Insights

Natalia (whose public scholarship I wrote about earlier this year, and who will be one of my podcast’s first guests starting early next year) has two POVs: one for her long-form public scholarship, and one for the podcast she co-hosts (Past Present) and her Twitter account, @nataliapetrzela.…

Summing up the much-higher-than-normal responses I got to my post yesterday on James Clear’s shift in email POV — roughly sifted, they fall into two buckets:

1. “I hate what Clear has done to his emails and it’s bad marketing.”
2. “I don’t like/am agnostic about what Clear’s done, but it’s a good marketing move for him to attract larger audiences.”
   

Philip Morgan, a colleague and mentor, asked rhetorically in a Slack conversation which of two options — stopping all emails for a time, or moving from “full fat” to “skim milk” emails, as Clear seems to have done — would be better for a) his authority as an expert and b) his business:

“Are the two (authority and business building) the same thing?” asked Philip.…

We all have opinions — an almost infinite number. Having opinions is an arguable definition of being alive.

The problem for research-driven organizations that want to create wide impact isn’t that their researchers lack opinions. The problem for research-driven organizations that want to create wide impact is that they’re probably not giving their researchers incentives and modeling for expressing those opinions publicly in persuasive ways.…

The usual chatter about POV among savvy consultants is…that you need one. By which they mean: a strong and distinctive opinion about something important to their clients’ businesses. (Consultants without strong opinions just fix your problem instead of giving you a strategy.…

The Ghost of Christmas Past makes Scrooge remorseful.

The Ghost of Christmas Present makes him curious.

And the Ghost of Christmas Future scares the bejeezus out of him.

That’s the power of speaking from the future, if you’re believable.

(BTW: This new version of “A Christmas Carol” on F/X with Guy Pearce as Scrooge looks great.…

I see four POV axes for researchers who generate insight content for non-specialists:

1. Are You From the Past or the Future?
2. Are You an Advocate, or are You Dispassionate?
3. Are You a Fox (always knitting together lots of disparate ideas) or a Hedgehog (jamming on one big idea)?

Why have so many residents in Detroit’s communities of color turned down the city’s offer to plant free trees in front of their homes?

Because no one asked them if they wanted the trees.

They should want them — at least, that’s how a researcher might think.…