🔗 Leaders Don’t Get to Hide - Gapingvoid

Three links from my weekend.

🔗 Will data centers crash the economy? - by Noah Smith

🔗 Ex-CIA Whistleblower: The NSA Audited The 2024 Election, Kamala Harris Won

🔗 I Drank Every Cocktail - Adam Aaronson - so I don’t have to? Meanie.

🔗 Marketing Flywheel Momentum: Why Every Flywheel Needs A Native Analog & Native Digital Duo - from the Lockhead world.

If you are trying to work out what to really do with Marketing in this modern age - he consistently makes sense. (Not on all - I grant - but on Marketing - yes.)

🔗 The Biggest Industry in Every State, Mapped

Makes for an interesting read .. and then I saw that Real Estate was the biggest industry in California .. and I thought wait .. there’s tech, entertainment, aerospace, agriculture .. real estate out performs them all?

And then I read …

This is largely because the Bureau of Economic Analysis treats homeowners as landlords renting to themselves, and includes the rental value in GDP. If economists did not include this value, a jump in the homeownership rate would cause GDP to drop.

Talk about measuring the wrong things!

🔗 TOSDR

I have read and agree to the Terms" is the biggest lie on the web. Together, we can fix that.

via The mighty Doc Searls via David Reed via Hacker News

🔗 Transformation? Enough Already..

The corporate obsession with transformation is outdated - and continues to fail. Decades of data show most efforts don’t work, so rather than chasing grand, one-time overhauls, organisations must embrace continuous adaptation: flexible structures, people-first strategies, and real-time responses to shifting markets and needs. Change isn’t a ‘one-and-done’ project, it’s a lifetime commitment. Stop transforming. Start adapting. That’s the edge. That’s survival.

This post is extracted from something I received from my friend 🔗 Randall Rospond - over on Maui.

He writes …

I first became aware of this song in 1989 when I purchased the cassette of Jackson Browne’s ‘World in Motion’ … and it spoke to me deeply then and has throughout the years.
It speaks to me more these days in the midst of America’s great lying disaster in the White House and the ruin of what I believed the USA had always ‘tried’ to stand for. Freedom. The song was written by Little Steven … and released on his Disciples of Soul album 1984. With this … I pray some sanity , rule of law , integrity , honesty and compassion return to America and the world … asap. … peace and aloha Randall

Personally, I’d never heard of Tuvalu - but it is an extraordinary place judging my this screen grab from Apple Maps

… and it’s about to disappear.

🔗 The First Planned Migration of an Entire Country Is Underway | WIRED

Paywalled - but if you have Apple News - there is 🔗 this

Ticketmaster - for it is they that own ‘Moshtix’ now have in THEIR system MY full and legal name that ‘must match’ the name I used to book my tickets, my phone number, my email, which city and country and zip code I live in - all of which was ‘needed’ as I booked tickets for a concert. Quite why they needed all that is unclear - because even the ID ‘enshitification’ stuff is their ‘information grab’ doesn’t solve the problem of scalping - they are just forcing data out of people - the bad guys have ways round it.

This all came to mind as I read 🔗 this from Don Marti - after he read this from Doc Searls.

Doc is a personal story - the key one to read is Don’s where he summarises surveillance ‘myths and the reality’.

I particularly liked this one …

surveillance myth: small businesses want social media advertising
reality: they wanted social networking and got switched over. Policy changes that limit surveillance will make independent businesses better off.

.. but the others are just as important.

Which is all currently high in my mind - because I am reviewing a new app that someone has recommended to me - and on their web site they write ( I paraphrase and add bold)

… a B2B marketing company that helps businesses find and close high-value customers faster by identifying which companies are most likely to buy before they raise their hand. They use AI and data signals to spot early intent, then deliver targeted ads and personalised outreach to decision-makers at those companies. Their model blends analytics, account-based marketing and sales activation to reduce waste and boost conversion.

I wonder how they do all that if they aren’t into surveillance … which as you know - I am not a big fan of … back to Don

surveillance myth: content is fungible, targeting algorithms are uniquely valuable.
reality: expert brands such as King Arthur Baking and Tieman Tire have product and service knowledge that differentiates them, and that the company can keep and build on.

The problem with that reality is that it takes time - and most people want the shortcut.

… whilst 🔗 talking about broken escalators - I wonder when this will be fixed … 10 days and counting so far.