All Communication is Lossy, Why You Need a Clear Brand Story, and Good Conversations Have Doorknobs

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10 stories we've enjoyed this week

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Hi All,
A reminder from last week that we're hiring, again. Come and join us! We're looking for an Operations and People Manager. As a growing company, we want someone that can help us shape and consolidate our operational strategy, systems and processes. Is that you? Find out how to apply, or share with anyone you think would be interested.

Inspiration this week comes from Rosie and Faris, Austin Kleon, Ben Dietz and Steve Bryant. Subscribe to their newsletters, like their posts and buy their things.

Have a fantastic long weekend and enjoy this week's stories.
Hugh

The Short Story

Kurt Vonnegut's Wonderful Letter to High School Students
(1 min read)

The Danger of Not Having a Clear Brand Story
(5 min read)

Subterranean Homesick Blues Reimagined by a Host of Stars
(2 min watch)

We Need to Talk About How Good AI is Getting
(9 min read)

All Communication is Lossy
(5 min read)

Want to Be More Creative? Try Sniffing Cinnamon
(4 min read)

Good Conversations Have Lots of Doorknobs
(7 min read)

Butcher Billy's Steven King-Inspired Stranger Things Posters
(6 min read)

How Social Media Allowed CEO to Hide and Enable His Behaviour
(20 min read)

Why Are All Cars in TV Comedies Yellow
(Thread)

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The Full Story

Kurt Vonnegut's Wonderful Letter to High School Students
In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write to a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond. He did so in the most wonderful way.
(1 min read)

The Danger of Not Having a Clear Brand Story
Although the focus of this piece is on luxury brands, the problem of not having a clear brand story passed down from the top of the organisation is pretty universal. A top leadership team, of around ten people, was asked for their one-sentence description of the brand. They all gave an average of three, each varying. These inconsistencies automatically multiply and amplify the further down you go in the hierarchy. Hence, these 30 messages can easily become 100, 1,000 (or more) different ways to describe the same brand. The result is that the brand becomes generic and boring.
(5 min read)

Subterranean Homesick Blues Reimagined by a Host of Stars
To celebrate 60 years on Columbia Records, Bob Dylan's classic video has been reimagined. The likes of Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Noel Fielding, Jim Jarmusch, John Squire, Bobby Gillespie, Wim Wenders, and many more have all visually reinterpreted or redesigned a cue card held by Dylan in the original video. It's not gone down too well with some Dylan fans who wanted more Dylan in it, but I really like the graphic approach and results.
(2 min watch)

We Need to Talk About How Good AI is Getting
A good read from the NYT. This week we've been playing with DALL-E 2, the AI system that creates realistic images from a description in natural language. It's important to try these things, not just to see how it works and what value it can bring. But also to see how it feels. The dangers of AI have been debated for years but it feels like we are in a moment of acceleration and now is the time to start paying attention. Particularly politicians and regulators or we could end up with a repeat of what happened with social media companies after the 2016 election.
(9 min read)

All Communication is Lossy
This is excellent. All forms of communication have some form of signal loss. The important thing is to recognise it so that you can mitigate for it: "If you are aware of the likelihood that some of what you say is getting lost—and, conversely, that you aren’t hearing or absorbing everything that other people are trying to tell you—you are already three-quarters of the way to reducing the signal loss down to something sustainable. Put another way: it’s lack of awareness to lossiness that dooms most conversations to miscommunication, not the lossiness itself."
(5 min read)

Want to Be More Creative? Try Sniffing Cinnamon
Inspired by the performance-enhancing power of falsely labeled supplements in sport, Lior Noy and Liron Rozenkrantz at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel wanted to test whether the placebo effect can stimulate creativity. So they asked 90 university students to sniff a substance that smelled of cinnamon. Half the students were informed that the substance had been designed to enhance creativity. The participants then completed a series of tasks designed to test their creativity. Those who were told the smelly substance increased creativity scored higher on measures of originality.
(4 min read)

Good Conversations Have Lots of Doorknobs
Whilst this piece suffers a little from having a few too many metaphors, I found it pretty interesting. It kinda flips how I've thought about conversations which was that good conversations are a mix of giving and taking. The writer makes a good case that the best conversations are a mix of giving and giving or taking and taking.
(7 min read)

Butcher Billy's Steven King-Inspired Stranger Things Posters
I love these posters and enjoyed finding out a little more about Butcher Billy, whose work has appeared in this newsletter often. I particularly like his honesty when being asked about advice he received when starting out that helped him: "It's funny. I don't really remember any good ones. Strangely, the most effective advice I was ever given was from loved ones, who discouraged me from pursuing my dreams or criticised my work, choices, etc. I think there's something empowering in being the only one who believes in yourself. It might make you go even further."
(6 min read)

How Social Media Allowed CEO to Hide and Enable His Behaviour
Do you remember the CEO who won praise for raising the minimum wage of all his employees to $70,000 and reducing his won pay by 94%? He was praised on social media by his employees who bought him a Tesla as a gift. Well, it turns out the backstory is a hell of a lot darker.
(20 min read)

Why Are All Cars in TV Comedies Yellow
If you want your car to be funny on TV, the unwritten rule is that it has to be yellow, as this thread demonstrates.
(Thread)

We hope you've enjoyed this week's newsletter. I'm sure some of your friends would love to read it. Sharing it would be really appreciated. If you've received this from a friend you can subscribe here and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading and see you all next week,

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the team at Storythings

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All Communication is Lossy, Why You Need a Clear Brand Story, and Good Conversations Have Doorknobs

10 stories we've enjoyed this week

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