Medley 169: Cables, 8chan, Wikipedia, Whatsapp, Managing, Pyramids, Quizzes, Gyms...
Happy Monday!
Last week the Growth Machine team was in Austin for our team retreat, and then Friday to Sunday I was in Chicago for a wedding, so it's been a bit of a busy week.
One new thing for you though: Julian Shapiro and I did a masterclass in content marketing and SEO, and answered a ton of questions in a video recording you can see here. I suspect I'll do more recordings like these, since they tend to be really well received and pretty high value.
Speaking of growth marketing, Bryan Harris from Growth Tools (formerly VideoFruit) is looking for a Director of Marketing. It looks like a great opportunity to work on growing an early, but so far very successful, company, and Bryan has been a great friend in the digital space for a number of years now.
On to the Medley!
Technology
🌍 A lot of people don't know that the Internet is supported by a huge web of fiber optic cables running underwater between the different continents. Here's a cool map of them that I found last week.
🗣 The founder of 8chan, an older site with a similar "free-speech-first" goal as Gab, is calling for his site to be shut down after its been linked to a few of the recent mass shootings. There are two interesting considerations there: one, that someone could create something then have no power to shut it down, and two, that platforms with completely free speech do seem to become breeding grounds for this kind of hateful communication. For all the complaints about censorship and limits to free speech on other platforms like Facebook, it does seem like there's good reason for it, though I suspect that regardless of how censored other platforms are there'll always be bad actors who want to congregate in quiet corners of the Internet.
📱 On that note, Facebook may be building moderation tools into Whatsapp that would allow it to moderate what can and cannot be said on the platform. It already bans certain links and topics in Messenger, so this isn't that surprising.
🧐 Speaking of Facebook, I finally read the op-ed from one of its co-founders calling for it to be broken up. It's a good read, though I do think it's kind of a dick move to call out your old friend and business partner like that.
🖥 Wikipedia has a weird moderation issue with almost famous people. It seems that motivated researchers can publish concerningly public information about quasi-famous individuals on Wikipedia, and it regularly gets through their moderation features. I don't have many concerns about how much of my info is out there right now, but if a Wikipedia page popped up with a bunch of info like what primary schools I went to that'd be a little uncomfortable.
Work
📃 Clearbit has an admirable goal: to be the best managed company in the world. They've started publishing their managers handbook note online, and the TLDR is a great read. I'm looking forward to when they publish the more complete guide.
🔺 If you're in a consultative, or freelancing, line of work where you deal with executives, here's a good idea from McKinsey for structuring communication called "The Pyramid Principle." The less intuitive part of it is leading with the conclusion — I think my impulse is to lead with some arguments that will get to the conclusion, but I see their point as well.
📝 Want to get more done? Work quickly. It will reduce the perceived activation energy of doing more, and the more you can maintain a rapid cadence of checking things off, the more you'll be inclined to keep getting things done.
🍵 We've been testing out a quiz funnel on Cup & Leaf and so far it is going very well. I think if I can get this process down better, it'll become part of a conversion optimization process for our clients to help them get even more out of their organic traffic.
Miscellaneous
😢 A very sad, but good, short read: What Does Daddy Cry About?
🏋️♂️ Of course there's going to be a Bitcoin CBD gym.
🌋 And this photographer, Robert Landsburg, was taking pictures of the Mt. St. Helen's eruption, and when he realized he wasn't going to make it out alive, used his body to protect his camera from the heat and preserved his photos.
🧖♂️ Last, congrats to Eric, a friend and Medley reader, for opening his float lab and infrared sauna lounge "The Ocean Lab" in Austin! It's already become one of my new favorite places in the city.
End Note
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Have a great week,
Nat