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Street Poet postscript: Why AI can feel cheap
Street Poet
A street poet teaches a writer lessons through a poem about a unicorn.
AI transcends the metaphor
We can't find a fitting metaphor for AI, which may be a sign of how transformative it will be.
"The AI burnout is real"
AI is creating immense disruption and knowledge workers are carrying the freight.
How to do good work fast
5 principles for doing good work, fast.
There's no substitute for experience
Time in the saddle will make you better, but it's no substitute for experience.
Fragmented focus in the age of AI
Distractions aren't new, but technology amplifies them.
AI makes Notion HubSpot's biggest threat
AI is creating a counter-intuitive competitive environment. Could Notion threaten HubSpot?
Mastering the basics across disciplines
There are no advanced skills, only mastery and combination of the basics.
Pursue craft, not politics
If...you make the work your end...you will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsment will know it.
Being fast and good is a superpower
Fast is rare. High quality is rare. Being fast at high quality work is a superpower.
Text message bankruptcy
My unread text message count topped 200. When a friend noticed and was shocked, I started thinking about how I, as an inbox zero advocate, ended up filing for text message bankruptcy.
My rejected Raycast job application
I applied to work at Raycast. They didn't hire me, but they did appreciate my application.
I’m joining Vercel after 5 years at RudderStack
After 5 years at RudderStack, I'm joining Vercel
Building an AI blog post summary feature with Vercel's AI Gateway
How I used Vercel's AI SDK and AI Gateway to build a model-selectable post summary feature for my blog
AI beyond the chat interface
AI chat is ubiquitous, but it's not the interface of the future.
AI will create a near-term socioeconomic gap among knowledge workers
The primary beneficiaries of AI are knowledge workers with existing expertise, which will create an increasingly high barrier of entry for those jobs.
Using Cursor to migrate my blog from WordPress to Next.js and Vercel
I migrated my 13-year-old WordPress blog to Next.js and Vercel using Cursor . The migration process involved exporting WordPress content, identifying edge cases, testing and refining migration scripts and manually QAing the content. The result was a clean and expedient migration, with estimating a total project time of 10-15 hours.
A pipeline stack for deeper analysis of Garmin data
I work at a company that makes data pipelines and I like to tinker, so when I came across a deficiency in Garmin’s reporting, I decided to see if I could build a basic pipeline stack that would deliv...
Career Update: I Joined RudderStack as Director of Customer Success
We'll start with the big news: after several years of consulting, I joined a San Francisco-based startup called RudderStack[^1]. I'm incredibly excited about the product and team, but more on that lat...
What it Looks Like to Process Email with Superhuman
Being an entrepreneur with my hands in a variety of projects, I receive a fair amount of email. There have been points where hundreds of messages hit my inbox in a day and points where that number wa...
Quick Observations on Services Businesses (Part 2): Productization and Commoditization
'This is the second post in a series I’m writing on running a services business[^1].
Quick Observations on Services Businesses (Part 1): Scaling is Completely Different
'I'm writing a short series[^1] of posts about observations I've made after transitioning from running a more direct-to-consumer focused business to running a B2B services business.
From Maker To Manager: Making Yourself Unnecessary
'This is the fourth post in an ongoing series about the transition from maker to manager[^1].
The End of an Incredible Adventure with The Iron Yard
I was recently invited to an event about digital marketing. At the beginning of the talk, I mentioned that the material included lessons learned from The Iron Yard, a company I co-founded and helped t...
Why So Many Businesses Don't Have a Marketing/Sales Funnel
Over the past few weeks I’ve had conversations with a variety of people about the marketing/sales funnel, which I wrote about recently[^1]. Even though many would consider a clear understanding of whe...
The Amazing Marketing/Sales Funnel
A few weeks ago I gave a talk explaining some of the lessons I’d learned about marketing as I helped grow The Iron Yard. As I reviewed my presentation with the conference organizer, one slide towards...
Writing Keeps Me Sharp
286 days have passed between the last post I published and this one, which is quite a long while as far as I'm concerned. In reality, though, 3/4 of a year of dormancy probably isn't that bad relative...
Is Google Making File Organization Irrelevant?
Recently, while working through a list of agenda items with several people on my team, I noticed a new feature in Google Docs: recognition of what is likely an action time and a suggestion to create a...
Productivity Hacking: The Source of Distractedness
'This is the seventeenth post in a series on productivity[^1]. The articles are based on content from a workshop I led at The Makers Summit.
History Repeats Itself
2016 has certainly been a surprising political year for many people. Many words have been written from every perspective about the how and why of campaigns and elections happening the way they did (an...
Is an Online Presence Mandatory? Part 3: Societal Consequences
Since writing about varying opinions on social media and ownership of online content, I’ve been musing about ‘online presence’ as a concept in general. Last night I mentioned to a friend that in 10 ye...
Is an Online Presence Mandatory? Part 2: Professional Consequences
Since writing about varying opinions on social media and ownership of online content, I’ve been musing about ‘online presence’ as a concept in general. Last night I mentioned to a friend that in 10 ye...
Is an Online Presence Mandatory? Part 1: Social Consequences
Since writing about varying opinions on social media and ownership of online content, I’ve been musing about ‘online presence’ as a concept in general. Last night I mentioned to a friend that in 10 ye...
A Good Reminder that Startups Fail (and Thoughts on Infrastructure)
During a stage of significant growth at The Iron Yard, several executives had a conversation about how to quell what had become the insanity of our heavy travel and meeting schedules. The CEO asked me...
The Difficulty of Technology as a Cure-all
Did you know 72 percent of people globally believe that connected home devices offer hackers new ways to steal data? The internet and technology really does make you think about things you didn't thin...
Maciej Cegłowski on the Danger of Data
I wrote recently about thoughts that have been swirling in my head about data and privacy in the world we live in today[^1]. Being back in the swing of things full time at work, I've been reminded mor...
Productivity Hacking: What Snake-oil Looks Like
'This is the sixteenth post in a series on productivity[^1]. This article adds to content from a workshop I led at The Makers Summit.
A Few Photos of Clouds
It's been quite a while since I picked up my camera. I used to be an avid photographer, but the backlog of photos to process became so oppressive that I lost motivation to shoot when faced with the id...
Personal Update: I'm a Dad
I don't often post personal life updates, but I thought that producing offspring was a noteworthy event.You can read more details (and check out lots of pictures) on a separate blog I set up[^1], but...
Productivity Hacking: Notifications as Distraction-by-Default
'This is the fifteenth post in a series on productivity[^1]. This article adds to content from a workshop I led at The Makers Summit.
Facebook, Photos, Privacy and Parenthood
This upcoming week is a big one for me and my wife: we will welcome our first child into the world. As you might know (or would expect), there are a myriad of ways becoming a parent challenges the way...
Humans Beat Robots at Mercedes
Headlines about big data and algorithms as the infrastructure for modern companies seem commonplace in a world being eaten by software. I was surprised, then, to run across an article titled Pink slip...
Quotes from the Team at The Iron Yard
Over the last few weeks I've been culling through a gigantic pile of links, articles and ideas that I've saved up for this blog. One of the files contained quotes from team members at The Iron Yard (t...
Do Stores Benefit from Offering Cash Back?
Being asked if you want cash back at a grocery store or convenience store is one of those experiences you don't really question—it's just part of the normal shopping experience at many places. I could...
Technology and the Impossible
Several months ago I took a test measuring personality and work behaviors. The test is known as the Five Factor Model and "suggests five broad dimensions used by some psychologists to describe the hum...
Manager as Editor
'Management is a topic that draws no shortage of opinions, studies or differing experiences.
Reinventing the Mail Business with Lawn Care
The United States Postal Service is one of the largest civilian employers in the country[^1], but has been plagued with financial struggles, making news headlines several times over in the last decade...
Name a Product that has Achieved Product-Market Fit
Some time ago I signed up for an online course about user growth. Overall it was underwhelming (so I'm not going to link to it), but there were a few exercises that challenged me to articulate my thou...