Oh hello, oh good day, I hope it’s a good day for you.
Some days are not!
Some days aren’t as exciting and colorful as others!
If you’re having a dull day, this Plain Chacalaca salutes you, and offers up a weekly roundup of ideas, inspirations, and provocations below.
Before we begin, some fond remembrances of iconic lucha libre photographer Lourdes Grobet and iconic Mexican cookbook author Diana Kennedy. RIP. In lieu of flowers, go see a wrestling match and don’t eat shitty American tacos. (Diana Kennedy’s cookbooks are available on Amazon, as are Grobet’s photo collections).
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Stay pretty,
-s.
Provocations, Inspirations, and Insights
Useful Decision Razors
The Rooms Razor, the Invested vs. Spent Test, Listen Mode, and more delightful heuristics to help you make better decisions. This is a good link and I encourage you to click it! BUT have you noticed, btw, how the internet, especially twitter, has become a mess of people writing about productivity tips and mental frameworks? I feel like it started years ago with, say, the original Lifehacker, and mutated into Farnam Street and several Medium posts about cognitive biases and bloviating acolytes of Gary V and now the whole damn world is obsessed with how to be more obsessive. I even overhear cryptobros in Mexico City talking about this stuff in the street. It’s all very annoying but, I suppose, something of a good: a movement from copying outputs (things) to copying inputs (processes). There’s something here about the nature of copying I want to write about soon.
The End of Social Media
Wired: Recommendation media (tiktok). Tired: social networks (Facebook, insta, etc). Recommendation media doesn’t rely on friend groups. Doesn’t create echo chambers. It surfaces stuff you’re more likely to enjoy. It surfaces quality regardless of connections. Makes the friend graph irrelevant. But: gives the platform more control. An insightful piece on Every from a former Spotify exec.
What is the piece of writing advice that has helped you most, personally?
On Reddit, a delightful collection of insight, including “The work doesn’t need your confidence. The work just needs the work.” and “Make the familiar seem exotic and the exotic seem familiar.”
For Sale: Hot Dog Finger Gloves
As seen in Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. Pairs well with the official Auditor of the Month Trophy butt plug candle.
The Slide of Faith
Linking to this 12yr old piece from Timehop CTO (and friend of Delightful) Rick Webb expressly and only for the homemade graph, which Rick calls The Slide of Faith: "a tech company’s belief in the power of traditional advertising is inversely proportional to its growth rate in users.” This is true! Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, Google: all big examples of tech co’s that didn’t have marketing budgets until they needed marketing budgets.
Pew Research: The Metaverse in 2040
Click this link if you would like to read a collection of perspectives from experts in XR, AR, VR, and AI researchers on what the (mediated) world will look like in 2040. A good resource if you’re working on a client project. Here’s some POV in your eye: "less and less of life will be spent in-the-flesh-present with other humans, breathing the same air, feeling the physical closeness of companions and crowds. A larger segment of the population will choose to live as solely digitally as possible, with their physical existence and needs being minimally met so to allow maximum time ‘in the ’verse.’ Early examples of this are the ‘sleep, eat, game, repeat’ crowd, who have no ambition outside spending more time ‘in-game.’” See also, the new HBO doc filmed entirely in VR, We Met in Virtual Reality, and last year’s excellent doc on simulation theory, A Glitch in the Matrix.
Charts and graphs in the style of Rothko, Basquiat, Picasso, and Monet
This is fun. Also: an AI + Wes Anderson fashion collection.
Generate ideas alone before you brainstorm
Yes yes a thousand times yes. This is your occasional reminder (backed by science!) that you should rarely (!) begin brainstorming ideas in a group. Start by generating ideas individually, then come together. Starting in a group, especially with an unpracticed team and facilitator, undermines the divergency needed to create an array of ideas.
136 Internet Videos That Blew My Mind
I was recently reminded of this deck by Joe Sabia, creator of Conde’s most popular video formats (e.g., Billie Eilish 1-Year Apart and Technique Critique). Still a banger three years later. Click this and lose an hour of your day, you’ve been warned. Related: if the Billie Eilish vids intrigue, might I also recommend the Up film series, which follows 14 British citizens across their lives, beginning in 1956 and catching up with them every seven years.
More delightful resources
12-Step Brand and Content Framework
The Essential Guide to Frameworks
The Essential Laws of Creativity
The Creative Problem Solving Reading List
You don’t get it, you’re not the point
Make relationships, not things
How can I help? This is a 100% organic, free-range, desktop-to-inbox newsletter devoted to helping you navigate uncertainty, seek the most interesting challenges, and make better creative decisions in marketing and beyond. Delivery at 6pm ET most Sundays whenever! Your host is Steve Bryant, who is for hire.
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