Context is King A small post with a good point. I noticed in The Economist this week something that struck me. They posted a correction to a prior article. Publications do that all the time, but this particular correction was placed on a page in the same section of the magazine in which the error appeared a couple weeks before. Most print publications tend to bury their corrections in the front or the back where they never get seen. But this one was right in the middle of the magazine, saying “we made a mistake – right here.” Noteworthy to me for its show of transparency, always appreciated but not seen frequently enough in “official” things.
Archives / January, 2010
Book Short: Not About Going With The…
Book Short: Not About Going With The… Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (book, Kindle), was a great read and a nice change from either strictly business books or my regular fiction/non-fiction reading. It’s basically about the process of achieving happiness through control over one’s inner life, but it’s far from a self-help book. It’s almost more of practical psychology deep dive into what brings about happiness and peak performance – a state the author calls Flow but others have called other things over time, like being “in the zone.” The author talks about achieving this control as synonymous with the enviable ability to persevere despite obstacles and setbacks and transform hopeless situations into challenges to be…
The Beginning of the DMA’s Next Chapter
The Beginning of the DMA’s Next Chapter As I wrote a few months back, I recently joined the DMA’s Board of Directors and its Executive Committee to try to help the association – one of the largest and highest profile groups representing marketers – advance its agenda in a few specific ways. At the time, I noted that my interests would be on consumer advocacy and engagement, execution around interactive marketing issues and the internet community, and transparency around the organization itself. Yesterday, John Greco, the association’s CEO, announced he is stepping down to make way for the next generation of leadership. John has done some great work the past five years running the DMA and has advanced…
Jump Starting Start Ups
As I mentioned in some recent posts, I’ve really enjoyed sharing the Return Path story with the tech start-up community in New York through groups like the NYC Lean Startup Meetup . Next week I’m taking the Return Path story on the road to Silicon Valley where I’ll be presenting to Startup2Startup. Startup2Startup is a group of Silicon Valley geeks, entrepreneurs, and investors dedicated to educating and helping the next generation of Internet startups. They meet monthly over dinner to discuss relevant topics in technology and entrepreneurship, connect with new people and companies, and share our knowledge and experience. You’ll not only get to hear about Return Path’s 10 years in business but I’ll also be sharing…
What Gets Said vs. What Gets Heard
What Gets Said vs. What Gets Heard I’ve been on the edge of a few different situations lately at work where what seems like a very clear (even by objective standards) conversation ends up with two very different understandings down the road. This is the problem I’d characterize as “What gets said isn’t necessarily what gets heard.” More often than not, this is around delivering bad news, but there are other use cases as well. Imagine these three fictitious examples: Edward was surprised he got fired, even though his manager said he gave him repeated warnings and performance feedback Jacob thought his assignment was to write a proposal and get it out the door before a deadline, but his manager…