight, yet we may be better equipped to predict the future with the benefit of so much emerging tech. But what AI and ML don’t anticipate is the random moments that change the course of history. What’s frustrating is that you rarely see those moments in real-time. We suggest the reason is that we are looking for the wrong thing, making those random occurrences nearly…
Vulnerability as an Asset Issue 144, January 25, 2024 We’ve all heard about EQ as the skill and management strategy transcending IQ. Emotional Quotient is defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions (Wiki) and the ability to manage one’s own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict (HelpGuide). Any way you define it, it’s an essential leadership approach in today’s culture that is increasingly fraught…
The Risk of Certainty Issue 143, January 18, 2024 Human nature, at its deepest core, reinforces our longing for certainty and the prospect of security and stability. We don’t want things around us to change. We want assurance that what we know is true and real. We want certainty that we made the right decisions and choices so that outputs and outcomes will be what we expect. Ambiguity creates anxiety and insecurity and makes us defensive. Ambiguity makes most of…
What is Normal? Issue 142, January 11, 2024 How many times have we heard, “the new normal.” Or conversely, the longing to return to what was normal. Or an optimistic claim to create a modern normal. Well, guess what, there is no normal. Nor was there ever one. We have operated in a disruptive, asymmetrical marketplace for over a century of continuous change. The difference today is the speed of communications that transmit the market conditions that we face 24/7…
Is This Us? Issue 141, January 4, 2024 If you just landed on the planet from elsewhere, or you are a student of modern media, you might believe that America is polarized, disappointed, angry, mentally ill, always dancing in front of its mobile phones, and with a chip on its shoulder. Is this really us? Is this who we are? The issue is whether our actions, beliefs, and values are representative of who’ve always been. Or in the current fractious…
2023’s Reader’s Choice: The 5 Most Popular Issues of 2040 Ideas and Innovations Issue 140, December 21, 2023 2023 is wrapping up and we’re doing a reader’s choice this week. After all, we preach customer centrism and make it a practice with our clients. So, what’s interesting when we look at the top five newsletters we have published over 2023, which we sent to you and posted on LinkedIn, Medium, our website, and our Substack Newsletter, it says as much…