Dear Dr. Wobs: I just finished Writing Without Bullshit and I’m looking for some material to help me get started in putting these new techniques to practice. I’m graduating college this spring, so I don’t have much required writing at the moment and I’d like to start developing strong writing habits before I enter the…
You can believe everything positive about the candidate you favor and everything negative about the one you abhor. Or you can believe proven truth and be skeptical about innuendo. I’ve chosen; I’m for truth. And that means I’m holding Trump responsible for his actual reprehensible actions, not the reprehensible innuendoes that BuzzFeed published. Let’s review what Trump…
Thinkers Stowe Boyd and John Battelle published predictions for 2017. They’re going to be wrong about most of them. Their predictions make you think hard, though, and that’s the value of what they’ve created. If you want to make predictions and be right, that’s easy. For example, I predict that Donald Trump will become president this year, and…
When you think of government reports, do you expect clarity or doubletalk and jargon? The report on Russia and its influence in our elections, from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, is brief, direct, and unequivocal. It’s a great study in how to use clear language to persuade. This document is a joint production…
We pay attention to the now. That’s especially true because Facebook spreads it, instantly. But what matters is not the now, it’s the future. The job of the true analyst is make you care as much about that future as the ephemeral distractions of the present. This came into crystal focus for me when I read Austin…
Medium CEO Ev Williams posted that he’ll be pivoting the company toward a mysterious new business model: [W]e are shifting our resources and attention to defining a new model for writers and creators to be rewarded, based on the value they’re creating for people. And toward building a transformational product for curious humans who want…
House Republicans voted to rejigger (or as the headlines put it, “gut“) their independent ethics office; then, after heavy criticism from Democrats, Trump, and voters, said, “Nah, forget it.” What were they thinking? To find out, I analyzed a statement from Virginia Representative Bob Goodlatte, point man for the change. He’s mastered the Orwellian skill of calling…
“What’s wrong with millennials?” What’s really wrong is anyone who thinks they can characterize an entire generation. A video, which I’ve embedded below, purports to explain everything about millennials in the workplace. It’s from “Inside Quest” and has accumulated 61 million views. Tom Bilyeu, the interviewer, is cofounder of Quest Nutrition. Strangely, there is no…
Things are going to be different this year, you have resolved. But that’s not how change happens. It’s a process. Here’s how New Year’s resolutions (don’t) work. You figure out something you want to change. You make a resolution. “I want to quit smoking” or “I want to stop using the passive voice.” You try really…