Lots of things are easy to sign up for. Lots of things are also not so easy to quit. With the new “click-to-cancel” rule implemented by the US Federal Trade Commission, that’s about to change. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission gets about 70 complaints a day about charges for subscriptions that are hard to cancel,…
I was minding my own business on LinkedIn when AT&T’s ad popped up. It shows a woman getting several things done at once, including eating potato chips. The tag-line: “Multi-task to the Max.” This is a terrible and disgusting message. Multi-tasking is evil People who try to do two or more things at once will…
Google has withdrawn its pathetic “Dear Sydney” commercial, in which a young girl is supposed to use Google Gemini AI to write a fan letter. You can easily place the blame on Google’s advertising team for creating this embarrassing ad, but I think the problem is rooted far deeper. Nobody at Google actually knows what…
If you’re watching the Olympics, you’ve probably seen this sad Google commercial about a father who wants his daughter to use the Google Gemini AI assistant to write a fan letter to her favorite athlete, hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Here’s the commercial: Let’s put it to the test Ok, Google, let’s see what you’ve got. Here’s…
Every company must balance its efforts between creating useful products or services and promoting and marketing those offerings. The same is true for individuals like me (consultants, authors, influencers, “thought leaders”). We can spend time building and stoking our audience, or we can spend time developing insights and serving customers with them. Having published a…
Newsletter 50. A terrible (or wonderful?) way to grow a business. Europeans reading in English, writerbots, and creepy AI video. Plus, three people to follow, three books to read, and your last chance to be counted as an author. What do you nurture? I don’t nurture leads. I help people. Look, I know there is…
Newsletter 47. How not to get sucked into hypercompetition, Bill Gates’ memoir, AI whistleblower protection, plus three people to follow, three books to read, and the world’s largest business author survey. How to succeed without competing For decades, I was driven to compete. I had to be the best. I was top of my class,…
Nine years after I started my freelance career, I’ve become an overnight success. In the last two weeks, these leads all came my way: “I was a participant in your writing workshop a few years ago, now I want to do one for my own department.” — Executive at Fortune 50 firm. “You edited my…
I’ve been studying the economic intersection of capitalism and addiction. It is a highly profitable and always a sordid business. A recent history of businesses based on addiction For a recent book project, I looked into what the tobacco companies did in the 20th century. We all know today that nicotine is addictive and cigarettes…