March 2019 – CGW's Blog

How we speak signals education. But it is not the same thing as education: Robert Lane Greene

Language and the stories we tell about its origins are highly political. To understand one, you need to be mindful of the other.

That’s the main thesis of the 2011 book You Are What You Speak by Robert Lane Greene, who also writes a twice-monthly column on language in The Economist that I adore as a subscriber. I finished the book earlier this year as part of my continued assault on better understanding language’s history — read other reading notes of mine on language here.

This book helped cement my understanding that my favorite part of linguistics is philology, or the historical and comparative elements that seem quite cultural.

Below I share pieces of the book that stood out to me. But as always I encourage you to buy your own copy and read it; I only write nerdy posts like this when a book has really added to my worldview. So I strongly recommend it.

Continue reading How we speak signals education. But it is not the same thing as education: Robert Lane Greene

How to fund small projects as a CEO

One unexpected result of becoming CEO of my own company is that I found myself without a traditional budget line I could pull from.

As we grew our company, we created a budget aligned with core functions. I stepped into a role in which I was overseeing them all, but I didn’t set aside budget for me in last year’s budget for myself. That sparked me to wonder how other CEOs approached giving themselves budgetary space to experiment, explore and trial.

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Nobody wants to follow someone who made General in Peacetime: notes from Tribes by Seth Godin

I had read other books by popular marketer Seth Godin (I was a regular reader back in 2009). But not one of his best known, one most aligned with work I do, his 2008 Tribes.

A friend (thanks Kristin!) handed me a copy last year and told me to get it done already. Godin is so ubiquitous in web circles that I stopped pursuing his work. I do respect his perspective and approach; I just expect to come across it from his passionate follower base. I supposed a friend handing me the book was just that.

I read it in a weekend last fall, and I just came across the notes I wrote down for myself. Below find them.

Continue reading Nobody wants to follow someone who made General in Peacetime: notes from Tribes by Seth Godin

Buy local; support independent artists

In December 2012, My good friend and musician Mike Herzenberg hosted in his beautiful home the very talented John Elliott for a very special, intimate 10-person concert.

I hosted a handful of concerts for John in Philadelphia over the next several years. I recorded a podcast episode with him. He became a friend, and he helped me understand how to better support independent artists.

Buy local campaigns can come across as needless protectionism. At their best though, when we talk about buying local or supporting independent artists or otherwise diverting our dollars to small, we are voting with our wallets about what we want in the world. That is something I support.

I’ve picked up a few habits to support independent artists that I wanted to share in the hopes they might suit you.

Apparently I have a lot of opinions about what cup you should use for your drink

The words we have for drinking vessels are old ones. Glass, mug and cup are all very old ideas.

Hence, there’s quite a bit of culture tied to them. So, though, I’m not an overly particular person in many household respects, I have a lot of opinions about them.

I remember being a teenager and finding a common bond among friends because we all agreed (and struggled to explain why), we thought it was strangely discomforting to have milk served in a plastic cup. Understand, we weren’t richly cultured.

We were middle -class teenagers who for the first time were confronting together an opinion developed independently based on culture and lived experience. This was new.

This is going to be a strange little post about feelings and memories about tiny, meaningless things. If you’re paying attention, you might draw conclusions to feelings about language and fashion and so many other cultural elements.

Continue reading Apparently I have a lot of opinions about what cup you should use for your drink