Ex- Rated - Catch Up Edition

Well, it's been a minute... but hopefully by including two articles in this edition makes up for the interlude. The hiatus on articles via this newsletter was somewhat intentional stemming a little from a frustration of effort vs reward and a desire to work on more collaborative ventures such as #Twenty20ish.

One of the frustrations with writing articles is the amount of effort vs impact. Now I don't write articles for the primary purpose of gaining likes and subscribers. In fact, I tend to write as a form of organising my thoughts. My brain is always running a million miles an hour and I am so often stuck in my own head. Writing is a great way for me to slow down and focus on one idea. However, writing exists to be read and it is nice to know that the effort of herding the cats in my brain is being rewarded by readership.

With so many articles now being created in some form of GPT, often for the sole purpose of search engine optimisation (SEO) I can see why social algorithms have been tuned to surface articles and blogs less.

Sometimes I'll write an article and it will sit around gathering digital dust, either waiting to be finessed or waiting for the right time to publish or it might be that I simply don't think it's good enough to publish or upon reading the finished product I think it is too biased.

I have a library of unpublished articles but recently I happened to blow the digital dust off an article now titled The Future Of Work Can't Be A Return To The Past (originally titled 'Great Expectations') that was kindly picked up by Reworked that explores the push and pull of employees and employer expectations of flexible work.

In the same week, an article I co-wrote with Melissa Henley was published by CMSWire This was a bit of a thrill for me. Firstly to collaborate with such an amazing CX thought leader, but also to have a topic I am passionate about (gamification) to be picked up by a great publication company (again thanks to Melissa). The process of collaborating with Melissa was great, in part because she had done a lot of the heavy lifting in drafting an article and all I had to do was add my perspectives and experiences. It was a different take on the creative process and It lit a fire in me to find more people to co-write with.

Now if you are still playing along (pun intended), here is the article to the article: Is Gamified CX the Future of Customer-Engagement?

Oh, so there is one more reason for the writing intermission. If you didn't know, I have been writing a book and what a drama that has been. If having a publisher go into receivership wasn't enough to make me want to give up, then having someone on the other side of the world plagiarise a whole chapter and turn it into a 90-page "book" certainly did. Yes, you hear me correctly. Someone stole my idea and made a book out of it (no doubt with some help from ChatGPT). I stupidly published an article last year with one of the concepts from the book and it along with the graphic was taken and expanded upon. When it was brought to my attention I couldn't believe it. It was so blatant. After exploring my legal options it fell into the too-hard and too-expensive bucket and was chalked up a lesson in the school of hard knocks. I'll be honest, I all but gave up on the book idea for a while but then people kept asking when it would be out. Which got me asking myself the same question. So I revisited the book with fresh eyes and made a huge mistake. Instead of deleting the plagiarised chapter, I started filling its void with a new concept. But then it didn't fit. So I started rewriting chapters...

I remember a story, my sixth-grade teacher, Mr Yuele told of how his artist father had painted a landscape and how the last thing he did was paint a rabbit in the field. He then thought it needed another and another and just as in life...another. Before he knew it he had a painting of all rabbits.

Well after tweaking and rewriting my book started to feel like a book of rabbits. All of a sudden the "coming soon" aspect of my book started to stretch the meaning of soon.

So where is it at? All the chapters are in. The bunnies are out and it's getting some reviews from people I trust. What this means is it is a step closer to reality. So for everyone who has asked. It's coming soon and thanks for your patience and understanding.

In the meantime, I want to get back to writing more unique content. So if you want to co-write a fresh take on CX, EX or the future of work, then let me know.

Until then and as always

Hooroo