Pigweed’s Paradox
Have you heard of the cobra effect? It dates back to the British occupation of…
Pigweed’s Paradox
Have you heard of the cobra effect? It dates back to the British occupation of India, and it goes like this. The Brits wanted to reduce the number of cobras, so they offered a bounty for dead cobras. Bring in a dead snake, get some money. It worked. People killed cobras and collected the bounty,…
Does AI Need Journalists?
I hear it all the time. AI depends on journalists for the raw material it uses to generate its answers. At least some of those answers. AI doesn’t rely on journalists to answer questions about Mars, but it does for, say, political stories. Does it make sense to rely on AI for your daily news?…
Don’t force an AI solution on every problem
I have some friends who are trying to convert a PDF publication to a digital mark-up language. Yes, I know, we’ve been doing this for decades, and it’s somewhat amazing there isn’t a simple, clean solution yet. My friends want to use AI, which reminds me of the old saying, “When the only tool you…
The “Wheels on the Bus” Publisher Checklist
Summary: A CEO needs a regular report on a small set of indicators that tells him whether the basic machinery of the business is functioning. Here are some guidelines for creating that report. Years ago I had lunch with a former colleague who told me a sad tale of a publishing company that neglected to…
Are AI-enabled search results a good strategy for the NYT?
Bo Sacks distributed an article about the New York Times using AI summaries, which triggered the following thoughts. (Link at the end of this article.) Suppose I’m a New York Times subscriber who’s wondering why inflation rose after COVID. Here are four possible experiences. I type my query into Google search and get links, which…
There’s no such thing as a “data first” strategy
Part 273 in Greg’s “identifying bullshit” series. Data constrains strategies, it doesn’t create them. Before you have any data you have to have a goal. Did the Wright Brothers study data on birds, or weather, or aerodynamics, and then come up with an airplane? Of course not. They started with “I want to fly” and…
You Have to Learn Why Things Work on a Starship
Tip: AI doesn’t eliminate the need to know how things work. It increases the value of knowing why they work. I ran into a problem this week with an email that was sent with a bad link. To fix it I needed to create a redirect, but not a simple redirect. This particular link relied…
Perspective and Judgment in Publishing
What will publishing look like in the Age of AI? Let’s examine that. TikTok “gets you” fast. At least that’s what I’m told. I don’t use it. It’s not doing magic or reading your mind. It’s curating based on your actions. But curation always has a goal. TikTok’s goal is to capture your attention. It…
How the LinkedIn Mindset is Destroying Publishing
Summary: Modern business culture — epitomized by LinkedIn’s obsession with “actionable takeaways” — discourages people from raising important warnings unless they already have a solution, even though recognizing problems and solving them are often different skills. Organizations, including publishers, make better decisions when they value unresolved warnings because they recruit other minds to understand and…
How Would a Pattern-Seeking Superintelligence Shape the Future?
Summary: If AI becomes a superintelligent pattern seeker, it may infer values or organizing narratives from the data it has absorbed – that no human has considered. If humans ever create AI superintelligence, what would happen? Most people who’ve given the question any serious thought say nothing good, with a very small chance of something…
When the Metric Becomes the Mission
Summary: Gamification and engagement metrics can be useful, but they become dangerous when publishers mistake measurable activity — clicks, comments, time on site — for the deeper goal those metrics are supposed to serve. The real objective isn’t to get people to rack up more interactions; it’s to attract the right audience, serve them well…
The next iteration of publishing
Thesis: We’re moving towards a publishing market where AI content monetized by ads is going to dominate. How will publishers survive? Short answer: many won’t. I know that this idea upsets a lot of people for a lot of reasons, but here’s why it’s going to happen. Value. Cheap Sells Publishers argue that their content…
The best CEO I ever worked for
We all know stories about CEOs who swoop in with a pile of ridiculous ideas, stir up the sediment that had just finished settling since the last tumultuous visit, cause lots of anxiety among the people who do the actual work, and then complain that their unworkable strategy isn’t getting done. I have a different…
The Tyranny of the Peanut Gallery
Two men went to Mass one Sunday. One spent his time internally criticizing the songs, the sermon, and the liturgy. The other allowed the songs, the sermon, and the liturgy to criticize him. The first man wanted to tweet about his experience to show how discerning and wise he was. The second man reflected on…
What the Business Storyteller Can Learn from the Novelist
One of the things I’ve learned as an amateur fiction writer is that there’s a type of character arc in the creative process that most people don’t know about. It’s a strange type of character development. When you start writing a story, you have an idea about your main character. She’s single, about 30. She’s…
