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Newsletters are getting personal

Cold can be beautiful. But this week we’re talking about warming things up. I wrote about the encouraging trend of newsletters getting more personal. I admit, I thought this would start happening a few years ago, but let’s just be glad it’s happening at all! — CJ Elsewhere:

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Newsletters are getting personal

A lot of my advice, especially to small businesses, involves getting more personal in their email newsletters. It remains a struggle to convince some businesses to include real names (not just the brand name), be a little less perfectionist in their designs, and write like a real human. The more

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Recommended Reading

No one goes north this time of year, so I took a weekend off and headed up north with my son on a road trip to Door County. A whole bunch of new books were released, so the timing was perfect to catch up on some reading. Alex Van Halen’

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Make the time.

I hate that sentence. It assumes a lot about agency, not to mention the reader’s mental and physical abilities. The core of it is necessary to hear, though. It would be better stated as, “You must fight for enough time to devote to the things that matter.” No one

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A little ain’t enough

Well, that’s another horizontal line filled on the life calendar in my office – another trip around the sun. Unfortunately, I think this calendar has outlived its usefulness. It used to be a reminder of how far I’ve come. It’s turned into a weekly chore now. Thanks a

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Brands became bands.

Rick Beato just posted a video about why bands have disappeared from the charts, replaced by solo artists and collabs between solo artists. Before recorded music gained mass popularity in the 1950s, music branding was all about individuals. As the industry became a well-oiled machine with global distribution, bands became

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When text wins over video

I know the future, and present, of online consumption is video. Audio falls in and out of favor. Text seems like a dinosaur. When does text still win over video? John Gruber thinks he knows and I find it encouraging – especially for email newsletter publishers. He recently released a podcast

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“Don’t compete with yourself.”

There’s been a lot of great analysis this week of my favorite topic: the fuzzy line between personal and business newsletters. Josh Spector gave some good advice about why creating multiple brands is a trap that only multiplies your work and your readers’ confusion.  “If you insist on building

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What’s your creative refuge?

I did a stupid thing.  I had a summer packed with content strategy work — mostly about AI and mostly with big tech companies.  For some reason, I decided this meant I had to really buckle down and never leave my keyboard. I took only one vacation day for the entire

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AI Burnout

One of the most beloved Italian restaurants in the Chicago area has a different take on menu technology. No QR codes. No over-the-top printing costs. The menu is written on the wall. If you want it on your phone, you take a photo. Humanity is underrated. Does AI decrease productivity?