Why I continue to use LinkedIn (and Twitter), after my rift with the rest!
Love LinkedIn’s new features that popped up over the last few weeks, including LinkedIn Live, Newsletters (in “Creator” mode), Dark Mode, and No Politics mode.
Now, can someone at LinkedIn turn on the No Cringe mode 1, and make my day!
Jokes aside, LinkedIn’s tortoise to the fast-moving, fast-breaking Facebook, Instagram 2 and the ilk, is slowly, but surely winning its own race. Against all odds, and competition, in a world that increasingly drowns & revels in noise, LinkedIn’s legendary CEO Jeff Weiner’s 3 ethos of deriving “signal from noise” is finally seeing its purpose writ large 4 in its winning, at-large.
LinkedIn is the super-hero the world never asked for! Boring, dependable, and utilitarian. LinkedIn is not the social network your Mom warned you about, vs. Timothée Chalamet’s TikTok, Tilda Swinton’s Instagram, and Bill Murray’s Facebook.
Wes Anderson, auteur and director of “The French Dispatch” also cuts the check for everyone else in the picture below, and is a perfect stand-in for LinkedIn. 5
Let’s dig deeper. I’ve checked out all of these three new features and I’m here to say: they are incremental, they work (sorta, kinda, some not yet) but LinkedIn has one job. To get you a job. And, since they’re still great at it.
The rest is just icing on the cake.
So, take em for a spin. Here’s my quick-take on all three new features, hat tip WSJ’s Joanna Stern. 6:
A new setting that removes political posts from your feed.
Users that are civil to each other.
Let’s face it, LinkedIn is the best social network right now.
1. Creativity on LinkedIn? What does that even mean?
Who is a Creator on LinkedIn?
My $0.02: LinkedIn Live, and Newsletters doesn’t work yet. But turning on Creator Mode, allows you to set 5 topics you’re going to be writing on more proficiently, and my assumption is you get better promotion for those topics. Think of this, as getting in line at an Apple Store, for a new iPhone.
Sometimes you’re just a few decades in the wrong place. Joining LinkedIn, one of the first goals was to find ways LinkedIn was teeming with LinkedIn Open Networkers (LIONs) and one of our main goals was to expand our offering to more mainstream professionals.
Fast-forward to today, and you see LinkedIn’s new focus on “creators,” Who is a creator on LinkedIn?
So, I just turned on my LinkedIn “Creator” profile on LinkedIn, given my attempts at turning on the writing spigot, anytime now.
Here’s how I turned on “Creator Mode” on LinkedIn. I’m still unsure, why social networks make it so obscure to find basic things like this feature set. For starters, it’s in your profile section.
So, hit “View Profile,” from your “Me” icon on the top right hand, and you’ll see “Resources” (Private to You), right below Analytics.
Clicking on “Resources,” lets you choose up to 5 topics you’ll be writing about. What does this result in? I’m not sure, but I presume, there’s a level of engagement and attention that might be directed towards your profile at that point.
And, I can check if that’s the case. For example, prior to turning on “Creator Mode,” I was pleasantly surprised to see couple of my earlier posts garner over 3000 views, and one which Jeff Weiner had shared, got me nearly 300,000 views.
My Top 5 Biggest Hits on LinkedIn:
1. CEOs Good to Great: Who Made the Cut and Why (363,655 views)
2. 2020: Reflections on a Year Gone Wrong (5830 views)
3. It's time to unfriend Facebook and "the algorithm" (3290 views and counting)
4. Covid made me do it: Life, Love and Work (1510 views)
5. Time for Stories: The Next Era of Social Media is Now (846 views)
The secret to many of these views is 1. Write interesting content, 2. Make it so it ties to the right people who care about that content, and 3. Promote.
The rules are the same on Twitter, which was the first time (after the world of blogging) where we atomized attention to specific individuals through @ mentions and topics (# Hashtags). This is LinkedIn’s world of hashtags (similar to what Instagram copied from Twitter).
Regardless, if you see yourself writing content on a more regular basis, it’s worth checking out how much this new feature, helps you with attention and vitality.
2. LinkedIn Live & Newsletters
This alone is worth marketers the price of admission to LinkedIn. This is a big deal.
My $0.02: Email never dies. Social media might, but your trusty old boring email never does. Just ask Substack. LinkedIn Newsletters is a perfect distribution mechanism for content you create on LinkedIn. And, LinkedIn Live is a great add-on for any “creator” or “brand” that chooses Clubhouse, like live-audio or live-video to promote your brand — personal or corporate.
Both LinkedIn Live (I’m not sure whether this is a Clubhouse clone or an Instagram Live clone) regardless, both are worth having in your marketing arsenal, especially if you happen to be in marketing for any brand.
And, newsletters are even more interesting, given Substack’s popularity, it was but natural that LinkedIn & Twitter will attempt to add both these features and LinkedIn just did.
The problem though is both these features are “live” yet not live, when you turn it on. All documentation suggests I should have both features available once I’ve turned on “Creator mode,” but my best explanation as to why not, is that LinkedIn is rolling this out slowly over multiple geographies.
What helps you create a newsletter on LinkedIn?
And, these are the exact same criteria for LinkedIn Live, although China is the only creator that isn’t feasible yet. I wish LinkedIn were more transparent about when and how one gets access to these newsletters, but that’s just the nature of product rollouts.
Now that I have the feature enabled, let’s see how long before it gets turned on.
In addition, I’ve also tried doing the same with Revue on Twitter, so let’s see if that works.
Whether it’s your killer Excel formula or big thoughts on payroll management, your expertise is in demand. LinkedIn wants you to share it as a “creator”—yes, the word tech companies have fallen in love with to describe people who, well, create videos, posts and other internet stuff. — Wall Street Journal 7
This is the stuff that Quora and Reddit have been really good at doing. Creating their corner of the internet, filled with categories of hashtags and answers. And LinkedIn is finally entering that territory, given nearly a billion professionals call LinkedIn home.
More Signal, less Noise
From the early days of Jeff Weiner, I’ve heard him talk about separating signal from the noise, and I feel like some of the features LinkedIn most recently announced are variations on that theme.
In particular, the no-politics mode they debuted, is what one would expect from LinkedIn and also firmly establishes them in the opposite camp as noisy as it seems most days. I, personally, have not experimented with the feature, but it feels necessary and LinkedIn’s implementation trivial.
1. At the Source: Remove Every Post with Political Bias
Every time you see a post that’s overtly political, you now have a chance to set the record straight, scratch the entry and start from scratch. I’m curious if this means you won’t see similar posts, or posts from the author itself?
2. Master Switch: Feed Preferences
This is in the “Settings and Privacy” tab, and once you’re there, it’s a little convoluted but you have to look for “Feed preferences,” that’s stuck towards the bottom of “Site Preferences,” and off you go.
p.s. That said, I am disappointed it feels nearly impossible to find the folks I follow, but I guess if the game is to make things as simple as possible, not too simple, than this might be it.
No politics nor religion in the workplace or at Thanksgiving dinner, and LinkedIn seems to be taking it seriously, and rightly so. How well it works remains to be seen. But its implementation is simple, effective, one-click. Kudos to a product team firing on all cylinders!
For those 810 million users on LinkedIn, if you’re wondering how do I turn on the No-BS or No-politics mode, if you’re wondering how can I create a newsletter or share my thoughts more publicly with my right circles, I think LinkedIn’s making some moves. I will be closely watching, definitely trying out the “creator” features, and can’t wait to make LinkedIn my newsletter of choice (it’s been 15 years in the making, since I started there).
And, if you’re wondering how do I turn on Dark Mode. Look no further…
This is true on LinkedIn & Twitter, and much worse, when I started there in 2006. But today, you have a new brand of “marketers” and self-promoters, who say things like this. That said, I think LinkedIn is in a similar position, where they want the mainstream of “creators” not just the cringe ones. ↩︎
The aggressive algorithm on all other social networks is what led me to quitting them en masse. Here’s how I explained it last week. ↩︎
I’ve heard Jeff, in his early days, both as an acting-CEO and later as-CEO, drilled down the idea that LinkedIn’s greatest asset of ↩︎
This post is a response to a WSJ exclusive by Joanna Stern, who interviews LinkedIn’s current CEO, who I’ve known from over a decade ago, and announces 5 new features; 3 impactful, 2 minor, that I cover in this post ↩︎
This picture stirred a meme on Twitter, at the Cannes premiere of Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” at times absurd yet provoking bemusement the four here, in their “natural” avatars represent a diaspora of human or corporate diversity that lends itself well to humor. ↩︎
Joanna Stern’s post on WSJ does a pretty good job of highlighting the new features, and this post is me, trying out all three features and my raw, honest take on all of em: Creator Mode, LinkedIn Live, and No-politics mode; the other gimmicky mode being the dark mode ↩︎
From Joanna Stern’s interview with LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky ↩︎
How does one go from “Panic Room” to Getting Engaged in 365 Days?!
“It has surface innocence, surprise, the revelation of a concealed meaning, and the catharsis of solution.” – Stephen Sondheim
A year ago, I had spent 365 days not seeing a human soul for 365 days, thanks COVID!
Here’s how I pulled off a surprise proposal between then and now!
Yes, what a difference a year does make… some years, they do!
That said, I stumbled upon a lot of highs and lows through this process of planning a proposal (how does one find a ring to her liking, plan a surprise, what elements should it include) and figured I’d write this down, both for my own sake; and all you gentlemen & women, who might find this interesting.
There’s only one rule while building a proposal: Surprise, and surprise, and surprise. With a final reveal. And, one more thing…
All of Life’s a Play.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” – Shakespeare
A proposal, like Life itself, is kinda like a stage play… with an audience of one. Obviously, you know your audience, so use that intel for all the surprise one can glean.
For the longest time, I had no clue how, when & where I was gunna do to propose. All I knew is I didn’t want it to be in public, cos it sounded cliched.
So, I’m driving on the Golden Gate Bridge (back from the jewelers 1 ) and it hit me.
It had to be home. For us.
It doesn’t matter “when,” but the “where” is home. Once you got the “where,” everything else works backward from there.
And, it had to be around family. Our very first date, we talked about our families, me (as an immigrant) about how I missed mine, and hers (as someone very close to a large family) about how much it mattered to her. And knowing how she felt about her family, it had to happen around them, and a dear friend of mine.
Once you have the end in sight 2, it’s easy to plan.
I love the idea of bringing it back home, for a couple of reasons:
For starters, it’s the best surprise possible. Creating a ruse, is a breeze, since planning a weekend away, makes that the “where” for her.
The longer you plan the “weekend,” the bigger the surprise when you return home.
She will not enjoy those 24 hours, but she will, the return home, once it all sinks in.
Guaranteed.
Step 2: Stage The Ruse
Now, for the fun part.
The keys to a surprise, whether it’s a magic trick or a movie script is one thing only:
Misdirection.
Storytelling (whether it’s in movies – see Ocean’s 12 – most profoundly in magic) is about setting up an elaborate ruse and ensuring your audience is staring deeply at that ruse, certain that the rabbit (or in this case, engagement ring) is gunna come out of the hat they’re looking at.
Setting up that ruse, the hat they stare at, is pretty much the entire job.
For me, it came together, when I got a Friday off (serendipitous) and decided it was going to be the ruse. I had planted enough hints along the way (at very normal moments, mind you) that I wanted to take her to my favorite town in all of wine-country – Yountville – and you definitely wanna play that up.
The key is to double-down on (in this case) the wine country trip, as much as possible. I, quite literally, planned an afternoon at Clos Pegase, dinner at my favorite restaurant in Yountville, and brunch the day-after in Bouchon, and a massage (!); all of which bear the hallmarks of a proposal.
And, you wanna act coy, while playing it up. Also, this wasn’t a last-minute addition, we had been planning a trip to wine country for some time. So, it felt very natural (to her) that I’d propose there. 3
Step 3: Let There be Music!
It is commonplace to see a photographer or two jump out of the bushes to photograph an unsuspecting fiancé, when she has said the magic word — Yes — and yes, I’d highly recommend that, especially if you’re planning a surprise for the ages.
But, what’s more important, and it was to us, was music. Our music.
I knew her family (especially her Dad) were big fans of the Beatles, and I can’t stop thinking about wisdom from Dylan (no matter the occasion). So, I put together a playlist, and stumbled upon an Octoberfest event the day after I planned to propose; so I reached out to the musician.
Through Tim, I found a journeyman musician, Dore (a neighbor almost) who was more than thrilled to make our playlist real.4
To wit: the music was truly what made that evening special, and filled with happy tears.
Always, go with the music. Here’s my playlist that I can’t believed we were able to pull off for that moment. I had them arranged by chronological emotions (from start to finish) and Dore picked the ones he was most comfortable with.
Step 4: Surf the highs-and-lows
The key to any act of storytelling is relentless surprise.
Quite literally, that’s all it requires, and once you’ve decided to take her on a journey (until you return to home), the entire path is paved with surprises.
All you have to do is tension and release and surprise. Keep it tightly wound, and any pratfalls and unintended bloopers along the way only adds to the elements of surprise. That’s the most important thing you can do when you’re building a score (or a scare) or a proposal.
“You’re playing with tension and release, and surprise. When do I sit in the moment, and when do I explode a moment. When is the audience ahead of me? Keep surprising us. That’s the most important thing you can do when building a score.” — Lin Manuel Miranda 5
When is the audience ahead of me?
There were a couple of moments, where I thought the game was up.
For starters, the first winery, I’d called ahead and asked them if anyone had proposed there and asked them to basically give us the same deal.
That said, their service left a lot to be desired, we were hounded by hornets, and it was kind of a cluster.
While driving to our dinner at Yountville, my calendar which was usually synced to the Apple Carplay popped up a calendar event that I had shared with the folks who were in on the surprise, and were gunna be waiting for us home! Spoiler Alert: she didn’t notice it, but I assumed she had seen it?!
Unsure of what to do, and unable to ask her, I had to preemptively distract by asking her straight out if she expected a proposal during the trip?!
Well, I had to…
And, when she said “Yes,” I blamed the winery (who kinda messed up big time) to suggest I wanted a perfect proposal, and the hornets kinda ruined it.
Next day, I find the best seats in Bouchon (of course, that was planned ahead of time too), to intrigue her too, and yes, she thought I was going to propose there too.
Fast forward to home, it was so worth it. And, it’ll be tough in the moment to hold it in, but remember, this is what makes that finale oh, so delicious. Just popping the question, giving a ring, and photographers jumping out ain’t as sweet.
Step 5: One More Thing — What begins with family, ends at home!
The One More Thing, for us was always going to be family. It was the thing and the one-more-thing. And I knew, once the surprise to see the photographers and the musician sunk in, seeing family (hiding in the other corner of our patio) was the piece-de-resistance.
And, boy, it was.
The principle of storytelling, the third act has to tie somehow to the beginning of what started it all in this world.
The Closing Image can be a single scene or a series of scenes, but the mirror effect between Act I and III works best if you dedicate an equal amount of screen-time for opening and closing images. — Three Act Structure in Screenwriting6
It is but natural, that our first conversation, centered around home & family, would tie back to proposing in front of that very home & family. Nothing else made sense to me in the grand scheme of things.
“Your finale has ups and downs and isn’t a straightforward race to the finish line.”
Once you spark Point B, the rest is putting together a roller-coaster to Point B.
My goal was always to propose at our home, and I knew wine country would be the perfect ruse. And, yes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs (and, smiles) along the way; but, what really matters is the finale, the conclusion, the rock on which you’re building your (both you and her) future.
To be honest, finding love in a pandemic, is like finding a needle in a haystack (but just with one more thing, the haystack’s on fire), but when you do, the feeling of elation is a high, higher than usual. The job now is to keep that flame alive (not the haystack, but in our lives).
All’s well that ends well.
Outro: “The Man in Me”
You didn’t think I’d end this post without the words of my favorite poet. Of course, there’s a Dylan song to capture this moment as well.
Stumbled upon this gem, yesterday while writing and it immediately spoke to what finding love might feel like. And I don’t mean love in a cheesy way.
Happy Valentine’s Day to all you lovebirds out there!
"Storm clouds are raging all around my door
I think to myself I might not take it any more
Take a woman like your kind
To find the man in me
The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from bein' seen
But that's just because he doesn't wanna turn into some machine
It take a woman like you
To get through to the man in me."
— Bob Dylan, New Morning "The Man in Me."
Immersing myself in the soundtrack, while writing my next post. #CmonCmon
On my engagement, how I put it together and why it hit so hard.
Trying to blend work, life and love in writing is a challenge but works when all you write is all you love. 💚 https://t.co/vd6k6UonM4
long story. But finding the jewelers was a nightmare, in and of itself. But, I’d alway recommend going to the craftsmen and women vs. the major stores that are sleazy to say the least. I did find our jeweler after visiting 4 or 5, through a cursory google search, in San Francisco. ↩︎
I think will do it at home kind of like how we were discussing at the jewelry store. And I’d love to have a live jazz band and would love to have a surprise thrown in when I take her to Healdsburg and then when we return will have the whole place set up, and I could also get the patio cleaned out that we needed to clean right before that time. ↩︎
I feel bad as I describe this, and those 24 hours were torture to me, not that I was bumming her out, but to hold the secret in, so I could ensure the big finale surprise as best as can be! It was a thrilling 24-hours! ↩︎
If anyone reading this is interested in a musician for their special day, reach out to me, and I’m happy to connect you to Dore. ↩︎
Lin Manuel is talking about the elements to build a musical (which is similar to a stage play) ↩︎
I love the movies that get this right, and if you’re writing your proposal, it’s essential that your third act, ties to the first. Innumerable films nail the landing, including Soderbergh’s Kimi that just launched on HBO. Without giving away much, the final scene is a direct resolution, denouement from Scene A that kicks off the movie. ↩︎
Breaking up with the algorithm across Facebook, Instagram, & TikTok leads to a re-evaluation of our lives. Why this matters now, more than ever before…
Apple’s a company that doesn’t have most resources of everybody in the world.3
The way we’ve succeeded is by choosing which horses to ride.
We try to look for these technical vectors that have a future, and that are headed up, and, you know, different pieces of technology kind kinda go in cycles.
They have their springs and summers, and autumns, and then they, you know, go to the graveyard of technology.
And, so we try to pick the things that are in their springs. — Steve Jobs on Products
The beauty of great storytelling is that it’s applicable across the board. This analogy is true for Apple, true for Facebook, and true for me. Facebook, in my opinion, is in its autumn (I’m sure they might think otherwise), but more importantly, I’m in my summer.
“And if you choose wisely you can save yourself an enormous amount of work. And you can put your energy to make those technologies great on your platform.”
What I do with my time in my summer (let’s hope) “if I choose wisely,” I could save myself an enormous amount of work or trouble in the long-run.
And I choose to put my energy in people, platforms and work where I see the greatest upside for my growth, and their success. To Dylan and Jobs, a huge debt of thanks, for articulating this decision, in words that I couldn’t have stated with any more clarity.
It’s easier to quit the mafia than Facebook!
Now, the beauty of any mafia, as the saying goes “once you’re in the racket, you’re in it for life.4” But that’s true for any institution; whether it’s your family or Facebook or the Catholic Church. 5
“Once you’re in the racket, you’re in it for life.” — Al Capone
But, institutions, are in most cases not built with the individual’s interest at heart, given the numerous conflicting desires and goals. And, someday, sometime, one has to do the right thing and move away, when it’s affecting your mental health. And, as you very well know, the institutions will not make it easy on you leaving.
To leave Facebook is akin to leaving the mafia you find yourself in, if you go by the many hoops they try to make you jump through to delete your profile. It’s such a cynical ploy, and an understatement on how they perceive you and your attention.
Unflappable in their relentless attempts to derail your finite attention. They make it near impossible to take what is yours and leave. But enough is enough.
I am compelled to write down my version of what I went through to simply delete my Facebook profile, since (shockingly, despite being extremely social-media savvy) it took me a few Google searches, rifling through Facebook’s own documentation, and sighing bemusedly at how folks who work there get a good night’s sleep.
Three Clicks to Delete your Facebook Profile:
Here’s a Cliff’s Notes version on how to delete your Facebook profile. I wish I had this when I was attempting to do just that. Amazing, how much leeway we give bad faith operators in power, in this world. But, I digress.
Step 1: Find your “Settings & Privacy” (Top Right Hand Corner), then “Privacy Shortcuts”
Strange, yet obscure way to hide your delete Facebook button. But, I’ll go with this flow. The word “shortcuts” also throws you off, and having “Privacy Checkup” right above, also makes you wonder which road to take.
Masterfully deceptive, egregiously stupid, and (I bet) extremely effective, at dissuading you and making you want to give up, before you even begin. But, fear not, I got you and will lead you to the promised land.
Hit “Settings & Privacy,” then “Privacy Shortcuts.”
Step 2: Blink Three Times, if your Facebook profile is being held hostage?!
Once you figure out “Privacy Shortcuts” is the magic door that will lead to your escape, you are confounded by this page. Now, this is the entire page on my desktop iMac and a cursory glance (will NOT show you the delete button). Go on… I’ll wait.
Also, the category to place it under “Tools to help you control your privacy and security on Facebook” is also so intentionally misleading to make you wanna throw up. Regardless, scrolling down just a second, scrolled all the way to the bottom, under a sub-heading that says “Your Facebook Information” — “View or download your Facebook information at any time.” Wow. The mind boggles at such a brazenly disingenuous ploy to throw you off.
But, if you persist, and don’t blink, you’ll see the “Delete your account and information” before it disappears.
Step 3: Download Information, “Delete Account”
If you’ve come this far, you’re that much closer to deleting your Facebook account. Now all that stands between you and peace-of-mind, is to Download your information before hitting Delete. As you can see I had 1500 photos and 2500 posts, which I chose to download (just in case), but on perusing them I realize I had stopped uploading my pics to Facebook a while back, roughly 10 years, and these photos were good to have, but I could have lived without em.
I suspect your experience may vary. Regardless, hit that Download button, before you consider permanently deleting your Facebook account.
And, just like that you’re just a click away from deleting 17 years of time spent (some fruitful), and a lot of wasteful minutes across the Mark Zuckerberg Universe (MZU).
Hit Delete, and, just like that — “Serenity Now.” I haven’t thought about it for a second since, and I doubt I ever will.
Matters of Mental Health
Deleting Instagram, Facebook + TikTok on Dec 31st. Never done a social media detox, because as someone who built their career on it and is in marketing thought that would be blasphemy. But the time has come. Time to put my mental health first. Already excited to have time back.
I’ve written about my odyssey through mental health, across grief and time, over a year ago 6. A couple of things7 have changed since then.
A global pandemic, civil strife, rogue actors, bad faith, and Orwellian technology that knows no bounds, has no keepers and brooks no maker of it. But, people chose to react to chaos in different ways. My initial reaction, and I think for a lot of us, in the early disorienting months (Feb – May 2020) were zoom happy hours, and that goes for virtual habits, including ones inhabited by the social algorithm.
But, this abundance, this fantasy, these distractions fed by any of those sources only causes the chaos to spread. In the middle of chaos, only stillness matters.
"There is, however, a third response to chaos, which I have not heard about, which is stillness." — Toni Morrison pic.twitter.com/AW7HODuR2s
Abundance messes with our minds. The world doesn’t live with abundance, and scarcity is a feature, not a bug. Pain & Grief, might be the highest versions of this, and possess deep meaning to life & death. But, the only way we can confront that is in stillness.
What the algorithm seems to promise, is a fantasy, and it’s time we saw it for what it is.
Dependence isn’t good.
I realize how much I depend on Facebook Connect to log into sites, and increasingly on voice-activated Alexa and Portal, understanding both Facebook and Amazon now hear every word I speak. And, just like in any abusive relationship, being dependent, or co-dependent is not something one should take for granted. It’s better late than never.
A bad friend, is deleterious to health
Alcohol, cigarettes, Facebook. Or the Algorithm.
The algorithm is worse than alcohol. It’s worse than cigarettes. And, please don’t say we were not warned. It’s time to quit relationships that don’t serve us well.
Just the process of extricating myself from the Facebook rabbit-hole was reminder enough that this was an abusive relationship that has gone on for too long.
But, as I’d mentioned in an earlier post, unfriending Facebook has its immense benefits to mental health. More than alcohol, more than cigarettes, more than eating habits (salt & sugar), more than our physical well-being, the “algorithm” slowly, but surely wraps itself around how we process the world itself. We find ourselves staring into Medusa’s eyes, turning into stone, and the sooner we curb this enthusiasm for distraction, and fashion it after our purpose; the better.
Dylan: ’Til our error we clearly learn
As an early part of LinkedIn, a huge Twitter evangelist (from back in the day to now), social media continues to be a critical part of my daily life and work. But, there’s a difference between that naive take on social networking, with which I was schooled, to today’s attention land-grab, that has me (and many folks I know), rethink the purpose of social media itself.
Someday in the (near) future, we’ll look at this experiment in the human condition, giving kids iPhones like doing out cigarettes, and turning a blind eye to the various genocides that large behemoths have turned a blind eye to, as atrocious.
But, for starters, I wanna reclaim my attention.
For what am I, without my thoughts.
As with all things in life, I’ll let Bob Dylan bring it home 8, spittin’ words of wisdom on technology, our abuse of it, and what it all means.
Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he’s fulfilled
Oh, man is opposed to fair play
He wants it all and he wants it his way
Now he's hell-bent for destruction, he's afraid and confused
And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill
And all he believes are his eyes
And his eyes, they just tell him lies
Leave no stone unturned
May be an actor in a plot
That might be all that you got
'Til your error you clearly learn
I, for one, am in no mood to make the choice to repeat my mistakes, spending time blithely whether it’s on vices we entrust with a lot of good faith — whether it’s Instagram or alcohol. So, goodbye and good luck to Mark, his minions, and my next glass of scotch.
Good Night, and Good Luck!
I’m always edified to read the genesis of @bobdylan songs I love. “All the Songs” is more than a coffee table book. It’s American history in his words.
License to Kill, written as a plea to live in harmony with nature (circa Reagan), works for today’s tech too. Timeless. pic.twitter.com/iM79WHroFR
17 years in, though a phantom-limb phenomenon at this time, it’s a fully-grown teenager if I had a child at that point in my life, and it’s strange that it has accompanies a lot of my wins and successes in these years past. Still, when it’s time to go, it’s time to go. Fin. ↩︎
Who doesn’t remember Facebook’s original “wall” posts, before “the feed” took over. Here’s a great piece by Taylor Lorenz, currently at The New York Times, on the day the wall died. “Sahil Kapur, a journalist in Washington, D.C., echoed Zoe’s sentiment: “Posting on someone’s Wall is more about public consumption than a real conversation. The wall did have a certain appeal when Facebook was a tighter-knit community of college students, but that changed.” ↩︎
Coming from a company at its peak at the D8 Conference in 2010, when they had just surpassed Microsoft as the most valuable company in the world, might seem specious. But, Steve is right about one thing, no company has unlimited resources. No human, has unlimited attention. And, focus, is imperative for any and every goal one has in life. ↩︎
As a recovering Catholic, I understand the role dogma plays in the vice-like grip that religions have on your “soul,” and hence your actions, your inability to make choices as you might freely. ↩︎
Losing a parent, for the first time, will be the hardest thing you ever deal with in your life. The ground beneath your feet, and mind, shifts irrevocably. Now, toss in a breakup, work turbulence and you have a perfect storm. I did, and this was before the pandemic. Meditation, running and staying fit — mentally and physically — saved my ass and my life, arguably ↩︎
Finding passion in career and a partner unlike any, is a start, and boy, did 2021 make up for 2020’s absolute decimation ↩︎
Dylan’s “License to Kill” is a diatribe against technology’s wayward eye when we have major problems right here on planet earth. How resonant today, when there’s a debate about billionaire’s pet projects to Mars and the Moon, when we are faced with climate change, a pandemic and political unrest. ↩︎
But… Roam Research just might be the Swiss-Army Productivity Knife we’ve all been waiting for.
The four most beautiful words in the English language are ‘I told you so.’ – Gore Vidal
Who doesn’t love discovering a music or stand-up act before the world does 2LinkedIn (2006), Facebook (2006), Twitter (2007), Spotify (2011), Quora (2012) have been products I fell in love with before the world did, but I think I found myself my next big obsession – [[Roam Research]] – that others might discover in the years to come.
A few minutes of exploration later, and $15 of monthly-subscription lighter, I found myself haphazardly and confusedly creating a “root folder” in Roam Research.
Fast forward to 3 months later, I live my work and (slowly, personal life managed) on Roam Research and can’t imagine starting any work day without Roam.
This is the post I wish I had read when I got started.
It’s not fair to compare Roam to Notion. Or Asana. Or Todoist.
But, as a platform for connecting-the-dots of life 4, Roam somehow out-performs all of the above at their job, and more.
The problem Roam solves is vastly different from what Notion (a better designed & prettier Microsoft Office or Google Suite of productivity docs) solve, or Medium (a beautiful WYSIWYG editor for organizing thoughts), or Todoist (a robust task management app) try to accomplish, and to be honest they all fall short because of one fundamental flaw in how we work. They are all beautiful siloes.
An idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain, it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed, fully understood.
That sticks, right in there somewhere.
[he points to his head] – Dom Cobb, Inception
There’s many a slip/s between the moment an idea/s has “taken hold of your brain” to “fully formed, fully understood.”
Enter Roam Research.
Now what does Roam do?
How do we build a platform that makes it trivial to track-download those ideas and process them effectively, without dropping them into beautiful lists of to-dos, notes, and projects?! The challenge being each of those categories of information (to-dos, notes, and projects) interact with one another, but not seamlessly and live in separate islands, including the original silo which is pen-and-paper.
Roam connects the dots between islands of ideas
Roam is a breakthrough in that it allows us to navigate each of these islands of different shapes & sizes (to-dos, notes and projects) by atomizing how each of them are built – from a checklist. Not only does Roam make it trivial to input these ideas mindfully 5 outside of their siloes (like with pen & paper, but better – onto a canvas for drawing upon them with structured data.6), and a simple suite of under-the-hood Easter eggs that pop up at just the right time to get shit done (work or life) and manipulate any idea.
Since forever, we’ve done tasks, projects and every single day, in one haphazard way: ideally, by putting pen-to-paper. Then Microsoft Office, brought the hurt to workplace “productivity,” to be followed by a lighter version — Google Docs. And more recently Notion has created a prettier version of Office (not to be outdone, MS Office ripped off Notion just this past week, to strangely rave reviews and dull re-looped critiques 7).
But, then imagine a near perfect way to capture your thoughts, process intelligence and get shit done — in the moment, through every moment of your life?! It’s almost like Anthony Bourdain describing the In’N Out burger:
Bourdain orders his burger “animal style” — a double patty with extra Thousand Island sauce and pickles. He divulged what he loves most about the burger. “This cheese-like substance is just perfect,” he said. “This is like a ballistic missile … a perfectly designed protein delivery system. – Anthony Bourdain 8
Roam is that ballistic missile perfectly designed for downloading ideas, impelled at completion. 9
What Office could not, and Notion does not; Roam does… 10
Targeted, flexible, multi-layered, Roam is “Notion meets Todoist meets Asana” with agenda, purpose and goals. 11
By shifting all your writing into a bulleted list, and giving you the ability to seamlessly vary that list, Roam reclaims your attention from the tyranny of the blank piece of paper that has writers shudder before writer’s block, and cedes immense control back to you. By also giving all that is needed back to the keyboard makes trivial what might have (until now), taken different iOS apps, desktop apps, and a moleskine notebook to accomplish; a seamless mind-meld between your thoughts and fingertips.
Imagine that, but for every idea that permeates your brain, every idea worth taking down, and because of their mutual links you can jot down and literally “connect the dots” (whether it’s tagged by date or topics, or whole sentences and paragraphs – more on that in just a second.) In the public sphere, that’s Twitter.
In the private sphere, that’s Roam. And I can’t wait to see how that might translate to the work sphere.
Microsoft Word or its online evolution Google Docs is quite literally that blank piece of paper, while both Medium and Notion have prettied things up a bit, without reinventing the original grammar of Word which has served its purpose, but it’s time for the Tesla, not a prettier horse.12
Note taking for me has shifted away from [[Google Docs]] and each time I work on [[Notion]] I realize their immense disadvantages to working seamlessly on a platform like [[Roam]]. It is impossible for any other platform for you to basically get started creating, weaving and connecting ideas without you having to hit a Command-F to File or Scroll to Search or Discover.
Here’s how Roam’s Tesla fares against all previous productivity islands.
Roam’s Swiss-Army-Knife of Five:
The logo is an astrolabe
First level interpretation is this
– Roam is for building maps – Roam is about the value of old knowledge
Goes a few levels deeper though, but that is left as an exercise for the reader.https://t.co/rpAyRG5AP9
Roam differs from Word or Docs or Notion in its minimalist interface (no bells, no whistles, no command-F drop-down from a mouseovers and clicks) that belies the powerful mapping engine powering it, that respond to the click of your keys. (snap of your fingers allusions)
Here’s the five-step crash-course, I wish I had at my fingertips when I jumped on the Roam bandwagon, that might have speeded up my learning times exponential.
Five tools in your tool-belt that will get you humming along your Roam journey in no time. My only $0.02, don’t think twice, don’t overthink, don’t over-plan, just start typing…
1. Pick a Topic, Start a Page: Hit the [[ ]] running…
Imagine being able to create new pages on the fly, without hitting Command-F (File), Open New, and create a new document, or toggle between folders unsure of where you’ve these documents saved, but is there a better way to do this right now.
The framework of Roam Research is built on its bulleted checklists, but more importantly on its bi-directional Wikipedia-like links that can be spontaneously created with the subtle tap of [[ ]].
Whether it’s a mini-rolodex or creating groups of individuals around specific categories, words, book reviews, you name it, create a topic, launch a page, while you generate your ideas. I use it as a mini-rolodex, so I add the job title before the name, I create and tag groups of individuals (so folks who are in Sales, etc.) I even use it for all rough drafts of posts I eventually end up writing, including this very post you’re reading.
The rough draft of everything I think; I build and create on Roam Research, starts with a pair of [[ ]].
It’s interesting that V2 or V3 of every idea goes to different apps:
Writing: iA Writer, then WordPress
Projects: Emails, Docs, Notion (at times) depends on who I’m sending this to
To-dos: Rarely, todoist, for the most part all of my to-dos are reviewed and check-listed on Roam Research
It’s hard to explain Roam to someone who hasn’t used it before, Before I continue, I have to warn the users here, that unlike Notion or Google Docs, there is no freemium version of Roam, so be prepared to pay up-front a subscription to enjoy the benefits of Roam, but rest assured, I don’t see myself working on any other product for note taking (Google Docs), Task and Project Management (Todoist), and everything else under the sun.
Roam is as good as your bulleted checklists and topics (like Wikipedia, but imagine for your personal and work-life), and by just typing those magical [[ ]] keys yields a satisfying Pavlovian response the way that red notifications icon felt on Facebook back in the day. 13
While Google Docs, Notion and others are basically “better, faster horses,” 14, what Roam seems to do is build a new grammar of productivity from the ground up.
And, that leads to a network graph of ideas, unlike any I have seen since my days working at a social network or two. The beauty of these brackets and the chance to start off on topics, is the rich contextual data that accrues that one can see at the bottom of each page.
Over time, I’ve also found myself auto-creating a page for each day, which ties back to making Roam a productivity tool. Creating todos, is as easy as Shift-Enter that toggles through a to-do, done and none.
To me, this is where the magic begins, the 140 character magical spin on documentation itself from Roam. Take Roam for a spin, and in a few days, either the double bracket, or there’s a Chrome extension, that creates a double-bracket, when you hashtag (I know, most of you are rolling your eyes, but when you hit that Easter egg, the productivity gains are immense.
For the first time, in my life, my browser has truly become a moleskine notebook, where I don’t have to toggle between taking notes with a pen-and-paper, staring at my iMac browser screen, but it’s all on Roam, and the keys fly as fast as my mind can.
It’s liberating. And, frankly, this post doesn’t do it justice.
2. Finding a needle (word) in a haystack (block): Double Brackets (())
Now imagine losing your thoughts & ideas in paragraphs, making it more difficult to bring them back up on command, since [[topics]] don’t necessarily tell the full story, but what if you were able to bring up paragraphs or blocks on command by just opening up (()) not just the (it’s called “blocks” here), and imagine being able to at random call up each block that searches and pulls up relevant blocks that might have otherwise been lost.
Imagine a tool that basically allows you to do all of the above three seemingly incongruous goals, and blend them into a daily stream-of-consciousness (yes, seems impossible) that somehow gets things done, while allowing you time to ponder over ideas you’re mulling over (whether it’s a blog post – all of my draft V1s start on Roam) or projects you’re planning at work, events you host, I could go on.
This is basically the culmination of what I described as the fundamental issue with to-do apps. Zooming out and zooming back in to our lives is a constant battle & challenge, but I think, I’ve finally found a tool that allows me to do just that.
Now granted, some of you may be intimidated by even trying out Roam Research. The team seems to revel in the community finding itself, vs. building communities (like Notion seems to be so good at doing), so consider the next five tips and tricks, what I’ve learned in the past 3 months that I slowly Easter-egg’d my way into so you don’t have to…
This is a pretty easy way to master the fundamentals of what makes Roam Research such a powerful tool to accomplish all of the above three – note taking, to-dos and project management – and frankly, I feel like I’m just scratching the surface.
3. All Life is a Routine: Double Semi-Colons;;
All of life is a routine. Or a habit.
“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.” – Gandhi
Somehow Roam gets it, and make it trivial to harness its power.
For the life of me, I’ve tried to figure out life-management, that has taken different shapes and forms from Things to Todoist (most recently), tied to RescueTime, but they all hit upon a fundamental snag — context switching and zoom-in and out of our thoughts — what if there’s a way to go from thoughts to tasks to projects to checklists while you’re on the topic and out and in.
Let me give you an example: tasks are recursive projects that might range from a broken stove knob to a major home renovation. They also slip-and-slide priorities to projects to calendars to time itself. It’s one giant hairball that just cannot be undone, until the very framework and its various parts have been convincingly redrawn.
Every single day, pre-Roam Research, I used a different set of tools for note taking, to-dos and project management, and I must have tried a whole slew of them, and all of them failing, since they were separate islands and they never connected.
Routines have a very important place in life. To-dos, time management systems, project management can all be made more efficient through routines, and no time management app makes it easy to create-and-recall routines as Roam does, and only by being immersed in this environment and using routlines for what they’re worth might one recognize its power.
This has to be my easiest time-saver
Emails you send (before an event)
Processes and steps you need to set up (during an event, before an event)
Daily Top 3 tasks to accomplish
Ditto for the week
Just like the iPhone made text an indelible part of our lives and relegated phone calls to the merely urgent, and much like the Macintosh made typewriters irrelevant while making keyboard usage ubiquitous. Roam makes the creation and re-creation of routines and habits trivial from the get-go, what a liberating thought that is but I’ve never seen the ease with which one can create a routine, through keyboard shortcuts.15
4. Tables, Kanban, Pomodoro, on the fly: Double Curly Brackets
The last two features I’ll bring up, might seem trivial at first glance, but I bring them up as an example to showcase the power of Roam Research as a platform for productivity.
Evernote is a popular one that many swear by, I’ve personally only briefly used that app, but there are many others. For me, over the last couple of years, it came down to my favorite Moleskine notebook and pen, which truly works to highlight the day’s Top 10 and any other notes that need taken down.
But a moleskine’s advantage (focus) is betrayed by the inability to link to ideas (I know Moleskine has an app that allows to upload your note taking) a digitized moleskine but again it does not solve the fundamental problem, and something that requires specialized hardware and a subscription that I don’t plan on buying.
While creating a table on Roam Research is as easy, as
{{table}}
Yep, hit Enter, and it’ll guide you through how to type in the headings and the respective entry points for a table. But the beauty of Roam Research is how trivial they’ve made the idea of creating a table.
Ditto for a {{Kanban}} table. Or a {{pomo}}doro timer, in case you wish to time your writing a blog post.
5. Isn’t Research All About The Highlights: Command-H
Life needs a highlighter. What I’ve always envisioned in a modern moleskin is the ability to highlight as we go, and it’s always been impossible to do with any of the task management apps I’ve tried thus far. Just select the sentence, and hit “Command-H”
Imagine a tool that basically allows you to do all of the above three seemingly incongruous goals, and blend them into a daily stream-of-consciousness (yes, seems impossible) that somehow gets things done, while allowing you time to ponder over ideas you’re mulling over (whether it’s a blog post – all of my draft V1s start on Roam) or projects you’re planning at work, events you host, I could go on.
This is basically the culmination of what I described as the fundamental issue with to-do apps. Zooming out and zooming back in to our lives is a constant battle & challenge, but I think, I’ve finally found a tool that allows me to do just that.
Now granted, some of you may be intimidated by even trying out Roam Research. The team seems to revel in the community finding itself, vs. building communities (like Notion seems to be so good at doing), so consider the next five tips and tricks, what I’ve learned in the past 3 months that I slowly Easter-egg’d my way into so you don’t have to…
This is a pretty easy way to master the fundamentals of what makes Roam Research such a powerful tool to accomplish all of the above three – note taking, to-dos and project management – and frankly, I feel like I’m just scratching the surface.
The reason being it’s always been impossible to context switch rapidly, especially and most importantly, directly from your keyboard. So you can go from [[Topics]] to ((Blocks and Paragraphs)) to ;;Templates for Routines, and {{Kanban & Tables}} back to a single minded Focus has never been possible, and never from the comfort & luxury of your keyboard.
And the ability to have a daily Top 5 and then some, and then highlight the one you’re working on, allows you to stay focused for as long as you need.
And if you need a timer, all you need is {{timer}} at your hand. Or a {{POMO}}
See the list goes on… Regardless, like a blank sheet of paper, Roam does feel a bit intimidating when you start, and over the course of 3 months I’ve learned what I wish I had known at the start. Building an app ecosystem related to tasks might just takes this to another level.
The key to me, is taking this hyper-invested community of theirs, and move into the mainstream. This post of mine, is just a simple way to describe what has worked so effectively for me — this Swiss Army Knife of Five above.
The four saddest words in the English language, “It might have been.” – Poet John Greenleaf Whittier 16
The Promise of [[Roam]]: Roam is the iPhone to Notion’s Blackberry
Roam’s only competition is itself, and a timeline that competes against Google Docs, who might throw a wrench in the works. But, they are unlikely to move as fast as a nimble competitor like Roam.
What else can they make trivial
To me this is the power of Roam. Any thought process that one can think: topics of interest, blocks of ideas, routines and habits, have been trivialized to a point where your keyboard does the work that normally felt intuitive to pen-and-paper-and-moleskine-notebook.
Ditto for productivity, I feel if they play their cards right, Roam is a far more efficient way to get things done (GTD) than any other tool I’ve ever tried. And if it is, why wouldn’t you make it easy for teams to collaborate off of, and imo that’s exactly what its founding teams would like to do, albeit with religious fervor.
So, what can one expect from Roam Research in the future, and more specifically, what do I wish to see in its North Star.
With a switch of the keys, {{}} or should I say, double curly brackets opens up a world of features that can be summoned at a moment’s notice. Ironically, as well as they connect the various islands of thought on a blank webpage, Roam is the ideal version of Google Docs.
For example: Just this past Sunday, I created a quick overview of my week’s writing with links and a quick hashtag [[time-blocks]] I have created for myself to better manage my time (both at work and in life).
Imagine creating a table on the fly while you let your ideas do the typing. I’ve truly never felt more liberated than when I stumbled upon this easter egg, while planning a sequence of events for the upcoming quarter.
Collaboration (I’d hope) is a simple addition to the foundation they’re building. I find it a huge hassle that I can’t easily share my writing with my peers, colleagues, at work, and I find myself and my content stuck on Roam Island. Ironic, as it may seem.
There’s just so much that Roam could be, and already is, and that can be its greatest undoing as it is its greatest strength. That blank sheet of paper, needs to be defined and communicated effectively to its legions of fans. I see Roam, the way I saw the users of LinkedIn, when I started there back in the day — 2006. Most of LinkedIn’s users were a very active cult of open-networkers (I’m not making this up), and the goal was to create a brand that transcended this core group of users to all professionals, which LinkedIn did.
Ditto for Twitter, that is the closest to the ethos & brand that Roam could emulate. Take for example, how mainstream Twitter’s hashtag and @ mention seem these days, something I’d have never imagined back in the day, when I started using it at SXSW within a core group of insular techie users!
I can’t wait to see what the team at Roam, builds next. But, I’m sure there’s no ceiling for what they can build, but the devil (is always) in the details and execution. And, I am thrilled to continue being an avid paid user of this amazing product.
Just gimme more.
By some estimates, the operations economy is going to be far eclipsed by a project economy and tools to enable these projects are going to become the next Microsoft or Google in the workplace. ↩︎
I remember seeing Abel Tesfaye, way before he became known as The Weeknd, and that’s how I feel about technology worthy of evangelism. ↩︎
Love the allusion to a phrase that has gotten quite a few people into hot water, no pun intended, including President Obama in 2008. That said, I reiterate the absolute hot mess that is Notion, as if “’A hog in a silk waistcoat is still a hog,’ meaning, ‘Circumstances do not alter a man’s nature, nor even his manners.’” proving Charles Spurgeon right, via his 1887 compendium of proverbs, The Salt Cellars. ↩︎
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” – Steve Jobs. One of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs is from his Stanford Commencement speech that can be found in its entirety here↩︎
This is vastly different from a to-do app like todoist that makes it trivial to add your ideas from any source, but sometimes constraints are good. They focus the mind on a stack-ranked list, as opposed to adding a bunch of to-dos from every source imaginable only for you to declare bankruptcy ↩︎
Microsoft Loop is a new Office app for the hybrid work era, via The Verge. “These collaborative Loop components have been the dream of Microsoft for the past couple of years, and it’s clear the company has been adjusting how Loop works to fit the realities of pandemic life. A central Microsoft Loop hub looks like an improved way to track and organize these components — and a clear response to the new hybrid work era to which many businesses are adjusting and competition like Notion.” by @tomwarren ↩︎
Known for his brash, yet honest delivery, Bourdain sets us straight on what makes the In’N Out Burger above and beyond, the best at what it does, via Eater. ↩︎
Getting Things Done (GTD) was a “work-life management system that prioritizes clarity by eliminating chaos that is our heads. Think of it as the Marie Kondo technique for your brain. ↩︎
I’m going to caveat this entire post both with “I told you so,” and this has been my experience. For many MS Office might out of habit, be the norm, and for others Notion might have created an ideal community for habit, but if you were to start from scratch and define “that productivity tool” that has it all; it has to be Roam ↩︎
I remember the early days of both LinkedIn & Twitter, there was no existent grammar to describe them both. They both evolved organically through stellar leadership into what they are today, but no one knew what they were, just that they were incredibly powerful tools and you knew someday they’d fulfil their potential given great parenting. Ditto for Roam; it feels difficult to describe to others, which might drive some folks away, but I hope to put a spin on it, that show folks what I see today. ↩︎
I do understand that the team at Notion has built a great platform that works so well, for so many professionals, here’s an example; but again, so has Microsoft and Google. ↩︎
I wrote about that red notification icon that might have been an attractive addition to Facebook on Facebook that was geared towards that dopamine hit ↩︎
Yes, Henry Ford might have used a variation of the quote, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses,” but trust me all that some people want is a faster horse. Maybe some day they might consider a Model T, or a Tesla, but for the majority of folks we are selling productivity tools to, they just might want a better, faster, prettier Google Doc. ↩︎
Mobile Roam: I’d so love for Roam to release an iOS app, since I can’t imagine the speed benefits of creating routines or any of the other time benefits unleashed by Roam Research. A browser is a great way to get your ideas through, but the explosive power of Roam can best be harnessed on mobile and it’s going to be a herculean task to make that switch seamlessly. Templates in Roam, via hereAlso Capiche↩︎
Via Quote Investigator: In the passage above Mancroft also referred to “the saddest words” which he linked to Bret Harte. It was true that Harte wrote a comment on this topic; however, he was reacting to an 1854 remark by the poet John Greenleaf Whittier who proclaimed that the saddest words were “It might have been”. ↩︎
Mario Sundar's Speakeasy 