To My Heart's Content #6

I was gone for a minute but I’m back now…with my sixth roundup of much-loved content bits from the last month or so.

NUMBER ONE: The Uber Files

Oh oh oh, I absolutely bloody love a good multi-part deep dive into juicy, nefarious, current affairs. And The Uber Files from the Today in Focus podcast is fascinating, splendidly written and researched. As someone who tends to lean towards asking for forgiveness not permission, it’s kinda hard not to admire the initial game plan from Uber. Was it fair? Not really. Was it legal? Definitely a grey area. Was it bold AF and made them a household name? Absolutely. Worth a listen.

NUMBER TWO: Being easy to work with

An incredibly self-explanatory image but one that is so painfully true (and so often forgotten). I’d wager everyone can happily lump their meeting schedule into two distinct buckets; Hell Yes and I’d Rather Not. I’m incredibly lucky to have an almost 100% hit rate in the Hell Yes column (my Contentsquare colleagues are pretty great), but here’s a general reminder that the easier you are to work with, the easier your work becomes.

NUMBER THREE: Shameless Podcast

Well, I have managed to get myself very engrossed in this celebrity gossip podcast from Shameless Media, described as ‘a podcast for clever people that love dumb stuff’. As someone who doesn’t have Instagram and doesn’t watch much reality TV, I’m surprised at quite how much I look forward to this podcast about celebrities. Every Monday they cover a celebrity culture moment from the past and every Thursday they debrief what’s gone down in celeb world that week. Fave episodes are:

• When Kristen cheated on Rob (so! much! nostalgia!)
• How Taylor Swift rose, fell, and rose again
• Anne Hathaway and the rise of Hathahate

NUMBER FOUR: Still Life by Sarah Winman

One of the most tender, funny, heartwarming novels I have read in a verrrrry long time. I genuinely did not want this one to end and dragged the final hundred pages out for over a week. Could have cried when it ended. Simply beautiful.

NUMBER FIVE: Joe Pompliano on Formula 1

If I ever needed validation that content marketing has the power to change the world (or at least big chunks of it), this is absolutely it. A mind-blowing Twitter thread about how Liberty Media took Formula 1 stratospheric. A lesson about the importance of adapting your strategy to customer demand and changing markets—the most critical thing you can do in the evolving age of digital.