Overview: Communications Strategy

Having fun using Andy Matuschak's wonderful site to explore his innovative ideas on note-taking, zettelkasten, writing, etc. This link opens a number of his interrelated notes, displayed horizontally using his innovative 'stacked notes' information architecture.Key ideas from this stack:the importance of 'task division' in…

Andy Matuschak's working notes "are mostly written for myself: they’re roughly my thinking environment... But I’m sharing them publicly as an experiment ... [see] Work with the garage door up... Write notes for yourself by default, disregarding audience)... there’s no index or navigational aids: you’ll need to follow a link to some start…

I suspect this will be a canonical text for me moving forward with myhub.ai.Mike Caulfield in 2015, when my first hub was only about 2 years old, had also "been experimenting with another form of social media called federated wiki... instead of blogging and tweeting your experience you wiki’d it. And over time the wiki became a representation…

Another example of topic-based aggregation being better at avoiding the toxic effects of a socially-based newsfeed (cf Reddit).Flipboard's new feature lets them quickly specify the subjects they care most about from among its 30,000-plus topics... "Flipboard uses AI to classify the articles and videos it’s aggregating and weave them into…

A simple cartoon can spark a lot of thinking: what happens after "the “Cookiepocalypse” — when Google Chrome follows up on its promise to cut support for the third-party cookie by 2022"?My preferred answer is: better content marketing? Actually providing value to people, rather than surveilling and stalking them around the web?Others par…

Moving analysis of the basic falsity behind social media in general and Instagram in particular, and the mental damage done."Instagram is ranked the worst out of all the major social media platforms in terms of detriments to mental health. It does not build authentic connections; it does the exact opposite... an “influencer” [is] not as an ac…

The first step in personal knowledge management is capturing ideas outside of your head... ideal quick capture tool is frictionless and easy to adopt without disrupting your flow. Eloquent is a tool developed for learners and knowledge workers to seamlessly capture information in-context and connect it to their knowledge bases.

"Clubhouse and Twitter’s “Super Follows” offer a new kind of engagement".Makes a good case against the algorithmic feed, which condition us to follow and post repeatedly and create a feed full of attention-grabbing content. That feed's "great at keeping us hooked, scrolling & coming back... and great for advertisers... but …

One of my favourite writers (offline and online) on his personal content strategy, first taking aim at the "tawdry and mercenary" version of "“why writers should blog”... the story goes, “and build a brand ... to promote your work.” Virtually every sentence that contains the word “brand” is bullshit, and that one is no exception.&qu;…

This article absolutely nails why I can't stand LinkedIn anymore, describing the site as completely performative, and the "LinkedIn newsfeed ... as a vast wasteland... almost entirely filled with marketing gurus, salespeople talking sales, and recruiters and “career coaches” offering the same job search tips over and over".Why? Beca…

Good short history: "design thinking ... has spread from products to services to just about anything in business... often used as shorthand for a magic potion approach to innovation and creative problem solving... end up being a theatrical thing that people can point to and say, ‘oh we did that.’ "So it's one example of how "or…

"the fourth wave of online education...: “Cohort-Based Courses,” ... the first to tap into the essential nature of the Internet: that it is open-ended and interactive."Takes you through the first 3 waves:MOOCs, from 2008: overcame the “How to get content online,” problem "by converting traditional course materials into digital form …

"Bridgit extension enables users to organize, share, and ultimately monetize their research... to create bridges that connect ideas on web pages (represented by content snippets)... any Internet user can connect information on an idea-to-idea basis that aggregates into an Internet of ideas ... A bridge is a bi-directional, co-locatable conc…

Pretty cool spatial video conferencing platform:create a 2D world with rooms, events, etc.users move around it, and can video-conference with whomever's nearbytest server: https://topia.io/welcome

early adopters are not innovators, but are "willing to experiment... [but] they're not guinea pigs" make them feel they're getting something special, earlythey "are willing to work with your minimum viable product if it solves their problem" Give them something to test. But their reputation is on the line, so prove yo…

"User friction ... prevents a user from accomplishing a goal in your product... three levels: interaction friction, cognitive friction, and emotional friction"Interaction friction: do usability testing."When cognitive load is high ... there is significant cognitive friction ... encompasses all aspects of the experience that result …

"A framework for building enduring products"Level 1 is to focus on growing uses completing the core action, which forms the product's foundation, usually correlates with retention. So design features which optimise for people completing the core action. Level 2 - retain users by creating accruing benefits: customer usage improves t…

"the most efficient way to operate during the earliest phases of a startup lies in between a formal business plan and unstructured iteration... documenting your initial product/market fit hypotheses, systematically validating each of the most uncertain hypotheses, and continually iterating on and updating [them] ... through customer validatio…

How to measure & optimise for product/market fit? Use this leading indicator: "just ask users “how would you feel if you could no longer use the product?” and measure the percent who answer “very disappointed.” " You need at least 40%.Article goes through the process step by step, and comes with an interactive tool:A) Ask people who&…

Andreessen Horowitz on sales channels, because "products often fail because the company chose the wrong route to market... A properly designed sales channel is a function of the product that you have built and the target... you wish to pursue."Presented as a function: the channel (c) is derived by a function (f) - distribution design - …

Content moderation "will always end up frustrating very large segments of the population and will always fail to accurately represent the "proper" level of moderation of anyone".any moderation will upset the moderated no moderation will upset those who don't like spam, harassment, etcpushing moderation to the users puts th…

After pointing out that mainstream - ie centralised - social platforms cannot moderate effectively due to scale, then introduces fediverse/activitypub-based platforms. Will they face same moderation problems as the mainstream if/when they grow?Takes Gab's unsuccessful move into fediverse as an example: "Almost immediately, Gab was met by…

What did I learn about learning as I explored using Zettelkasten idea and knowledge management to write five newsletters about disinformation in the 2020 US elections?

Facebook's now explicitly banning "any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust, after years of allowing people to deny that the genocide occurred", reversing their longtime stance of not trying to define truth.According to "Facebook’s former head of global elections integrity for political ads ... [Zuckerberg] still seems…

With more than a dozen congressional candidates appearing on ballots in November, Qanon is mainstream. While it looks like a lot of other conspiracy theories, this research provides a fascinating look at how the conspiracy's "Bakers" co-create their knowledgescape."QAnon doesn’t simply offer readers insider insight into current…

How a decades-long election delegitimisation campaign, amplified by social media disinformation, intersects with the death of a Chief Justice in a GoT-worthy season finale of “US democracy: Endgame”.

A simple comparative model for measuring disinformation and influence operations

Tours election technology from 2008 to 2018 "and beyond".2008: Obama integrated e-mail, cell phones and websites to both convey the candidate’s message and enable his supporters to connect and self-organize - supporting grassroots community. MyBarackObama allowed users to form groups, raise money, organise events, get info on local vote…

to divert someone away from prejudice and toward greater acceptance of others ... “Deep canvassing,”... “giving them grace.”... to hear someone say something that can be hurtful, ... think about how to ... connect with them...have patience with them, ask them to reflect on their life, and listen... many communities have a call-out culture... conde…

Books on note-taking... always too vague and boring, full of platitudes ... never an overarching system for turning notes into concrete results ... [but]How To Take Smart Notes ... is by far the most impactful and profound book I’ve ever read on the subject... most books are a few morsels of real insight wrapped in... fluff... I systematically unr…