Our minds are very complex, and our choices are often influenced by strange factors. In this article I want to touch very briefly on the psychology of persuasion and focus particularly on cognitive biases. I can’t do justice to the topic in this short space, but I’d like to pique your interest by mentioning a … Read more
What’s the best length for an email subject line? What’s the best length for an article on the web? How many free article views should a reader get before you show the paywall? There are a lot of so-called “best practices” answers to these sorts of questions, and they’re usually nonsense. Bo Sacks distributed an … Read more
I’m a big advocate of practical tools: checklists, forms, and that sort of thing. When I was a VP of operations at a large association, I learned a lot about frameworks. This post is about one very simple kind of framework: Quadrant analysis. You’ve seen these before. It’s a 2×2 matrix where some value on … Read more
Bo Sacks distributed an interesting article by Peter Houston yesterday called “How to build a future-proof editorial operation: Insights from IFJ 2023.” IFJ being the International Journalism Festival in Italy. I’ll review his five points and give my take below. 1. Serve your audience This should be obvious, right? If you make a product, you … Read more
I wanted to do a little experiment this morning, so I fed this prompt into ChatGPT. I would like to see how well you do at writing a post for my blog, which is for publishers, and focuses on technology and operations issues. I will give you links to my 15 most recent blog posts. … Read more
The Kiplinger Letter is a master class in writing succinctly, clearly, and so readers can easily scan the text — even though it’s only four pages long. I admire that style. Jim Patterson of Kiplinger explains that you can get the gist of any section, and any page, just by reading the underlined parts. It’s … Read more
In the world of publishing, AI can be a powerful tool to improve your content creation process. However, it is essential to use it with caution and verify its results. Bo Sacks distributed a cautionary tale from the world of artificial intelligence that everyone in the publishing industry should read. A German weekly used AI … Read more
I’ve heard it both ways. My friend Janet Granger says there are big differences, but I’ve also seen old quotes about Baby Boomers that sound suspiciously like recent quotes about Gen. Z, which makes me wonder if the differences are just a matter of getting older. We have a funny relationship with generalizations. Or can … Read more
That’s one of my favorite sayings, but it begs an interesting question. What does “perfect” mean? “Perfect is the enemy of done” should not mean, “publish that amateurish first draft.” On the other hand, if my kayak is in the middle of a school of fish, the perfect fishing lure is the one I can … Read more
While everyone is debating remote vs. in-office work, I recommend something that could be far more consequential. Get people out of their routines! Some of the most productive thinking time I’ve had has been on train rides to New York. Here’s the basic schedule. Pick a topic to research, print out relevant white papers and … Read more
This is the last of my 3-part series on what marketing needs to know about IT. Here are links to part 1 and part 2. Be Diplomatic There’s a huge cultural gap between marketing and IT, and the sort of things that work in a sales or marketing environment might not work in a techie … Read more
Vilfredo Pareto tells us that 20 percent of causes account for 80 percent of effects. It’s eerie how often that ratio applies, but rather than worrying about the metaphysics of it, publishers should consider how to modify their strategies based on how this might play out in their businesses, like … 80% of revenue may … Read more
It’s easy to assume that everyone else knows what you know. In this article, I provide some examples of where this bias can crop up and how to deal with it. Read my latest over on the martech.org site.
A lot of people deride the idea of New Year’s resolutions because so many people make them and don’t keep them. Even if that’s true, it seems to me there is some virtue in trying. But in any event, I looked up some (allegedly) science-based ways to keep your resolutions. Make them … Specific and … Read more
How deeply should you micro-manage people? Do you treat them like competent professionals, or do you get into their business and check their work? I’m not sure there’s a one-size-fits-all answer. What do you think? If you want to understand contemporary issues, read old books. You have to get your mind outside the trap of … Read more