“I’d like you to speak at our event,” you ask, and I might agree. But there are ways to do this and appear professional, and ways that mark you as unserious and a questionable partner. A little context. There was a time, when I was a Forrester analyst, when people were paying $15,000 a speech…
Most of what you read about writers using AI has a bias. It’s filled with writers who like to shout about what they think. Social media algorithms reward the shouting, and you get one of two impressions, depending on your friends: Everyone is using AI for everything, or AI is going to cause the downfall…
There are a lot of people, mostly in Silicon Valley, who knew Shel Israel better than I did. But Shel made a positive impression on me and so many others, so I wanted to pay tribute as best I could, now that he’s gone. In 2006, Shel and Robert Scoble published Naked Conversations: How Blogs…
Starting today, you can participate in the “AI and the Writing Profession” survey. This survey is a joint project of Gotham Ghostwriters and Bernoff.com. Dan Gerstein, the CEO of Gotham Ghostwriters, proposed this project to me and I enthusiastically agreed to become his partner in it. The web is filled with all manner of opinions…
The best part about being on vacation is waking up and realizing you don’t know what day it is — and it doesn’t matter.
You may have noticed that the banner photo on the front of Bernoff.com has changed. I’m older. The original photo was taken about 13 years ago. Since then my hair has gone grey and has begun thinning in front. I was also diagnosed with and successfully treated for prostate cancer. My mind is also not…
This is the best part about working for a long time (or if you prefer, being old). There are a thousand people who will respond to my informal request for help. I know experts in social media, venture capital, digital marketing, finance, health care, retail, taxation, artificial intelligence, publishing, television, statistics, brand licensing, home efficiency,…
My company WOBS continues successfully in 2025, ten years after I started it. Many things about what I do have changed, but others have remained constant. I thought it might be instructive to describe my journey as a freelance writer, editor, and ghostwriter. Fundamental principles When I started, I had a clear idea of what…
Ten years ago, WOBS was born. WOBS LLC is the name of my company. The first blog post on bernoff.com (which at that time was called withoutbullshit.com) was ten years ago. Today I’ll talk about how I went from a senior executive at a respected research company to to a 56-year-old freelancer with dreams to…