Deserves another look

Branded Merch Power

• Branded merchandise has a surprising power that's often underestimated.


• Rory Sutherland observed Martin Sorrell, a prominent figure in advertising, collecting branded pens at conferences.


• This seemingly small act highlights the subconscious appeal of branded items.


• This power is further evidenced by Meerkat soft toys becoming the

Learning past theories and examples prevents you from reinventing the wheel or from making the same mistakes as others who came before you. But those past theories and examples can't tell you what action to take in any particular situation. The past theories and examples do not accompany you onto the battlefield. For von Clausewitz, only coup

Trojan horse

One of the guys in the group coined this term – which in the past I’ve called “context shift”, but I like his version better. Here you take your service, but rather than selling it to people who are looking for that service (highly competitive), you instead enter another market where people are looking for something different, but

tip number five is to share what you have learned online

Steven Johnson, who wrote an insightful book about how people in science and in general come up with genuine new ideas, calls it the “slow hunch.”

Scott Adams writes:

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.




2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the