The Weekend Wind-Down #4 - March 17, 2024

Writing this after a busy week where I solo-parented almost the whole time. Had some great adventures with my daughter, played and explored together, and even got some relaxation in! Here's the list for this weekend.

Biggest marketing lesson from this weekend

My last role was actually the first time I became more than passing acquaintances with a marketer I met at an event we were sponsoring. We started talking about work and business and ended up sharing a lot with each other about specific conferences and agencies. And now in my current role, I've started talking to another fellow marketer in the same industry that I met at a networking event. My previous thinking would be that I wouldn't want to share too much information, even if we weren't direct competitors. But these friendships have helped me realize we are all in this together, it isn't a zero-sum game and we can learn a lot from each other.

What I'm testing this weekend

I finally subscribed to ChatGPT Plus, which gives you access to GPT 4, plugins, and more. I haven't gotten too deep into testing yet, but my first impression is that I haven't noticed a huge difference in the quality of the responses. I think the plug-ins, more current data, and longer memory will be the biggest benefits. The image generation is fun, but not any better than available alternatives. The most surprising thing so far is that it is noticeably slower than GPT 3.5, I'm not sure if that is due to more complex processing or checking more data, but I'm still looking forward to diving in deeper!

What I read this weekend

Taylor Swift has been all over my socials the past few weeks, having played 6 sold-out shows in Singapore. This Inc. article talks about her marketing savviness and dives into her upcoming concert movie being released right after her tour ends. I'm not a Swiftie (I haven't listened to her music since she was a country star), but what caught my attention were the points on media releases and artists owning their licenses. I've been playing streaming services musical chairs recently after changing the card everything was subscribed to, and have been wondering what the future holds. I don't think it is sustainable needing to have so many subscriptions, but on the other hand, I wouldn't want everything to be controlled by one company either. Having a lower price point to pay for specific shows and movies I want to watch would be an option I'm in favor of.

Biggest parenting lesson I learned this week

I realized my daughter is far more independent and capable than I give her credit for. I thought I was pretty good about letting her learn and explore by herself, but this trip made me realize I could let her go even further on her own. She's growing up super fast and already I can feel my perception of her falling behind her real stage. I don't want to raise a sheltered kid, I want her to be confident, independent, and strong, so I'm going to be trying to consciously loosen the metaphorical leash from now on. Some highlights were her saying yes to questions I asked her even when I didn't think she understood, her learning to close her mouth and dunk her head underwater, and her waking up and jumping off a 3-4ft high bed to go find me.

Quote I'm pondering this weekend

Seth Godin wrote this post about how important names are in marketing and says: "ChatGPT is a terrible name. And the trademark office in the US just denied them ownership in GPT, so even if they were a pioneer, that’s gone now. It’s hard to tell the story when you don’t know what to call it." In some ways I think he's right, it is a technical acronym, and I even switched two letters throughout a recent blog post and didn't catch it until someone pointed it out to me. But, it got me thinking, could ChatGPT be on the road to evolving into another Kleenex or Taser? A name so synonymous with AI that people use it for anything that seems similar?

Most impressive customer service I this week (and in years)

Lazada is the Amazon/Taobao of Southeast Asia, and I use it to do tons of shopping. There are individual stores, but I usually don't pay much attention to which I'm buying from unless I buy multiple things from one store for a discount. Last week I ordered something I wanted for this trip, but it hadn't arrived by the night before my flight. I asked for an update midday, and they offered to send the item to me personally and come pick up the one they sent by courier when I'm back. Shoutout to Mystics Technology for going above and beyond, they certainly made me a loyal customer. It's rare to see that level of service anywhere, much less from a small e-commerce store.

That's all I have for this week folks. Hope you had a fantastic weekend and have a great week ahead!

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This post was originally published on my website at https://nicholasbraman.com/2024/03/17/the-weekend-wind-down-4-march-17-2024/