When a system becomes complex and our knowledge peters out, we’re tempted to assert, in the words of Gilbert Ryle, that there’s a ‘ghost in the machine.’
“How does the stoplight work?” “Well, it knows that there’s a break in the traffic so it switches from green to red.”
Actually, it doesn’t ‘know’ anything.
Professionals can answer questions about how. All the way down.
[This is one reason why the LLM AI tech stack is so confounding. Because there are no experts who can tell you exactly what’s going to happen next. It turns out that there might be a ghost, or at least that’s the easiest way to explain it.]
August 2, 2025
Of course, we make strategic errors all the time.
Not enough time. Incomplete information. A fast-changing system.
Sooner or later, a significant strategic error occurs. Don’t beat yourself up.
Now what?
The real problems occur after the error is made.
Don’t follow a strategic error with an investment error, or an effort error or a time error. Don’t follow it with an emotional one either.
Sticking with our original error, devoting our savings, well-being and future to proving ourselves right–that’s the real error. Don’t invest in the cover up.
After you make a strategic error, announce it. Own it. And then move on.
August 1, 2025
Anything that works in practice can work in theory.
When a theory tells us something that is working is impossible, we’ve either measured wrong or the theory needs updating.
Theories exist to explain, predict and understand. They are supposed to help us see and improve the world around us, and they’re never finished, just ever better explanations seeking to catch up with reality.
If a theory is effective, use it.
When it’s not, don’t blame reality.
(HT to Lee Anne Fennell)
July 31, 2025
It’s tempting to go to an extreme. Unreasonable design standards, quality or hospitality are an effective way to gain share, delight customers and spread the word. To be unreasonable in service of your customers is a practice and a commitment.
Along the way, though, reality sets in. The boss has multiple priorities. The uncompromising edges of unreasonable are truly expensive. They take time and effort and money… and they’re unreasonable.
And so, we pull back a bit. We go much of the way, but not quite to ridiculous.
The thing is, rational, compromised unreason has a name: it’s called normal.
If you want the benefits that come from being unreasonable on behalf of your customers, you’re going to have to pay the price as well.
Unreasonable works precisely because most people aren’t driven to go all the way there.
July 30, 2025
A while ago, I ate in a restaurant that had no menu. The waiter simply walked over to the table and said, “what do you want?” As bold a statement as this is, it made many diners uncomfortable and often led to people ordering without much imagination.
Around the same time, I found myself in an out-of-the-way diner that had a 29 page menu. It took our group a long time to figure out what to order (and then we discovered they were out of just about everything.)
A menu (not just in a restaurant) serves many functions. It’s not simply a list of what you have, it’s also a prompt for what you believe in, want to do or contribute. The menu gives the customer an opportunity to respond, not simply to initiate.
When a prospect asks, “what do you have?” and the answer is “what do you need?” we haven’t made much progress.
Adobe Photoshop is hitting a real menu problem when it comes to AI. Every week, it seems, they announce powerful new features. But they’ve lost whatever coherent menu structure they used to have, and worse, the typical user can’t imagine what to do next.
A disciplined menu structure doesn’t limit user choice, it increases it.
July 29, 2025
Who do you pay attention to?
Do you respond or react to the feedback that’s coming in? Do you seek it out or wait for it to arrive?
Does vivid online feedback from anonymous trolls carry more weight than honest but more subtle feedback from actual customers?
Pick your feedback, pick your future.
Which sort of feedback changes your behavior or attitude?
- Delivered with enthusiasm or a scowl
- In private or in public
- In writing or verbally…
The goal might not be to find a way to only get positive applause, because your project may very well benefit from thoughtful feedback.
The useful path is to figure out which sort of feedback suits you in what stage of the project. “It’s not for you,” and “I don’t want to show it to you right now,” are valid approaches to our creative process.
July 28, 2025
(Car dashboards don’t have room to spell out the whole word).
On a country road, late at night, when there are no other cars around, the hi beams are a really useful tool. It’s smart to use them.
As soon as there are other cars, though, they become dangerous. Even a selfish driver realizes that they’ll lose more than they gain if they persist.
Living in community requires us to be a bit less short-term selfish than we might be if we’re on our own.
July 27, 2025
Perhaps you’re really good at the job. Hard charging. Focused on every interaction and staying in control. It’s easy to justify the hard work because you refuse to settle.
It turns out that your community is here and ready to contribute. When you give others the resources, trust and commitment to do the work, the work gets done. Sometimes, it even gets done better than you could have done it (if you had had the time and focus, which you don’t).
If scale is the goal, your control over each interaction has to loosen. The job of the leader is to create the conditions for others to raise the standards.
Trusting your team isn’t settling for less. It’s settling for better.
July 26, 2025
People like that, like this.
When we can build connections between demographics and psychographics, it’s easier to surprise, delight and serve our customers.
Mail order catalogs have been doing this for years out of necessity. They know something about a person’s geography, income and other demographics, and they make assertions about what they dream about and seek out.
Psychographics are what people choose and believe. Preferring dark chocolate is a choice.
Demographics are what we can tell about someone from their census form. Height, family size and zip code and other easy classifications are easily discovered and fairly fixed data points.
Creating useful assumptions about the connections used to require significant time and money, plus a huge dataset. AI changes that.
You can run a survey of 100 people attending an upcoming conference. Send them all to a free Google form, ask questions about background and preferences, leaving plenty of space for people to write and brainstorm about what they’d like.
Now, simply give the spreadsheet of responses to chatGPT and ask it for surprising insights and correlations.
Humans are terrible at this, because we anchor on extreme responses or gloss over small trends.
Nine years ago, I wrote about the difference between a survey and a census. That distinction is more important than ever. But once we have an AI to dive deep into the surveys we create, they’re no longer bureaucratic defense measures, designed to sit in a drawer. Instead, they give us a chance to be of service.
Continue iterating until you’re no longer surprised.
July 25, 2025
One way to turn a product or service into a story is to gift wrap it.
Yes, you did my taxes, but did you include a two-page summary and a useful folder to keep it in?
Whether you’re providing a service to a casual customer or a product to a regular patron, what you’re really selling is the story. The commodity part of your day leaves no room for magic.
Handing a friend a $50 bill is very different from buying a thoughtful gift and carefully wrapping it.
We can find a way to add a bit more.
July 24, 2025
