If an employee of a company told you something wrong that cost you money, you could sue the company for damages. It’s the same with a chatbot. Here’s what happened. Air Canada features a customer service chatbot on its website. You’ve probably interacted with service chatbots like these on other companies’ sites — I researched…
Jeevan Sivasubramaniam, editorial director of the publisher Berrett-Koehler, recently wrote that if you love your editor, they’re probably not doing a good job. This contradicts my experience. Great writers love great editors — and hate them at the same time. It’s a strange relationship. An analogy Imagine that you are working with a personal trainer…
A little more than 25 years ago, I found myself crowded into cramped hotel suite with Mike Ramsay and Tim Barton, the founders of a startup called TiVo. I was the media-industry analyst at Forrester, and they were eager to demonstrate a new TV set-top box and get me to talk about it. That demo…
A clash between two rights characterizes every story you read in a nonfiction book. You, the reader, have a right to the truth. And the people you’re reading about have a right to privacy. The author walks the narrow path between those rights. But it becomes even more challenging if the right to privacy is…
Newsletter 31. Looking back on your career, in praise of college writing centers, the disruption of a Canadian bookseller, plus three people to follow, three brand new books to read, and a plug for the imperfect manuscript. My emotional résumé I’ve been helping a friend with her résumé. The hard part is shoehorning valuable experiences…
It’s happened yet again. A book I’m working on is in “title hell.” What is title hell? It is the condition in which the important decision-makers on a book cannot agree on an appropriate title. And it is hell, because when you are in this condition, you tend to go around and around in maddening…
With advertisers paying $7 million per 30 seconds, Super Bowl ads are among the most expensive branding opportunities available. But do they work? If you watched the game on Sunday, take the quiz below. Write down your answers on a piece of paper. The point isn’t whether you remembered the ad. The point is, do…
There is awesome writing. There is just okay writing that does the job. And then there is writing that makes you stop and say, “What in hell is going on here?” In an article about what’s to become of the venerable Boston tourist trap that is the Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston Globe writer Dana Gerber…
I recently got this note from a reader who wants to write a book to help others (slightly edited here for space): Dear Dr. Wobs: I’ve been writing a document I call “My Life With a [specific medical device]”, which I’d like to make available at no cost to other people living with one or…