Most people tell you that you have to be willing to take advice. This is true. But, there are two other factors that are, in many ways, more important. You have to be ready and able to take it, too. Ready means that your vision is defined well enough to meaningfully interpret someone else’s words about it. Able […]
Five posts this week, including three offering advice. The thing that’s working best is to write about the topic of the moment. Life’s fluid right now, so my post topics need to be as well. That’s O.K. — I’ve liked what I’ve been writing. Still, next week, I plan to write about the electronic programming guide I’ve mentioned several times. It’s an […]
I’m polishing the cold email — again. I’m reminded, yet again, about how hard it is to pitch innovation, big or small. The light of day has reminded me that I need to tie the business cases I mention to some market numbers that demonstrate their financial significance (i.e., how BIG they are). This is easily forgotten when it […]
Some emails and documents are weighty and important. Write them, put them aside, come back to them. Do it again, and again. You’re not editing for accuracy here. You’re editing for punchiness (is it quick to read?), context (have you said too much?), and humor (do you sound like someone who’s upbeat and good?). In other words, you’re editing for tone […]
They called off the blizzard warning. New York is awake and slow today. The Starbucks on 85th and Lexington is open. It’s not packed, but it’s got a steady stream of customers. There are plenty of footfalls on the street, and shovels scraping some sidewalks. The busses are running, too. The snow seems to have given way to […]
I think I’ve written a great cold email pitch. I based it on some blog posts about cold emails. Here are a few of the links I used to develop a strategy: Steve Blank (famed professor) on getting meetings Michael Seibel (investor) on cold emails to investors Hacker News comments on Seibel’s advice (interesting tidbits throughout) Claire Fauquier (investor) on […]
Time flies. I wrote two real media analyses posts this week, one observational one, and was too busy to sit and scribble anything yesterday. I’ve been talking with some folks about our latest-and-greatest pitch. The discussion is night and day from prior ones. The simple reason is that I’ve stopped trying to pitch technology. I’m now pitching a […]
We’re apparently in a war between Facebook, Google, and everyone else. The everyone else is known as the open Web. I’ve noticed a few people talking about this lately. It seems to be the argument people are using to define the current digital world. The reason is that Facebook and Google are taking a huge chunk of […]
“Ambient media” is an interesting phrase I haven’t heard before. Jeremy Liew, a partner with Lightspeed Venture Partners, brought it to my attention via a Recode interview this week. Ambient media is a slick way of saying background noise — the thing people put on in the background while doing other things, like watching The NBC Today Show while getting ready in […]
I stood on the subway yesterday and stared down at the future of media. It was happening just beneath my left elbow. A middle-aged woman was sitting, flicking through her Facebook Feed. The Feed wasn’t interesting, the fact that she was zooming through mixed media was. Her Feed cut across publishers, genres, and global regions. Crudely drawn cartoons were followed by […]
Jabels 