I write about software development, tools, and people.
And how marketing makes it all better.
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I keep thinking about that catastrophically bad Apple commercial for the new iPad.I can see what they were trying to do, to say that all these tools could exist inside their new, skinnier iPad. But the way it read to…
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Context is King
Amanda Ciarci wrote an article called Content vs Context: If Content Is King, Context Is Queen in Marketing. It talks about how the right content doesn’t work as well if it’s not paired with the right context. We can all think…
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Do you want a newsletter?
Most of my favorite talks start with an excellent title. I have never been sure if the title drives a good talk, or if the talk thinking gels a good title. Some of both, probably. You have to admit, though,…
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Bar oil and tailored messaging
I just spent a paragraph explaining to you what bar oil is. It’s not because you’re dumber or smarter than professional woodsmen, it’s because a message only works if you know who the audience is and what they care about.…
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Guardrails and Plimsoll Lines
In an era where we have to assume that our data is being collected, and the data we collect, I think we need to get more nuanced about our guardrails. We need to think about what the worst possible outcome…
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Identify the problem, then offer the solution
You’ve got trouble, right here in River City It starts with P and that rhymes with T and that stands for trouble. The good people of River City were not dying to spend a lot of money on trombones and…
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How long has this been going on?
It’s easy to feel like AI* was the domain of science fiction and IBM moonshots until ChatGPT burst onto the public consciousness like Kool-Aid Man. It’s easy, but it’s not correct. What even is AI? LLMs have been around a…
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Brand and the Trust Thermocline
How do you feel about getting on a Boeing airplane right now, March of 2024? Maybe not as secure as you did last year, or before the 777 stories started appearing? 10 years ago, we never gave it a thought.…
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Pardon our dust: revamping a website
I am both intensely curious and a little lazy, and I am passionate about effective communication. It’s not such a bad thing to know about myself.
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Progressive Delivery and AI*
The year is 2024. A group of writers who thought they had a complete book proposal looks at the landscape of technology, curses, and starts outlining a chapter on AI. We all write about AI now, except for the bits…