Hi Reader, Last month I told you I changed my business name at the worst possible time: mid-rebuild, website unfinished, visual identity unsorted. The timing was terrible. I did it anyway, because waiting for perfect conditions is how you stay stuck forever. And for the past six months, every three weeks, I've been seeing a TMJ specialist. Every visit, I fill out the same intake form. Every visit, the hygienist asks about my pain levels, my sleep, my mood… all of which I had just written...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Hi, You may have noticed the newsletter looks a little different this time. That's because I changed my business name last month. Mid-rebuild. Website still unfinished. Visual identity nowhere close to sorted, and feeling very exposed right now (!!). My mentor had told me it didn't matter that much… I could have listened. Except… I'd spent a year doing marketing backflips to make an ill-fitting name work, and I couldn't operate under that cognitive and messaging drag anymore. I couldn't keep...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Hey Reader, In almost every discovery call I end up saying the same thing, giving this same sort of reassurance, usually when they're apologizing for their website or their inconsistent brand or whatever marketing piece they feel guilty about. The thing I say: You're the expert in your business. I'm the expert at *this.(*When I say "this", dear reader, picture me gesturing towards the messy places between your marketing intentions and what lands with your people. The stuff that's hidden below...
5 months ago • 3 min read
Hi friend, Most social enterprises I know are juggling twelve priorities and one Google Doc with a truly incomprehensible style sheet. Think you need new software or divine inspiration? Maybe what you need is five quiet minutes to make the things you already use look like they belong to an organization that knows what it's doing. Design is intention made visible. When people see care in the small stuff, they assume it's everywhere else too. That's how visual trust works. A few small acts of...
6 months ago • 2 min read
Oh, hey Reader, just a heads up before you read on: there's some spicy language within. Here goes: Have you heard of the term enshittification? Cory Doctorow coined it to describe the slow degradation of platforms that start user-friendly, then become increasingly exploitative once they've made themselves indispensable. Satisfying to know this has a name, isn't it??The cycle goes: first they're great to attract users, then they squeeze users to attract business customers, then they squeeze...
7 months ago • 3 min read
There’s this collective assumption that summer is a time of rest.Lighter schedules and long weekends. Hammocks and road trips. A loosening. And maybe for some people, that’s true. But for me, right now, that assumption couldn't be further from reality. With my four-year-old twins suddenly out of school, summer hasn’t opened up space, it’s compressed it. I’m working more, not less. I know I’m not alone. Every working parent I know is scrambling to do what was already too much, with fewer...
9 months ago • 2 min read
If I ask you to think about “loud” design vs. “listening” design, I’m curious what comes to mind. A “loud” design could be bold colours, aggressive fonts, attention-grabbing animations—all fighting for eyeballs in an increasingly noisy world. But what if the most compelling messaging actually starts with your mouth shut? You’ll see this everywhere once you start looking for it. An offline example: think about how much politicians love town halls… until someone asks an actual question. You...
10 months ago • 2 min read