In the meantime, two takeaways:
1. Writing is thinking. If we humans want to keep thinking deeply, we should keep writing—no matter what new tools we have at our disposal. Last week, at an STC talk, I spoke about both the promise and the risks of generative AI, but I don’t think I explicitly called out the value of writing (and arguably any creative act) as important forms of deep thinking, and I wish that I had.
2. Wow, that Katelyn Reilly sure is good. 😊 I love that at least once every two weeks, when I send her a draft copy of Workings, I get to be Katelyn’s client. What’s needed in this advanced stage of the Information Age is not more content, but better content: content that connects, illuminates, builds, and strengthens. Katelyn knows how to chart that course, and her partner in leading Steyer, our Chief Sales Officer Tony Batista, knows how to make almost any budget fly. So, if you have a business problem with a content angle—and we define content very broadly—please let me know, and I’ll set you up on a call with them both. I rarely get salesy in these missives, but truly: it’ll be time well spent.
Thanks for reading,
Kate
P.S. For obvious reasons, I didn’t show Katelyn this draft, so any mistakes above are wholly my own.
P.P.S. Speaking of writing, a quiet aside for Succession fans: I came away from the most recent episode (S4 E9) with a rare beef about (gasp!) the words. I’m eager to discuss this with other enthusiasts, but I don’t want to traffic in spoilers, so only if you’ve seen that episode, and only if you want to engage in some idle back-and-forth about good TV, please email me with the subject line “Nitpicking.”
Take Two
Hello from Steyer!
Here’s why today’s installment of Workings is coming to you late:
Inspired by a stray comment—someone referred to me as a “girlboss”—I wrote a whole long post. This morning, I ran it by Katelyn Reilly, Steyer’s COO and one of the best editors I know, and she kindly but firmly judged that it wasn’t ready for prime time—that she understood what I was trying to convey but that I wasn’t yet succeeding.
This was disappointing to hear, but two cups of coffee and one peanut butter tortilla later, I agree. I had some of my thoughts worked out, but the next step was to contextualize those thoughts as a function of my personal experiences and to investigate how other people’s experiences might land them in a totally different place.
I had embarked on, but hadn’t finished, that phase of my thinking, and it showed. So for now, I’m holding off. I’m labeling that piece as a rough draft and, maybe after giving it some time, I’ll come back to it—or maybe not. (Two weeks from now, this “issue,” such as it was, may have lost all its urgency for me. We’ll see.)
