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I recently heard some marketers say, when conducting market research surveys, “Whatever numbers we need, we’ll reverse engineer the math to hit those numbers.” They said the same thing about headlines. It gave me pause, but it also made me think about larger issues in marketing and publishing. First,

Business contracts are complicated. Filled with “heretofore” and “supplier shall” jargon and endless clauses that try to account for every possible scenario, contracts are usually only ammunition for court. However, a forthcoming article in the next issue of Harvard Business Review suggests a new approach to business contracts, and thus

As I catch up on the news cycle this morning, I’m noticing that wealth inequality is a popular topic in many financial publications. Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio, for example, believes wealth inequality is our biggest economic, social, and political problem facing our nation today. He points out that

A raging debate in evangelical Christian circles right now focuses on women in leadership. Similarly, an important conversation in business right now is all about women in leadership. I wonder if these two arenas are related. The debate in Christianity is over what theologians call “complementarianism” and “egalitarianism.” The former

At work we talk a lot about “the law of market share.” It means that a market leader in any category has only about 20% of their market—which means the leader captures only 1 in 5 customers. This is true regardless of industry. For example, here’s a market

Because we are not omniscient creatures, we have to feel our way through life in the dark. One way to bring light to our surroundings is through language. Unfortunately, language is complex. On top of that, our limited nature is really good at overcomplicating things, and language is one of

Well, contrary to my own estimates, robots are in fact pretty good with language. If you don’t know, I’m a content strategist at a marketing agency by day. Unfortunately for me, an artificial intelligence program at JPMorgan Chase has created marketing copy that outperformed human copywriters. Here’s

In the shadow of work is rest. While we were created to work, we were also created to rest. The problem is that American culture isn’t very good at it. That’s because, as The Atlantic pointed out a few years ago, being busy is a status symbol. A

Last week a Harvard economist named Carmen Reinhart argued that the political turmoil in Hong Kong could trigger a global economic recession. “These are not segmented regional effects,” Reinhart said, referring to the US–China trade war and the unrest in Hong Kong. “These have really global consequences. So [the

One of the things I love most about business is how tangible the world becomes. “What’s your budget for the project? What’s the timeline? What are our next steps?” Breaking down your tasks into the simplest components, quantifying the next steps, and creating clear paths forward—that’s