Wrapping up a long holiday weekend in Singapore where I spent some great family time taking my daughter to the zoo for the first time and playing a lot in the pool. I have some great things to share this weekend, so I hope you enjoy!
What I’m most excited about this weekend
One of my favorite authors and podcasters, Tim Ferriss, is running a series of fan meetups across the world and he’s coming to Singapore next month! These meetups are fan-organized in celebration of the 10th anniversary of his podcast (he was really one of the earliest podcast successes). The thing I admire most about Tim and his podcasts is his fantastic ability to interview, asking key questions that prompt enlightening and insightful answers. I’m so excited to join this event and meet him in person. Slots are filled, but you can jump on the waitlist here.
What I’m thinking about in marketing this weekend
ABM and account-based selling have been top of mind for me recently, and one of the most important dynamics to consider when executing this kind of strategy is buying committees. In this article, Pierre Herubel shares an intro to buying committees. The bottom line is to close any deal with any enterprise organization, there will be multiple people from different teams influencing the buying decision. They will have different perspectives, concerns, and priorities. I’m thinking about how and when marketing should start targeting these other influencers. Should you try to get one champion so bought-in they will help convince everyone else or should you spend your limited time and resources getting a small amount of mindshare and education about your solution with everyone?
Most interesting article on Singapore this week
Not the first time this has been reported, but this article shares how many expats are leaving Singapore due to the rising cost of living. Singapore is definitely expensive, and for good reason, virtually everything is imported, there are limited land and natural resources, and the level of cleanliness and safety adds to operating costs for businesses. As of December 2023, there are 1.5 million foreign workers according to the Singapore Ministry of Manpower. A large percentage of these, like myself, are immigrants, not expats. We haven’t moved here on our company’s dime to “experience Asia” for a couple of years and then go home. We have put down roots, integrated with society, built our lives here, and it’s where we plan to live through thick and thin. The expat trend has been in decline for 10-15 years as cities in Asia become more convenient, Westernized, and have more home-grown talent. Let the expats leave, we immigrants will stay.
Best marketing/AI experiment I saw this weekend
Josh Lieber shared Nike’s ad featuring numerous NCAA basketball record holder Caitlin Clark. It’s a classic Nike ad, featuring the athlete, with the simple, but clever and eye-catching text “You break it, you own it.” He posted an experiment he did with ChatGPT to see what headline it would come up with for this ad. In short, it didn’t do such a great job. I replicated the experiment, and you can see the results below. This is a great demonstration that ChatGPT won’t be taking the jobs of copywriters for a while. And companies that are using AI to create content wholesale should expect mediocre, uninspired results, as demonstrated by the fact that people are already getting good at recognizing AI content.
What I’m pondering about careers this weekend
This article on important things to consider at the midpoint of your career from HBR popped up on my feed. One theme the article touched on that has helped me throughout my career is job tailoring. That is the act of deliberately putting extra effort into areas of your work that will bring you the most value, whether that’s in terms of career advancement, personal growth, or high achievement. Of course, you still have to perform all functions of your job at an adequate level, but this allows you to build up weaknesses or capitalize on strengths which will help you down the road. Personally, I’ve done this for public speaking, writing, video creation, and more. And it has allowed me to grow in ways that if I hadn’t consciously tailored my duties, I never would have been able to.
Most interesting video I watched this weekend
Do you hate the sound of your own voice on recordings? Me too, and it’s evidently the same for most people. This TED video features Rebecca Kleinberger, a professor humanics and voice technology at Northeastern University, and she explains why. Having got back into some public speaking recently (more to come!), this is particularly interesting to me as when I review recordings, I need to separate the strangeness of hearing my own voice from the quality of the actual words coming out of my mouth.
That’s all for this weekend, have a great week ahead!
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