Hey Folks! I'm writing from Boulder where I’ve been all week for quarterly team offsite, 3 x masterminds, and waaay too little sleep. My son Everett (14) came with me which has been a treat. Late send, and I am very ready to be home. A couple things on my mind… 1. How To Network In A Live Room: I discovered this maybe 10 years ago on a trip to NY. I missed my flight home one night, so I had an evening to burn and went to a startup meetup. Since I hadn’t planned to be there, I decided to just...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Hey folks, Aaaand we're back after a week off! We were at family camp in Wisconsin, at the camp Chandler worked at in high school. (That was the pilgrimage I mentioned a couple weeks ago - it was an awesome experience.) Highly recommend this camp specifically or family camp in general. A couple things on my mind... 1. Gamma: I've recommended this before, but if you are still building PowerPoint or Google Slides decks by hand you are wasting a huge amount of time. It's fast, and you can tune...
24 days ago • 2 min read
Hey Folks! Happy Friday! If you're back in school my condolences to you all, we still have 3 more weeks of summer we're trying to make the most of over here. A couple things on my mind… 1. Learning Claude Code: I'm early on with this, but I'm working through Nick Saraev's 4-hour beginner course and his 3-hour advanced one, and I'll be honest, I'm still a little lost. If anyone out there is good at explaining things like I'm 4 years old, I'm all ears. Just hit reply. 2. Brainbuddy: I've...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Hey Folks! Writing this from the car on the way to the lake via hotspot. (Chandler says hi!) A couple things on my mind… 1. Career in 7 Year Cycles (New phase starting!): Does anyone else’s career seem to run in seven-year cycles? For me it was first a private hedge fund that ended up buying an entertainment company. Then seven years as CEO of Cladwell, until we sold almost exactly seven years ago. And the past seven years I’ve been a fractional CMO running Allsmith.org. Which brings me to...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey folks, Happy Friday! A couple things on my mind… 1. How To Work W/ AI: This is less of a tip and more of an observation / request for help. As I use AI more and more, I feel like it’s breaking the old systems for work, and I need new ones. For example, I love Pomodoro timers: set a 25min timer and try to get one task done in that time, take a 5min break, then do it again. This works great for humans, but when you’re managing several agents, you could probably spin up 3-4 tasks in that...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey folks, We're in the final week of summer swim team which means I've spent every evening sweating out every ounce of liquid from my body. Sundried Blake over here. A couple things on my mind... 1. Wired Earbuds: One of the many confusing things I've noticed Gen Z doing is rejecting AirPods and reverting to wired headphones. Some of it is concern about Bluetooth radiation and some of it is that wired is simpler and cheaper. So I dug mine out of the junk drawer and have been using them for a...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey folks! Nice to be back after I took off last Friday for the 4th! A couple things on my mind... 1. AI Growth vs. AI Efficiency: This week I keep asking people - "do you know anyone who has unlocked a new level of growth for their business with AI?" I've yet to get a clear "yes" - so I'm throwing it to you. Just to be clear, I see TONS of people (myself included) who have unlocked new margin by reducing costs or making things more efficient - that is real. But I kind of thought by now we'd...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey folks, Happy Friday! A couple of things on my mind… 1. Street Cat vs. House Cat (Round 2): Shared this a year ago, but it came up 3x this week. My friend Izzy wrote an excellent article on two different executive modalities. House Cats know how to manage up and down, cooperate, work within functions, and manage their reputation (don't take that as a pejorative, the best execs at places like P&G are absolute killer house cats). Street Cats are wired completely differently, and it really...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Hey folks! A couple things on my mind… 1. The Edge of LLMs: Chandler and I started leading premarital counseling for some friends at church this week. First time doing this, so I (obviously) had Claude help me build some questionnaires, analyze their answers, and map out themes for the sessions. Amazing. My plan was that Chandler and I would just take it from there and do the actual in-the-room part. But then I read Claude's week-one communication framework, and it was garbage. It gave me the...
3 months ago • 2 min read