Summaries can create blind spots

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I’m a big fan of summaries, as they can be a great way to get a lot of information in a short period of time. Blinkist creates fantastic summaries, and I certainly read them quite often.

That said, summaries can leave you short. In his book “Clear Thinking“, Shane Parrish shares:

Reading a summary might be faster than reading a full document, but it misses a lot of details— details that weren’t relevant to the person summarizing the information, but that might be relevant to you. You end up saving time at the cost of missing important information. Skimming inadvertently creates blind spots.

Every summary, by design, omits a lot of the content in the original piece. That can be fine, but it might miss things that would have resonated well with you.

The other consideration is to think about who is writing the summary. If we’re learning from a summary, we’re a step further away from the true expert. Again from Shane’s book:

Many of us learn about a subject not by reading original research or listening to the expert for hours, but by reading something intended to be highly transmissible. Think again of the difference between reading an academic article and reading a newspaper article about it. While they know more than the layman, popularizers are not experts themselves. Instead, they are good at clearly and memorably communicating ideas. As a result, popularizers often get mistaken for experts. Keep that in mind when you’re in the market for an expert: the person with real expertise is often not the person who made the subject popular.

He’s essentially talking about me! I provide a lot of summaries and insights (which can be super helpful for me), but I hope you take the time to dig deeper into the source of the areas that interest you.

Summaries can give you a wide range of information, but it’s always worthwhile to pick the important pieces and go much deeper on those.

“What is spam?”, 10 years later

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I share a lot from Seth Godin on this blog and in emails to various people, but there is one of his posts that I share far more than others called “What is spam?“

He published it 10 years ago today, and I fear that things have gotten far worse over this last decade.

The entire post is amazing, and quite short, so I encourage you to give it a read. For me, the first two paragraphs are the ones that I promote the most.

First, he defines spam:

Spam is commercial, unsolicited, unanticipated, irrelevant messaging, sent in bulk. It’s the email you didn’t ask to get, the junk in the comments that’s selfish and trying to sell something, the robocall on your cell phone from a company pretending to be Google Maps.

Next, he explains why it’s such a problem:

Some spammers will tell you that all you need to do is opt out. But of course, the very problem with spam is that it requires action on the part of the recipient, action that can’t possibly scale (how many times a day should we have to opt out, communicating with businesses we never asked to hear from in the first place?) People are smart enough to see that once spam becomes professionally and socially acceptable, all open systems fall apart.

It’s the first sentence of that second paragraph that tells the story: “all you need to do is opt out”. Here are a few of those “all you need to do” messages at the bottom of spam emails that I received yesterday:

  • “Should you wish to be removed from these emails giving you current ocean costs, just let me know and I will be happy to remove you moving forward”
  • “If there is no longer an interest please let me know.”
  • “If you reply ‘Not Interested’, we will remove you from our lists.”
  • “If no interest, let us know so we don’t follow up further.”

I’d say roughly 1/3 include a message like that, 1/3 include a normal “unsubscribe” link (which may or may not work), and the other 1/3 just send the message with no instructions on how to opt out. In all cases, I just mark as spam and move on.

Of course, this is just email that we’re talking about but the problem is growing when it comes to text messages, phone calls, LinkedIn messages, and other forms of communication as well. Unsolicited messages in any of those areas is never acceptable.

The growing problem is not just the “evil spammers” of the world (though they’re problematic as well), but otherwise mostly legit marketing companies that think this kind of behavior is acceptable. It’s not.

I’ll end with the same statement that Seth put at the bottom of his post 10 years ago:

Trust, as we know, is the essence of connection and transaction, and spam is the radioactive antitrust device.

The Sunday Summary: Cooperation, media creation, and hot takes regarding TikTok

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In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.

Mon, April 22: Sit quietly in a room alone
It can be a very difficult thing to do, but can you sit quietly in a room alone?

Tue, April 23: Cooperation wins, even if you lose every time
The logic behind this kind of broke my brain, but it was fascinating. How can you win in the end if you lose every match?

Wed, April 24: We are generators of the media
If you’re not happy with the state of things on the internet, look to your own browsing habits first.

Thu, April 25: Ask for advice, not feedback
Asking for advice can be a great thing, but asking for feedback is usually even better.

Fri, April 26: Taglines vs Headlines
They’re often interchanged, but is there a real difference between a “tagline” and a “headline”?

Sat, April 27: They don’t care about your hot take regarding TikTok
You might have some fascinating insights about social media or other technology platforms, but your clients only want one thing — success in business.

I hope you found some value in this. If you ever have questions, ideas, or disagreements regarding anything I write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

They don’t care about your hot take regarding TikTok

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I was on a call recently with a potential client, and we got pretty deep into what he was looking to accomplish. I sort of summarized the call by saying something like “We’ll sell you a website and marketing, but I know that you’re just buying phone calls.“

Most businesses don’t want to improve their website or grow their email list — they want more business! Most of them realize that things like websites and email are the tools to get them there, but that’s not their end goal.

The same is true of social media. Most businesses don’t really want to spend their name on there, they just want results. Similarly, they don’t care about our opinions how silly some of those places might be, as long as they bring results.

In a recent podcast episode, Gary Vaynerchuk said it very well with:

“Unfortunately many people here deploy their human opinion. Their feelings about TikTok or Facebook or that their kids are on it too long. The consumer you’re trying to reach to sell your service to is really not super interested on your hot take of what 13-year-olds are doing on TikTok. They’re not super intrigued by how much you like or dislike Facebook. They just live their life, see things, and spend their money.“

You might think that Facebook is for old people and that TikTok is only full of kids dancing around, and you’re welcome to have those opinions. You might be right!

However, if you want to grow your business it’s important to get past those opinions, ignore the hot takes, and put your effort where it’ll make the most impact on your bottom line.

Taglines vs Headlines

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This was from a short conversation I had a few weeks ago, and I thought it was worth sharing. What’s the difference between a “tagline” and a “headline”?

Here’s how I see it.

Taglines define your company. Nike is “Just Do It”. Apple used “Think Different” for years. Our is “Building a Brighter Web”.

They’re ways to describe your overall mission, but they are intentionally a bit open to interpretation and they’re usually referenced alongside your logo (in theory, if not in practice).

Headlines are where you want users to focus first, and are more specific and meant to begin to draw visitors into your story. Nike and Apple both change their headlines frequently, usually around specific products. At the time of this writing:

  • Nike: “Nike Indy Bra: Feel Sculpted”
  • Apple: “Apple Vision Pro: You’ve never seen anything like this before”
  • In our case, it’s “Building websites and strategies that grow your business”.

For all three, the headline is more descriptive and more likely to change, whereas the tagline often remains the same for years to come. Both are very important to get right.

That’s how I see the two. Do you agree, or do you see them differently?

Ask for advice, not feedback

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Sometimes just a little shift in wording can make a huge difference. In Adam Grant’s book “Hidden Potential“, he explains the difference between seeking feedback and seeking advice:

Instead of seeking feedback, you’re better off asking for advice. Feedback tends to focus on how well you did last time. Advice shifts attention to how you can do better next time.

While I can understand it from the perspective of the person asking, it makes a ton of sense to me when I consider it from the perspective of the person receiving.

If someone asks me for feedback, my default will be a positive response. Even if the event/performance in question was sub-par, I’ll feel inclined to give some kind of “you did great!” type of response.

However, if someone asks for advice, it feels that they’re more open to an actual evaluation. Depending on the situation I’d likely still default to a positive response, but I’ll be more likely to give some tactical guidance as well.

If I make a major mistake with something, I might default to just wanting consolation. In most cases, though, advice on how to improve for next time is the best gift that someone could offer.

We are generators of the media

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A few weeks ago, PJ Vogt interviewed Ezra Klein on the Search Engine podcast. It was a fascinating interview and I encourage you to give it a listen, but one concept that Ezra shared really stuck out to me — we are generators of the media.

He said this on a podcast, and I’m repeating it on a blog, but he wasn’t talking about literally creating media. That’s part of it, of course, but he was talking about generating media with our actions online. In particular, he said:

“We are generators of the media. What we give our time, attention, and money to is what thrives and what doesn’t get it is what dies.”

If you think we need better news sites, then pay for the news that you want to see more of. If you’re tired of how pervasive Facebook is, then don’t spend your time on there. What we consume helps shape future content.

He explained further:

“The most frustrating person in this paradigm is the person who is on Twitter complaining about Twitter. Dude, it is like you are sending money to Elon Musk and complaining about Elon Musk as you take your $20 and put it in the algorithm.”

I’ve made it a point over the years to pay for the services that I get value out of, even if I don’t necessarily need to pay for them. I use this platform to send links and visitors to services and websites that I enjoy. While this is by no means a huge platform, every visitor and every link helps a little bit.

Behavior on the internet isn’t getting worse, but I don’t like the direction that many companies are taking, such as Google replacing the useful “Google Now” with the clickbait-feeding “Google Discover”. I can’t fix that decision that they made, but I make it a point to avoid that area of my phone.

Vote with your browsing habits, and check out that full episode of Search Engine to get a deep dive into what I’ve touched on here.

Cooperation wins, even if you lose every time

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The most famous problem in game theory is called “The Prisoner’s Dilemma“, and you’ve likely seen it play out in game shows over the years. In game shows, it often comes down to the final two players with a secret vote to split the pot or try to take more for themselves, and the logic behind making the “right” choice can be very challenging.

The full explanation of how this dilemma works is fairly complicated (Investopedia has a great post about it), but it goes something like this:

  • You and someone else are in separate rooms, and each offered a deal.
  • If you both cooperate, you each get $3.
  • If you both defect, you each get $1.
  • If you cooperate but your opponent defects, they get $5 and you get $0.

Clearly the best overall strategy is to both cooperate, but the best individual strategy is to always defect. If you defect you always come out ahead, because if:

  • Your opponent also defects, you get $1 instead of $0.
  • Your opponent cooperates, you get $5 instead of $3.

It’s always better to defect, right?

The long game

For a single game, yes, you’re best off defecting. However, in the long run you’re best off cooperating quite a bit. Derek Muller at Veritasium has a fascinating video about this, in which they put a bunch of strategies to the test where they match up different techniques over hundreds of games. The video is nearly 30 minutes long, but I found it to be wildly insightful (as did millions of other viewers on YouTube):

If you don’t have time to watch the video right now, after dozens of different strategies competed in thousands of match-ups, things ended up very counter-intuitively.

  • The selfish strategies that almost always defect are able to win every game, but end up with relatively little money in the end.
  • The generous strategies that almost always cooperate end up losing almost every game, but end up with quite a bit more money in the end.

In the long run, the generous strategy they share in the video called “tit for tat” didn’t win a single individual matchup, but dominated every other strategy in terms of total value across all of their games.

The lessons from the video and the tests showed that the best strategies did three things, and I found them to be good ideas for life.

  1. Be nice.
  2. Be forgiving.
  3. Don’t be a pushover.

The “tit for tat” strategy would cooperate as much as possible (“be nice”), but if another strategy defected they’d defect right back (“don’t be a pushover”), but they would be willing to cooperate again in future moves (“be forgiving”).

Take the optimistic view in life and assume the best from people, but don’t be a total pushover. In the end, though, being forgiving is likely the best path for everyone.

Sit quietly in a room alone

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Can you sit quietly in a room alone? According to many ideas in the book “Unlimited Memory“, it’s a great thing to do.

They start with a quote from Blaise Pascal that brought the title of this post:

“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Related was a quote from Pythagoras, who said:

“Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.”

It kind of led to this main point by author Kevin Horsley, who shared:

Stop overwhelming yourself by continually changing the channels of your mind. Sharpen your intellect by making it a habit to do one thing at a time. Rediscover the value of consecutive tasking, instead of settling for the diluted quality that comes from simultaneous tasking. Exceptional work is always associated with periods of deep concentration. Nothing excellent ever comes from a scattered effort. When you are “all there,” your brain power and resources will be all there, too.

While I’m not great about specifically “sitting quietly in a room”, I try to make time to just get away and think. The idea of a “clarity break” is something that resonates with me, and it’s something I try to get away and do at least once a week or so. This post from a few years ago unpacks how I do that.

Even if you’ve never done it on purpose, you’ve seen the benefits of it when you get a great idea while you’re in the shower or out for a walk. It can be pretty awesome.

One way or another, sitting quietly with no interruptions can have huge advantages. You can stare out the window, sit quietly in a room, go outside for a clarity break, or do one of a hundred different things.

Do you ever intentionally take time to do nothing? How does that work for you?

The Sunday Summary: Generosity, presentations, cold outreach, and the internet isn’t getting worse

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In an effort to help me keep up with everything I post each week, here is my latest “Sunday Summary” of my posts from the week.

Mon, April 15: Don’t ascribe attribution to Google when other investments drove the real value
It’s easy to look at your stats and see a bunch of traffic coming from Google, but much of that might be actually driven by other sources, and those other sources are likely of much greater value.

Tue, April 16: Generosity is not about lowering your price
Being generous with your clients might mean lowering your price, but it might not.

Wed, April 17: Present or be present?
“I explain it as being present or presenting, and it’s one of my fondest lines that I’ve authored is you can present to people or you can be present to them. You cannot do both.”

Thu, April 18: If you purchase from cold outreach, you’re condoning their behavior
The title says it all. If someone hits with you a cold opportunity, the only moral response is to say “no” every time.

Fri, April 19: The internet isn’t getting worse either
It feels like the internet is getting worse, but it’s really not.

Sat, April 20: The commodity versus the product
“In the factory Revlon manufactures cosmetics, but in the store Revlon sells hope.” The commodity is cosmetics; the product, hope.

I hope you found some value in this. If you ever have questions, ideas, or disagreements regarding anything I write, please don’t hesitate to reach out.