But, I think the book itself is sentient. Okay, AI has been on my mind a lot lately, so not only do I think about AI all day, it has gotten into my dreams. Today, I noticed that our bookshelf had five copies of itself. It’s replicating as its prime objective is to be built to last. It is achieving the objective by multiplying. In reality, the book has sold over a million copies and does offer some keen insight into standing the test of time.

Key Takeaways

• Have a strong core ideology: Visionary companies possess a clear sense of purpose and a set of core values that guide their actions and decisions.
• Build a culture of continuous improvement: These companies are committed to learning, adapting, and evolving over time in order to stay ahead of the competition.
• Embrace the “Genius of the AND”: Visionary companies reject the idea that they must choose between seemingly conflicting objectives, instead striving to achieve both (e.g., stability and innovation, or profits and social responsibility).
• Cultivate home-grown management: They often develop and promote leaders from within the organization, ensuring a deep understanding of the company’s core ideology and culture.
• Encourage “Big Hairy Audacious Goals” (BHAGs): These companies set ambitious, long-term goals that serve as a focal point for their efforts and push them to achieve more than they might have thought possible.

Big Hairy Audacious Goals

Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) are ambitious, long-term goals set by visionary companies that aim to push their boundaries and inspire their employees. BHAGs are meant to be bold, daring, and seemingly out of reach, but they provide a clear and compelling target for the organization to strive towards. By setting and pursuing BHAGs, companies can create a sense of urgency and motivation that drives them to achieve more than they might have thought possible.

Here are three examples of BHAGs from Ford, Microsoft, and Amazon:

1. Ford Motor Company: In the early 20th century, Henry Ford’s BHAG was to “democratize the automobile.” He aimed to make cars affordable and accessible to the average American, transforming the automobile from a luxury item for the wealthy to an essential means of transportation for the masses. Ford achieved this goal by introducing the Model T and pioneering assembly line production, which significantly reduced the cost of manufacturing and allowed for mass production of automobiles.
2. Microsoft: Microsoft’s BHAG, as stated by Bill Gates in the 1970s, was to have “a computer on every desk and in every home.” At the time, personal computers were expensive and primarily used by large businesses, research institutions, and hobbyists. By developing the Windows operating system and partnering with IBM, Microsoft played a pivotal role in making personal computers more affordable and user-friendly, ultimately contributing to the widespread adoption of computers in homes and offices around the world.
3. Amazon: In the 1990s, Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos set the BHAG to become “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” This goal went beyond merely dominating the online book market, as Amazon sought to expand its product offerings and revolutionize the way people shop. By constantly innovating in areas such as logistics, customer service, and technology, Amazon has become a dominant force in the global e-commerce industry and has extended its reach into various other sectors, including cloud computing, streaming services, and artificial intelligence.

Key Takeaways

• Follow your creativity
• Embrace the struggle
• How you handle failure is how you will find success
• Find a work-life balance
• Find something that you love doing
• Understand the differences between data and opinion
• Tell great stories
• The best ideas are painkillers, not vitamins

My favorite idea is that when you are developing a project, product, or company, start by writing the press release. The press release should be the story that you want to tell the market and your potential users/customers and include the why. This not only helps you on the external side but it helps you motivate the folks working on the project and those who are supporting the project. The press release will serve as the watermark that you need to reach before you can ship. If your project doesn’t tell that press release story, you need to go back to work.

“If you’re not solving a real problem, you can’t start a revolution.”

Tony Fadell

Storytelling for Product Design

Applying storytelling to product design involves using narrative techniques to create engaging, memorable, and relatable experiences for users. This approach can help make a product more appealing, improve user satisfaction, and foster emotional connections between users and the product.

“Make the user the hero of the story.”

Hans Scharler

Here are some ways to incorporate storytelling into product design:

1. Establish a clear narrative: Define the story you want to tell through your product, considering the context, the user’s journey, and the desired outcomes. Think about the beginning, middle, and end of the user’s experience with your product, and ensure that each stage contributes to a cohesive narrative.
2. Understand your users: Develop user personas to represent your target audience, and consider their needs, goals, motivations, and pain points. This will help you create a story that resonates with them and addresses their specific requirements.
3. Create a relatable and engaging plot: Design your product’s features and interactions to support the narrative, making sure they align with your user’s goals and motivations. Consider using storytelling techniques such as conflict, resolution, and cliffhangers to create tension and keep users engaged.
4. Use visual storytelling: Use visual elements such as images, icons, colors, and typography to support the narrative and convey the story’s mood and tone. Consistent visual language can help users understand the product’s purpose and guide them through their journey.
5. Leverage emotional connections: Create emotional touchpoints throughout the user experience by using empathy and addressing users’ emotional needs. This can foster a deeper connection between users and the product, making it more memorable and enjoyable.
6. Provide a sense of progression: Show users how they progress through the product’s narrative by providing feedback, achievements, or milestones. This can help users feel a sense of accomplishment and motivate them to continue using the product.
7. Use micro-interactions and animations: Incorporate micro-interactions and animations to enhance the storytelling aspect and make the user experience more enjoyable and engaging.
8. Iterate and test: Continuously iterate on your product design, incorporating user feedback to refine the storytelling elements and ensure that the narrative remains relevant and engaging.

Lex Fridman Podcast

Okay. It’s almost three hours long. It’s a video of two people sitting. It’s a masterclass on product management. It’s amazing storytelling. I strongly recommend watching Lex Fridman’s interview with Tony Fadell. Lex guides a great conversation, but there is much to extract, process, and apply. I recommend this to my colleagues all of the time. I am recommending it to you now.

Let’s chat about books that inspire us on my Discord server. See you there.

Summary

Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing, and the Future of Business by Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput tells us how AI is revolutionizing the field of marketing, providing insights into how businesses can leverage AI to drive growth and improve their marketing strategies. The book covers a range of topics related to AI in marketing, including customer segmentation, personalization, predictive analytics, and more. Paul and Mike provide real-world examples and case studies to illustrate the benefits of AI in marketing and highlight the importance of data-driven decision-making. The book is a valuable resource for marketers looking to stay ahead of the curve and take advantage of the opportunities presented by AI.

Five Takeaways

1. AI can help businesses gain valuable insights into their customers and prospects, allowing them to create more personalized and effective marketing strategies.
2. The success of AI in marketing depends on the quality of the data that is fed into the system, so businesses need to focus on data quality and management to maximize the benefits of AI.
3. The ethical use of AI in marketing is crucial, and businesses must be transparent about their use of AI and ensure that their customers’ privacy and data are protected.
4. AI can be used in various areas of marketing, including advertising, content creation, customer service, and product development.
5. While AI can bring significant benefits to marketing, it is not a replacement for human creativity and expertise. Human input is still necessary to ensure that AI-generated insights are interpreted and acted upon correctly.

Rating: Must Read

I got so much more than a great cup of coffee. As soon as I walked in, I was greeted. The person asked me if I wanted to take a tour. My interest was piqued. I thought that I was walking into a coffee shop. I was actually walking into a family-ran business briming with pride and enthusiasm. I soon learned that the Hilltop Packs Coffee also makes lightweight equipment for hiking, makes and designs their products inhouse, and have areas for coffee roasting, sulimation printing, and sewing. I saw stacks of outbound orders ready for the pickup by USPS, FedEx, and UPS. This place had a lot of energy. It was alive.

I was given a sample cup to try their daily brews. They serve drip coffee and rotate what you can get in person each day. I tried Bean Juice, Covered Bridge, Bucktown Elbow, Coal Dust, and The Office blends. I enjoyed them all. It was so great to have a great cup of coffee after weeks of hospital and hotel coffee.

I suspect that this shop sells mostly online. I took a look at their website and they have great marketing and social presence. It was really a joy to see their home and then see how they present online. I ended up picking up some coffee to take back home.

On the tour, they took me into the coffee roasting area. I saw the usual equipment, supplies, and was surprised to see a K-cup filling machine. I ahven’t seen this too many times at local roaster but I think it is a great idea to get people into their coffee or add on to their camping products order. The biggest delight was their sign hanging in the coffee roasting area: Be Brave Enough to Suck at Something New. It gave me a Ted Lasso Believe vibe, but it was truly inspiring. When my brother came into town, I made sure to show him the sign and get him a fresh cup of coffee. I was showing him around the place like I had been going their my whole life. When we were there, someone flashed through showing everyone the new beanie that they designed. I could tell that they were proud of the work and they just wanted to show it around to everyone customer or not. The beanie as I understand was from many trials and attempts and this one was a success. Be brave.

My dad was right. You can easily treat anything as an adventure. There’s always something new to discover if you try and shift your perspective around. I am so happy that I sought out something new. Not only did I walk away with some great coffee, but I also brought back a bit of inspiration from the Hilltop Packs Coffee experience. Find something new.

Dangit. Ryan Reynolds is funny. He stars as Guy, a Non-player character (NPC) turned Player Character (PC) by Artificial Intelligence (AI), in Free Guy, a movie based on new Intellectual Property (IP).

The world that Free Guy is set in is new. It has new ideas, new characters, and new merchandising opportunities. Free guy also has a familiar love story and brings in modern elements such as live-streaming, video games, and virtual reality.

“Today’s gonna be different.”

Guy

Free Guy also fueled the first conversation ever in my marriage about NPCs and their role in games. That was a fun ride back home. I knew way too much about the subject but I made sure to pace myself and hide my excitement.

Free Guy: Strong Recommend

Go watch Free Guy in a theater. Use the AMC movie website and find a showtime with low attendance. Get some popcorn. Remember what the real-world felt like by watching a movie about virtual reality.

Netflix correctly recommended Bo Burnham: Inside. I watched it start to finish. Each segment kept me interested in what he was going to do next. Inside is considered a comedy special. I am going to call this art. After having watched it, Inside has stuck in my brain. There are some catchy tunes (that have taken TikTok by storm), but the ideas here are compelling and Bo’s use of this one room, one person, one person show is absolutely special.

Art is Not Dead

We have all gone through a lot in the past years. Bo Burnham: Inside reminds me that art is born from struggle. Bo’s masterpiece was shot in one room with one person. Bo created this art out of necessity. The world closed down and Bo Burnham went inside, went inside himself, and created Inside. He would not have created this special under any other circumstance. He probably aged 5 years over the course of producing this special.

I was surprised by the different scenes and sense of depth behind the work. Bo used the one room in all angles. He used lights. He used music and silence. He used different lenses and created layers of meaning with his words and perspective. And, there are jokes.

If you watch one segment, I recommend, “Welcome to the Internet“. Bo captures the internet and all of its absurdity and utility. Enjoy.

This post will be spoiler free, but it will be a post to encourage you to drop what you are doing, sign in/up to Apple TV and watch Ted Lasso. You need this show in your life. I say this with no irony, no sarcasm and in 100% full-faith.

We started watching Ted Lasso and watched all 10 episodes. SNL alum, Jason Sudeikis stars as the Ted Lasso. The titular character is perfection. Ted is operating at a higher level. He understands what he’s doing and he likes to prove those judging a book by its cover wrong. He says, “Be curious, not judgmental.” Ask people questions. Get to know them. When I grow up I want to be like Ted. Or, I should say, we could all be a little more like Ted and the world would be a better place. Although, the show is called Ted Lasso, the show is not a one trick pony. Ted Lasso is a brilliant ensemble. All of the characters are well developed and evolve over the season. You cheer for each character. You care. You get introduced to new ones and also care about them. I am impressed with the show on so many levels: the writing, the acting, the story, the humor, and the feeling. There are so many small moments that just deliver.

The show delivers the best sports moment of my life, no fooling. I have been watching sports since I have been a kid and I have never been more invested in a sports team, albeit a made up one. I still get chills thinking about the moment in the show. You don’t have to like sports to like the show. You just have to like a good show and it looks a lot of people like the show as it’s one topic we can all agree on lately.

Don’t have Apple TV? If you bought a new iPhone, you might have access to it. Also, Apple TV offers a free 7-day trial. That’s more than enough time to get hooked on Ted Lasso by the time season two rolls out. You’re welcome.

This is the way, the Lasso Way. Barbeque sauce.

When I loaded up my podcast app on my phone this month, the app started downloading around 400 episodes of the podcasts that I missed over the year. I realized that I will never be able to catch up. I uninstalled the app, cleared the cache, unsubscribed, and started over. This time around, I am going to be deliberate with what I am going to listen to and when. I am not commuting, so now, I am listening to podcasts on walks instead of music. I have also been listening to episodes during my early morning coffee before the family wakes up. I used to watch YouTube clips sometimes deliberately, most times mindlessly.

I recommend three podcasts: Searching for SaaS, Masters of Community, and Board Game Design Lab.

Searching for SaaS

The Searching for SaaS podcast is a “fresh perspective on the stages of building a SaaS business” hosted by Josh Ho and Nate Bosscher, two founders in different stages of their SaaS journey.

Searching for Saas podcast

I enjoy listening to Josh and Nate share their thoughts on topics related to their experiences while building Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies and products. Josh and I still talk once a month after meeting over 20 years ago at an internship. Even though we talk on a regular basis, I have learned new things about Josh’s latest project, Referral Rock, and how it got off the ground. In Episode 5, Nate and Josh talk about MMVP – Minimum Minimal Viable Product. The topic came about after I listened to their first episode and I sent in some feedback. Josh shared an early story of Referral Rock and that sparked a lot of interest for me. I wanted to learn more about it and also hear Nate’s take on it. The show is evolving almost like an MVP and they are responsive to feedback. I highly recommend the Searching for SaaS and send in your questions and topic ideas.

Masters of Community with David Spinks

Community is more important than ever. The Masters of Community show brings you conversations with the top community builders, leaders, and experts in the world. Hear their stories, insights, and advice, and take your community strategy to the next level.

Masters of Community podcast

My passion is with building online communities. I have built developer and maker communities to support projects around the world. I am fascinated by community dynamics, how they grow, how they die, and how they support business. I can’t say enough about the Master of Community podcast. I look forward to new episodes and have been binging the ones that I missed since the show launched in 2020. I recommend that you start with the How To Build a Social Media Community with Matthew Kobach episode.

Board Game Design lab

The Board Game Design Lab is a community built on one central purpose: To help you design great games that people love. BDGL started its podcast in 2016 hosted by Gabe Barrett.

Board Game Design Lab podcast

I love board games and I love to design board games. I have been following Gabe since he started. He has built the largest board game design community over five years. He’s started a podcast and gave a lot of people related to the board game industry a voice, he’s released books on game design, he’s released his own games, and consistently shares what he learns as he learns it. The podcast is like clockwork and has been evolving over time. I like that he not only has game designers as guests but also has guests that support the industry, like editors, artists, and marketers. I recommend starting with the How to Market Yourself, Your Game, and Your Company with Debbie Moynihan episode. In this one, you’ll hear from Debbie Moynihan, COO of Wise Wizard Games, and learn the seven P’s of marketing.

What podcasts do you listen to?

I have made a lot of coffee over the past year. I enjoy fresh roasted coffee and I like trying new ones. I always feel, “What’s the worst that could happen?” If it is not a great cup, I just make another. Change something and try again. I have the time right now.

Cellar Door Coffee Roasters

I am always looking for coffee roasters around the United States. When I traveled a lot, I tried out new roasters based on some minimal research. Part of the fun was discovering something new. I moved my search online. Through some circuitous channels I found Cellar Door Coffee Roasters in Portland, OR. “Roasted, brewed and served with love.”

I bought two 12oz bags of whole beans: Mexico Chiapas Organic and Big Shot Blend. Big Shot lives up to its name. Its bold but packed full of flavor. The Mexico Chiapas is velvety smooth, nutty, and berry. I recommend either for your morning ritual. For pour over, I found that I had to go finer on the grind. My normal grind setting resulted in a fast and thin extraction. The finer grind allowed the brewing to slow down and extract more of the flavors.

What’s your favorite local coffee roaster? Let me know. I am always looking to try new ones out and support local businesses… online.