Tom Ruwitch
The weather around here is getting on my nerves. Two months ago, a tornado tore the roof off my house and leveled my backyard. As if that’s not bad enough… This month, the forecast calls for corn sweat. This is not a drill, people. This is real. The weatherman on the local news told me…
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Remember Thomas the Tank Engine? You know, the locomotive from the children’s book with the round face, big black eyes, and rosy cheeks who says, “I think I can. I think I can.” Yesterday, I met an alternative-reality Thomas in an old Far Side cartoon. Thomas sits on a city sidewalk. People walk by barely…
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I bumped into a stuck marketer named James on Reddit this morning who asked: “Curious to know how email marketing pros overcome writers block? Iāve spent too much time time staring at blank pages in the past, and usually I just need some kind of inspo to get me started.” Ahhh… A tale as old…
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When people sign up for my upcoming training about how to turn content into clients, I ask them to complete a brief survey. The last question in that survey: What’s the #1 Question You Have About Growing Your Business or Marketing Right Now? More than 50 people have registered for the training (July 24, 7…
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Recommended Reading š¤Ā 1 delightfully human sentence to help you become a killer writer If you want to be a more effective writer who stands out as a human (not a robotic imitation of a human), readĀ this.Ā Ann Handley is a great writer and teacher who understands AI’s power but also understands the need to for human…
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I went to the hardware store the other day to buy some bolts and nuts… …and I ran into a clerk whose breath stunk worse than rancid roquefort. I needed help. But I couldn’t deal with this guy. His halitosis overwhelmed me. It hung like a dark cloud over Aisle 5 (bolts, nuts, etc.). I…
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Happy Birthday, Arthur Ashe. Fifty years ago this month, Ashe became the first black player to win the Wimbledon tennis championship. Here’s how he did it: He changed the game. He was known for agressive play, but he was competing against a stronger, harder-hitting rival, Jimmy Connors. So Ashe slowed the game. He hit change-of-pace…
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I heard a wild story from a guy who used to design direct mail packages for the legendary publishing house Boardroom. In the 1990s, Boardroom began mailing “magalogs” — magazine length publications designed to sell something, such as a newsletter subscription. Here’s the wild thing the designer told me: Boardroom’s customer support department used to…
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This happened in Florida… In January, cops pulled over a car in Brevard County and asked to search it after their drug-sniffing dog detected something. The driver allowed the cops to search the car. “Nothing illegal…” inside, he insisted. The woman in the passenger seat kept quiet. Her canvas tote bag spoke for her. On…
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Recommended Reading š¤Ā ‘I’m being paid to fix issues caused by AI’ If you’re planning to use AI to create content for you, this is a must-read. The big takeaway: You still need human editors to clean up the messes AI can create. My take: That’s not an argument against using AI; that’s an argument for using AI…
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