Writing

Product & Craft

Essays on building products and the business of media — product thinking, craft, and strategy.

Kindred sites worth your time: Stratechery · Silicon Valley Product Group · Lenny’s Newsletter · First Round Review.

May 6, 2025
Essay

The Tortise

Final Draft Based on posts I see on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, it’s clear, this job market is nerve wracking and has been for years. I see fear, anger, envy, punctuated by the occasional joyful, “I got the job!” celebrations and sobering advice posts on what to do, what not to do, and […]
March 8, 2025
Essay

Daily Writing Tracker

I started tracking my writing last year, at first writing it on paper. As the year went on, I found the process of setting up my journals and tracking it tedious; after a while, I realized I was making a paper spreadsheet. I decided to shift to collecting data as I went. There’s a TON […]
August 23, 2020
Essay

I Got Fact Checked by USA Today for a Comedy SEO Experiment

Okay, so, the goofy thing I did about the 2020 Republican National Convention actually did capture that traffic I noticed on google console. Most of the people who clicked through got the joke, and laughed, a few people didn’t and that’s all good. But there were two VERY weird outcomes I had no idea were […]
August 19, 2020
Essay

Tragedy + Comedy = Timing | An SEO Experiment

I did a search yesterday to see if I could find the attendees for this year’s Republican National Convention. This year has been awful, so much death, and so much scapegoating and cowardice from the people who led us here. I didn’t want to watch the convention. I just wanted to know who was going. […]
June 28, 2017
Essay

Letting your inner artist think like a Product Manager

You have your big risk, the big thing you're working on in mind. There's a lot of ways to get there.
June 11, 2017
Essay

Meeting Aikido

What is Meeting Aikido? This probably has an actual name in a business book somewhere, but this is a name I've given to a particularly effective, but dangerous, technique for getting something accomplished with an obstinate person in a work setting.
May 18, 2017
Essay

Rejecting The Latest and Greatest

“Mad Men” has this great scene, where Don Draper and the team present a really new idea to Heinz ketchup for an advertisement, at least in the context of the story. The client does exactly what you describe, just reject the idea after thinking about it. I just read that ‘Heinz’ ad company is actually […]
September 4, 2016
Essay

Lifecycle of a Science Story in 21st Century American Media

Lifecycle of a Science Story in 21st Century American Media, starring SETI …
May 15, 2016
Essay

The Help Machine Plan

I continued work on a piece about why I’m making Thigments https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lWgr87_k7nT11VTN0_rPmJgfX5SARY4wJSV0-awpuy0/edit I’ve been chasing this rainbow since 1997 in my own way, in fits and starts. My hope was that in New York, I’d learn how media becomes successful. I’ve learned a lot here, not the least of which that, strangely, I fit in […]

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