I think it was implied in my post yesterday, but I want to add it to “officially” add it to the list. Pay attention. Show up. Listen. Ask questions. Be curious. Pay attention.

Show up. Listen. Ask questions. Be curious. Doing all 4 consistently is a differentiator.

Morgan Housel is on to something: I have a theory about nostalgia: It happens because the best survival strategy in an uncertain world is to overworry. When you look back, you forget about all the things you worried about that never came true. So life appears better in the past because in hindsight there wasn’t as much to worry about as you were actually worrying about at the time.

Nostalgia ultra This year, set your hot tub time machine back a decade. Likely the same data we’ve seen this year, which is pointing to one very singular desire, shared across the whole spectrum of now very fractured online communities: Everyone wants to take a mulligan on the entire last decade. To turn back the clock to the web circa 2015, with the hope that it can somehow undo all the horrors between then and 2025.

I’d rather get crushed for being optimistic than praised for being miserable and negative. -Jared Carrabis_ Forecast from a position of realism. Then do one from a place of optimism. Aim for the second.

The question guiding AI adoption/deployment often seems to be “what can we automate?” (which is, of course, not a new question, we just have a new tool to use in the answer.) The better question is: what shouldn’t we automate? Then work backwards from there.

A website without a CTA is an art project.

If you’re bored with your core brand message and feel like you’ve been saying it over and over… Good Keep going. Say it again. It’s probably just starting to take hold outside your brand’s walls.

What story is your industry based on? The most fascinating part of the study on 400 books is that almost every popular diet follows the same narrative formula. The scientist calls it a modern “Fall of Man” story. It goes like this: Step 1: Once, humans were healthy. Step 2: Then something corrupted us — modern food, processed ingredients, industrial agriculture, seed oils, something. Step 3: But if you follow these rules, you can return to that pure, uncorrupted state.

Planet Money is watching 3 indicators this year: Fed rate (splintering opinion on rate changes + a new (“yes man”) chair incoming) Electric rates (as affordability signal, rates up 7% compared to ~3% general inflation) Consumer spending (actions over words, we’re in a perma-vibecession + K-shaped economy) The indicator of the year for 2025 was tariffs. A.k.a. The economic soap opera of 2025. Runners up: Consumer sentiment (see “vibecession”) CAPE ratio (cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio): stocks are the most expensive they’ve ever been (compared to actual earnings) since just before the dotcom crash The economy is standing in a hallway filled with closed doors.

Meta clearly wants to own the new hardware platform: glasses. Really, really badly. But what if Snap’s Spectacles make more sense? Whereas Snap, which has really begun leaning into its identity as a messaging platform more than a social network, is really going to, I think put communication and sharing of communication between users at the heart of Spectacles and that is going to, I think, give it a purchase in a way that the Meta’s Ray-Bans have not.

Consumer confidence—after being revised up for November (post-shutdown bump)—dipped (again) in December (aka this month). Despite it being the most wonderful time of the year, people aren’t feeling good about the Present Situation, with the labor market playing the role of Ghost of Christmas Future.

Your logo is not your brand. Making the rounds on work chat today, from Seth Godin’s archive: Spend 10,000 times as much time and money on your brand as you spend on your logo. Your logo is a referent, a symbol, a reminder of your brand. But your brand is a story, a set of emotions and expectations and a stand-in for how we think and feel about what you do.

I find this to be a very helpful way to think about AI Venkatesh Rao proposes that Artificial Intelligence is actually Artificial Time, that it compresses decades, centuries of learning in hours and minutes and makes it available to us as augmentation I have long taken issue with the “intelligence” part of the term “AI”. It pre-loads our thinking with ego since humans have a hard time conceiving of any type of intelligence that isn’t human intelligence.

Hire an indie agency in 2026 Indie agencies — more nimble, experimental and closer to challenger brands — are often the ones ushering clients into audio first. Maybe this one? via The Current

Through conversations with clients and watching the economic indicators, it’s clear the theme of 2025 was uncertainty. More than half of Fourth District business contacts said that “uncertainty and the potential impact on demand” was the most important factor influencing their capital expenditure plans for the rest of 2025 SOP seemed to be “wait and react.” Would not be surprised if 2026 sees reactionary responses to the uncertainty of 2025.

Google pushed hard into AI-in-search, but has (reportedly) scaled that back a bit. This is after the zero click revolution, of course. Now it seems like maybe Big G is figuring out there is a middle ground where humans like to be. Clicking and exploring, but not having to do all the filtering work themselves (especially in a post-SEO hellscape). Google recently rolled out “read more” links in Google search results, which appear at the end of the snippet’s description.

After listening to Meta’s Alex Schultz on the Marketing Over Coffee podcast, I have two things I want to try figuring out for clients in 2026: Influencer marketing / Brand Partnerships Click to Message campaigns “Figuring out” looks different for each client. Time to experiment!

You’re renting something (attention, server space, distribution). The key is knowing what you’re renting. And building something you own while you rent.

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Apple is considering bringing advertising to Apple Maps search beginning in 2026, according to the Power On newsletter from Mark...

3 IDEAS FROM ME I. “Greatness takes guts. And often, it's the courage to eliminate the things you can do fairly well so you have the capacity to do one thing exceptionally well. Have the courage to take more off your plate.” ​II. “Many situations in life are similar to going on a hike: the […]