Volume 17
Content needs to be entertaining to be effective. But attention-seeking social media hooks, un-nuanced quotes, hot-take headlines and anxiety-inducing email subject lines … kind of take it out of you.
Content needs to be entertaining to be effective.
But attention-seeking social media hooks, un-nuanced quotes, hot-take headlines and anxiety-inducing email subject lines … kind of take it out of you.
They’re like digital energy vampires. Even if they do tend to perform well.
Today, I give special attention to the work that draws me in on its own merit and doesn’t scare me into clicking or consuming.
Here it is.
Thanks for reading.
The Content People Episode 🎧
This week’s episode was an interview with Tina Greenbaum, a LCSW and executive leadership coach. (Yes: A therapist and a coach in one.)
We’ve all heard: Listen to your intuition. Tune into your body. But what does that really mean? Tina explains how to hone in on your inner wisdom - and why it’s so helpful for managers to do so.
Check it out on Spotify, Apple, and Google.
Listening 👂
Last week’s This Jungian Life episode, with professor of computer science Dr. Michael l. Littman, examined the psychology of the current discourse on AI. Dr. Littman himself is calm, highly informed and totally non-alarmist, which I found refreshing.
Another This Jungian Life rec: The Tension of the Opposites.
This ep explores the idea that multiple, conflicting concepts can be true at the same time. And we have to hold space for all of them - or risk polarized, over-simplistic thinking. It’s a helpful antidote to alarmist headlines or triggering events.
Reading 📚
🤨 Earlier this year, Harvard Business Review published this article Beware a Culture of Busyness. I read it. And I was then served up their 2018 article Feeling Busy All the Time? There’s an Upside to That.
Now, if you read the two articles, they’re not really antithetical.
But I was struck by how energy draining it was to be receive two slightly oppositional headlines, from the same source, in quick succession.
The digital world can be a cacophony of contradictory, surface-level advice - making it harder to tune into our own wisdom.
No solution, just an observation.
💌 The Marketing Examples Newsletter, which I posted about here on LinkedIn. Creator Harry Dry doesn’t need my endorsement - the newsletter has more than 150K subscribers. But here I am, endorsing it. Sends are educational, succinct and really well done.
The Quote
”The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.”
― Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
Following
✨ Unfancy. Caroline Joy’s had this popular style blog for years. And nearly everything about it has changed over time: her personal style, design aesthetic, even her writing voice. I admire so much about her approach. She takes breaks, evolves, rebrands, and acknowledges creative lulls. She doesn’t encourage over-consumption. It’s a quiet, serene, and real place to visit online. Plus - great ‘fits.
✨ Caroline Winkler’s popular YouTube channel has nearly 500K followers. I loved her Rude Review of one of her own early videos. It was a good reminder that we’re always evolving. The content we create now - for ourselves or a brand - will likely look very different in 1-2 years. And that’s a good thing.
PS. Caroline was a guest on Content People in Season 1 - and nearly 1000 people listened in the first 12 hours. Find it on Spotify, Apple, or Google.
Watching
This isn’t new, but it’s definitely chill. Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back on Apple TV. Some found it boring. I found it deeply soothing to watch something so unhurried. I’m planning a re-watch in the fall.
If you really want to dive deep, Jackson did a 3-part interview about making the documentary on the podcast Something About the Beatles.
Special note: George Harrison might be my personal style icon. Keep an eye out for proto-embroidered Uggs and daring hats.
Blocking
The BlockSite App. Make certain sites or apps inaccessible from your phone. It’s free, and it’s easy to turn off if you really need to re-enable access. (Because: content emergency?) I like using it to block LinkedIn and news sites after certain hours.
That’s it for this week. Hope you all have a good one.
Cover art image: Train in the desert at night, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1916.