|
|
Dear <<First Name>>,
One new habit I picked up in the past few months has been reading a physical book in bed before sleep. This might be as long as 30 minutes and as brief as 5, and it's been a great way to wind down each night and make a few pages of progress on a dense book.
To make this even more worthwhile, I read with a neon marker in hand to highlight any passages I want to revisit later. When I finish the book, I buy it on Kindle and reflect the manual highlights on the Kindle version. This has become especially handy because I recently discovered Readwise, a service/tool that takes in all your Kindle highlights (and saved Twitter posts/threads) and gives you a daily newsletter of highlights from various things you've read.
Already, the Readwise digest has been an incredible reminder of some concepts and ideas that I had forgotten about. Readwise also does a bulk export of the highlights to Evernote, so I'm able to quickly copy/paste text as needed for blog post ideation. Quite an amazing tool that pairs nicely with my reading habit. I hope to really turbo-charge my writing process as I feed Readwise and Evernote with quality highlights.
Last week's newsletter got a 49.3% open rate and the most-clicked link was the really great Ben Evans presentation on tech in 2020.
Consumed
Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama (book)
Contemporary identity politics is driven by the quest for equal recognition by groups that have been marginalized by their societies. But that desire for equal recognition can easily slide over into a demand for recognition of the group’s superiority. This is a large part of the story of nationalism and national identity, as well as certain forms of extremist religious politics today.
I really enjoyed Fukuyama's concise and tight analysis of how we arrived at a point in history where populist politics is jeopardizing democracy. The book also got me to reflect more about my personal identity beyond the fixed race/ethnic-based characteristics I tend to default to.
Writing for Business by Jerry Neumann (Google Doc post)
Came across this on Twitter and thought it had some nice tips/advice for business writing. Given the variance in email quality I get each week, I think some people will really benefit from following this.
Writing a business memo, email, or short analysis is not like other writing.
- It is not meant to entertain, it is meant to convey your point of view. If you can also entertain, great. But that's a lower priority.
- If you are writing to someone important, they probably have little time and a short attention span. Use what attention you get wisely.
Fascinating thread on the Japanese "kura", a warehouse made of earth, bamboo, and plaster by @wrathofgnon (Twitter thread)
A city can be seen as an attempt to solve the predicament that is human existence. No building can solve all problems, and as soon as we come up with what we think is a solution, we are faced with a new (often far worse) set of problems. Historically cities have been compromises.
Take old Edo for example (modern Tokyo). It was built to withstand earthquakes, typhoons, pests, rains, floods, and intense summers, but the wooden architecture with which they solved these problems made the city (the largest on Earth) extra vulnerable to fire.
By building to solve some problems, they had encountered others. A compromise was needed, and in the densely populated Japanese towns merchants and farmers built these "kura", immensely compact earth, bamboo, and plaster warehouses. Any family who could afford it, built it.
Created
Calculating Project Profits at a Creative Services Agency
I put together a lengthy piece with a Google Sheet model and five scenarios to explore how a creative services agency could estimate its profits on individual projects. It includes things like coming up with the agency's blended hourly rate and what happens when you use contractors versus your full-time staff.
I wrote this primarily for folks running a creative services business, but I think this applies to anyone running a services business and could also be worth a look by anyone running businesses in general. Would love some feedback and differing perspectives.
Cheers,
Peter
P.S. You can check out my list of books read right here. My hope is to get a good mix of challenging reads with some that are entertaining, inspiring, and instructive.
If you like what you've read, please share with your friends. They can sign up for the list here. Also, I always welcome recommendations of any kind–books, podcasts, movies, etc.
About me: Peter Kang is co-founder of Barrel, a digital agency in New York City. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, son, and dog.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|