#94: Thinking and Doing
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Hello, and welcome to this week’s Edition of the Work in Progress Newsletter. If you’re new here, drop me a line and tell me who you are and what you are excited about that you’re working on right now!
Here is what’s on tap for this week’s newsletter
Thinking and Doing
What I’m Watching
The Workplace
🤔Thinking and Doing🤔
One of the fun parts about being an entrepreneur & creator is to test and experiment with what works and what doesn’t work. It’s also the part which can often be anxiety inducing, at least for me - on one hand, I love the curiosity and creativity I get to lean into when trying to build and create something, and on the other is the existential question of whether this will work or not, and how that impacts my business.
As a trained product marketer, I am constantly thinking about the questions of “who is my audience, what I am solving for them, and how am I delivering on my brand value proposition.” I am currently undergoing this exercise and these thoughts as I gear up for next year and am starting to think about who I am and how I want to show up in the world.
I realize that may sound a little amorphous, but tactically, what that means is what am I going to talk about and who do I want to try to talk to in all of my content channels (Podcasts, LinkedIn, Newsletter)
For the past 18 months I’ve been writing every Saturday morning for 3-4 hours for this newsletter and it’s truly something I’ve enjoyed and look forward to each and every week. I’m grateful that people like you read the newsletter and I find it to be both relaxing and energizing to carve out time just to let my mind flow. I very much want to continue to do this, and I've been thinking that the format needs a bit of a refresh.
As you may have seen, I did a little newsletter poll earlier this week, and while I’d still love a few more responses (you can take it here) it has got me thinking about how based on who I am and how I want to show up. The format right now, is a mix of a personal story, and then some links based on what I’m following and any workplace or leadership content that I want to share.
As much as I enjoy this format, I’ve never quite made an effort to understand if readers actually like that. Furthermore, the topics which make sense to me, really seem to hit differently for different readers.
Some people really seem to like the insights on the broader Tech/L&D/Ed-Tech/Talent ecosystem while others gravitate more toward the leadership and career advice content. And every now and then, I get a nice note about someone appreciating a story that I’ve shared from my own personal work experience. This has led me to ponder the following questions:
Length - Is this the right length? One hypothesis I have is that the stories are too long, which hinders people from jumping to the content
Topics - Are the topics both resonating with readers and intersecting with the topics that I want to be known for?
Stories - Are personal stories/advice the right format for a newsletter? Is it better to put them on a blog?
Audience - Who is my audience?
These are just a handful of the questions I’m reflecting on - I’m still trying to make sense of what this means - this is the duality of fun/challenge part of being a creator and an entrepreneur - you put something out there, take in the feedback, sort through the signals and figure out what you want to do.
One of my frameworks for how I operate as a person and an entrepreneur is the thinking and doing framework. Everything comes down to two things: are you thinking, or are you doing? The framework has two dimensions:
What is your default state? Are you someone who thinks and forgets to take action, or do you jump into the fray without any intention
When is your trigger to move to the other? - When do you know you’ve done too much of one, and you need to do the other?
Right now, as I gear up for 2023, my 2nd year as a full-time entrepreneur & creator I’m very much in the thinking state. This means, trying to make sense of the business, trying to understand the macro/micro economic environment and what it means, and in this case, also evaluating my own message and how I want to articulate that across the channels I use to build my brand.
While I’m currently mostly in thinking state, I’m looking forward to using those learnings and jumping into doing mode to start off 2023 on the right path.
Source: ClassCentral blog
👀What I’m Following👀
Report: Atlassian’s 2022 State of Teams Report - Some good data in here on the state of teams, courtesy of Atlassian. One of my takeaways on this is that we have a long way to go with actually defining what flexibility means in the workplace and then figuring out how that can be designed into the workflow of how people get things done
Article: Udemy’s B2B Revenue Eclipses B2C for the First Time - Great data in here about how Udemy’s B2B business is outpacing it’s B2C business for the first time. I talk to alot of L&D businesses about the b2b vs b2c motion and the pro’s and cons of each.
Layoffs: There are lots of articles on this, but one specific trend I am paying attention to are the many L&D startups and companies Ex: Coursera and Reforge
🏢The Workplace🏢
Podcast: What’s Happening at Work (Part 2) Feat Adam Grant & Simon Sinek - Simon, Brene and Adam cover a myriad of workplace topics, each providing their own unique perspective, and playing off of each others’s work. One of the more fascinating parts was Simon talking about how we often try to mirror what we learn from the military but we ascribe the team attributes to attributes we want out of individuals, which is not the same. (It’s also worth listening to part 1)
Article: Why Every Organization Should Define Human-First Leadership - In my #BetterWaysofWorking Series I interviewed Heather Conklin, a former SVP of Product Management at Salesforce and the current COO at Torch. I’ve gotten to know Heather as she transitioned into this new role, and she to me has embodied this idea of human-first leadership.
Article: The Importance of Recognizing The Whole Human in the Workplace - Jessica Wan is an Executive and Leadership Coach, and a former SVP of Marketing. I’ve gotten to know her over the past year, and have appreciated her approach to seeing the whole human. She’s also got a great career podcast, The Ampersand Manifesto, that you should check out.
Article: Revitalizing Culture in The Hybrid World of Work (HBR) - Too often culture becomes the fluffy thing that we directionally agree upon but don't actually define. This piece does a good job articulating the difference between emotional and physical proximity (aka you can build culture from a distance) as well as alignment vs connectedness (knowing what the culture is, versus embracing being a part of it.)
Podcast: Social Capital: Building Relationships at Work (McKinsey Podcast) - A question I’ve been pondering for the majority of my career is how do we teach people how to build relationships at work? One concept that has come up time and time again is around social capital. This episode breaks down what it is, and how managers and leaders can help their employees gain social capital to create a more equitable workplace.
Note: If you have any qualitative feedback or suggestions for how I can make this newsletter better, I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email or DM, or mention it in the comments
Have a Great Week,
Al