Scott’s Newsletter #13

I had a couple rough commuting days two weeks ago. I’m talking two-hour trips into the city for work. A positive on one of those trips was I was able to read “Art of War” cover-to-cover. So much inspiring information to digest. Just like “Man Searching for Meaning” and “The Alchemist,” I’ll definitely be revisiting it once every couple years, if not sooner.

I also wrapped up reading “Chaos Monkeys” by Antonio Garcia Martinez. Not the best book I read all year, but 1. served as solid entertainment for a guy who worked in a non-glamorous area of tech; 2. was a fascinating inside look at Facebook, especially when it went public.

Now I’m on to “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. Have you read?


Writing

My first new blog post in a couple months was published about a week ago. The topic was the importance of making career pivots and the profound impact it can have on your life. I appreciate everyone who reached out saying this helped inspire them to make moves or to validate moves they’ve already made.

Someone else who made a career pivot was Donald Trump, from businessman to President. He visited The Times building two weeks ago.


Reading

Can you believe Best Buy is still relevant? They way they’ve been able to compete with Amazon is amazing: using stores as warehouses.

Speaking of Amazon, they deleted thousands of paid reviews from their site. Apple and Google should follow suit, especially because they weigh them so much in their search algorithms.

Netflix added offline streaming this past Wednesday. Commutes and travel just got 100x better with kids.

Fake news is dominating the real news these days. Here are three of the best stories I’ve read on the topic: 1 (The New York Times) | 2 (The New York Times) | 3 (Washington Post)

One fact I loved from this Vanity Fair story on Disney and diversity: exec Tendo Nagenda knew he had a hit with the upcoming movie Queen of Katwe, but had to build up production equity before making it. Think about that in terms of how you approach your career.

This profile on New England Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia is a great example of career pivots. It’s also an inside look at head coach Bill Belichick’s leadership mentality.

I predict streaming television will find its footing in 2017. AT&T took one major step in that direction last week.

The Washington Post believes page speed will be the differentiator between people subscribing and not.

Do you have a similar relationship with your boss like Mark Cuban had with Chandler Parsons?

Want to throw money in a hole? Literally.

Finally, time to wash your hands. That phone screen is pretty dirty.

Rock and Roll.

My last newsletter had an open rate of 36.3% (-6.7%).

Sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter where I’ll share what I’ve written about or read from around the web related to mobile, digital, emerging media and more. The newsletter is sent 8 p.m. ET on Sunday nights and appears on ScottStanchak.com 10 a.m. ET on Monday.

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