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Between Meetings..
The best thinking rarely happens in the meeting. It happens right after.
Walking out of a room, in the gap before the next call starts, somewhere between what I meant to say and what I actually said - that's usually when the real version of a thought shows up.
Some of what's here I'd defend in front of any board. Some of it I'm still working out loud, in public, before I've fully made up my mind. A few pieces are things I've never admitted to anyone until I wrote them down here.
None of it is polished on purpose. Polished is what happens after the thinking, not during it.
This is what's been on my mind in between everything else.
Here’s What I’d Do..
Not a question. Not a confession. This is what I'd actually tell you to do.
The frameworks I actually use, the ones I'd stand behind in front of any leadership team. No hedging. No "still figuring this out." If you want something you can walk away with and apply this week, start here.
The Five Questions I Ask Before I'll Take a Marketing Brief
How to Tell If Your "Rebrand" Problem Is Actually a Leadership Problem
Worth Stealing.
Ideas borrowed from somewhere completely outside marketing - because the best insights rarely come from inside it.
A tennis retirement speech. A psychological thriller. A conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with business. Things that have nothing to do with business on the surface, and everything to do with it underneath. If you like unexpected sources for familiar problems, this is where I keep them.
What Federer's Retirement Speech Taught Me About Knowing When to Reposition
What Shutter Island Gets Right About Businesses That Lie to Themselves
Off The Record.
The messy bits behind the polished announcements.
The mistakes I don't put in a case study. The wins nobody claps for. The decisions that looked obvious afterwards but really weren't. This is the closest thing to a confession booth on this website — the things I've never said publicly until I wrote them down here.
Nobody Claps For The Meeting Where You Killed The Bad Idea
The Rebrand Everyone Congratulated Me On That I Still Think Was A Mistake
Open Loops..
No conclusions here. Just better questions.
Ideas I'm actively living inside of, without a clean answer yet - including the research I've built an entire practice around and still can't call finished. Some questions take longer than a post. Some probably deserve to stay questions for a while. If you're comfortable with unresolved thinking, you'll feel at home here.
Market Signal Architecture
Does a Business Actually Need to Be Loved, or Just Trusted?