With the year coming to an end – (but wait, there’s still week 53 and a new mutation of the virus ♀️ ♂️) we thought it would be interesting to check again on the recent articles and ideas that I shared on a weekly basis for the past 2 months.
Technically it’s not really my 2020 reading list, but it gives you a bird eye’s view of what my brain is usually busy with. These are the things I find interesting and valuable, hopefully you do too.
Unsurprisingly, I dove into everything related to the launch of Selected by Sesamers lately. So a lot about community, newsletters, marketing and social media. The bread and butter of any business nowadays.
I also entertained my mind with literature, neuroscience and a bunch of exotic concepts around quantum mechanics. A few are shared below.
My top advice to those reading this last article of 2020:
Take the time to be a better manager and infuse the right strategy within your organization.
My New Year’s Resolution is to improve in these areas in 2021.
And to keep sharing what I learn along the way.
COMMUNITY
1. How to Launch an Online Community — Lean Community Launch Framework
Community isn’t just another word for audience. It’s a special space you create for your most engaged members to gather and interact.
- Link: yenfm.substack.com/p/how-to-launch-an-online-community
- Author: John Saddington
- Source: Yen.fm
2. Big trend: online communities at the intersection of content curation and knowledge management
We are living through the emergence of a new business category that doesn’t even have a name yet, but which I believe will become an important part of our digital lives: online communities at the intersection of content curation and knowledge management.
This is EXACTLY what we’re aiming for with Selected
- Link: sariazout.substack.com/p/check-your-pulse-55
- Author: Sari Azout
- Source: Check Your Pulse
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Diagnosing Symptoms of Success
Here’s one for you on-the-go.
Dive into Kaizo’s podcast with Talixo’s Jan Brenneke as he shares his expertise in the application of analytics & metrics in the context of Customer Service and it’s intersection with management science.
- Link: support-heroes-by-kaizo.simplecast.com/episodes/ep4-jan-brenneke
- Author: Kaizo.com
- Source: support-heroes-by-kaizo.simplecast.com
LITERATURE
To Believe in Things: Poet Joseph Pintauro’s Lost Love Poem to Life, Illustrated by the Radical Nun and Visionary Artist Sister Corita Kent
You are not everything but everything could not be everything without you.
I shared this with Dan. He cried
- Link: brainpickings.org/2020/11/10/to-believe-in-things-joseph-pintauro-corita-kent/
- Author: Maria Popova
- Source: Brain Pickings
MARKETING
Your Marketing Org is Slow. Here’s a framework to move faster.
I’m always an advocate of “done is better than perfect” and I believe that it’s even more the case with marketing. Conveying your story to the right audience is timely. Sometimes it’s a matter of hours for a campaign to become irrelevant to the cultural context.
- Link: firstround.com/review/your-marketing-org-is-slow-heres-a-framework-to-move-faster
- Source: First Round Review
MANAGEMENT
1. Successful Remote Teams Communicate In Bursts
We started to experiment with flex hours after 2 months of working from home. It means that we are all on deck from 10am to 3pm.
I can confirm that “burstiness” works very well for a small teams like ours. It involves agreeing on some work routines that allow everyone to respond to messages fast and have short and intense periods of communication.
- Link: hbr.org/2020/10/successful-remote-teams-communicate-in-bursts
- Author: Christoph Riedl & Anita Williams Woolley
- Source: Harvard Business Review
2. The Psychology of Focus: How Great Teams Find Traction Amid Distraction
In this podcast, NFX General Partner James Currier sits down with Nir Eyal, author of Hooked and Indistractable to analyze what high performing teams are doing right in a world full of distractions.
- Link: nfx.com/post/psychology-of-focus
- Author: James Currier
- Source: The Founder Library at NFX
NEUROSCIENCE
Altered states of consciousness: the elusiveness of the mind
Maybe instead of considering a default state and a myriad of altered states, we need to contemplate the possibility that all these states of consciousness are all equally important modes of perception.
- Link: nesslabs.com/altered-states-of-consciousness
- Author: Anne-Laure Le Cunff
- Source: Ness Labs
NEWSLETTERS
The best newsletters to follow on European tech
Startup News, Weekly Roundups, Data, Deeptech, … and the list goes on. Great compilation. Now if only they had an Events category …
- Link: sifted.eu/articles/europe-startup-newsletters
- Author: Amy Lewin
- Source: Sifted
SOCIAL MEDIA
LinkedIn’s Alternate Universe
And I quote:
LinkedIn is the fucking worst.
Especially considering the basic fact that…
If you have a job, you might lose it. If you don’t, you might find one. So, we stay. Even if it sucks. LinkedIn is bizarre because it tries to make this hostage situation fun. Even though it’s not.
- Link: divinations.substack.com/p/linkedins-alternate-universe
- Author: Fadeke Adegbuyi
- Source: Divinations
STRATEGY
Build a Network of Ideas, People & Products
Jack Butcher, founder of VisualizeValue walks us through his thoughts and process of finding people you can help, and building products that help them.
Ideas -> People -> Product.
- Link: youtu.be/Ae_jYP5bDC4
- Author: Jack Butcher
- Source: Visualize Value
VENTURE CAPITAL
1. Why investors are betting on Silicon Valley’s second climate boom
If the U.S. Presidential election showed us nothing else, Climate Change is now back on the agenda at The White House. It’s on The Valley’s list too.
- Link: qz.com/1927198/silicon-valley-is-investing-in-climate-tech-again/
- Author: Michael J. Coren
- Source: Quartz
2. The VC “Strips off” – Silicon Roundabout Ventures VC Fund Deck Reviewed Live by Draper Esprit LP
From a network access perspective, being able to access an engaged community is not just a “nice to have” but really a “must have”.
- Link: siliconroundabout.tech/the-vc-strips-off-silicon-roundabout-ventures-deck-reviewed-live-by-draper-esprit-lp
- Author: Francesco Perticarari
- Source: Silicon Roundabout
ZOOMITIS
Home Screens: Quarantine is the future big tech wanted us to want. How long before we want out?
Before the pandemic, tech companies treated space as an annoying set of limitations to be overcome by apps
Users experience Zoom more as a stultified form of virtual reality than an augmented one, because it now feels like there’s little off-screen reality available to augment
- Link: reallifemag.com/home-screens
- Author: Drew Austin
- Source: Real Life Mag
SEASONAL
Eight hours of 4K footage and ASMR audio of a cozy fireplace
Because when you can’t have an actual fireplace, this is the next best thing
- Link: youtu.be/AWKzr6n0ea0
- Source: Balu – Relaxing in Nature in 4k