Social media is full of experts. They all have opinions. But should you hire them for their expertise, and should you trust them to help you make decisions? The 2×2 shown here is a good way to think about them and their strengths and weaknesses. In the descriptions below, I refer to their “space”: the…
Maybe you took a break this summer. Maybe you’re going back to work soon. Ask yourself: Am I happy doing what I’m doing? Am I happy working where I’m working? That book I was working on — is there something about it that I ought to change? If I could change something, what would I…
If you’ve collected and analyzed survey data, the most effective thing you can do with it is to tell a story. To do that, you create a presentation or white paper that delivers the data in a way that people can follow and understand and most importantly, shows the significance of the data. The prerequisite,…
I’m digging into the data we’ve collected so far in our survey about AI and the Writing Profession, and I thought you might be interested in how survey analysis professionals like me work to generate insights from such data. (The survey is still open until September 4, if you’d like to add your own perspective.)…
Newsletter 108. Forget driving traffic — drive thinking instead. Plus disturbing AI-generated children’s books, Claude admits it’s a ripoff, three people to follow and three books to read. Ideas > algorithms Did anyone read what you wrote last week? The answer depends on algorithms. Algorithms determined whether it was visible in their email or social…
When presented with a supposed fact, what is your approach? The partisan mindset: If it confirms my prejudices, I accept it and immediately share it. The contrarian mindset: If it seems wrong, I find reasons to reject it and most likely, denigrate whomever shared it. Neither of these mindsets improves human knowledge. The analytical mindset…
Bear with me: I’m about to tie mathematical logic to artificial intelligence. (I promise, no actual mathematical knowledge will be required.) In 1931 the brilliant mathematician Kurt Gödel pointed the apparatus of mathematics at itself. He was able to prove that in any mathematical system powerful enough to do simple arithmetic, there would always be…
Be expert at something. Be interested in a lot of things. Be curious about everything. Every few years — or whenever you’re getting bored: Deepen and broaden your expertise. Expand your interests. Unleash your curiosity. And whatever you’re learning, write about it.
As your editing and ghostwriting career grows, you may find yourself working with senior executives, CEOs, celebrities, or other rich and powerful people. This can be intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be, if you keep a few principles in mind. The key thing to remember is that although this is an asymmetric relationship, it’s…