Seriously silly; Ferrari’s EV; Claude’s watermarks: Newsletter 12 August 2026

Newsletter 163. Why the most successful people crack wise and act wisely. Plus, Berrett-Koehler’s hybrid imprint, Anthropic indelibly marks its content, three people to follow and three books to read.

Silly serious

One principle explains all of my success and the fact that I’m still working and happy past normal retirement age.

I’m seriously silly.

Here’s what that looks like.

Silly: No matter what I’m doing or who I’m interacting with, I’m always looking for the humor. The more serious the situation, the more I look for the silliness.

Serious: If it’s important, I take it seriously. I do research, apply logic, think long-term, and make the wisest possible decision.

Let’s start with the most important thing in my life, the thing I spend the most time and effort on. My marriage. (You didn’t think that was the job, did you?)

There are a lot of reasons I’m still joyously married. My wife is pleasant to look at and pleasant to spend time with and is a fantastic cook. But for long-term happiness, silliness is what makes things work.

We own numerous stuffed animals who autonomously show up in surprising places in our home and vehicles. We enjoy absurd live performances and ludicrous events (we recently attended and were invited to judge a Jell-O mold contest at a Maine agricultural fair). We revel in the absurd things our friends, neighbors, pets, and politicians are doing. And, perhaps most importantly for my relationship, she actually appears to enjoy my puns and juvenile sense of humor. We’re pretty childish for people in our sixties.

In fact, in our solemn wedding vows, she promised to laugh at my jokes. Yeah. I’ve held her to it.

And, of course, it is impossible to raise children without an indefatigable sense of silliness. The kids are adults now, but retain silly streaks. How can you survive as a young person in today’s climate without one?

We’ve made a lot serious decisions, too. Health decisions (a lot more of those these days). Financial decisions. We share a dedication to logic, creativity, planning, respectful collaboration, and trust. Those smart decisions are the reason our kids had the best possible choices for their futures and we’re well-prepared for our senior years.

Our serious moments (including my cancer treatment and recovery) demanded discipline. But surviving them required humor. Like the moment I realized that my oncologist’s quotes about prostate cancer survival rates meant that he was celebrating patients who died of heart attacks and strokes rather than cancer. Nice job, doc!

I bring this same philosophy to my work. I cannot work with clients who have no sense of humor. I continually seek the absurd in my work, including opportunities to include snarky humor in books and little jokes at my clients’ expense. In my first meeting with a client, there’s a good chance I’ll make a smartass remark. That might lose me the client, but if so, they’re probably not somebody who’d find working with me valuable.

I take those people seriously. They’re entrusting me with their reputations and books that in many cases reflect their life’s work. But when they make mistakes, they’re sometimes pretty funny — and I’m going to gently and kindly point those out. If you use the word leverage 136 times or offer four different explanations for the same phenomenon or tell a case study story that undermines your main point, I’m going to point out how people won’t take you seriously — usually with a little gentle sarcasm. Those clients are happier if they can laugh at themselves and me took when I make a mistake (which happens plenty).

One of my favorite activities is helping authors find titles or subtitles. The skill of coming up with 50 possible titles is not all that different from cracking jokes and making puns. I’m dead serious about finding the title that will get your book attention and intrigue people, but it’s my ability to consider ludicrously bad titles that would never fly that gets me there.

I once suggested to the Boston-area Ventura Publisher User Group that they name themselves “Ventura Hublisher.” They laughed. They didn’t adopt it. And that’s the reason that Ventura Publisher lost out to Adobe.

People who can laugh at everything are the most likely to thrive long-term. And people who can think clearly about decisions are the ones most likely to get a long life to enjoy the love and the humor.

Crack wise. Be wise. It works for me.

News for writers and others who think

Berrett-Koehler, a respected independent press, is launching a hybrid imprint called Montgomery Station Press. Many publishing houses are likely to take a similar step soon, in which authors can pay them for publication. I have a lot of respect for B-K’s editorial and distribution prowess; now we need to see if they have the skills to take on a hybrid publisher’s service orientation.

The Society of Professional Journalists is considering updates to its code of ethics. Journalism is under siege — politically and economically — and this is the moment it needs ethical reinforcement to maintain its integrity. Eric Deggans explains the suggested improvements.

When Ferrari launched the Luce, a $600,000 electric vehicle designed in collaboration with Apple ex-design leader Jony Ive, the design was widely ridiculed. It didn’t look like a Ferrari. Now it has sold out a year’s production in two months. Critics don’t buy cars.

Anthropic’s Claude is applying invisible watermarks to the content it creates, including text. How does it work? They’re not saying, but Christopher Penn, my favorite tech explainer, has a nice clear explanation, including how it can survive a cut-and-paste.

A federal appeals judge overturned a lower court ruling regarding a book banning law in Arkansas. Result: librarians and booksellers might be jailed for stocking “inappropriate” books and making them available to young adults.

Mark Schaefer explains why normalizing content theft is desensitizing us to the effort creators invest in creating.

Microsoft Publisher will soon be put out to pasture after 35 years. What’s next? Printshop?

Three people to follow

Priya Talwar , book strategist

Michael Beach , analyzing and podcasting on the future of television

Lee Barnathan , editor and ghostwriter

Three books to read

One World?: The Digital Revolution and the Rise of Global Consciousness by William Halal (Amplify, 2026). Could technology actually weld us together into a single digital superbrain?

In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection by Eve Ensler (Picador, 2014). Reflections on the trials of the body from the author of “The Vagina Monologues.”

Creativity Machine: How to Innovate, Brainstorm, and Hatch Great Ideas on Command by Scott Dickkers Scott D. (Matt Holt, 2026). The founder of “The Onion” with actionable advice on brainstorming powerful ideas.