Founder of the Social Media Escape Club
From keningzhu’s new course Sharing Space Camp:
sharing your work is the bridge between “ideas in your head” — and money.
and by money, what I really mean is: the byproduct that comes when you make your creative energy a shared resource that others can access.
Energy is everything, man.
I just did a big running adventure with a friend. A “Twin Peaks” run, which is hitting two summits along the Appalacian Trail. Run up one side, come down, run up the other. Usually a river crossing. A good number of miles. This was 2500′ of climbing. First real hot and humid run for the year, and I got cooked! Took us 4.5 hours, but I was able to get it done because of the energy of my friend.
My Email Guidance offering. People send me an email with their backstory, some links, and their challenges, and I write them back with some ideas and possible solutions with a Stripe link to book for another five emails.
Not every email “converts,” but every email gets my wheels spinning, trying to think of ways to fix problems, present ideas, get some movement into the challenge. It’s all learning. It’s all research. It’s all… energy.
Good energy.
Just spoke to someone about networking and omens. Sometimes it’s good to experiment with the energy stored within ourselves.
Been listening to French radio a bit lately and this came on and holy shit, I love it so much. The line “this shit has nothing to do with you” takes the air out of my lungs.
From The Slow Death—and Occasional Resurrection—of Original Reporting:
How We Fix It (a non-complete list)
- Fund the digging. Subscriptions aren’t charity; they’re R&D for democracy.
- Celebrate articles that wreck your priors. Surprise is the price of learning.
- Demand receipts. If a story leans entirely on “sources familiar”, ask for the paper trail, The Verge does this well.
- Back legal defence funds. Lawsuits stop more stories than lack of curiosity.
- Publish your changelog. Post the list: people spoken to, documents read, and known unknowns.
Excellent post.
This bit from Jon Gruber who writes Daring Fireball:
“Ever since I started doing these live shows from WWDC, I’ve kept the guest(s) secret, until showtime. I’m still doing that this year. But in recent years the guests have seemed a bit predictable: senior executives from Apple. This year I again extended my usual invitation to Apple, but, for the first time since 2015, they declined.”
Apple might not like how critical Gruber has been in recent months, but I also don’t like how Siri will let me keep adding “bananas” to my Groceries List, and never once tell me that it’s already on the list. In 2025.
And did you know that when you say, “Siri, turn on my 6am alarm” it will just keep adding 6am alarms, over and over again? I had like 50 of them last time I looked.
I hope Apple execs will be staying back at the office fixing that, delivering their “Apple Intelligence” offerings that they promised months ago, and maybe stop fighting with independent app makers and charing them 30% of every god damn sale for eternity.
Just Gabrielle Judge, telling it like it is:
The truth is, corporations struggle to keep up with the speed at which ambitious people evolve. Promotions are slow. Raises take forever. But everything else is somehow urgent.
Read more at “I Got a Lazy Girl Job Because I Was Too Ambitious.”
As always, Ash Ambirge bringing the gems:
If you’ve ever been like, ugh, HOW AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO MARKET MYSELF, why not ask yourself a new question: how can I show up & just answer my customer’s questions?????
In the early days of my Social Media Escape Club I’d just answer people’s questions on Substack’s Office Hours threads. I’d even link them to Substack help docs. I did this so well someone from Substack noticed and reached out and asked if I had any interest in joining their help team (no, thank you).
Even for the bigger picture questions, like “how will I live without social media?” I don’t have the full answer for anyone, but I have bits and pieces that I’ve learned from my experience, and how other people have done it.
Sometimes you don’t need the full answer, you just need to the experience of reading and talking to a bunch of people on the same journey.
Town is quiet now. The college kids left, and everything is still and quiet. There’s a sense of ease about town again.
From my People & Blogs interview with Manuel Moreale:
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?
Honestly, no. WordPress and the hosting and such works fine for me. I don’t care much about the name, or the theme, or whatever. The blog is 100% for me.
“I write to remember,” as the lyrics go in ‘One Armed Scissor’ by At the Drive In.
Read the rest here.
