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- BFSBSCMGT? How about buying less?
This past weekend kicked off the annual shopping spree leading up to the December holidays. You know the ol' Black Friday, Small Biz Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday (BFSBSCMGT) onslaught. Did you see Shopify’s Black Friday Cyber Monday tracker?
I didn’t buy anything.
I’ve been the “less but better” camp for a while now. Not because of some holier-than-thou morales, honestly it’s because I don’t like shopping and when I do buy something I just want to get it over with as soon as possible even if it means paying more.
Coincidentally Buy Now popped up on my Netflix homepage last weekend. The documentary itself isn’t particularly remarkable, but it’s a reminder of how much we buy and how much physical trash it produces in the name of capitalism.
[Pulls out a tiny soapbox] What if we skipped the extra impulse buys, thought quality over quantity, and invested in things that truly add value to our lives. If you need a push, try watching 10 or 15 minutes of Buy Now or something similar.
And I say this all as a parent of small children who want everything they see.
Let’s make this season about more than just deals (and moving more junk to our already overflowing landfills).
Gross
🧶 Stray Links
Nabeel Qureshi wrote a hard hitting piece reflecting on his 8 year career at Palantir. While the company doesn’t have the rosiest reputation, Nabeel made me question my own opinions about the company and it’s role.
I love Ethan Eismann’s take on why engineers with a background in craft (or designers who can code) is the best way to elevate a product’s design. “Ultimately the only way you can have a high level of craft is when your engineers build it.”
For a new generation of architects, net zero buildings aren’t enough — the hot new building trend is buildings that are net climate positive.
Neo is email, website hosting, and a calendar for small businesses. It’s insanely cheap for what you get. You can even send marketing emails straight from your inbox.
It’s 2024 and we still need to emphasize how poorly coded email designs hurt conversions and lead to unsubscribes.
🏛️ From the Archives
A favorite article I periodically re-read.
We Don’t Sell Saddles Here is Stewart Butterfield’s pep talk to the team two week’s before Slack launched. A few choice quotes:
Each of you knows “really good”. Each of you is able to see when things are not done well. Certainly we all complain enough about other people’s software, and we all know how important first impressions are in our own judgements. That is exactly how others will evaluate us.
To do this well, we need to take a holistic approach and not just think about a long list of individual tasks we are supposed to get through in a given week. We get 0 points for just getting a feature out the door if it is not actually contributing to making the experience better for users, or helping them to understand Slack, or helping us understand them.
Ensuring that the pieces all come together is not someone else’s job. It is your job, no matter what your title is and no matter what role you play.
Thanks for reading ✌️
- Ted (@tedgoas)