2025-11-25 23:56:09
Every day, this blog is automatically echoed on my Linkedin channel. Over the last few years, the traffic to those posts on Linkedin is down more than 90%. Understandable. Platforms evolve, people shift their patterns and interests.
I recently did a manual post on Linkedin, though, and was amazed to discover that within minutes, it had 10 times as much traffic as a typical post does. I did another one about this leap and it did even better. It’s clear that the algorithm was changed.
Not to help me, not to help you, but to help the endless quest for more that most public companies wrestle with.
The seduction is clear. They’re sending a message: If you want us to bring you eyeballs, move in. Don’t link out.
Problem one: eyeballs don’t make change happen, people do.
Problem two: Don’t check into a motel that makes it hard to check out.
Enshittification is real. VCs and public markets push the companies they invest in to maximize profits. First, please the customers. Then, double cross them to please the advertisers. Finally, double cross both of them to please the stock price.
The alternative is to own your own stuff. To build an asset you control, and to guard your attention and trust carefully.
The best way to read blogs hasn’t changed in twenty years. RSS. It’s free and easy and it just works. It’s the most efficient way to get the information you’re looking for, and it’s under your control. There’s a quick explainer video at that link along with a reader that’s easy to use.
And, if you’re a creator of change, of brand, of content or of art, it’s worth considering whether you want to own the assets or just rent them.
As an experiment, this blog is now going to be shared via Zapier as a cut and paste to Linkedin. Perhaps that will help users who are trapped in their ecosystem be able to read it more easily. It’ll probably be stripped of links, which you can find here on the blog itself…
As always, the source of truth (and the latest posts with all typos fixed) is right here on the blog at seths dot blog.
Where we create our media and how we consume it are still up to us. It’s true, at some point, that the medium is the message.
2025-11-25 18:03:00
Gall’s Law is appropriately simple:
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.”This is why sudden change rarely is, and why persistence and user feedback end up changing the systems that run our world.
Begin.
Learn.
Succeed.
Then add complexity.
2025-11-24 18:03:00
Of course, a book with a title like this gives us pause–when we think of marketers, we don’t ordinarily think about Jerry, Phil, Bobby and the rest of the crew.
But that’s one reason why the insights are so profound.
Marketing isn’t hype or hustle or scamming. It’s not spam or manipulation either. We already have words for those things.
Marketing is the generous act of showing up with a true story that helps people get to where they’d like to go.
And the stories are at the heart of what we think of when we consider the Dead. The intentional choices. Choices about fans, tours, records, the radio and most of all, the community. Work that matters for people who care.
While it’s tempting to make every marketing lesson about Apple or Starbucks, it’s the lessons we learn from the Grateful Dead that are most applicable to a typical project. The smallest viable audience, the purple cow, the tribe and the persistence to build an actual brand, not just a logo.
The thing is, these aren’t marketing secrets. They’re marketing choices.
Instead of making average stuff for average people, the Grateful Dead decided to focus on the people who wanted to get on the bus.
The book is highly recommended. You can even listen to music while you’re reading it.
Also worth a read: Lose Your Mind, a useful take on creativity.
PS This is Strategy is 50% off this week.
2025-11-23 18:03:00
The most useful definition of quality: It meets spec.
The hard part isn’t putting in enormous effort to somehow beat the spec.
The hard part is setting the spec properly.
If you’re not happy with the change you’re making and the customer experience, change the spec.
And when you meet spec, ship the work.
2025-11-22 18:03:00
The worst sort of powerlessness happens when we’re seduced into doing it to ourselves.
2025-11-21 18:03:00
It’s almost never exclusively based on logic.
We navigate the world with stories, beliefs and assumptions. And the people you’re trying to persuade have a different set of all three than you do.
“If I were you” is a hard sentence to sell, because you’re not me.
A convincing argument works when the recipient is convinced, not you.
