A brand new SHUFFLE EDITION™️ (aka: 8 questions as we enter 2021)
Hello friends! You likely signed up for this after reading one of my essays on Medium, my personal website, or seeing something on Twitter. I send this thing every few months, mostly a wrap-up of stuff I’m working on and thinking about — all ending with a sweet flag. See past issues here. There are always typos. Now, to the newsletter…
Philadelphians storming Broad Street after the results of the 2020 election were made official.
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Welcome to a SHUFFLE EDITION of this newsletter.
Rather than giving you one big thing to read, I'd like to share several smaller thoughts and updates. Hopefully, it's a fun, casual read during this sleepy week.
This is an unsorted list of things I am thinking about. Are you thinking about them too? Reply to this email and let me know. Half-baked ideas, hot takes, and thoughtful diatribes very welcome.
Q1 - Is there a future for Localism?
Localism is the belief that we should invest first in and support our local community. I strongly believe that when you commit to investing in a geographic area, the benefits (both spiritually and economically) will compound both for you and your neighbors.
Yet, COVID makes this difficult. When everything is online, place does not matter. When we are encouraged not to leave our homes, we see our neighbors less. Meanwhile, the economic forces that discourage local investment are thriving: remote work, e-commerce, delivery apps, Zoom. It's not only foolish to gather in person with those geographically close to you — it's often illegal.
I find myself thrashing around a bit, unable to live a life according to my values. I have few ways of supporting local businesses, but a myriad of ways to give money to massive tech and retail businesses that do not invest in my city. I fear the things that make our towns great will fade away for a few months or years.
Q2 - Is "commitment" more of a virtue than ever?
Much of the conversation in my bubble is around the rise of flexibility. People loving that they can work wherever, live wherever, and create wide by loose social connections easily. This is a good option for people to have! But it should not be the default.
I've found myself thinking that as flexibility becomes easier, those that will thrive will be the ones that commit to something. That "something" could be a job, a place, a religion, a group of people — anything.
I think the companies that DONT embrace remote work will thrive over those who do. I think cities that that encourage long-term investment in physical spaces and quality of life will thrive over the cities hoping to attract those chasing paychecks (see San Francisco). And I think the people that dedicate years of their life to a problem will be ultimately more satisfied, more interesting, and more well-rounded.
Q3 - What are the effects of "The great unbundling" of our culture?
Schools are becoming learning pods. Restaurants are becoming cloud kitchens. Media companies are becoming 10,000 Substacks. Marketing agencies are becoming "collectives".
I'm working on writing something about this, but we're losing a shared culture, shared place, and shared reality. In some ways, this is neat because you can assemble your own world/career/existence (see Q2). It's the ultimate freedom. But this is having some nasty effects on things like politics (see: Election 2020) and collectivism (see: our response to COVID).
Q4 - How does one create a category leader in tech?
This is related to my work at Crossbeam, the startup where I am the Director of Content. If you look at most SaaS tech verticals there is often an outright dominant winner that captures 80% of the revenue. And often, there is a list of also-rans.
At Crossbeam we are creating, and thus attempting to dominate, a new category of software. As one of the marketing leaders, I spend a lot of time thinking how to make a category leader using editorial work, events, and other channels. How do you both lead a new way of doing businesses while being responsive to how it's evolving?
And how is the category creation playbook different in 2021 than it was when, say, Salesforce or Uber were created?
Q5 - How will this "missing year" affect us in the future?
Of the many many many tragedies of COVID is one that feels unspoken: the feeling that this extended pause — while in some ways refreshing or reflective — feels like a lost year.
A lot of us do hard things like work, work out, and study in preparation for some other thing. But what happens when that "other thing" can't happen? Why study for a job market that is not hiring? Why work out when you can't even leave the house months?
It's kind of short circuited our goal-driven careerism and forced us all to take a breath. Maybe that's a good thing, but it feels awful in the moment.
I identified with this line from a Vox Essay: "I feel like there is so much I’m supposed to be doing, but I don’t know what it is or how I’m supposed to get it done because of the pandemic."
Q6 - Is it the end of work as a political platform?
In September, the cryptocurrency trading app Coinbase announced that it was effectively banning discussion of "broader societal issues" in its workplace. Meanwhile, stories from newsrooms such as Vox and The New York Times have shown an internal culture of political activism and employees clashing with other (often older) employees.
In the weeks after, there was a broad discussion about whether Coinbase's decree would stifle political discussion (and thus, progress) or is something that's well within the rights of a business.
I'm 34, and something I've noticed in (especially tech) companies is that some employees clearly see their jobs as the primary arena for their political activism.
I've been wondering if this is the result of gridlock in our political sphere combined with our work-first culture. Especially as young, upwardly-mobile Americans invest less in local communities (see #Q1) they are viewing their workplaces as their primary "community."
After all, isn't America just a bunch of overlapping workplaces?
Q7 - What is the future of Pilcrow House?
Pilcrow House is an event series my wife Allison and I organize that aims to surface new ideas. We've hosted folks like NYT reporter Taylor Lorenz, Adobe CPO Scott Belsky, and author Matthew Stoller among others to small, intimate gatherings here in Philadelphia. It was going well! And we were even starting the verrrryyyyy early stages of exploring whether getting our own physical space was a possibility.
Alas, COVID made the idea of gathering in tiny spaces at restaurants with strangers who have traveled from afar comically impossible. And while many events went to digital versions, that would be antithetical to the Pilcrow House mission of helping us all build connection and community in IRL.
I admit, It's been a struggle to simply do NOTHING and wait this whole thing out. I've been thinking a lot about how Pilcrow can come back, when it can come back, and how its mission of connecting people changes post-COVID.
Q8 - What new business models are created as a result of the pandemic?
Here in Philly (and I suspect elsewhere) I've stumbled into the world of people running food businesses from their home kitchens that people can order via Instagram. There's 1-900-ICE-CREAM (which has recently opened a retail location), nanostortillas, spstevembno foxyladychef, and many more.
I love how someone can test a restaurant or food cart concept with minimal overhead. It's a small ray of hope as brick-and-mortar restaurants struggle to stay open and a fun thing to sample as we enter month 10 of quarantine.
I've been on 5 podcasts!
1- Superpath Episode 01 "Sean Blanda on learning or earning" - I'm obsessed with career paths and feel that those in the "content" space often don't get candid advice. Superpath's Jimmy Daly invited me on to discuss my essay on content career advice for the first episode of his Superpath podcast (now 20+ episodes in!).
2- Sean Blanda: The Angst of WFH - My friend and former 99U coworker Jocelyn Glei and I discussed the impact of remote work based on my essay. Got a lot of feedback on this one, both very positive and, well, very negative.
3- Building a 10,000 Strong B2B Email List from Scratch w/ Sean Blanda - Jason Bradwell invited me on to talk about some early success we've had at Crossbeam, including the four campaigns we ran to build an email newsletter list from 0 to 10,000.
4 & 5 - I also appeared on on my first YouTube show Work Friends and the WFH Podcast discussing remote work on both.
Official newsletter flag (for now):
This is the official flag of Nunavut, Canada's newest and largest province, created in 1999. Nunavut contains the northern-most lands in North America and has a population of ~40k. The flag features a red land marker or "Inuksuk" and the north star.
This oft-forgotten region is home to people groups who have been there for centuries and rich history of unique languages, mythology, and culture. Oh, and it is impossible to drive there. You can only fly to Nunavut.
Dear reader, may you soon be able to visit far-off wonderful places which rich, under-appreciated histories like Nunavut.
--Sean