Mediocrity at Scale
She put in the kind of work no automation could produce.
Better at Work
How to work better, job insecurities, job and career advice
43 records updated
#188Do you recognize any of these "games" being played inside your org?
Someone gains influence by attaching themselves to a popular person.
#188How to Find People
Break one habit your network has you filed under.
Opinionated advice for 2026 graduates
“Become the good hang ... Relationships are how you’ll escape the hellfire of a thousand-person LinkedIn resume stack.”
What strategy directors expect from your AI skills
Familiarity is no longer a flex, it's the floor.
Thinking Tools
A collection of tools that are useful in creative problem solving which generally follows the steps of clarify, ideate, develop, and implement.
Value creation, bullshit jobs and the future of work
“Figure out who is seeking value and create it for them.”
After AI stole his clients, one Big Tech ghostwriter is using AI to get them back
“What can the future look like for me?”
Guide Yourself by the Stars and Not the Passing Ships
Expertise will matter less while curiosity and particularly resilience will matter more.
Don't Crowd My Screen: Etiquette For...
If you didn’t create the doc, you’re a guest in someone else’s kitchen. Act accordingly.
In an always-on culture, employees try 'microshifting' to reclaim personal lives
“Sometimes the break’s when most of the work will get done in your head, because you’re not sitting in front of a laptop just staring at a screen going, ‘I can’t come up with anything,”
Creative Career Conundrums: What can juniors do to compete with AI?
“Junior talent will always be necessary ... for providing fresh perspective.”
Hot Streaks in Your Career Don't Happen by Accident
“Our data shows that people ought to explore a bunch of things at work, deliberate about the best fit for their skills, and then exploit what they’ve learned”
Bed of Nails
Organisations tend to drift, by human bias and default, towards Pointies at the top and Softies underneath.
Monotasking: Inside the Box Excerpt
Constraints push the brain beyond its default tendencies, forcing deeper problem-solving
Beware software brain
“You can't advertise people out of reacting to their own experiences”
Marketing engineers are the hire of 2026
“Marketing engineers are the hire of 2026. period.”
AI will make your marketing team faster and worse
A sharp take on how AI acceleration might compromise marketing quality and strategic thinking
Are You Coal or a Horse? The AI Job Paradox
“When technology leads to huge numbers of jobs disappearing quickly, bad things happen”
The Semantic Drift of The Strategist
“So I grabbed 100 titles from 2nd-degree connections on LinkedIn that had strategy somewhere in the visible profile and ran some analysis.”
There's a graveyard of half-resolved questions
“Ideas are cheap right now. Getting the people in charge to make explicit decisions is the hard part.”
AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It
“On their own initiative workers did more because AI made “doing more” feel possible, accessible, and in many cases intrinsically rewarding.”
Sloperators
“If you give steroids to a Little League baseball player, they’re still a ten-year-old boy. Give them to Barry Bonds and he breaks every record in the books.”
Selling Strategy Without the Sleaze
“You are remembered for the help you provide, not the noise you make.”
How to Drop Killer Workshops
“Market the workshop activities like you are teaching children.”
The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Andy Pressman
“It’s in your interest to be a sicko, making work for other sickos.”
How to Drop Killer Workshops
“Market the workshop activities like you are teaching children.”
More links
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The Realities of AI Deck Creation
Rob Salmon
Sent
#189
Compiled (by AI, lol) from strategist conversations in the Salmon Labs WhatsApp group
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This Conversation Is Being Recorded. They All Are.
The Wall Street Journal
Filed
#188
“People in tech use AI apps to record and transcribe meetings, workplace chats and even dates—all in the name of productivity.”
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Why Are We Playing Video Games About Work?
The New York Times
Sent
#185
To some extent, it expresses this desire for things to be more straightforward, like ‘If I do X, I’ll get Y.
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Do “Admin Nights” make people more productive or less lonely?
The New Yorker
Sent
#185
I wanted to shine my light on what’s happening—that life has become unsustainable.
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We Ran the Numbers. Remote Work Is Bad for Us.
The New York Times
Sent
#185
Twenty-six years after Robert Putnam warned that Americans were bowling alone, many of us are now typing alone.
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i don't trust people who schedule calls at 8am
TikTok
Sent
#185
8am meetings are basically home invasions with a calendar invite.
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The Strategy & Planning Scrapbook
STRAT_SCRAPS
Sent
#182
A curated collection of strategy frameworks, creative provocations, and planning tools — compiled from years of practice in brand strategy and advertising.
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Management consultants are the looksmaxxers of the business world
TikTok
Sent
#182
Remember: they're not smarter than you, they're just convinced they are.
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Mondays at the office
trust.
Sent
#181
Mondays at the office
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The many joys of small talk
The Financial Times
Sent
#181
A large amount of work consists of person A trying to get person B to do something even though both report to person C. Much is gained if A can keep up with B’s latest half-marathon times, and whether they prefer to holiday in Cornwall or Devon.
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Anxious Parents Are Spending More Than $50,000 to Land Their Kid a Job
Bloomberg
Sent
#179
Her six-month programs run from $4,000 to $15,000.
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Work Day: My Life Videos
The New York Times
Sent
#179
“A kind of Midwestern sublime, an already forgotten sense of late-aughts "normal.”
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Tech Has Never Caused a Job Apocalypse. Don't Bet on It Now.
The Wall Street Journal
Sent
#177
“Neither theory, history or the latest data suggests a recession driven by AI job dislocation is likely”
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Artist Corporations
Artist Corporations
Sent
#177
“A new type of company designed for creative people. Artists keep majority control, intellectual property is protected by law, and the artistic mission comes first.”
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Young People Are Switching Careers to Avoid Being Replaced by AI
The Wall Street Journal
Sent
#176
“From electricians to firefighters to açai bowl entrepreneurs, young Americans are pivoting careers based on one fear: AI taking their jobs”