Twitter rebranded itself as “X.” That isn’t going to accomplish its goals. Why do companies rebrand? Usually, to escape the box they’ve put themselves into. It doesn’t always work, but it’s always expensive. The Twitter rebrand Here’s what Twitter’s home page looks like now. No more cute blue bird. Why? While Elon Musk did his…
Do you think the people who made the movie “Barbie” are concerned that “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s dark tale of the creation of the atomic bomb, is opening on the same weekend? After all, your average moviegoer is going to see at most one of them this weekend. Surely they studios are competing for your moviegoing…
Last week, I received a request to connect on LinkedIn with a woman named Mara, a senior executive from McKinsey. Since the profile matched the sort of people I tend to connect with and work with, I agreed. Pretty soon after we’d connected, I got a direct message with one word: “Hi.” Not very McKinsey….
Writing in The New York Times Magazine, Will Harrison cites Pedro Martinez, the once dominant Red Sox (and eventually, Mets) pitcher as an influence on his writing. No, Pedro is not a great writer. But he was a great pitcher. The reason: when he was at the top of his game, no batter knew what…
I think the reason I like editing is that I’m so curious and easily excited. I’ve edited books on cybersecurity, medical cures, networking, customer experience, disruption, AI, clear communication, data, ethical management, personal productivity, the future of transportation, and financial advising. Plus two memoirs, one of a musician and public speaker and the other of…
I am very selective about ghostwriting clients and very open to a broad range of editing clients. Part of the reason is that a ghostwriting commitment means living in your skin for six or nine months, while an editing commitment means living in your manuscript for two or three weeks. But it’s not just the…
Yesterday (Saturday), Twitter users found themselves unable to see Tweets for extended periods of time. There was no explanation for many hour until Twitter executive (and former CEO, and owner) Elon Musk tweeted that the social network was throttling users because, apparently, some organizations or users were “scraping” lots of tweets and causing excess traffic….
It’s a pretty shocking article. Josh Zumbrun wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Who’s to Blame for All Those Hidden Fees? We are.” (That link should be free to read.) Zumbrun’s article is full of accurate information about consumer studies. But to get from there to blaming the consumer, you have to…
I am just so sad to learn that Heather Armstrong, who wrote in the blog persona of Dooce, is no longer with us, having apparently taken her own life. She was only 47, and had so much to give, and so much to say. Dooce turned blogging about the pain of everyday life into an…