The Weekly Review: Vol VI Issue 21
Hey folks 🙏
May this email find you well. The Advent season is here and that’s always a reason to celebrate. If there’s one thing that helps me look at our long Canadian winters with joy, it’s the Christmas season and the coming of a new year.
It’s only 18 more days until Christmas. Whether you celebrate this holiday or not, what’s your favourite tradition for this time of year?
Let me know and I’ll share the best ideas in a future issue!
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Finding the right name
When working on a new idea, the hardest part for me is figuring out a name and how to talk about the idea overall. Even when the idea is solid and there is interest or demand for it, even when I can articulate the problem it will solve, I often struggle to find a name.
Perhaps it’s an aspect of launching projects where you believe you truly have to nail it. After all, changing the name of a product (any type of product) down the road can be a very hard endeavour. So you approach the name as if you have to get it right the first time.
Or, maybe the issue is related to the paradox of choice. With an empty slate to work there, it can feel daunting to know how to whittle down the choices.
Here’s a few things I try to do when I go through this exercise:
- Write down words. Lots of ‘em. On paper, or in a blank file in your favourite text editor. Get everything out of my head and hope that something pops out of the mess.
- Take inspiration from all kinds of sources, especially away from the screen. Read some books or magazines.
- Check search trends. It’s always good to see what people are looking related to the problem you hope to solve.
- Get away from the computer. Good ideas don’t usually come when I’m sitting on the computer. A long walk or shovelling the driveway allow my brain to sift while my body works.
- Review notes and references. This is the good thing keeping about a commonplace book or Zettelkasten — you have a reference library that can help good ideas bubble to the surface.
Only time will tell if your name is good (it will never be perfect). But names grow on you over time — just ask any parent who struggled to find the right name for their child how it would feel to change it 5 years down the road. Impossible.
So don’t overthink it. Too much 🙂
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Items of note
Analog Senses’s 10th Anniversary
Josh Ginter links to a post from Álvaro Serrano about his blog turning ten years old. I haven’t read this blog myself, but I am familiar with Serrano’s name. But what caught my attention was Josh’s comments:
The whole digital reality of this little group takes a backseat every few years when we get to see each other, but that digital divide has a stigma… it’s like we’re not allowed to call each other our best friends, because of it. But just you writing it that way helps pull down that divide. I really appreciate that.
And:
I stand by this, though I would have liked to use more words. Sometimes it’s easy to forget about the magnitude of a relationship when it’s hidden behind a screen for 95% of the year. Getting to see each other in the skin amplifies the relationship — perhaps makes it feel more concrete.
If you click through to either post, Álvaro’s story reminds me a lot of my own. I started a blog, started to meet people over Twitter, reached out to Shawn Blanc at one point. Eventually, that led to meeting Michael Mistretta, which led to Fusion Ads, which led to working at various SaaS companies that were our customers.
All because I started writing. And because I decided to reach out to someone. Now I have people I would consider some of my best friends who live all over the place. Some I’ve met face to face, others I have not (not yet anyway). But one I’m sure about: putting myself out there led to meeting some amazing people. And I’m so thankful for that blessing.
Meet Ivan Zhao, the designer/founder that is making “the missing half of Slack”
I’ve been reading a lot of late about Notion. The story behind it, how it’s going to replace X, plus how to best put it to use. You can use it to build your second brain. Perhaps most interestingly, how it compares with Evernote.
I say most interesting because the furor around Notion reminds me a lot of how people talked about Evernote early on. It’s the tool everyone needs. Just like people began to hail themselves as Evernote experts, now there are Notion pros. For a cool couple hundred, you can buy a course on how to put it to best use.
But I’m a little skeptical. First, I don’t put a lot of stock in tools that try to be everything for everyone. While Hiten Sah compares it to Atlassian’s Confluence, and many others make the obvious comparison to Evernote, co-founder Ivan Zhao makes references to it being the companion app to Slack or the replacement for Microsoft Office.
Then the internet came along towards the mid-to-late nineties and that sort of breaks apart the monopoly of Microsoft. And then the web-first application came. So we went from one thing, Microsoft office, and it became many, many different SaaS products today. Just look at Slack. One of the reasons it’s so popular is that it chains together all the notifications and the communications of the SaaS products together, right? So you don’t have to go out there to hunt for what’s new. So I’m saying, and I’m seeing, and I’m hoping that we’re in this pendulum swing from one product, Microsoft Office, to too many SaaS products. And now the pendulum is swinging back towards something more bundled up again.
Quite a lofty goal. Will we all be using Notion in ten years? Or will it go the way of Evernote, enjoying early success, but never quite living up to its potential?
Related, this course by Tiago Forte is all about how knowledge workers can set up a system to improve their creative output. Whether you use Notion, Evernote, or a handful of other tools.
The more I read about it, I appreciate all the effort he (and others) have put into this. But it sounds very familiar. It’s essentially a systematic approach to setting up GTD with a Zettelkasten-like reference archive.
Simon Collison makes the case for physical objects.
Physicality feels like an investment in something: a relationship with a piece of work that I’ll endeavour to like. If I decide I don’t like it, I will be sure of that, having tested more thoroughly than if it was one of hundreds of Spotify album samplings. In truth, I’m more likely to buy physical copies of albums I’ve fallen for through Spotify. I have a need to own what I love and pay proportionately for that privilege.
Interestingly, rather than a focus on vinyl, he spends a good bit of time waxing nostalgic about cassettes. It’s a fun read that brought back some good memories from my childhood. Tapes were flimsy and easily broken, but they sure enabled easy creativity.
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Quote of the week
Modern society itself is one of grand diversion—the Republic of Entertainment. With our shops, shows, sports, games, tourism, recreation, cosmetics, plastic surgery, virtual reality, and the endless glorification of health and youth, our culture is a vast conspiracy to make us forget our transience and mortality. We turn away. We tune out. Alibis for reality–escape artists are on every hand. “Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness,” psychologist Ernest Becker wrote, “or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing.”
Os Guiness, The Long Journey Home
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Currently
Watching: We’re going through our rotation of Christmas movies. Elf, Home Alone (just 1 & 2, the others are not worth mentioning), Christmas with the Kranks, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Santa Clause, and The Nativity Story.
We also have one that many people may not think of as related to Christmas (no, not Die Hard). Family Man isn’t focused on Christmas, but the holiday plays a major role in the story. And while Nic Cage is not high on our list of great actors, this is simply a good movie.
Drinking: Egg Nog, mixed half and half with 4% milk.
Listening: New Beck 👌 He’s one of the most underrated artist of the past two decades. Each album is different from the next and he never disappoints. So far, Hyperspace feels like another solid release.
Also, my Christmas 2018 playlist.
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Friends, I pray you’re having a good start to the season and that this email adds to your holiday enjoyment!