Category: Creator Confidential
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“What would you recommend?”
Whether it’s selecting an item at a new restaurant, or mapping out the 10 year vision for their business, the other person—your boss, your customer, your client—doesn’t always know what they want. They’re waiting for you to tell them. That’s when preparation meets opportunity; it’s your chance to provide them with the information they need,…
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Contentions: Names set expectations
What’s the difference between a book, an ebook, a digital book, a pamphlet, a booklet, a brochure, and a bulletin? By strict definition, they share a lot of common traits. They are all documents that hold words on them. The main difference is what each word leads a person to expect. For example, a book…
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Play to your strengths
It’s one thing to find a strategy, tactic, or best practice that worked for someone else. The internet is bursting with people sharing what works for them. It’s an entirely different thing to find the practice that works for you. You are the most important factor in how the things you do turn out. For…
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Their currency, their rules
With the prevalence of loyalty programs, it’s important to remember: if you’re using a company’s currency (such as points, rewards, coupons, etc.), you’ll need to abide by their rules. They can update their rules anytime with arbitrary guidelines and principles. They will often do this to incentivize you to make decisions or behave in their…
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Compiling
Film editor Brian Kinnes recently compiled a 73-minute film of Frank Ocean’s infamous Coachella set, using fan-made footage. Brian Kinnes’s insight was to download all of the files as they were uploaded to YouTube; the footage has since been removed from the internet, and he uploaded it and received a cease and desist. He now…
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What are we surviving for?
There’s a common belief that medicine saves lives, and that art doesn’t. (Or, “Medicine actually saves lives though.”) This isn’t a constructive story. Nor is it a true story. This story was invented by people whose myopia for calculation blinded them to the facts. The benefits of salaries, scientific theory, and fear (disguised as practicality)…
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Fan non-fiction
Fan non-fiction is a book, article, or text about real facts, people and events, conveyed through the characters, stories, and lore of a particular novel, film, etc. It’s a great way to get someone interested in learning about a topic that would’ve otherwise bored them immensely. Elvia Wilk writes, “First I point—then, you notice my…
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Steps to success
The Milwaukee Bucks were one of the favorites to win the NBA playoffs this year, finishing at the top of their conference division. The team had already won a championship in 2021. That didn’t happen. Instead, the team lost in the first round, to the eighth seed Miami Heat. Journalist Eric Nehm recently asked Bucks’…
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A deliverable is just an artifact
Project deliverables—a final draft, an app in production, a strategy or plan, etc.—are great. They’re not easy to make, and they only exist because a person or group of people gave a ton of emotional energy to breathe life into them. We focus on the project deliverable because we can see and touch it. We’ve…
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Question everything
In Figures of Speech, an essay entitled, Virgil Abloh: A Hundred Percent, Virgil Abloh and Anja Aronowsky Cronberg write: Get this. I was the idiot who believed that all fashion design was deeper than just clothing. I thought each season was about a concept that represented a larger idea. Don’t get me wrong, I know…