sethgodin.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Confused by signals Even at a distance, we can sometimes tell if someone is educated, rich, powerful or physically attractive. But that doesn't always correlate with smart, kind or honest. Strong signals might not be the same as useful ones.

submitted 16 hours ago • 0 comments

Remembering toward better We don't get a chance to do yesterday over again. The best reason to think about the past is because it gives us the opportunity to improve the future. Because we don't get tomorrow over again either. Happy Juneteenth.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Here to please Please who? If you're on a social media network, are you seeking to optimize for the algorithm, the owners of the tech stock or your personal goals? If you're publishing a book, are you working for the book or is the book working for you? You might be able to get the folks in the…

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

“I made a mistake” This sits right next to, "I made a bad decision," in things that are hard to say. But there are many moments when we're confused about what actually happened. You might not have made a bad decision. And it's also possible you didn't make a mistake. It could be that there was…

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Orange cars In a given neighborhood, just about all the cars are the same. There are few that are pink, orange or purple, for example. There's nothing inherently wrong with those frequencies of light. Nothing that modern paint technology can't deliver, nothing that offends the rods and cones of…

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

The power of a pause The single-most effective way to invest 90 seconds a day is simple (and difficult). 18 times a day, when you're about to offer advice, ask a question or blurt out a response, wait five seconds. That pause shifts the way what you say next will be perceived. It also opens the…

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

tied for first! Never gets old... puzzmo.com/puzzle/2025-...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Rigor and curiosity Kids grow up with innate curiosity. It's the hardwired instinct that permits us to walk, talk and survive long before we get to school. And at school, the industrial imperative prizes rigor over just about everything else. Obedience, detail orientation and system compliance are…

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

What do you need more of? If our day (and our work) would get better if we had more: Division Shortcuts Momentary viral jolts Breaking news and doom ...we know where to get it. If not, then why are we spending our magical attention there?

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

tied for second place! puzzmo.com/puzzle/2025-...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Status (and the grass tax) Status shows up whenever humans do, and it is the invisible underpinning of our culture. The front lawn was only invented around the time of Columbus. The idea was to demonstrate that you had time and money to waste. You could take useful land and make it non-productive.…

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Ecosystems come and go Your project doesn't exist in a vacuum. Your company wouldn't exist if it weren't for the customers, competitors, marketplaces, systems and tech that make it all work. I used to make almanacs. Long, detailed, fact-checked reference books that might save a trip to the…

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Grab and go Every retailer knows that the items that sell the best are at eye level or at the cash register. Some people are hungry, rushed, distracted and lazy. If you want to reach them (us), you need to make it convenient. The lesson is simple: We can market to ourselves the same way others…

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Ready to be… Disappointed Delighted Amazed Offended Ripped off Grateful Loved Sometimes we get what we expect.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Squeaky wheels One strategy is to spend time finding the one wheel and address it. The better approach is to realize that if there's one wheel that's squeaking, it's likely that all the wheels need lubrication.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Uphill and downhill challenges There's a big hill near my house. Sometimes, a bicyclist will really pedal hard on the downhill. It's good for the ego. It's also crazy dangerous, since braking and steering become much more difficult, and high speed gives you less time to react. And sometimes cars…

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

On burning bridges Building a bridge is far more difficult than maintaining one. While it's tempting to imagine that we're always racing forward, it's far more likely we'll benefit from traveling over this bridge again one day soon.

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

The Weekly World News version of the future What if someone is just making stuff up? Years ago, I worked with the supermarket tabloid to make an ironic, shouty, somewhat funny book that has turned out to match much of the discourse we find surrounding us. When we flew down to Florida to meet their…

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Books (and more) Brad Feld has been contributing to and leading the tech community for more than thirty years. His books have always been inspiring and useful, but his new book takes it to a higher level. Adam Becker has written two books that I recently devoured. The first is philosophy, history…

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Which inbox? It's easier than ever to fall into an inbox mindset. There are things to do, and we do them. Inbox zero is the unattainable goal that fills our days. But it avoids the real question, which is: which inbox are we emptying? There's the inbox of urgent texts. Or the inbox of slightly…

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

What do we do when it breaks? The unexpected happens. Systems fail, humans are unpredictable, interfaces aren't perfect... The customer service professional demonstrates their strategic insight when they plan for eventual failure instead of denying it's possible. The first step, of course, is to…

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

Scripts and casting In the theatre, the play is written before casting begins. This gives the playwright freedom and responsibility, and it puts the text first. Writing for a sitcom is different. The 50th episode of Seinfeld was a lot easier to write because the cast and the tropes were already…

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Projects left undone What's the attainable, practical and generous thing you haven't done yet? What will it take for it to become a priority?

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Paying attention to attention There are people and organizations that are working overtime to redirect and manipulate your attention. The question is: Are they more aware and careful in how you spend your attention than you are? The act of focusing on what we focus on pays enormous dividends.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

Hallucinations and human work "AI is brilliant and it can do everything." "AI hallucinates sometimes and it can't be trusted." "AI is a trick, a clever way to induce people to believe it's human-like, but it's not." It turns out that AI hallucinates all the time. Sometimes, these hallucinations…

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

Just the right length Pop songs are 200 seconds long because the mechanical properties of 78 and 45 rpm records can deliver one song with decent fidelity of that length. They can't handle ten minutes, and one minute is too short to charge for. The number of books carried by a local bookstore was…

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

Paddling upstream We notice the current most when we're headed against it. It's easy to take our advantage for granted when we're headed the other way and it's helping us. Related: When I'm on my bike, I generally hope that drivers will cut me some slack--a lesson that's easy to forget when I'm…

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Worthless noise isn’t information Data becomes information when at least one of two related things are true: We learn something for next time We make different decisions or take new actions If you're not getting one of these things, then the data is simply noise. A distraction that wastes our time…

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

The 1:1 method The reason that most memos, speeches and edicts fall flat is simple: we get stuck on the idea that we're talking to a crowd. When we're speaking or writing, the crowd is just an illusion. What's actually happening is that there is one person over there, another over there, repeated…

submitted 26 days ago • 1 comment

User interaction design drives outcomes AI models primarily use a text or speech interface. Type what you want and it types back. Say what you want it talks back. This is fancy, a breakthrough, a little showy. And if the user brings the right skills, it's an extraordinary way to interact. But the…

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments

1,000 fans (which sort?) Not all customers are fans. And not all fans are the sort of customers you can thrive with. Cadres of supporters often migrate into one of two camps... The generous stans (a more positive riff from a twenty-year-old Eminem track), are there for the work and the change…

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments

Clarke’s Law (part 2) All sufficiently advanced technology is now widespread. Batman used to have gadgets that gave him an advantage over his adversaries. And Henry Ford had machines that allowed him to produce items far cheaper than the competition. Now, almost all technology magic is widely…

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

“How do I get the most of out my people?” Alas, this is the wrong question for a leader or manager to ask. It's more productive to wonder, "how do we create the conditions for our people to get to where they're heading?"

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

The most important decision "What should I do next?" Not next year or for the rest of my life. Right now. The apparently trivial choice--whether or not to open an email, make a phone call or stand up to stretch. The endless list of options, some not even consciously considered, that we work…

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

First place? at least for now. After many many months of playing every morning, I finally won at my own game. puzzmo.com/puzzle/2025-... Thanks to @adamgrant.bsky.social for contributing today's Puzzmo. And congrats to the team for launching the app, today. Great timing.

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

“They’re not paying me enough to care” This is an understandable sentiment. As jobs push people to be automatons and often offer little in the way of respect, it's easy to quietly quit. But perhaps, they're not paying you enough to not care. Spending your days, day after day, not caring is a…

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

The Impact Matrix: Moving to the golden quadrant Tactics are tempting. We can lean into them, invest, build our skills and count on results. Strategies are more elusive. And a mismatch between strategy and tactics leads to wasted effort. In this 2 x 2 grid, you can see how easy it is to get stuck.…

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

Getting to next There's a difference between 'rich' and 'richer'. And 'fit' and 'fitter'. The problem with a pre-amp that goes all the way to 11 isn't that it's louder. The problem is that very soon, the person who bought one of these will want one that goes to 12. Living in the liminal space is…

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

How many more in the bag? In a huge bag of chips, each individual chip isn't worth as much as if there's only a few. On a long vacation, each day might feel less precious than on a short one. This is an invented construct. Our perception and embrace of time and the available alternatives is up to…

submitted 35 days ago • 0 comments

Embracing the Rotten Tomato gap The site gives movies two scores on a scale from 1 to 100: One is from critics, and the other is from typical viewers who are taking the time to chime in. Many movies have virtually the same score in each category. But some films have a 40 or 50 point gap. How could…

submitted 36 days ago • 0 comments

Effort and value We expend effort. We create value. It's easy to get confused about which one we're going to ultimately be compensated for.

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

Energy and systems complexity Wild animals forage. They spend calories and take risks to acquire food. If the required work and risk expended are more than the food they acquire, they go extinct. The goal is to get as many calories as possible for as little effort as possible. If there's a…

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Infinity is not a number Little kids get confused about this... just add a few more to a very big number, and you have infinity. Actually, infinity is a feeling and a concept built on the presumption that it can never be reached. In a metrics-driven world, infinity is a dangerous thing to wish…

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

Activation is not a secret ...but it's often overlooked. A farmer might yearn for twice as much land. But it's far more efficient to double the yield on the land he already has. Marketers often hustle to get the word out. To reach more people. And yet, activating the fans you already have--the…

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

Expectations We might deserve something. We might be entitled to it. But expectations are a story we tell ourselves, and that story is up to us. The simple life hack is to lower your expectations, regardless of what you're entitled to. Create the conditions for the outcome you seek, but leave…

submitted 41 days ago • 1 comment

Hallucinations are not the same as errors I asked my AI about some obsolete card games, and it wrote a 1,000 word essay about Lansquenet. It made up the rules, the strategies, the betting techniques, all of it. Saying that it was raining on July 14th last year is an error. Inventing an entirely…

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

Good-boss friendly Workers have rarely gotten the long end of the stick. The seduction of "do what you're told and you'll win valuable prizes" often doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and so it's not surprising that many people are skeptical about delivering something extra--work is called work for a…

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment

Mind reading It's thrilling when someone reads our minds. Sometimes we call it hospitality, or smart user interface design. Sometimes, it simply feels like being seen. The person or the system knows what you need, perhaps before you even realize what that might be. This is a special sort of magic.…

submitted 44 days ago • 0 comments

Tools and the long tail Have you ever made a video that was seen by someone you didn't know? Or written something that got shared outside of your inner circle? The odds of either of these things happening a generation ago were close to zero. Now, it's common. The skeptics said that people wanted…

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

Seeking yoyu 余裕 There are two ways of thinking about doing more than is necessary. It can become a really useful marketing tactic. When you deliver more than people expect, your overdelivery creates connection. The surprise and delight is remarkable. People talk about it, seek you out and come…

submitted 46 days ago • 0 comments