Category: Contentions
-
Contentions: Spaghetti at the wall
There are many projects that start off with an inclination. It starts with, “We think this would be a great thing to build.” The problem is, there isn’t a clear product management process to prove that it fits a person’s need (check out this piece my team and I worked with Katie Cerar on). Rather,…
-
Contentions: All publications go to purgatory
Insider recently broke the news that Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z’s) much-hyped publication Future will be shutting down. The news sounds surprising because it launched with such hype, and was even active in June: Head of a16z marketing and Outcast Agency co-founder Margit Wennmachers has said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not…
-
Language builds culture
In Unreasonable Hospitality, Will Guidara highlights one of restaurateur Danny Meyers’ key insights: “Danny has always understood how language can build culture by making essential concepts easy to understand and to teach. He is brilliant at coining phrases around common experiences, potential pitfalls, and favorable outcomes.” Whether you want to call them mottos, memes, or…
-
Contentions: Less marketing, more teaching
David Heinemeier Hansson’s latest on earning attention, and out-teaching the competition, is really great. Basecamp is one of the rare examples of organizations that publish really great writing—books like Rework, magazines like Signal v. Noise, etc. Anyone who wants to study them, take notes: It’s not content marketing. At least, not in the conventional sense.…
-
Painkillers, vitamins, and trophies
While I’ve worked with a lot of really great clients, I’ve also had some prospects tell me that my business’s services were way too expensive. In fact, some of them seemed to get offended when they saw Wonder Shuttle’s rate card, or when I told them the price over the phone. I’ll always remember one…
-
Contentions: Help people write what they know
Last week, I was discussing a draft of a blog post with the CEO of one of Wonder Shuttle’s client companies. The CEO was impressed. He’d spent barely five minutes preparing before joining my writing team and me for an hour-long interview; a few days later, he received a coherent, structured, outline demonstrating his expertise…
-
Contentions: Publish, don’t send
I previously wrote about the idea of your email inbox as a place to find good writing (this post started as an email). “Publish, don’t send,” is one of the mantras of the UK’s government digital strategy, which Matt Jukes discussed in an interview with InfoQ: There was a real benefit removing the thinking and…
-
Contentions: Services companies vs. full-time employees
Rand Fishkin wrote a really great piece on why companies should hire more services companies (e.g., agencies, studios, consultants, etc.). I’ve worked full-time at a Fortune 500 company and at a series B funded startup, as a fractional marketing leader, and as an outside independent expert or the project owner for my own services company,…
-
Contentions: Culture turned outwards is brand, turned inwards is product
If you walk into any of the Din Tai Fung branches in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, amongst dozens of other places, you’ll see the open kitchen through a big window. (Even the bootleg Din Tai Fung in Canada has a big window.) You know how the food is being made; the process and the experience…
-
Contentions: Article, series, zine, publication
It’s easy for gravitational pull—fear, doubt, uncertainty, lenience, confusion—to draw a project out longer than it needs to take. Especially at a large company, it feels like the more time and money you have, the better it’ll turn out. Of course, that’s not true; I’ve done projects with plenty of time, and some with tighter…