The Friday Thing #870

What a week....

The Friday Thing 870 is something I have been teasing for a few weeks here now. In fact two things I have been teasing.

The first is, I helped launch a new book imprint for Microsoft this week. It's called 8080 Books and our first title is No Prize for Pessimism: Letters from a Messy Tech Optimist by Sam Schillace, Microsoft's Deputy CTO. I could not be prouder of this little project that has been incubating for many months and is now out there in the wild. Lots more books to come, a few surprised and I even put a sticker on my Surface Laptop 7 to mark the moment. I wrote a lot more about it earlier in the week so will leave it there for now...but I hope you get a chance to check out the link and our charter for why we made this move.

The second is the Transmissions podcast. I have mentioned this to all of my friends who know and love music and especially those who have an interest in either Joy Division or New Order. For fans of either/both of those bands this is a must listen. Even if you're not a fan (you will be after listening) the quality of storytelling and production here is second to none. Sure, the music is important but as a student of storytelling, wow, this is powerful stuff and what drew me to New Order originally and then drew me deeper in to Joy Division. So many twists and turns, up and downs but most of all - characters. All great stories are about people - and journeys. With these two bands, you have a compelling cast of people. Villains, heroes, designers, musicians, DJs, artists, Bono, Anna Calvi, Johnny Marr, Liam Gallagher, Peter Saville, Shaun Ryder, Stereolab, Virgil Abloh, Veronica Vasicka...the list goes on. And on.

And then there is the production. You could take this cast of characters and their story and really mess it up. But Cup and Nuzzle productions showed us how to really tell a story. It's gripping stuff and for me is the high watermark of storytelling via a podcast.

So, if you like music (punk, rock, synth, disco), like podcasts (~40m per episode) and like storytelling, you are going to love this thing. Dig in.

That's all for this week. I am off to celebrate the fact that The Guardian?just published a story about 8080 Books - my Dad would have loved/laughed at that. I'll raise a toast his way with a wee nip of Scotch later.

For those without power here in the PNW, I hope you're back online soon. Stay warm and safe.

Music this week is (duh), New Order with Vanishing Point.

cheers and happy Friday

-Steve