Do great ideas always have a wow factor? The real question is: What's "great", and who decides what's "wow"?
As one of my favourite ever films Moneyball shows, baseball scouts spent years chasing the wrong wow until statistics flipped the game and revealed what truly mattered.
The secret? Sharpen your radar, learn from failures, and spot the wow before the rest of the world catches up.
Another small high street business closes its doors, pushed out by a giant chain chasing profits. Local stores thrive on connection: they know your name, they care about their product, and they make your day a little brighter. Big chains? They're about squeezing every penny from every square foot, indifferent to the community they disrupt.
Landlords and corporations often prioritise profits over people, leaving local businesses with little chance to compete. Protests, boycotts, and petitions rarely move the needle when the system favours scale over soul.
Online businesses can escape this trap by focusing on unique products and building customer trust. But for local shops tied to physical spaces, the race to the bottom feels inevitable.
Every time we lose a small business on our high street, we lose a piece of what makes our communities special. It's up to all of us to support what we want to see thrive.
Orwell's rules, simplified:
Business writing is often terrible because people are scared. They are scared of criticism, misunderstanding, or just saying something real.
Here's the fix: speak like a human. Record yourself talking to your audience, type it up, simplify, and hit send.
Clarity beats fear every time.
Sunscreen is supposed to protect you, not mislead you. But for years, marketers dodged regulations, pushing claims like "waterproof" or SPF 120 that sound great but don't tell the whole truth. Meanwhile, skin cancer took tens of thousands of lives.
Here's the real issue: sunscreen isn't a magic bullet. You need to use more and reapply often, but that's not sexy to sell. So, marketers hyped easy fixes instead of educating the public.
Two questions:
Honest marketing isn't just ethical - it's good business, too. Unless, of course, you're making money in the shade.
Who owns your digital breadcrumbs - what you buy, where you go, who you know? Spoiler: not you. But what if it was?
Richard Thaler suggests you should own your data: call logs, credit card history, all of it. Then, you could shop it around for better deals or smarter services. It's not just a nice idea - it's inevitable. Imagine apps that track your habits, save you money, and put you in control.
Entrepreneurs, don't wait for laws to catch up. Data about data is gold, and siding with the people who create it? Priceless.
The industrial age ran on "do this or else": show up on time or the boss will get mad, work harder and maybe get a raise. In sport coaches exist to scare or cheer teams into winning. But today? That playbook's outdated.
Factory jobs are fading, and big paydays or Twitter applause don't show up fast (or last). Now, the real Most Valuable Players are self-motivated. They dive into projects, push themselves harder than any coach could, and don't need a pat on the back to keep going. Passion beats pep talks in this economy.
Spoiler: it's never done. Never. So stop asking.
The real question is: when is it good enough?
For perfectionists, "good enough" means it clears the bar you set. Anything beyond that? That's not polishing it's procrastination with a fancier name.
Don't like your definition of "good enough"? Fine, tweak it. But remember, the goal isn't perfect. The goal is to release your product into the wild before you turn into that person endlessly tweaking a draft that no one's ever going to see.
Chasing popularity is a never-ending race. Trends fade, attention shifts, and what's hot today is forgotten tomorrow. The problem? Popularity is fickle, and trying to please everyone often means pleasing no one.
Instead, focus on creating something that truly resonates with your audience. When you deliver real value, whether it's through your art, work, or product, you build trust, loyalty, and meaning. This kind of connection lasts longer than a moment in the spotlight.
Popularity might get you applause, but value earns you a standing ovation from the people who matter most. Skip the trends and do the work that makes a difference.
An adopter actively seeks out new ideas and finds ways to make them succeed. An adapter, however, tolerates change only when absolutely necessary and usually with reluctance.
Adopting is playing offense, fuelled by curiosity and a willingness to explore. Adapting is playing defence, often driven by fear or a desire to avoid inconvenience.
Here's the kicker: selling to adapters is a tough game. They're not looking for innovation, they're looking for the easiest way to maintain the status quo. Adopters, on the other hand, are ready to take the leap.
Here's how to build a reputation that makes people sit up and take notice:
With a reputation like that, what kind of opportunities will come your way? The challenging, high-stakes, and game-changing ones. You won't just be part of the crowd - you'll be the one everyone turns to when it really matters.
Right now, the economy thrives on messy competition - businesses and products battling for attention, shelf space, and profits. It's wasteful, unpredictable, and often inefficient. The internet has made this competition even fiercer, with platforms like eBay and Google pitting buyers and sellers against each other.
But what if we flipped the script and used technology to create smarter coordination instead? Take Kickstarter: it lets creators gauge interest and secure funding before they produce anything. Or imagine using similar tools to fill restaurant tables, sell soon-to-expire goods, or optimise event attendance.
By understanding buyer preferences in advance, we can reduce waste, lower costs, and make things run smoother for everyone. The future of the economy isn’t just about competing harder. It's about coordinating better, creating less waste, and giving consumers more power.
And let's be honest, they don't accomplish much. Even the most polished and convincing excuses rarely lead to meaningful progress.
Explanations, on the other hand, are both rare and valuable.
But the real game-changers are accurate predictions and insightful observations. Those are the skills that set you apart and make a lasting impact.
Spoiler: we're paying for the news.
There's not some mysterious force beaming headlines into our brains - we pay for it, with our money or attention. And what are we buying? Shouting heads, shallow takes, and the latest "scandal-gate". We think we're paying for hard-hitting journalism, but... nope. It's like ordering a gourmet meal and getting fast food.
Almost everything else we buy has gotten better over the years. Has the news? Some outlets aim high, but too many are racing to the bottom and winning that race feels like losing. So next time you scroll, ask yourself: "Wait, I paid for this?"
Putting your final demands on the table at the last minute is traditionally a successful negotiating strategy. It's at the last minute that people are focused, that the stakes are at their highest and when you're the most likely to extract concessions.
The first problem with this is that the professional negotiator on the other side has precisely the same tactic, so it's hard to use it productively.
Secondly, and more importantly, if the relationship is to persist, if you are in this for the long haul, it's essential to recognise that this brinksmanship costs both sides. It makes the pie smaller and it makes it more difficult for you to build something strong, durable, and happy going forward.
Most consumers are complaining to the wrong companies about the wrong things.
There are many (usually large) organisations that shut out consumers. There are politicians who don't listen. There are companies that are wilfully isolated. These are not the people getting yelled at.
So we all yell at the few companies that are actually trying and actually listening, rewarding their goodwill with a flogging. This needs to change.
In a way we are all programmers now. We all have to decide what to post next, what to point to next, what to launch next.
Is there a skill in dreaming up what happens next and what the sequence should be? I think there is. Yes, you must do great work. You also need to figure out how to program for your audience, even if the audience is only one person.
A company uses structure and resources and power to make things happen. They hire people, issue policies, buy things, build things, earn market share and get things done for their clients.
If you only show up when you want something, people will catch on. If you only learn the minimum amount necessary to get over the next hurdle, you'll fall behind.
If short term choices leave you focused on the urgent, you'll almost never get around to doing the important. A flustered programmer who grabs some online code for a short term fix with no real understanding of its impact or inner workings will be in the same chaotic state at some point in the future.
So make sure you do more than the minimum if you truly want to succeed.
The real point of the exercise is to build a company that makes a difference. To care a lot about who your clients are and why (or if) they're happy and if you are making a real difference for them through the work you do.
A shortcut to client and colleague intimacy is to respond in real time. A phone call is more human than an email. On the other hand, when you do your work on someone else's schedule, your productivity plummets, because you are responding to the urgent, not the important, and your rhythm is shot.
The trick is to sort by how important it is that your interactions be intimate. Build blocks of time to do serious work, work that's not interrupted by people who need to hear from you in real time. Not doing this is killing your ability to do great work.