The images we live by

Metaphors create new worlds.

They focus our attention, open our imaginations and help us to see connections.

But no metaphor is perfect. If there weren’t any limits or exceptions to a metaphor, it wouldn’t be a metaphor. (this is an extension of the ideas “the map is not the territory")

So it’s no surprise that our choice of metaphor can be important.

An example: consider these two metaphors for a journey. two journeys: one up a mountain, one down a stream

Depending on the one you select, you will have a very different perception of the journey you will undertake.

  • One might help you prepare better, the other might help you enjoy it more.
  • One might focus you on the destination, the other might help you take in the scenery.

Rushing for the first and most obvious idea can trap us in typical ways of thinking.

So what are the implications

Three easy ideas to help explore more metaphors

  1. Think of a metaphor for ideas or strategies
  2. Consider the limits of the metaphor
  3. Generate more metaphors and reflect on their strengths, weaknesses and differences.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

🔗 The Perils of Audience Capture - by Gurwinder

The Perils of Audience Capture - by Gurwinder - The Prism

In some respects, all his eating paid off; Nikocado Avocado, as Perry is now better known, has amassed over six million subscribers across six channels on YouTube. By satisfying the escalating demands of his audience, he got his wish of blowing up and being big online. But the cost was that he blew up and became big in ways he hadn’t anticipated.

A really fascinating read. Makes you wonder how we’re all being changed by social media.

🔗 Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

Facebook’s TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

Mark last week as the end of the social networking era, which began with the rise of Friendster in 2003, shaped two decades of internet growth, and now closes with Facebook’s rollout of a sweeping TikTok-like redesign.

And just in case you thought the changes were limited to Instagram, Facebook is going the way of Tiktok too.

I guess Facebook decided to give up on trying not to destroy the world through the algorithm and is now going full speed ahead.

🔗 How Reels Have Impacted Engagement Rates on Instagram - Later

How Reels Have Impacted Engagement Rates on Instagram - Later

For those who have pivoted to Reels, engagement rates have remained consistent — or, even better, seen positive growth.

So regular posts went down 44% but if you post reels it’s about the same engagement.

The headline I saw this shared with (reels leads to a 44% drop in engagement) made me hope that the new timeline was a disaster, but no doubt meta will see this and think. “🔥this is fine.”

🔗Instagram gets worse with dark patterns lifted from TikTok TechCrunch

Instagram gets worse with dark patterns lifted from TikTok | TechCrunch

The new UI is plainly inspired by TikTok, the way Instagram has routinely been “inspired” by its more innovative rivals, like when they clone-stamped Stories out of Snapchat. In this case they took the opportunity to bring in a few bad habits and troubling choices, all pretty clearly intended to juice their metrics and force users to interact with content on the app’s terms.

I saw this shared by Andy McNally an illustrator friend who is active on instagram. I enjoy his, and other sketchnoters content but the algorithm and new feed is increasingly hostile.

In my weekly sketchnote newsletter, I never share any from instagram, mostly because it doesn’t have a friendly embedding option with revue. That actually makes it quite difficult to share sketchnotes as the majority are shared on Instagram.

I wish there was a better platform with mass adoption for sharing these images. At this point I know I should proclaim the virtues of Micro.blog (which is great) but it would be a real challenge to convert the sketchnoting masses.

Still, perhaps that is a vocation worth heeding.

So long and thanks for all the todoist

I’ve left todoist.

I’m not sure why I was on todoist recently but probably because I wanted a task manager on a windows PC. That’s my usually reason for choosing todoist.

But now I’m working in an Apple only environment and I’m free to choose.

While todoist has some nice aspects such as its flexibility, boards, web based automation and generous free plan, I wish it was more opinionated and native to the Apple platform. By trying to work with many task management systems, it doesn’t really encourage any system and requires hacks for a gtd style approach.

picking a new app

But what should I choose?

Well, I’ve been playing around with reminders, things 3 and OmniFocus on mobile (as I own all three) and I think I’m ready to pick.

So stay tuned for a post detailing my migration and how I set up my new system.

Joining PomPom as a Marketing Executive

I've Joined PomPom as a Marketing Executive

Back in 2013 I started a small podcast to promote our English School in Badajoz, Spain.

We shared our thoughts on Spanish life and made some materials based on the topics we discussed. Our students loved it! The content was intimately relevant for them, and they got free lessons each week.

To our surprise, we ended up in the top 50 language podcasts in iTunes.

By that time I was already a major podcast fan having discovered them after graduating from university in 2008 and working scanning documents while searching for a more permanent job. The work was boring, but it let me listen to whatever I wanted while I worked.

Today, I am taking the next step of my podcast journey

I'm moving beyond just listening and creating a podcast but joining Pompom— a podcast studio application native to the Apple platform.

After speaking to the team a few months back and bonding over our loves of all things Apple, great podcasts and getting excited about their vision for the app, I knew I wanted to join. Fortunately for me, my ideas for how we could promote pompom made them want me to join as well.

I'm sure I'll share more in the future but if you're looking for a simple podcast editing app with time saving features to help you product podcasts faster, you should definitely check out Pompom on the Mac and iOS app stores.

The perfect time to change todo app

I’m starting a new job on Monday so this is perfect moment for me to consider changing task management systems.

After all, I have a string of out of tasks for my old work that no longer matter. And this would be a great way to mark the end of my work there and a fresh start.

Losing tasks in the migration would be a feature, not a bug.

I’ve been “using” Todoist recently but I’m mighty tempted by things and omnifocus. The cost of upgrading to get the mac version would be about the same for me but I know omnifocus 4 is on the horizon so that’s another expense.

so maybe I should just push reminders as far as I can stretch it!

Episode 2 - 5 WWDC impressions

For my second micro cast, I thought I’d have a look at WWDC and the five things that caught my attention including that spoke to me as a sketchnoter. I’ve listed the topics below so turn away now if you don’t want any spoilers.

  • Continity camera
  • Messages
  • Stage Manager
  • Freeform
  • M2 MacBook Air

Starting is the first step

I’m starting a micro cast experiment to get more familiar with my new company’s app PomPom. It’s a podcast editor that’s native to the Apple platform so my role as a marketing executive will be to help make it more wide known and create relevant content on the Apple and podcast ecosystems.

So here we go!

Transcript

Hi, everyone. welcome to my first microcast. This is a new experiment I’m doing partially because I am joining a new company who makes a podcast editing tool called pom-pom. In fact I’m using it to recording to edit this podcast now this microcast but also because I’ve had the desire to do podcast for awhile I’ve put it  off for very good reasons and And now I can’t have a perfect excuse to break through that barrier because it will help with work so it’s one of those things which is fortuitous to help me overcome those barriers. So what will this micro cast be about? I’m not 1 00 % sure I’m basically starting now and starting to microcast to try and find my feet. And in fact that’s what I basically did with my newsletter. I had started a newsletter three years ago or something crazy like this maybe even longer and the idea was just sharing some things that I found interesting something that made me smile each week and that was even the initial name the initial version And then overtime I changed it to be more focused on showing Sketchnote resources in fact I actually think that was the first version — sharing Sketchley resources came first then I share a type of things I found interesting. Then I changed it again to be about creativity and showing the creative process And now currently I’ve been doing the sketching round up for 20 editions that I’ve sent out and this has really seems like it’s found its place. I think I actually had more subscribers for the the old learn create share newsletter but this is one which is just so easy for me to create and it’s so fun to create and it feels like it’s it’s the right newsletter to be doing And it’s just interesting how that has kind of emerged from nowhere and that it took me a long time of trying different things of changing the format of making mistakes to find the thing that actually worked for me. and that’s that’s the key part you know maybe this isn’t the most popular newsletter it could be. If I was really focusing on that and maybe I do something different for my followers or whatever but it’s a sustainable newsletter that I can keep going. And so that’s what I’m hoping will happen with this microcast. Maybe I’ll make some pivots maybe I’ll try different formats but it’s only by starting that I can learn what I actually want to do so thank you for listening and I’ll catch you in the next one