I am a lifelong devourer of books, but I rarely read nonfiction. I don’t know why, but reading big, fat books about building the Brooklyn Bridge or Lincoln’s cabinet just don’t grab me, narratively, the same way that fiction does. …
Can we make work suck less?
I am having an unexpectedly slow start to work in 2022—unexpected because I thought I had projects lined up and now they’re either stalled or assuming different shapes than what I originally envisioned. This has left me with a lot …
Messaging’s never not hard
Earlier this month, the New York Times published an article with the headline: For C.D.C.’s Walensky, A Steep Learning Curve on Messaging. The article outlined how Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has …
What’s the message?
I have been thinking about this tweet a great deal, because I often think about messaging as both intentional and unintentional actitivities, and also, I think about messaging in terms of what people actually hear and understand, not just what …
Us, the audience
I read a lot of things, and I watch a lot of things, and I am not particularly discriminating in my consumption. I read books, magazines, newspapers, gossip columns, advice columns; I watch television, films, and also a shit-ton of …
The good and the bad of sameness
Groundhog Day is one of my very favorite movies of all time. I love the central themes at the heart of it—that if you are stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of living the same experience over and over again, …
The professional satisfaction of being a part of something good
I missed my monthly posting on this here blog because of: well, everything. So much work, so much transition, lots of guests in our house (which yay! missed this during the pandemic, but wow! lots of meals to cook), and …
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Be like Conan (not the barbarian)
My favorite film and television critic recently wrote a piece on Conan O’Brien’s recent departure from late-night television. Specifically, she wrote about his reputation for being a supportive colleague and leader; the number of comedians he helped start their careers, …
Messaging about equity and racial justice
It has taken me a very long time to achieve even glimmers of understanding of how I feel about my own racial/ethnic identity (Korean-American); I now recognize that this will be a lifelong and continuous evolution of thought and feeling …
Going back to the office
Out of the many TED talks/articles that turned into books that then turned into consulting businesses, I think “radical candor” generated some of the funniest stories for me. Radical candor, for the blissfully unaware, was an approach to delivering candid …