But the repetitive, difficult nature of leaning into commodity production can give us insight, humility and skill. It helps us understand just how hard the hard parts are, and creates an opportunity to bring innovation to the work to be done.

Learning the skill and caring enough to show up to implement it, again and again, can give us the foundation... See more

It’s the rent you pay to occupy space in my brain until this problem is nailed to your satisfaction. Sometimes I’ll do focused, dedicated work on the task. At other times I’ll let my brain do its subconscious thing, a looser more associative form of thinking. I’ll be thinking about it at some level on every dog walk and every bus journey. Eventuall... See more

Great strategy isn’t about working forwards from backward-looking data in the form of numbers. It’s about working backwards from forward-looking data in the form of ideas.

The process of reducing a briefing requires great courage, rigor and repertoire.

You have to make brave choices and say a thousand times more No’s than Yes’s.You have to respond rigorously to the problem that you’re trying to solve.You have to have a vast repertoire of references in and outside Advertising in order to get to fresh thinking - and tha... See more

The software breaks down each route into multiple maneuvers, David Cronin, a senior director on the Google Maps design team, told me. Then it decides which and how many maneuvers a driver or pedestrian needs, how to describe those maneuvers, and what sort of visual and auditory information would best illustrate them. The goal, Cronin said, is to “p... See more