Category: Business

Power lies not in control, but in connection

Carl Setzer1 Comment

I found the above image on Pinterest

In today’s world, so many in power are about controlling and manipulating others in order to get solely what they want. The powerful exploit, and the masses lose. Exploitation is not sustainable. One-sided economic growth is not sustainable. This leads, eventually, to collapse. I’ve long believed there’s another way.

Create a sustainable system, one that does not rely upon exploitation and the poverty of many. One that builds others up, that helps people grow. One that’s creative, not extractive. I’ve often simply called this “long-term focus”.

Leadership within this system would understand how people are motivated and how to use that knowledge to help them be the best people they can be. That’s how I see it, at least.

My hope is found in like-minded people, working towards these goals. And there’s great power in hope, don’t you think?

Considering “Amazon Dethrones Walmart as World’s Biggest Company by Sales”

Carl Setzer
a woman making a business presentation

Bloomberg posted an interesting economic update: “Amazon Dethrones Walmart as World’s Biggest Company by Sales“. I saw a few of the comments on this post about how this news spells the end of brick-and-mortar retail. But this is not quite “apples to apples” (Amazon vs Walmart). When we factor out AWS sales from the overall revenue, Walmart eclipses Amazon by $125.2 billion (Walmart = $713.2, Amazon at $588 billion in retail sales). So, I think the jury’s still out on the notion that Amazon is going to completely displace brick-and-mortar retail.

The more important story, from a business sense, is that Amazon, with its wider business model, is more resilient to economic shocks. In the end, I think the real story is which business is more resilient. And I see that lead going to Amazon.

The Destructive Power In The Drive To Monopolization

Carl Setzer2 Comments
monopoly board game on brown wooden table

I came across this article this morning on LinkedIn: My 2-year-old gave up his seat on an American Airlines flight. Where’s my refund! It’s a perplexing and bewildering series of responses by American Airlines’ customer service team. TLDR: John Bailey paid for a separate seat for his 2-year-old grandson, as required a federal law. An American flight attendant had the child give up their PURCHASED seat in order to accommodate another passenger’s comfort, with the airline then refusing to refund the purchase with a bewildering series of nonsensical responses. (Side note: I’m quite confident that these responses were AI Slop.) Resolution finally happened when the purchaser filed a complaint regarding the illegal request for the child to sit in the grandparent’s lap (federal law REQUIRES children over 2 to have their own seat. Something the airline kept overlooking…or not caring.

I see this as a classic case of Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification“. As airlines slide towards monopolies and competition collapses, they have no incentive to provide quality service. The monopolization and concentration of power is exploitive and destructive, as this case highlights.

Enshittification is, supposedly, more of an internet-based phenomenon. Monopolization has a wider impact, though. And both need to be addressed to move us towards a just and equitable future.

Seth Godin’s “The Use (And Design) Of Tools”

Carl Setzer1 Comment

As I read Seth’s post today, I started wondering how tools like AI can be impacted by, or actually impact the attitude of “Too Busy To Learn”. I think one of AI’s key potentials is to make the need to understand the tool’s operation non-essential (think coding).

Mainly, I think the future will be dominated by those who understand the tools, not by the people who can simply operate them.

Recommended Reading: In search of kindness by Richard Branson

Carl Setzer
Richard Branson and Eve

Richard Branson is a leader I’ve looked up to for years. And his recent blog post adds to that:

In search of kindness – Richard Branson

I deeply value the idea of “look for the best in people”. And how that leads into “…embrace failure as essential to our journey…”. If you want people to push boundaries, to innovate, you need to accept that failure will come of it. Build processes that maximize the learnings from that. Then move on.

One idea I’ve held for years is simply “it’s more powerful to build people up than to tear them down”. This mindset doesn’t seem to be highly valued right now, but I think that it holds true. And it is how I lead.

Some Thoughts On TikTok

Carl Setzer
pexels-photo-1092671.jpeg

The Law of Unintended Consequences again applies as the US Government is preparing to ban TikTok for data privacy and security concerns. I expect the expectation was for all those TikTok folks to just bop over to Instagram, Facebook, Threads, or X, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. At least, it’s not as simple as that. It looks like many Tiktokers are migrating to “RedNote”, the Chinese answer to TikTok. So now we’re playing a game of whack-a-mole. Fun.

As wiser people than me have pointed out, a TikTok ban will not do much of anything in terms of security and data privacy (here’s a good piece on that). These sorts of things happen when legislation is crafted by people who don’t understand the technology they’re trying to regulate. Anyway, I understand there’s the possibility that the Supreme Court will weigh in on this, so I guess there is a slight possibility that this ban be halted, but I’m not holding my breath. So, it’ll be interesting to see how the policy implications shake out. I doubt anyone has a solid grasp on how this will ripple out.

With this, I know some folks whose businesses are highly dependent on TikTok who are scrambling to work their way through this. As I’ve written before, you should NOT set your business up highly dependent upon a single platform you can’t control, or have little to no influence with. I always recommend driving people to a website that you are in control of, and then having them sign up for a newsletter. Email lists are very portable, as are website signups. If you can email even 70% of your followers, something like a TikTok ban becomes less life-threatening to your business. Keeping the risks your business faces in mind is crucial for sustainability.

2025 is shaping up to be a very dynamic year for business in the digital realm.

Ernst & Young, Meta, etc, firing folks for misuing benefits

Carl Setzer
woman organizing her belongings

The past few news cycles have featured employees being fired for misusing benefits. Whether we’re talking about EY letting people go for cheating on required education, Meta letting folks go for misusing meal benefits, companies seem to be more willing (eager?) to let someone go. I think this is related to the calls for a return to office, which some feel are about encouraging staff to resign and, thus, not receive any severance, etc.

So, what I think we’re seeing is companies looking for ANY excuse/reason to let people go. So, I would be cautious, very cautious, about giving them such. Be thoughtful and be wary.

Think I’m on to something? Or am I just paranoid? Let me know what you think.

More Tech Sector Layoffs

Carl Setzer2 Comments
man in white shirt using macbook pro

Yesterday, I came across this video from an HR guy I follow.

Then I read this article this morning about more layoffs, specifically at Google.

Google Cuts Hundreds of Jobs in Engineering and Other Divisions

So, even more layoff pain in the tech sector as we launch into 2024. My heart goes out to my friends at Google, Meta, and Amazon. It’s a hard time to be in tech.

I wonder when we’ll see a rebound. I’ve seen some guesses about later this year, or 2025. That’s really hard to guess. It will, I’m sure. But what will the economy look like when that happens?

What I’m confident in, though, is that the market has changed and keeping up on those changes will be critical. I need to proactively manage my career. Which is a bit intimidating, but also liberating.

Anyway, onwards.

Some Thoughts On GaryVee’s “The Power of Gratitude”

Carl Setzer
black android smartphone

Lately, Gary’s videos and podcasts have given me lots to think about. I really appreciate his focus on thinking higher. Why are we doing what we do? Why are we pursuing whatever goals we have?

I’ve long held that gratitude is critical to living a good life. Thus, I think he’s spot-on here.

It’s roughly 4 minutes and think it’s well worth your time.

Help your audience find your stuff

Carl Setzer
man holding mug in front of laptop

A few days ago I was scrolling through Instagram, as we’re want to do these days. On a rather popular site (for some pop-star) was a post featuring some product. Whoever crafted the post wrote the standard “link in bio”. Then the top comments were asking “where’s the link”? Interest piqued, I followed the link. The landing page showed links to a blog and plenty of pages, but where to find this specific link, this product was unclear at best. This caused me to cringe. People are interested in this item and they’re having to play “hide-and-seek”. You don’t want to do this with your fans!

I am reminded of a developer maxim (I believe it was said by Jeff Hawkins, creator of the Palm Pilot) about minimizing the number clicks you need to access information. I can’t remember the specifics of that quote, but the basic premise is the fewer the better. Each click builds frustration, which is worsened when the process isn’t clear. Also, having to guess where to click next is a key element of bad UX. I assume they shared the information in that post hoping to engage their audience and sell some stuff. Clearly, that wasn’t successful, or at least not as successful as it could be.

There are a number of ways that this could’ve been executed better. Now, I understand that Instagram gives you one link. One! And no links in the content are allowed. Plenty of folks have developed solutions, however. The easiest (to me) is linktree. Elegant in it’s simplicity, linktree simply collects your links and serves them up in a clean, clear list. This is a highly used tool: you see it in many profiles. Here’s mine for example.

Another, perhaps slightly more complex solution, is to create a landing page on your site with all the links you reference in your posts. I would itemize them in list, with the dates and post titles and also the images of the Instagram posts to make it very clear which link goes with each post.

Put a little thought into your anticipated user flow, into how you want them to find your information. How easily do you want to make it to buy your stuff? To interact with your latest “thing”? Providing clear calls-to-action, clear directions, and clear paths to finding what they want makes your user experience good and enjoyable. That helps good ol’ conversion, which ensures your project keeps moving. Great things, right?