Partnership and Expertise

A hired writer asks questions and documents the answers. A thinking partner works entirely differently.

Atrophy, Apathy, Literacy

A smaller and smaller slice of people enters the workforce able to wrestle with ideas they don’t easily understand.

Pillars, Ruins

Before you need a content strategy, you need a) something worth saying over a sustained period and b) a reasonable degree of clarity about where content fits in the decision-making process.

“Jargon” is a Lazy Label

Pointing at something and calling it “jargon” is not a way to add value. It’s a common form of low-value contribution from content psuedo-specialists who know nothing about the subject matter and who have no connection to or understanding of the target audience.

Pure Client Joy

“You’re the only writer I trust when I want to engage more thought leaders because I know they’ll see the value and love working with you,” my client said to me. Here’s why.

How or Why?

I’m at a point now where answers to most “how” questions seem trivial, boring, or even ill-conceived. It’s all about whys and whethers at this point.

Falling

Sometimes, a fall is just a fall. People often share business anecdotes as if they contain some sort of object lesson. Or they share oddly declarative proclamations as if they offer some sort of universal truth. It’s performative insight, but it means nothing.

Stop Making Bad Deals

When you make a deal to distort your writing and thinking for the sake of a platform algorithm, you slowly corrode the quality of your thought.

Striking a Balance

I try to make rational decisions around 90% of the time. There’s always room for a bit of emotion and impulse. So I give myself a bit of leeway when they pop up. But I try to make kind decisions 100% of the time. There’s never room for cruelty or brutality.

From First Impressions to Long-Term Success

Monday: pending deliverables for three new skeptical clients. I can SAY that they’ll receive drafts in their voice and with accurate treatments of complex financial topics. I can PROMISE that first drafts are more than 95% of the way to final. But do they really BELIEVE it? They say yes to a project, but they […]

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