Dear <<First Name>>,
I loved TV as a kid.
As I shhhhed everyone who dared speak over the Marcia Brady, Rachel and Ross, or the Fresh Prince, my dad would teasingly refer to me as a “TV addict.”
I somehow heard it as “TV attic” until I was past old enough to have sorted this out. I figured my dad was visualizing me sitting in an attic for the rest of my life, watching TV (and what was wrong with that, 10 year old me wondered?).
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Sunday, Monday,
Happy Days …
In fact, I still remember every channel’s primetime lineup from when I was a kid. And of course, by every channel, I mean three.
As far as menus go, things were pretty limited back then.
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(By the way, I recently quizzed myself, thanks to the wonders of wikipedia, where one can peruse past tv schedules.)
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Movies Too
As a kid, the only thing more exciting that my favorite show was a trip to the movie theater.
How I was counting the days until my mom took me to see Xanadu starring Olivia Newton-John. Alas, the newspaper had a typo about the start time. No Xanadu for me.
Twelve year old me had a parking lot meltdown that still makes me cringe.
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My Happy Place
This is all to say that movies, tv shows, and books (always, books) were and are my happy place. They are my dessert to any day. I love them.
What media did you and do you love? What is your dessert?
Books? TV? Movies? Maybe it’s podcasts, or social media, or video games?
Whatever it is, I bet, there is more content in more places and in a more fragmented media landscape than ever before, as this report described. This is actually good from the standpoint of creating more interesting and diverse content.
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I'll Have the Usual
It’s bad from the standpoint of discoverability and memorability. Because it's a lot of different menus, all over the place.
With a menu this big and fragmented, we can not just count on our memories. If we do, we are basically going to just order “the usual,” like Norm on Cheers and his signature beer order.
(What’s that? You were wondering if you could watch every entrance Norm ever made to Cheers? Yes, my dear good people, yes you can. Again, you're welcome.)
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I Need To Follow My Own Advice
In talks and podcasts, I have told people, hundreds of times, that an important step they can take towards being more inclusive is to diversify the content they consume, whether it’s social media, books, podcasts, movies, music, tv, or video games.
Broaden the menu.
We start by looking about the content we have consumed over the last month. What has our consumption been like?
When you look at the voices that are centered, how similar are they to each other? And to your own?
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Imagine making your content consumption 10% more diverse. This isn’t requiring you to do anything new, just keep consuming what you love consuming, but make it a bit more interesting.
The problem, though, is that we are also getting inputs from people we know and algorithms that “know” us. Neither of those are likely to widen our view.
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More Dessert, Please
The best part of this is that it is like getting another serving of dessert. It’s what you already love consuming. If you like reading romances, I’m not suggesting listening to a true crime podcast and if you like true crime podcasts, I'm not suggesting reading a romance, I’m saying read / watch / listen to content you already love that centers voices and identities identities different than your own.
This is about more types of dessert, not more vegetables. And it's about ordering more than "the usual."
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Make It Easy
Even when we hear about something that might broaden our view, there is the problem of remembering that suggestion at the same time when …
… we are trying to find the remote,
… figure out what platform the show is on, realize we don’t have that streaming platform, oh never mind we do have that platform,
… figure out the $#^!* password, and
… type in our password (as demonstrated by Chrissy Tiegen and John Legend).
Sigh.
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If we are actually going to diversity our content and order more than "the usual," we need to reduce some of the friction in the process and just make it easy to remember that show we read a review of, that movie some dude once mentioned in a bar, that book that we noticed in a bookstore display, that podcast we saw mentioned on social media.
It’s got to be on our menu.
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Building a Menu
I have made great strides on broadening my menu in my book reading, by using goodreads.com. It’s easy to remember the books everyone is talking about (hello, Prince Harry!) but not as easy to remember the books that might broaden my perspective beyond what everybody is already talking about.
But what about everything else? TV shows, movies, podcasts.
That’s why I posted the following on facebook two years ago.
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I was genuinely curious because I was struggling with this issue myself and I was struggling with advice I often gave others about diversifying their media consumption.
It was interesting to read about people’s approaches. Some don’t try to track, some just (try to) remember, some have notes apps, some use list features built into a particular platform, some use Notion.
One couple was using Trakt.tv for tv shows and movies, which sounded like a goodreads for tv shows and movies. Very cool! Love this.
For sure, keeping track is key to building your menu. Our content is not going to diversify itself.
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But it felt like every form of media was going to require its own app, and I don’t know about you, but I am app-ed out and password-ed out and download-ed out. I would love one tracker for everything.
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She Read My Mind
So, I was thrilled when one of my amazing former MBA students, Charlotte Kassimir, reached out to share the start up she was co-founding.
Charlotte was building my dream app.
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Here’s how she describes “Whatcha”:
"Whether you’re a binge-watcher, movie buff, bookworm, podcast listener or creator, a producer, director, writer, or just a casual fan: Whatcha is a simple app where you and your people can discover, track, and discuss all of the content you care about. Imagine if Goodreads, Letterboxd, IMDb, and Spotify had a baby - that’s Whatcha: a fun, social network solely devoted to the entertainment we love to talk about, with the people we love to talk with.”
Get it? “Whatcha watching/reading/listening to these days?”
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Whatcha have been looking for
I love this concept. Even without the social dimension of seeing what others are consuming (which I realize is central to Whatcha's premise), I just love the idea of consolidating my content consumption - past, present, and future, from all kinds of media - in one place. It's a menu.
The platform is also very visual and customizable, making it easy to create beautiful displays of what I am interested in. It's a beautiful, navigatable menu.
And I don't mind the social dimension too as long as it is like goodreads, which I consider to be “social media lite.” It's fun to compare menus!
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Team Android
Unfortunately for me at the moment, being a loyal member of Team Android, the app is currently just available for iphone users. The Whatcha team has an android version in the works, so in the meantime, I took one for the team and loaded it up on my husband’s iphone.
It was pretty cool! I am looking forward to exploring it for real when the android version comes out.
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Menus Matter
The main point is this. Track what you want to consume using whatever method works for you (think: menu). Consume what you love (think: dessert!). And diversify what you consume (think: a bigger dessert menu!).
Guaranteed you will love it even more, you media "attic" you!
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While consuming great content from others, I am still actively launching my latest book A MORE JUST FUTURE.
Are you in a book club or thinking about starting one? I'm getting great feedback from book clubs about the conversations sparked A MORE JUST FUTURE and the free Book Club Discussion Guide. Check it out! Maybe it's the book your book club is looking for!
(And, if you really want to surprise your friends/colleagues, I'm happy to mail you personalized, signed bookplates for their books! Just fill this request form out and I will be happy to send them to you.)
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Dear Good People
As always, my goal in this newsletter is to offer you free, bite-sized, evidence-based, action-oriented, zeitgeisty tips on how to be more inclusive (check out past issues here). I hope to reach as many hearts and minds as possible so feel free to share and if you aren’t a subscriber, you can hit the subscribe button below!
I'm speaking at SXSW next month so maybe have some highlights to share in next month's Dear Good People. You won't want to miss it!
Photo credits: Kids sitting on a couch, Happy Days Photo, Maui Your Welcome, Olivia Newton John, Media landscape image, Norm walking into Cheers, Sea of Pinguins, Chrissy Tiegen and John Legend, TRAKT, Charlotte Kassimir, Whatcha, IPhone & Android Book Club image, Personal images, and Canva design software,
I deeply appreciate Anna McMullen’s brilliant thought partnership and creative execution, and as always Katie Sutton's expert advice.
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