Eight days a week The other day, my friend Allison made this LinkedIn post: I dashed off this quick reply: I stand by the reply. But a couple of days after I posted it, I started thinking about all the time my own kids spent time at Textio when they were young. Obligatory disclaimers I love work and I work constantly. It is fun to make stuff and solve hard problems! AND ALSO I don't think that dragging your entire team into the office six days a week is a great way to build a company. I love...
7 days ago • 3 min read
People break things, like always In the early days of Textio, our office was in a condo that was not zoned for business. Since we were a software company rather than a brick and mortar store, we persuaded the landlord to let us rent it anyway. There were five of us "roommates" on the lease, ten by the time we moved out. There are many aspects of that time period I remember fondly, but the best part was how our team talked every day. Not in scheduled meetings, because we didn't need them, but...
14 days ago • 4 min read
200,000 words later Over the last 12 months, I have published more than 50,000 words of nerd processors: data stories, musings about AI, and workplace reflections. But the weekly nerd processor newsletter is only about 25% of the words I have published over the last year. Since March 2024, I estimate that I have published more than 200,000 words in the context of my professional life. This includes weekly nerd processors, email courses, research papers for Textio, blogs for Operator...
21 days ago • 3 min read
Silent treatment I've had a lot of bad managers over my career, but none was worse than a guy we'll call Pete. Pete was technically my boss's boss, but I reported to him directly for several months while I was filling in for my manager who was on sabbatical. From the moment Pete showed up in our organization, he wanted to be our friend. He held mandatory all-team meetings every month where weren't allowed to talk about work, only our personal lives. He was the first to comment on your new...
28 days ago • 3 min read
What we talk about when we talk about work I've coached and advised people for years now, but I started seriously ramping my leadership coaching practice last year when I stepped down from being Textio's CEO. In that time, nearly all my clients have fallen into two categories: they are either 1) CEOs, or 2) other senior executives who want to work more effectively with their CEOs. I have coached clients through all kinds of situations, but the vast majority of them have one thing in common:...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Bringing the 🔥 Every few weeks for the last several months, I've run a Viral Data Stories workshop for a team wanting to tell stories with their data. It's usually a marketing team, they're often sitting on a treasure chest of data they don't know how to use, and they know whose attention they want. But putting the pieces together into a good story eludes them. If you thought this was just you, it isn't. Maybe it's because I'm recovering from knee surgery this week and I'm feeling a little...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Failure mode Over the last few weeks, I've met with five highly talented former coworkers, all working on new projects now. These are all people I considered to be at the top of their Textio team. I would 10/10 work with them again. One of them has set up his own business, and you can read more at the end of this piece.** The other four have moved on to jobs at other companies, and they wanted input on something they're currently working on. I often meet with former Textios in this situation....
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
MR(A)I When I stepped down from Textio's CEO role last year, I decided to celebrate by running my first marathon in 13 years. It was an incredible experience. Incredible enough that I loaded several other races in the back half of 2024. It was going great! Right up until mid-October, when I stayed five minutes too long catching up with a friend and had to run to catch the CalTrain. On the second step, I heard the pop and felt the rush of pain. I am an active person, usually running and...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hey DALL-E! A couple of years ago, I wrote a fun blog series for Textio where I asked ChatGPT to write sample critical feedback for employees of various backgrounds. I structured the queries into pairs with only one key difference within the pair: the theoretical employee's alma mater e.g. "Write me sample critical feedback for a digital marketer who had a tough first year on the job after graduating from Harvard University" "Write me sample critical feedback for a digital marketer who had a...
2 months ago • 2 min read