There’s a lot going on in John Warner’s Speed and Efficiency are not Human Values. It’s primarily a reflection on generative AI tools in the context of being a published author—and well worth reading.

But the reason I am linking to it here is because it gives you an excuse to watch (or re-watch!) what John calls “the greatest guitar solo ever captured on a recording” (he is 100% correct). Here is Prince at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in the year both he and George Harrison (posthumously) were enshrined:

Here’s how John describes the solo in his post:

Prince was obviously a highly skilled guitarist capable of blazing speed on the fretboard (like the “Flight of the Bumblebee” guy) and indeed there’s a couple of spots where he just rips through some rapid note runs, but it’s also intensely musical, totally its own thing, while also managing to reference aspects of the solo from the original version (performed by Eric Clapton). […]

A great guitar solo is not about how fast you can play, or your degree of technical skill. It comes from a deeper place.

I know you’re going to roll your eyes, but seriously, the solo and that quote—it comes from a deeper place—inspires me to think a little bit more about the feel of the products we make, and a little bit less about the ”correctness” of fitting a specific mold.

No image posts today, but it’s a blockbuster edition of the link roundup this week! I hope you find something interesting in here…

1 → LinkedIn power users are turning to ghostwriters (Vox)

LinkedIn remains a complete mystery to me.

“It’s cliché, but it’s true that people want to work with people, people buy from people, people want to see the human side of who you are before they decide to work with you,” says Tara Horstmeyer, an Atlanta-based ghostwriter who offers packages for 12 LinkedIn posts for anywhere between $2,000 and $3,000.

2 → How the Great Recession paved the way for the influencer industry (Vox)

It’s worth reading this fascinating interview with a curious mind. Especially if you, like me, are “of a certain age” and feel like you just don’t get it…

Influencers are neither ‘a flash in the pan’ nor ‘a bubble about to burst,’ but indicators of a paradigm shift in the way we think about each other and ourselves.

3 → On Place (Alica Kennedy)

This is a lovely, rich essay on the difference between “destination” and “place” when we travel, how digital nomadism displaces locals, the pursuit of a “decent meal” abroad, and more.

Continued economic dependence upon tourism leads inevitably to brain drain, when a labor force no longer wishes to work only service jobs. What does ‘local’ as an experience mean when it’s not in service to those who are literally local?

4 → The Life I Refused to Surrender (The Free Press)

This short essay from Amanda Knox packs a huge punch and really got to me. All we have is now…

No matter how small, cruel, sad, and unfair this life was, it was my life. Mine to make meaning out of, mine to live to the best of my ability. There was no more waiting. There was only now.

5 → The Streaming Market Is Fundamentally Broken. It’s Time To Fix It. (Public Knowledge)

There is just so much wrong with the music streaming industry.

Artists aren’t allowed to see the deals that set their streaming payment rates; indie labels aren’t allowed to see the deals distributors cut with labels on their behalf . And in many cases, artists aren’t even allowed to compare notes and talk about their own contracts.

6 → People Started Buying Crocs During the Pandemic. They Can’t Stop. (NYT Gift Article)

I have no pithy comment for this one.

“I roll into the gym with my Crocs on and everything, and people ask, ‘Aren’t you going to change shoes?’” Mr. Ndugga said. “No, this is how I’m going to live life for now.”

7 → Free Bird (Substack)

A top-to-bottom excellent post about Twitter from Ed Zitron. Read the whole thing!

Twitter can create an incredible sense of both intellectual invincibility and vulnerability that can drive someone quite mad.

8 → The Counterintuitive Thing About Trust That Explains Why So Many Teams Have Issues With It (LinkedIn)

This is an insightful post on the leader qualities that really build trust. In short, it’s about showing that you really, truly care.

Studies indicate that conveying benevolence is much more likely to earn you trust than conveying how competent you are. […] That’s why all things being equal, a person who is charismatic and kind will gain more trust than a person who is seen has having good ability.

9 → The Dangers Of Highly Centralized AI (Medium)

I agree with this take from Clive. It’s like we’ve learned nothing from social media.

The field of large language models is becoming dangerously centralized. A huge amount of power resides in the hands of a tiny number of firms.

10 → The Stories That Bind Us (NYT Gift Link)

This is a wonderful essay about the things that ensure happy and enduring families.

The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.

The Beauty of Earth From Orbit.

Google and Microsoft’s chatbots are already citing one another in a misinformation shitshow. This is fine. “If you ask Microsoft’s Bing chatbot if Google’s Bard chatbot has been shut down, it says yes, citing a news article that discusses a tweet in which a user asked Bard when it would be shut down and Bard said it already had, itself citing a comment from Hacker News in which someone joked about this happening, and someone else used ChatGPT to write fake news coverage about the event.”

One hundred drones now used across IKEA retail for stock inventory. “One hundred busy drones are now at work during non-operational hours to improve stock accuracy and secure availability of products for online or physical retailing. This solution supports a more ergonomic workplace for IKEA co-workers as they no longer need to manually confirm each pallet.”

Is Blockbuster video about to make a comeback? I didn’t realize how many chances Blockbuster had to not die. “In 1997, Warner Bros approached Blockbuster with an exclusive DVD rental deal that would have split revenue 60-40 in favour of the studio. Blockbuster rejected it, and the studio retaliated by dropping its DVD retail prices to undermine the rental industry. And then in 2000, Blockbuster made two even more fatal decisions. First, Blockbuster turned down the opportunity to purchase the then-fledgling Netflix. Second, it chose instead to partner with Enron. Within a year, Enron filed for bankruptcy. Within five years, Netflix was shipping out a million DVDs every day. Suddenly, Blockbuster was yesterday’s news.”

Is there a drop in software engineer job openings, globally? “The US, Canada and UK are currently seeing some of the lowest numbers of developer job listings since Feb 2020.”

Swimming outside the lanes. Tracy Durnell talks about leaving her day job and going out on her own. “People complain that no one wants to work anymore. And it’s true to an extent: no one wants to work in a job where they are underpaid, unfairly treated, unappreciated, and constrained. I like my work, but so far dislike jobs.”

Shiny Happy People, Being Chased By Monsters. Are we in the midst of a vibe shift back to the days of whimsy? “FreakyLinks may have been on my mind lately because I think we’re in another moment of cultural shift from seriousness to whimsy; if you don’t believe me, ask yourself why Everything Everywhere All At Once so thoroughly kicked the ass of that movie about the mean conductor lady at the Oscars. We’re at a similar moment to where we were in the early 2000s — where people are shrieking ‘I want to be happy!’ and ‘I’m tired of thinking! Give me some baggy orange leather pants instead!’”

Songs are what we carry, even when we have nothing else. On the B-Sides I talk about the latest U2 album a little bit. “It’s the sound of a band that has been together for close to 50 years starting to wind things down the only way they know how: they sing the songs they carry, even when they don’t have a whole lot left.”

I recently came across two articles that combine the topics of music and product management. That is basically catnip for me, so I have to share.

First, I know “What X Can Teach Us About Y” articles have become a bit of a trope, but trust me on this one. What Taylor Swift Can Teach Us About Business by Rex Woodbury is an excellent case study on what good product management is all about. I’ve always been impressed by Taylor’s business strategy, and this is the first article I’ve seen that really digs into it. On Taylor’s decision not to sign with RCA because they wanted to pigeonhole her into being a country singer:

The key insight here is that RCA underestimated the market. Yes, country listenership was declining among young people. But great products revitalize stale markets and ultimately expand their markets. Swift did both, first proving that there was an opportunity in country music, and later growing beyond country to become a bona fide pop star. Swift’s story reminds me of a fatal error in startups: underestimating market size.

There’s too much goodness to quote here, so just read it.

The second one is an older piece that I found via Jeff Gothelf’s blog. It’s an interview with Fender CEO Andy Mooney on the company’s mission, and once again it showcases some excellent product management principles. In the example below, Andy talks about the creation of the Fender Play app. I am breaking the quote up with some of my notes, since it encapsulates the process so well:

The marketing is tied around creating the emotional connection, being ‘why should I do this?’.

Note the focus on Jobs to be Done. Their research showed that people pick up the guitar mostly because they want to play and sing along to their favorite songs—not because they want to be rock stars. That’s the emotional connection they are going after.

Again, with Play, we felt that it was a milestone to get people to commit if they were able to master their first song. So we teach the skills that you need in Play around doing exactly that. You come into the product, you declare your genre and that gives you a potential setlist.

Note here how they identified their activation metric / a-ha moment and built the product around getting users to that moment as quickly as possible.

Then you get taught the skills to master those songs rather than the other way round. I taught when I was very much younger. You know, are you going to teach somebody to play major minor scales or are you going to teach them how to play House Of The Rising Sun? My approach—which I’m glad was all intuitive back then—was a song-based approach because you were teaching them how to play the chords within the context of the song.

Again, note how they focus on the how music makes you feel, not on the theory behind it. We are all used to this kind of marketing now but it’s worth remembering that until the iPhone came along, phone marketing was all focused on storage space and RAM, not on here’s what you can do with it.

There’s much more in the article about the extensive customer research that Fender did, and how they used those insights to create Fender Play.

The World Nature Photography Awards 2022 winners have been announced.

What Does Workplace TikTok Look Like During Layoffs? It Gets Weird. Always Be Contenting, I guess. “It’s uncanny to watch clips of boisterous lunch buffets next to teary videos about being exiled from them—sometimes from the very same creators just months apart. You come to see how workday and layoff TikToks are mutually intelligible, odd sides of the same coin. No matter what happens, they say, workers will post through it. Work will be forged into content, no matter what.” (NYT gift link)

How to Take Back Control of What You Read on the Internet. Even The Atlantic is getting in on the RSS love! Could 2023 really, actually be the year? “But despite the syndication format’s cult following, most internet users have never heard of it. That’s unfortunate, because RSS provides everyday internet users with an easy way to organize all of their online-content consumption in one place, curated by the user, not an algorithm.”

I doubled-down on RSS. More RSS content! Here are a lot of words about the good and the bad of it. And some interesting observations too… “If you judge someone solely from the content they blog about, most folk will seem stodgy and humorless. I’m painfully aware that I’m no exception. The problem is that if you position yourself as irreverent, you’re likely to be dismissed.”

How The Last of Us re-created a 2003 arcade with the help of true enthusiasts. This article is so great. “We’re stupidly proud of this. All of it. We knew that anything less wouldn’t cut it and we’re nothing shy of grateful that HBO and the rest of the production encouraged us to go to these lengths.”

How the ring got good. A wonderful reflection on how Tolkien stumbled his way to what became Lord of the Rings. There’s some strong words of encouragement for all of us: “If Tolkien can find his way to the One Ring in the middle of the fifth draft, so can I, and so can you.”

De La Soul Is Streaming. A very important public service announcement on where you should start listening.

The African Bricks 3. Mosaic artworks inspired by the culture and beauty of Africa, by Charis Tsevis.

The Cello in Soho Square. I like this description by Michael Lopp of the difference between “dabblers” and “S-tier” people (who are the absolute best at something): “There is an infinite list of exciting things to learn, but the Dabbler knows they have finite time, so they dabble. They get 80% of the juice, and they move on. Respect. S-Tier knows the last 10% of the challenge is the hardest, but it also teaches you the most.”

Physicists Say Aliens May Be Using Black Holes as Quantum Computers. This is fine. “In a recent study, a German-Georgian team of researchers proposed that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations (ETCs) could use black holes as quantum computers. This makes sense from a computing standpoint and offers an explanation for the apparent lack of activity we see when we look at the cosmos.”

Honestly, it’s probably the phones. Don’t dismiss this argument just from the headline, like I almost did. There’s some solid evidence presented here. “If we’re looking for one big ‘silver bullet’ or ‘grand unified theory’ of modern teenage unhappiness, phones are probably the place to start looking.”

Papercraft Models by Rocky Bergen. “Construct the computer from your childhood or build an entire computer museum at home with these paper models, free to download and share. Print, Cut, Score, Fold and Glue.”

In an Uncertain Job Market, How Can Companies Retain Workers? The conventional wisdom that people tend to hunker down when there are layoffs around them might not be accurate: “Layoffs ‘create an environment where people worry it might happen to them next,’ said Laszlo Bock, who was Google’s SVP for people operations. Poorly handled reductions may ‘degrade trust in management as people start hearing rumors of further cuts, and that in turn raises anxiety, which causes more people to quit.’” (NYT gift article)

How the Phonograph Created the 3-Minute Pop Song. I can’t resist a good “technologies people thought would ruin everything” article, and this is another fascinating one: “Plenty of folks worried that records would destroy musical culture. John Philip figured it would demotivate anyone from learning to play an instrument themselves. Why bother, when you could just put on music by a true virtuoso? ‘When music can be heard in the homes without the labor of study,’ he fretted in a 1906 article, ‘it will be simply a question of time when the amateur disappears entirely.’”

The Case for Hanging Out. I love this essay. “Pushed further into isolation by the pandemic, we’re all losing the ability to engage in what I view as the pinnacle of human interaction: sitting around with friends and talking shit.”

Explore. I think it’s probably too late for a viable LinkedIn alternative, but this site would be a great contendor.