The Friday Thing #672

I’m glad to hear a few people are now customers of Metier Brewing Co. after last week’s edition.

The Friday Thing #672 is a loosely Covid themed collection of things that have caught my attention this week. The first is a stunning piece of visual storytelling from El Pais about the contagion of Covid-19 in indoor spaces. A room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air is worthy of your scrolling. It’s scary, informative and actionable all at the same time. Thanks for the tip on this one, Eric. 

Next up is a list that was sent to me after I spotted on a flipchart in the background of a Teams call this week. It’s a really good set of question that I plan to print out and put at my place of work. What am I grateful for today? My family and my health. Who am I checking in on or connecting with today? You all ?? What expectations of normal am I letting go of today? Still working on that one but I think it has something to do with the size of my inbox and my ability to tame it. How am I getting outside today? Well, I rode my bike for 20 miles – and up a few hills, which I’m getting better at. How am I moving my body today? See above. What beauty am I either creating, cultivating, or inviting in today? I’m cultivating some new commitments to myself today that I hope will make my life and that of those around me a little more beautiful. Thanks to Susan for the link to Brook Anderson’s Six Daily Questions to Ask Yourself in Quarantine. 

The third piece I’d like to share this week is something I read on Medium that helped me identify a feeling I’ve had over the past few months – that Your Brain Needs a Party. I am not actually sure that my brain does need a party as half of the time it feels like there is a party going on in there that I have no control over. What I recognized in this story though was that my brain does need things to look forward to and as the piece says “It turns out anticipating future fun events is a powerful mood booster, and a lack of things to look forward to is likely contributing to our national state of melancholy.” I’m not sure I am melancholy, but have definitely had moments where I could feel a void I couldn’t explain – but now I can. “Looking forward to good things in the future is a key element of well-being” – hence I am going to add to my list above, “what moment am I looking forward to this week?” – and use that to help balance and plan my energy expenditure. I think a lot about energy, especially my own and how I use and replenish it. This gives me another tool to think more about it. 

Image: Ilka & Franz/Getty Images

Okay, moving off the topic of Covid for the final piece of the week for a loooooong read. A 167 page PDF no less titled The (Not Failing) New York Times. I can’t remember how I stumbled across this document but it’s a must read for anyone in the world of communications and a great read even if you’re not. The author describes it as a look at “How the @nytimes went from a failing newspaper to a thriving digital subscription business.” It methodically details how the NYT cleaned up their balance sheet, invested in content, invested in tech and launched new revenue streams. In doing so, it shows how they’re building a sustainable business that is not ad driven and crucially shows that quality journalism has huge value and that it’s increasing, not decreasing. Thank god.

The NYT Innovation Report from 2014 continues to be a guidebook of sorts for me as I admire how brutally self-critical the organization was six years and – and they’re reaping the rewards for that now. As I look at some of the work I do, there are great lessons in here around knowing your audience, removing silos, the important of social media and how old practices need to be continually inspected to see if they hold true. Success requires risk taking and not holding on to the past – which I know is blindingly obvious, but it also hard. I often talk about curiosity as being the key skill we hire for – I may add courage to that. Which sounds like a good name for a cocktail, btw. Courage and curiosity. 

That’s all for this week. I hope you find some inspiration here.

Until next week…stay safe.

-Steve