creative

This topic is an exploration of the storytelling process at Pixar.

In the digital world, user rights are civic rights, and creator rights are worker rights

“Don’t play everything (or every time); let some things go by… What you don’t play can be more important than what you do.” — Thelonious Monk     In 1960 Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) delivered his 25 Tips for Musicians. Could Monk’s eccentric compositions, and piano playing noted for dissonances, … Continue reading "Thelonious Monk’s 25 Tips for Musicians – 1960"

Do you know what the biggest driver of traffic to your music video will be? Bigger than any amount of ads you can buy. Bigger than any press look. Bigger than any playlist. YouTube’s recommen…

I became a best-selling author the LA-way (which is always surprising), I decided to religiously follow the advice of my Uber driver.

Hits are never guaranteed. However, there are a TON of things you can learn about how hits happen that will drastically improve your odds. The book Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction by Derek Thompson is a must-read for anybody trying to get traction for their work and I highly recommend...

The art of discovering Creator-Market Fit, and laying the foundation for a business you’ll love.

Six simple things you can do to market yourself, get more attention for your work, and grow your audience or business.

Every endeavor, every undertaking, every hope, every mystery, every product, every artwork, every romance, every skyscraper, every novel…

The power of third-party data has diminished. With more restrictions, data collected from external sources with no connection to the consumer is becoming harder to acquire. Newsletter audiences may…

When I encourage people to start monetizing their knowledge through a digital course, I'm typically met with one question: "What's your best advice?" So, here it is, in 5 simple lessons...

A reader recently pointed me toward a fascinating post on Kevin Kelly’s CT2 blog. It concerned the fan mail received by the famed science fiction author Robert Heinlein. Unable to keep up with the deluge of incoming correspondence, Heinlein devised a form letter (pictured above), which included responses to twenty-one common questions and requests. These canned […]

A bit of inspiration (and some hopefully actionable advice) for folks who are still working at day jobs.

We all want a big audience — except for the people who have one. They want a bigger audience. That desire— whether we acknowledge it or not — colors what we create, how we create it, and how we promote it. It influences our decisions and combines with a mistaken belief that social media makes it “easy” to attract...

The sitcom star shares the secret of his comedy – and what he can tell about you from your driving – with Oliver Burkeman

As a creator, your fans have different willingness to pay. In this post, I’ll describe how you can use the creator demand curve to maximize your earnings.

Instead of trying to be fully "authentic" online, play up certain aspects of your personality. Lean into the best of what's already there.

I found this letter in a folder of old correspondence from my days when I was editing at the Whole Earth Catalog. It is from the science fiction master Robert Heinlein. Heinlein engineered his own nerdy solution to a problem

issue no. 0011

Matt D’Avella on creator burnout and building an audience for the long run

Avoid slide-crimes with these 5 concepts for more effective presentations

Learn Jenny Rothenberg's top 8 newsletter growth takeaways from her experience leading growth at Morning Brew

Experiments in Entrepreneurship and Learning

- People don’t buy products because of what those products do, they buy products because of what they can do, or what they imagine they can do with them. - 99% of people don’t care about features; what they do care about is what they will become. - As a result of social media and the Internet, our generation is more conscious of how we are perceived by friends, family, colleges, jobs, and even people we’ve never met. - In this society of ultra-conscious consumers, successful brands will be those that make consumers feel the way they want to feel about themselves.