The role of planning/strategy is point imagination and resources (time, people etc) in the right tasks that matter (so that they can have maximum effect). Identifying and articulating the task with imagination and rigour is at the heart of a planner’s role. It’s the art of choice and point of greatest leverage.

— W+K's Martin Weigel on our industry’

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It also means that increasingly the real value or trick won’t be in blowing up, though of course, it will only get harder and harder to do so as we continue to exponentially increase our output of content, but rather in holding on to the 15 seconds of fame once we have it.

A publication isn't content. A publication is the exploration

of an idea.

What do you want your relationship to paid work to be?

American society’s extreme individualism, electronic financial system, and thoroughly impersonal consumer retail setup mean that most adults can obtain 99% of their essential needs without real social networking of any kind. The system we live in is established mostly on impersonal trust. Every ordinary product or service in America is available wi... See more

The trick is to surround yourself with people who are free in ways you’re not. In other words, don’t surround yourself with smarter people. Surround yourself with differently free people.

Remember, people are often drawn to things that are done imperfectly. Whether it’s art, movies, or books, people tend to talk more about the flawed things that get stuck in their heads than they do the obvious, perfect things.

As Malcolm Gladwell says, “You want an aftertaste, and that comes from not everything being perfectly blended together.”

We use the computer to process words, but the ideas that animate those words originate somewhere else, away from the screen. The word processor has changed the way we write, but it hasn't yet changed the way we think.

The way of the tourist is to consume; the way of the pilgrim is to be consumed. To the tourist the journey is a means. The pilgrim understands that it is both a means and an end in itself. The tourist and the pilgrim experience time differently. For the former, time is the foe that gives consumption its urgency. For the latter, time is a gift in wh... See more