The lie of expertise
Before getting into this week’s essay, I just to alert you to a new undertaking of mine: Concept testing on Linkedin. From now on I’m going to be doing one post a day on the platform where I’ll be trying out new ideas and theories, having a chat about them, and then potentially expanding on […]
Anatomy of a great strategy: Ford
People often ask me to give an example of a strategy I admire, and honestly I struggle. Of course there are the usual suspects – Apple, Nike, blah blah blah – but such answers feel like cop-outs. As a supposed expert, I should have more obscure and surprising examples on the tip of my tongue, […]
Strategic confidence: this is everything
It’s not every day that I come across a new idea in this field which stops me in my tracks, but I heard something recently that did just that. I’m paraphrasing but it was along the lines of: Marketing is the barrier you put up between yourself and the world. This is epic, so let me […]
Google, enshittification, and the lure of parasite brands
Recently I’ve come to an important conclusion: Google sucks. I don’t mean it sucks as a business model, or that it sucks ethically, or that it sucks strategically, or anything grand like that. No, I simply mean that it sucks at doing what it’s been designed to do: surfacing relevant information in answer to search […]
If you want to do great marketing, never use this word
As long time readers will know, my views on business begin and end with one simple belief: Business is the practice of delivering value to people. That’s it. Each and every company is nothing more than a system designed to give value, and thus receive it in return. Sure, you can create a business that […]
What does meaningful work really look like?
The other day I saw a great couple of tweets from a user called Madeon, which I repeat here in full: “I think it’s a tired idea to pretend every piece of art is ‘telling a story’ or ‘spreading a message’ like those are the only valid reasons to create” “Can you imagine watching a […]
ChatGPT, the Amish, and the friction deficit
You join me again for part 7 of my cultural context series, where I examine some of the silent macro forces which influence the currents of the world in which we act and strategise. Here are the previous 6 for reference, with the most recent first: The crushing tedium of excellence The schizophrenia machine: how brands remake our identities […]
The secret process of expert thinkers
I’m going to level with you. It’s about how I work. And I’ll admit up front, it makes me look kinda lazy and unprofessional. But through this essay I hope to show that not only is there logic in the laziness – but that it’s actually the only way to do effective intellectual and creative work. First, […]
Chess vs. Ecosystems: What’s strategy really like?
The other day someone sent me a great Twitter thread where a strategy expert explained why he doesn’t do consultancy: namely because, in his view, there is no such thing as strategy consultancy. You should check out the thread as it’s pretty entertaining, but in essence his argument was that strategy and execution aren’t divisible, so you cannot have […]
How to make strategy stick
The other day I stumbled across this Kevin Kelly quote which really sums up something I’ve learned in the past couple of years: “To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just re-do it, re-do it, re-do it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.” In some fields this […]