Hi, friends,
First, a moment for Turkey and Syria.
We are still wrestling this out of the past few years - what is our moral responsibility to disasters that refuse to relent, and more importantly, to the people they strike?
I don't know. I don't know. I do know this story of mutual aid in Turkey - fueled by the community, driven by ethnic minorities - eerily reminds me of New York while we were in peak Covid.
They listened for voices in the rubble; dug with their hands, small tools, sticks, broken furniture, anything they could; struggled to move heavy concrete blocks without heavy machinery, and to lift whole rooms’ worth of furniture, framed photos, toys. “I think I’ll hear one of these voices for the rest of my life,” Arpaci told me. “He said over and over, ‘I am here, don’t leave me, I’m here, I’m here.’ But we had to leave him.”
—Jenna Krajeski for The New Yorker
shultz hour thoughts
I've started allocating a bit of my Friday mornings to meta-work time — borrowed from George Shultz, the US Secretary of State under Reagan, as told to The Times:
Shultz, who [was then] 96, told me that his [weekly] hour of solitude was the only way he could find time to think about the strategic aspects of his job. Otherwise, he would be constantly pulled into moment-to-moment tactical issues, never able to focus on larger questions of the national interest. And the only way to do great work, in any field, is to find time to consider the larger questions.
Though sometimes instead of Friday morning at my desk I find that Wednesday night at the bar holds more fertile soil for insights, and the interruptions more welcome. Recent thoughts:
Getting better at your craft means getting more efficient with synthesizing the unknown.
This one's inspired by Vaughn Tan's writing on uncertainty in strategy, and the public discourse on AI content writers. Writing that moves hearts and drives business value can't be stitched together from history; it articulates what your audience doesn't yet have the words for. I'll probably write a future dedicated piece on this or else I might lose it at the next ChatGPT carousel on LinkedIn. Nobody who's not an engineer tells an engineer how to do their job more efficiently. Can we just let the writers be?
As someone who's naturally inclined towards literary writing and writes full time in a business context, I can tell you this: my brain does not operate by patterns. It's pattern defying, even the strategic part of it. My sensemaking happens in a chaotic cauldron of inputs. I may channel Bloomberg/McKinsey by day, but it would read quite vapid if not for nights watching bloody nonlinear Pulp Fiction and dancing to sadgirl indie pop.
Is it so hard to decouple chasing ambition with just, maturing as a human?
I think we all feel this, where the speed of life does not slow but the gears shift. The spirit recalibrates. You break through to the surface of your ocean and find - greater operating capacity, not in an intentionally ambitious way, just by way of being faithful when you had little - and then being rewarded with more.
Consider your "freelancers" more like independent consultants and we'll all be better for it.
As someone who's been a full time independent contractor, I've swam in some rich undercurrents of the indie world. I wonder at how we might spread more awareness of this - that the indie market is much more mature than you think, if only you do the work of looking beyond the recruiting platforms. Because now that I'm back in-house, I can't afford freelancers with budget-friendly rates. With the pacing of our goals - I need strategic partners/vendors who actually embed into our business, who challenge us based on their expertise. I'd rather they push our budget and showcase how it's worth it.
Neighborhood friends are the best kind of friends.
The ones where you can grab spontaneous coffees and movies with and wonder how is this possible??? This one's for J & D.
Frank's Wine Bar has a new manila clam dish on the menu and it's everything I ever want to eat.
To maximize the value of your wine budget, try Czech and Slovenian wines.
Specifically Milan Nestarec's 2019 Forks & Knives for an A+ winter white~
To maximize the value of your research spend, try NewtonX!
Imagine this in a 90s infomercial voice, decidedly not our brand tone of voice but it's my newsletter and I make the rules here
On that note, can you recommend me creative advertising mediums? Newsletters, podcasts, etc, things that sharp business people read.
Everything from Why is this interesting? to NYT's The Daily. We're scoping out new ad opportunities this year and I'd love to hear if you follow anything with compelling sponsorship options.
I wrote a poem called 'devil of the garden'; this one might be my tightest yet.
you prune out last year’s overgrowth, the toxic petals - who planted those anyways? - and the weeds, carefully, methodically tearing their roots that have overstayed their welcome, until you meet the one that resists your touch - the devil of the garden - annoyed, you go to the hardware store and get a weed whacker and come back and bring the blade deliciously close to the offender and - but - why do you stop and wonder - which is more merciful, to let it live or die? why do i feel the decision is not mine?
Paid subs, read on for creative/art updates.