To surprise your reader, your writing must first surprise you
The secret: Let the bloodhound run
Photography and writing are similar. Both work best when we cede control.
Denise Pyles helped show me the connection with this:
“Allow the picture to emerge, and then make the photograph through your lens.”
Denise’s precise word choices reflect the power of letting creativity lead us
Don’t ‘take’ a photo. Let it show itself, and then make the photo—and this is key—through your own lens.
So it with writing.
I used to insist on being in charge of my writing process.
I saw writing as an unruly puppy—something to keep on a tight leash and train. But the act of writing is a full-grown bloodhound. It’s capable of picking up scents and following trails we would otherwise miss.
But we have to let the bloodhound run.
It’s fine to write with a plan. Have an outline, if you prefer. But then let the writing process lead you. Observe what emerges, and shape it through your own lens.
To surprise and delight your reader, let the writing surprise and delight you first. Let the bloodhound run.
Balance data and intuition for the best writing trajectory
Like booster rockets and vernier thrusters, it all works together
In Ship 30 for 30, we “listen for the signal” as we write.
We adjust our writing based on what resonates and draws interaction. And while that’s sound strategy, it’s only one side of the coin.
We must listen for internal signal as well. Where is our heart, curiosity, and intuition pulling our writing?
Correcting course for more interesting and impactful essays
In prepping for this month’s essay sprint, I drafted eight essays on affiliate marketing, born from my experience running a team that built a $65M channel over a decade.
I’ve published one. My heart is tugging in another direction. I want to help people write, help them create. And that’s what I’ve been writing about.
I’m paying more attention, at the moment, to my internal signals.
We need both.
Boosters and vernier thrusters
External data is like the small thrusters on the side of a rocket, called vernier thrusters. They are used to make minor course adjustments.
Your heart and passion is the booster rocket. It’s responsible for liftoff and sustains your momentum.
Both systems are critical for navigation. Learn when to lean on one system over the other, and how to balance them for an optimal writing trajectory.
It takes two, baby
We had hopes. We had dreams.
Apple stuffed its new iPad Pro with the highest-end hardware. An M1 chip, just like in the Mac line. Eight, or even sixteen (!) gigs of RAM, depending on your configuration. A brilliant new XDR Liquid Retina display in the 12.9 inch model.
This would be the year, surely, that Apple removed the software restrictor plate and let the iPad realize it’s full potential. A glorious and massive iPadOS update was coming at WWDC. Had to be.
No.
No pro apps, like Final Cut Pro, were announced for the iPad Pro. Multitasking is still limited. True monitor support is missing. Third party apps can’t even take advantage of all that spacious new RAM, because apps are capped at 5GB.
Our dreams of the iPad as the One Device were shattered again.
Not only that, but Apple doubled down on the need for both a Mac and an iPad. Craig Federighi’s best feature demo, Universal Control, requires both an iPad and a Mac to work:
It wasn’t enough to dash our one-device dreams. Apple actively dunked on the One Devicers, creating an admittedly cool way to control both a Mac and an iPad from the same keyboard and mouse or trackpad.
Two devices, side by side. Just how Apple wants it.
It’s not neglect. It’s strategy.
Some feel iPadOS is neglected by Apple—hamstrung by a lack of emphasis and focus to make it a more flexible and powerful platform.
But it’s not neglect. This is strategy. Two devices complementing each other, Mac and iPad, joyfully co-occupying both your desk space and your credit card statement.
We have to let go, iPad One Devicers. It’s never going to happen. Even as the Mac and iPad become more alike in some ways—the Mac gets Shortcuts, for example—Apple ensures they remain functionally separate.
There has been much talk about the App Store and Apple’s “walled garden,” which forces users to stay inside it’s ecosystem. But Apple builds other walls, too. Sturdy walls that keep the iPad away from the Mac’s flexibility and functionality, ensuring one product line never cannibalizes the other.
All is not lost
iPadOS will bring useful new features. Enhanced Notes. Better, if not more powerful, multitasking. Continuity is a useful feature with some of that Apple magic. FaceTime, Safari, notifications, and the home screen all get deep and useful updates.
So the iPad remains the best Creator Computer. It’s just not ready to walk alone. And it’s unlikely it ever will.
Stop using the c-word in marketing
The c-word always made my skin crawl a bit when other marketers used it. When I used it.
The c-word?
Yes. “Consumer.”
The word consumer is rooted in disdain and negativity:
early 15c., "one who squanders or wastes," agent noun from consume.
“Consumers” depicts a soulless Zombie army whose singular purpose is to use up what you have to offer.
The term reduces the people who give you time, attention, and money to a lowest common denominator. No longer individuals, consumers morph into a mindless act of absorption and resource exhaustion.
A skewed foundation
Effective marketing messaging places the person you wish to serve as the hero of your story. As a marketer, you must identify with their aspirations, fears, goals, and challenges. As the hero, these people go through a transformation via an unmet or underserved need you can help them fulfill.
Those of us responsible for messaging strategy must use empathy and sympathy. The consumer mindset strips that all away. And without empathy and sympathy, you can’t tell your story in its more compelling and persuasive form.
Pick a new c-word
The best B2B and B2C messaging is really P2P: person to person.
To upgrade your mindset, choose an alternate word to improve your storytelling. Use customer. Or client, if you prefer.
Now you are talking with individuals who have agency. Independent beings with options who seek options, solutions, and transformations. And maybe you can help them along their journey. Suddenly your empathy improves. And so will the effectiveness of your messaging.
Dumping the term consumer is a small vocabulary change with big implications. All marketing messaging is, ultimately, one-to-one. Person to person. Using the right language helps you keep that mindset front and center, and your messaging will improve because of it.
When courage becomes comfort
Does creative resistance hold you back? I’ve gone more than a few rounds with it.
At one time, after writing, pressing publish was an act of courage. I worried about what you would think. About your judgement.
That fear—that creative resistance—kept me from publishing regularly for more than a decade.
Now, though, repetition has turned courage into comfort.
I still care what you think. I hope you like and get value from what I write.
But if you don’t … it’s fine.
Crush creative resistance with repetition
“All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten,” is a famous book by Robert Fulgham.
But I'm starting to think that everything I need to know I learned in the gym.
The gym teaches us that comfort creates stagnation. Once an exercise becomes easier, you’re no longer improving yourself.
But the lesson runs deeper. If you push yourself, your comfort zone is always on the move. What was hard yesterday becomes routine today.
So we have to keep advancing.
And so it is with acts of creativity.
I’ve written consistently now for a couple of years. Most weeks, a newsletter. Plenty of essays on my site and LinkedIn.
Writing is hard. And always will be. But emotionally, it’s no longer challenging to press publish. So it is time to find that next frontier—the next thing that feels challenging and emotionally difficult.
Video.
A new flavor of fear
Ali Abdaal’s “Part-Time YouTuber Academy” covers it all: equipment, scripting, optimizing for SEO, setting up an idea fountain, speaking tips, creating your studio.
Abdaal, a physician, has built his YouTube channel to 1.75 million subscribers. He drives over $100,000 a month in revenue.
He knows what he’s doing with video. Which is good, because I certainly do not.
For a long time, resistance has given me lots of reasons to avoid video:
My voice isn’t right
I don’t have the correct equipment
I don’t have a compelling studio / background
I don’t know how to edit video
I don’t know how to craft a great video script
All lies. All easily tackled with learning, and mastered with repetitive creativity.
And so when I start making videos next month, I’ll once again be afraid of what you think.
Resistance will try to talk me out of it.
With repetition, though, creative resistance gets bored. It gets quiet.
That’s when courage turns to comfort.
And that’s when it will be time, yet again, to meet resistance somewhere else.
How data can supercharge your storytelling
Apple may be winning its court case with Epic, but the App Store is taking a beating in the court of public opinion.
Earlier this week, though, Apple public relations fought back with a release detailing the company’s efforts to protect users and prevent fraud.
And Apple did so with plenty of data: large and sweeping numbers that help readers understand both the scale of the App Store and the company’s fraud prevention efforts:
… with 1.8 million apps on the App Store
… In 2020, the App Review team rejected over 215,000 apps
… In 2020, the team assisted more than 180,000 new developers in launching apps.
How can data help you support your PR position?
Let’s look at a few techniques Apple used—and some it could have used.
Use graphics
Apple opens the release with this simple graphic:
It quickly conveys a sense that the App Store is secure.
Then Apple packaged up many of its fraud prevention statistics into an infographic:
But Apple doesn’t leave the data hanging; the rest of the release supports the infographic with context.
Know your audience
The Apple Newsroom grapples with a constant challenge: it has a huge audience with varying degrees of market and technical knowledge.
And so the release has to avoid getting overly technical. Writers can’t make an assumption that the reader has deep knowledge about the App Store, the app marketplace, or Apple’s operations. It has to tell the story from the ground up.
For example, Apple gives a specific explanation of the kinds of apps it removes as part of its review process:
In just the last few months, for example, Apple has rejected or removed apps that switched functionality after initial review to become real-money gambling apps, predatory loan issuers, and pornography hubs; used in-game signals to facilitate drug purchasing; and rewarded users for broadcasting illicit and pornographic content via video chat.
In one sentence, Apple builds the reader’s knowledge of the kinds of fraud the company seeks out and prevents.
Pair big numbers with small stories
We don’t relate to data; we relate to data in the context of people and stories. Apple did not feature a particular developer who prospered in the store, or tell the story of an individual who was protected from fraud. The company missed an opportunity to make the data more relatable through emotions readers can feel and empathize with. With huge numbers, small examples bring data points to life by grounding them in stories we can relate to on an individual level.
Use comparisons
Comparisons can help readers understand both scale and context. Apple missed opportunities with its data to make comparisons.
For example: Apple claims it prevented more than $1.5 billion in fraudulent charges in 2020. According to Julie Conroy, a research director for Aite Group’s fraud and anti-money laundering practice, US credit card fraud in 2020 equaled nearly $11 billion dollars.
So Apple could have said something like this:
In 2020, our efforts prevented fraud that would have equated to more than 10% of all credit card fraud in the United States.
Comparisons and context help us better grasp large numbers.
Data isn’t a substitute for effective storytelling—it’s a spice
Data brings scale and specificity to the positions we try to support. But data is not a substitute for clear explanations, relatable stories, and vivid comparisons. The tenants of interesting and effective storytelling always matter. The right data just makes our stories more lively, interesting, and persuasive.
When telling the story of your good works, make others the heroes
The Apple Newsroom published a feature on its program to support students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), which includes scholarships for education majors at Huston-Tillotson University. But Apple didn’t lead the feature with a straight description of the program, or a headline trumpeting the monetary amount of its support.
Instead, the feature immediately introduced us to a student:
This week, [Hillary-Rhys Richard], 18, will complete his freshman year remotely as part of the inaugural class of the African American Male Teacher Initiative at Huston-Tillotson University. The first-of-its-kind program was created in partnership with Apple as part of the company’s ongoing and deep commitment to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
The feature tells us more about Richard’s history and his goals:
For more than 100 years, teaching has run through Hillary-Rhys Richard’s family.
Growing up in Katy, Texas, Rhys, as he’s known to his friends, listened to his mother, Astrya Richard, tell stories of her ancestors — four generations of educators who saw teaching as a calling, and learning as a tool for change.
Now, as readers, we’re invested. This isn’t just another dull press release about a charitable program. This is a story about legacy, and about Richard’s personal mission.
As the story continues, Apple weaves in details about how it supports the program with funding and technology. But always through the lens of how it helps students like Richard, ceding the spotlight and credit to him.
“Every student should have the chance to be taught by someone who represents them,” Rhys wrote in his application essay to Huston-Tillotson. “In order to build strong children, we need strong male teachers to forge a path through being the example for students. The baton has to be passed for us to continue pushing forward. I stand ready to run my leg of the race.”
Inspiring. Interesting.
There are no photos of smiling executives holding oversized checks. Instead, the photos are personal to Richard and his story.
Telling the story of the program in this way vividly brings the program’s impact to life. It shows how people are using the program propel their dreams forward to impact lives.
Making someone else the hero of your corporate story is one of the most powerful communication tools you can use. The technique is also one few companies use, and its rarity makes it all the more compelling.
Epic trolling shows the power of visuals
The potentially-historic Epic Games vs. Apple trial started yesterday. Epic Games, which had its popular Fortnight game pulled from Apple’s App Store after it tried to end-run Apple’s in-app payment system, is alleging Apple uses monopolistic practices to the detriment of app developers and consumers alike.
The Verge is all over the story, including posting the opening remarks slideshows for both Apple and Epic.
Epic, with its troll dial set to 11, showed a brick wall, which was built closer to completion with each slide, to accompany its story of how Apple allegedly built a “walled garden” around its App Store to control developers and commissions.
It started small.
And grew as Epic shared additional evidence.
Finally, the brick wall reached its predictable conclusion.
Pretty smart. And amusing.
As a writer, I love words. But thanks to some Epic trolling, I’m reminded that we are visual creatures, and graphics can create understanding and emotion in ways words sometimes cannot.
iOS ATT opt-in messaging: who nailed it, who blew it
The communications battle continues unabated between Apple and advertisers over the app tracking transparency (ATT) feature in iOS 14.5. The new feature is simple, with far-reaching consequences. ATT prompts users to choose whether apps can track their activity, for advertising purposes, across the Internet—which may alter the entire digital ad space.
The messaging railing against Apple and ATT has been steady and strident. The emotion is understandable: a big apple cart, so to speak, is being turned over.
But Apple isn’t all stick, no carrot. App developers can a create a custom message to accompany the ask-to-track prompt, giving businesses the chance to make their case directly to users.
So many companies--including huge brands--absolutely blew it.
According to AppFigures, nearly 10,000 apps have already enabled the ATT prompt:
And thanks to https://www.attprompts.com, we can review the messaging of many apps. Who constructed a compelling message? Who blew it? Let’s look at a few examples.
Accuweather
Not terrible. But Accuweather missed a key component: specificity. “Product enhancements” is too broad. Instead, tell users exactly what they will miss out on if they opt-out of tracking.
Dunkin Donuts
Dunkin missed the opportunity, letting the prompt default to Apple’s messaging.
Huge opportunity missed. Was Dunkin in the haze of a post-Munchkin sugar crash? Maybe, but many other prominent brands and apps failed to customize their messaging.
Facebook and Instagram
Facebook insinuated they just might start charging you if you don’t let them track you around the Internet:
This isn’t outright dishonest; ad revenue does keep Facebook’s services free for users. But it’s shady: Facebook isn’t ever going to charge for its services.
I mean, imagine paying for Facebook.
Daily Harvest
Daily Harvest made a small but important adjustment to the default message.
“Feature just the right ads for you” sounds more thoughtful than a “personalized ad experience,” or “more relevant ads” which is the messaging many companies used. The former sounds like careful curation, the latter the grinding results of an algorithm.
Here’s the ATT prompt messaging done right.
It’s empathetic: “You’re in control”
It offers rationale: “Flipboard features hand-curated premium content for free, but we couldn’t do that without ads.”(This is good, but could have been just a little more persuasive if it read “... we couldn’t do that for you without ads”
It reduces risk: “You can change your settings at any time” lowers the permanence of the choice and reduces to risk of opting in.
In a storm, don’t forget to execute the basics
When a storm hits a business--and ATT is a Cat 5 storm for digital advertisers--don’t miss the simple communication opportunities right in front of you as you develop longer-term strategies.
App developers were given a critically important opportunity to . Many companies blew their chance to make an honest, empathetic, and persuasive case to users. Or, just as bad, ignored it.
Execute the basics, always. Especially when chaos tries to blow you off course.
Quick review: Creative Selection, by Ken Kocienda
A book on Apple history, interwoven with insights on creative process and outcomes? Sign me up.
Ken Kocienda’s Creative Selection combines an examination of successful software design with Apple history. He’s the right person for the job: as a software engineer and designer at Apple, Kocienda was part of the team that created Apple’s original Safari browser and later, the innovate iPhone and iPad software keyboards.
Unless you count my work on an Apple IIe in 8th grade computer class, I’m not a developer. But I found the book interesting, insightful, and useful. Whatever you create, you can learn something from Kocienda’s framework for why he believed Apple was uniquely positioned to create great software. He shares seven elements he believes set Apple apart:
Inspiration: Thinking big ideas and imagining what might be possible
Collaboration: Working together well with other people and seeking to combine your complementary strengths
Craft: Applying skill to achieve high-quality results and always striving to do better
Diligence: Doing the necessary grunt work and never resorting to shortcuts or half measures
Decisiveness: Making tough choices and refusing to delay or procrastinate
Taste: Developing a refined sense of judgment and finding the balance that produces a pleasing and integrated whole
Empathy: Trying to see the world from other people’s perspectives and creating work that fits into their lives and adapts to their needs
Creative Selection is a worthwhile read whether your interested in Apple history, software design, or fostering an effective creative team environment. (Or all three!) Kocienda speaks from experience and authority as someone who not only had a front row seat to, but a large impact on, some of Apple’s most important software innovations.