RAT_TRAPS v 161

The most important part of a net is the holes.

Alex Morris

Aug 23, 2024

oh. hi. Been a while

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I took august off.

here is the recap slide/moodboard:

and now I must return to the life of earning money to pay for ~~things~~ everything.

by the way, the theme of 2024 is turning out to be “retainers” – the rest of August and September have already been retained, but currently October is still on the shelf.

Enter the custom shopping experience here: alex@stratscraps.com)

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You know the story about Van Halen having all brown m&ms removed from backstage everywhere they toured?1 Well there was a reason they did that. It was to see if the production team at any given venue were paying attention to detail. If the m&m thing was ignored, what else might be amiss?

I wonder if there is a strategy version of “no brown m&ms” …

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tbh I dont love his books, but William Gibson is a smart dude.

the belief that the ways that information flows through the world are actually a kind of web in which we’re ensnared. One reason to take this view seriously is that it’s actually pretty old. In 1999, in a novel called “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” the novelist William Gibson imagined a character reflecting on the fluidity of things in a world of unlimited information: He had been taught, of course, that history, along with geography, was dead. That history in the older sense was an historical concept. History in the older sense was narrative, stories we told ourselves about where we’d come from and what it had been like, and those narratives were revised by each new generation, and indeed always had been. History was plastic, was a matter of interpretation. The digital had not so much changed that as made it too obvious to ignore.

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There is a whole brand campaign waiting to happen in this one picture:

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from “Managing Oneself” by Peter Drucker. Worth a read.

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From “The Ultimate Freelancer Starter Kit”

While I think the above is probably comprehensive enough for one early on in their career or still getting established in an industry.. However, there is a 4th part of the puzzle that is by far the most fulfilling: “Point of View”

While it is hard to exist on this type of work alone, it is always the most fulfilling (and best) work I do.

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Related to the above I guess? »

as a consultant/independent strategist, you think a lot about your strengths and weaknesses. I’ve always had a hard time with this though because, while I am plenty capable across the board, my biggest strength is the input… but freelancers sell output.

The best work I have ever done is work where I was hired to make something better. I am great at campaign planning, comms, working with creative, pitching etc… but I excel at doing these things alongside others.

Like legal counsel that also helps dig the hole for the body.

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