Early in my career, in my first management position, I was faced with a number of deadline-busting crises. The first few times, I panicked and freaked out. Having gotten that out of the way, I reverted to analytical thinking: what went wrong, why, what solution could best fix the problem, and how could we implement…
When independent analyst Zeus Kerravala wrote up his own analysis of a Gartner “Magic Quadrant” review of vendors offering Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), Gartner insisted that his use of their graphic was a copyright violation. He ended up taking down the post. But the case raises an interesting question: can subscription-based research companies…
It’s no secret that the tensions between Democrats and Republicans in Congress have only gotten more intense. So I’m going to explore a topic that could very well come up after the November 5 election: could a president Kamala Harris be unable to get her cabinet confirmed, what constitutional options might she have in that…
Newsletter 68. Banning student AI is stupid. Plus, how print-on-demand books get on shelves, the spreadsheet blooper reel, why Elon Musk loves Trump, three people to follow, three books to read, and my interview with Jane Friedman. A five-paragraph essay reveals how to revolutionize the teaching of writing It’s time to retire the venerable five-paragraph…
I’m in an unusual situation. I have a lot of accumulated knowledge, especially about books and publishing. I have plenty of work to do, but my time is mostly flexible; I’m not meeting people all day long. And I’m extremely curious about just about everything. This means that if you ask to meet with me,…
“Learnings” is a corporate buzzword intended to describe what you learned from some work activity. It sets my teeth on edge. You might feel the plural “learnings” is a perfectly legitimate word. After all, we have no problem talking about the teachings of Richard Feynman or Charles Darwin. And it’s perfectly understandable to discuss corporate…
I spent the last six months preparing for the Webinar I was supposed to give yesterday. Then I didn’t give it. Here’s how it went down. Between April and yesterday, several colleagues, sponsors, and I slaved over a report about the ROI of business books. Once the report was complete, I did a private Zoom…
The legal future of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and nearly every other large language model (LLM) depends on one question: when a large language model “reads” and “learns” from copyrighted content, is that action protected by the Fair Use provisions of copyright law? Vendors of LLMs insist that training their products on the open web is no…
Newsletter 67. Turnabout drives most book endorsements; where book stories come from; Elon Musk says not to trust intelligent machines. Plus three books to read, three books to follow, and a Webinar of surprising insights about the profitability of business books. The endorsement-go-round “Buy this book now! Or you’ll be sad later when your competitors…