Second Opinion Archive

Note: up until the beginning of 2022, most of this was published first on the now-retired Second Opinion newsletter then archived on this blog. I wrote about 200,000 words here.

But it now has a new identity and home, on Substack: Art of Message – the business, art, and science of brand messaging

I’m still using the Second Opinion to link to stuff I publish elsewhere but if you want to subscribe, head over to Substack. Enjoy (:

May 19, 2022 Messaging is an inside game too (Art of Message)
May 17, 2022 Garbage-in, Garbage-out (Art of Message)
April 17, 2022 Editor-in-Chief as a Service (podcast episode) (Art of Message)
March 25, 2022 The Anatomy of Humbug (podcast episode) (Art of Message)
February 15, 2022 Hourly Billing As Theft (Free as in Lance)
January 31, 2022 Exploding Star
January 14, 2022 A Teardown of Teardowns
January 6, 2022 Generic?
October 20, 2021 Asking the Right Questions
October 12, 2021 Talking to Black Swans
September 27, 2021 Words of War
September 2, 2021 Personality Shift
July 15, 2021 Going to Market
July 8, 2021 The Transition
June 28, 2021 The Innovation Meeting
June 18, 2021 Difference of Opinion
June 11, 2021 Business Lexicon
June 4, 2021 A Show of Our Own
June 3, 2021 Choicecraft
May 31, 2021 TPM Redefinitions
May 26, 2021 The Truth and the Lie
May 24, 2021 Experiential Learning
May 20, 2021 Wisdom vs Certainty
May 19, 2021 The Art of Copying
May 13, 2021 The One Book Rule
May 12, 2021 What Do You Do?
May 6, 2021 Hero’s Dilemma
May 5, 2021 Rules
April 29, 2021 Death and Opportunity
April 9, 2021 The Fox and The Lion
March 31, 2021 Making Your Framework
March 26, 2021 Copywriting vs Messaging
March 16, 2021 What Is Value?
March 2, 2021 Retargeting PSA
February 28, 2021 Success
February 22, 2021 The 10 Problems With Big Nonprofits (Medium.com)
February 20, 2021 Own Your Words
February 19, 2021 Addendum to Business Model Buyers (Medium.com)
February 18, 2021 Business Model Buyers
February 17, 2021 The Professional (Medium.com)
February 11, 2021 Red Button Your Business
February 8, 2021 Stop Talking Trash
February 2, 2021 Slow Selling
January 31, 2021 11 Negative Questions
January 26, 2021 A Doctrine for 21st Century Workers, v1 (Medium.com)
January 25, 2021 Missed Opportunity (Medium.com)
January 23, 2021 When Advice Is The Product
January 20, 2021 Celebrities vs You
January 11, 2021 2021 Flannery Cohort?
January 6, 2021 2020 vs 2021
December 17, 2020 How / Why to Use Book Summary Services (YouTube)
December 16, 2020 On Book Summary Services (Medium.com)
December 15, 2020 The Right Word
December 12, 2020 Stupid Enough
December 11, 2020 Social Proof vs Authenticity
December 9, 2020 Business Genres
December 3, 2020 The Detail Test
November 30, 2020 Mass vs Niche Market
November 26, 2020 How Scarcity Works
November 15, 2020 Gut-Punch Messaging
November 10, 2020 How to Use Business Books
October 31, 2020 The Creative Business Model
October 29, 2020 How to Use Buzzwords
October 27, 2020 Lipsticking the Pig
October 22, 2020 Assessments vs Quizzes
October 17, 2020 Find Pygmalions
October 16, 2020 Why a Second Opinion?
October 14, 2020 More on Theorists (Medium.com)
October 13, 2020 The Problem With Theories
October 11, 2020 What is School? (Medium.com)
October 9, 2020 How to Prove a Solution
October 6, 2020 How to Listen to Amateurs
September 30, 2020 Flow State vs Passion
September 28, 2020 How to Avoid Negotiating Price
September 25, 2020 Just-right Pricing
September 22, 2020 True Partnerships
September 21, 2020 Your Past, Present, and Future
September 17, 2020 Discipline and Virtuous Cycles
September 15, 2020 How to Create Messaging
September 14, 2020 Direct vs Non-Direct Marketing
September 11, 2020 Customer Success
September 2, 2020 Watch Your Tone
August 27, 2020 Conversion vs Churn
August 26, 2020 The Best CRM for You
August 20, 2020 How to Infotain
August 14, 2020 Templatizing Expertise
August 6, 2020 Cheetos or Cheetahs?
August 3, 2020 Redesign State of Mind
July 21, 2020 Returns & Raving Fans
July 15, 2020 How to Give Advice
July 7, 2020 Interaction Paradigms
July 6, 2020 Change Business
July 2, 2020 Found in Translation
July 1, 2020 How to Tell Secrets
June 22, 2020 Evading Repulsiveness
June 19, 2020 A Surprising Detail
June 17, 2020 How to Write a How-to
June 14, 2020 Monster Emoji
June 13, 2020 Infoslogan
June 10, 2020 Warm Advertising
June 9, 2020 Ways to Win
June 5, 2020 A Belief System
June 3, 2020 Half-time show
May 25, 2020 Getting Started
May 21, 2020 How to Choose
May 20, 2020 Idea Waves
May 11, 2020 Breakable Ideas
May 4, 2020 Saturn vs Mars
May 2, 2020 Fake Door Testing
April 30, 2020 Emotional effort
April 26, 2020 This Is Marketing
April 25, 2020 Playing With Fire 🔥
April 23, 2020 How to Name a Brand
April 22, 2020 Prospecting Faces
April 20, 2020 Positioning
April 16, 2020 Comfortable vs Safe
April 14, 2020 Your Digital Self
April 10, 2020 Independent Renaissance
April 9, 2020 Prospecting
April 7, 2020 How to Get Clarity
April 2, 2020 Fatalism vs Pronoia
March 30, 2020 Is Silly Marketing Bad?
March 26, 2020 Jedi Ideation Trick
March 19, 2020 Shared Kitchens
March 18, 2020 Cringing from home
March 16, 2020 True Laughs
March 14, 2020 Digital Business
March 12, 2020 How to Listen
March 11, 2020 How to Apply Effort
March 9, 2020 Coronavirus
February 25, 2020 Groups vs Experts
February 20, 2020 You-Focused Copywriting?
February 18, 2020 Originality
February 12, 2020 How to write About page copy
February 5, 2020 Psychographic Positioning
January 22, 2020 Why us?
January 21, 2020 What’s Your Dictionary?
January 15, 2020 What if you live to 150?
January 13, 2020 The Entertaining Teacher
January 8, 2020 Baby Dolphin
January 6, 2020 Expertise-based Marketing
January 2, 2020 Read the Manual
December 31, 2019 Long term Happy New Years
December 19, 2019 The Positioning Decision
December 16, 2019 The fallacy of analytics
December 2, 2019 Write a letter
November 21, 2019 Impostering
November 18, 2019 The big problem
November 15, 2019 Lead pool ideation
November 14, 2019 Name the problem
November 12, 2019 Idea board
November 7, 2019 You’re the CMO Now
November 6, 2019 A Little Idea
November 4, 2019 1000 Little Ideas
November 1, 2019 Pricing Value with Ideation
October 31, 2019 Making the Complex Simple
October 29, 2019 Ideating the Perfect Slogan
October 29, 2019 Group Think (Medium.com)
October 3, 2019 What is ideation?
September 11, 2019 Choosing What To Think About
September 3, 2019 Designing a Mastermind Group
July 11, 2019 Training and Software
November 3, 2018 Can you “write” SEO?
September 12, 2018 Upside Down Homepage UX
September 1, 2018 Introducing yourself
August 27, 2018 Art Marketing
August 22, 2018 Business at first sight
August 20, 2018 Business Philosophy
October 1, 2017 Writing about your work
October 29, 2016 How To Get New Ideas